School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada, or fondly known as SPAV grows on you from the moment you complete your admission process. I receive at least 10 messages a month asking about the college, admission process, ranking, faculty, and placements. I try my best to answer them honestly and clearly with no embellishments; one thing I would have appreciated if I had received at my time. Until now, nobody has asked me what a day in SPAV is like. And today I will be answering this unasked question.
PS. Strong amounts of nostalgia could be found. Do not panic. Kindly accept it and move on.
Your typical day starts with a distinct knocking on your room door. The knocking grows in its intensity and irritability. No, it is not your friend trying to wake you up. It is our cleaning staff whom we call "Akka" with bittersweet love. This is the moment when you realize that you have already slept through 10 Alarms and hit the snooze button about 100 times. You grab your towel and toiletries and rush to your nearest toilet block. The waiting line of buckets reckons the fact that you have officially become late. You have two options now; Option A - Skip the routine (Most sought after option) or Option B - Go on a Toilet hunt on other floors (Rare). This is when the siren hits you. Whistles blaring from the Mess Block. The breakfast buffet will be over in 15 minutes. This is when you run half-clothed to the mess to grab something to eat. Wait, not so fast my friend. The great wall of China may not be visible from Space but this breakfast queue surely would be. Faced with a dilemma, you return to your room to grab your clothes from 'the chair', pack your bag, glance at the phone for a quick timetable check, and set off to lock your room.
You cross the metal gates and the landscaped walkway with the Geodesic dome that God alone knows what it is doing in the center of the walkway. You walk through the concrete monster to face your next hurdle; The Lift. You have two options: Option A - Wait for the lift, get into it, pray that the lift doesn't scream overload, make it alive onto your floor, or Option B - Climb 8 flights of steps, make it alive to the water cooler, be disappointed because there is never a tumbler when you need the most, drink water the early man style, run to your studio without slipping.
Your hurdles don't stop there. You enter the studio and you realize that you totally got the day wrong and now you have a lecture instead of a studio. You make past the glares and taunts only to find that there aren't any more stools in the studio. Your next mission should you accept it is to find 'the stool' that is comfortable, steady, and won't rip apart your clothes. You successfully manage to enter the studio and the lecturer invites you to the front row. The walk of shame would seem difficult for the first couple of days but you will soon get used to it.
You barely make it through the lecture and constantly wake up from your momentary nap when you hear your name in the super creative sentences your lecturer frames. You sigh for relief as the lecture ends and the lecturer walks away. This is the part where you realize that the attendance for the lecture was taken in the first five minutes of the session and now you have successfully attended the lecture without getting the prized possession; Attendance. You run to your lecturer's office only to receive half a session's attendance in exchange for your pride and dignity.
Your stomach starts to growl and you wonder if it was due to the unfair exchange or missing your breakfast. The 20 Minute break window is closing soon and you rush to your favourite spot on the Campus; The Canteen.
You can easily transact at the local market but you need skill, cognitive abilities, mental calculation skills to efficiently figure out your broke -expenses ratio, and excellent oral skills to get your snack from the canteen. Since the 20-minute window is the same for all students on the campus, this is where your street smartness will pay you.
You manage to pass through all hurdles and now head towards your next session. You get to your studio, grab your laptop, and get settled at the draughting table you managed to carve your name into, to show the other person who would sarcastically as if you had your name on the desk to prove ownership.
You open your laptop and the next hurdle comes right at you; Battery Warning. This is when you remember how you watched the series in bed all night and exhausted the battery without remembering to put it on charge the next morning. Well, this isn't much of an issue. You could always charge it with plenty of charging points on the floor. But. But. But. You successfully managed to forget your charger in your room. This is the part where you constantly blame yourself, draw a mental map of your room location and route maps to avoid your studio coordinator catching you leaving the studio.
Once you complete this task, you hear whispers from around the studio and wonder what all the fuss is about. "It is Wednesday", they say. Your slow brain manages to process this information to "It is Chicken Biriyani for Lunch. Why isn't the studio coordinator leaving yet". You secretly pray, wish, perform a mosquito sacrifice for the coordinators to leave. Your mind is restless and the huge queue that would have already formed by now is scaring you.
You manage to reach the Mess Hall and see your nightmare has come true. That's when you see an angel in disguise. Your friend is standing in the front. (Even if this person is not your friend or maybe you are meeting for the very first time, he/she is now your soulmate. No arguments will be entertained on Biriyani Day) You go over to this person ignoring the dissent and frown on the faces of the ones who have been waiting in the line before you got there. You flash a smile, get hold of the steel plate, and move over only to argue with the guy who is giving you a small piece of chicken. You fight your war, win over 2 pieces, and now happily proceed to find a table; a table that doesn't squeal or see-saw.
You have a hearty meal and now all you can think about is having a good afternoon nap but you have a studio. So you head over drowsy and tired after the great adventure you had. You start scrolling through your phone to stay awake and draft a line or two, move the cursor around or change the wallpaper on your laptop.
Your coordinator calls everyone in for an announcement. He scribbles on the green board with the chalk in a huge font.
SUBMITTALS FOR FRIDAY
1. Floor Plans A2
2. Elevation and Sections A2
3. 3D Massing Model
4. 3D Detailed Model
Your brain runs into an error because the only thing you remember doing the whole day was drafting two lines let alone the floor plan. The coordinators enjoy your plight and leave the studio. You and your friends gather around. You look at your helpless Class Representative who knows what the class is up to. While he/she questions their existence, the class shouts in unison; "Submission Postponement". The kid who can write decently is employed with the task of drafting the letter with the reasons why this impossible submission cannot be done. Others question their life decisions and all the time they could have worked and made the submission on time. Without a decision, the class disperses and you are now walking aimlessly towards your hostel trying to figure out a schedule to produce this jargon of work in less than 48 hours. That's when the whistle for the snacks catches your attention. You observe that there is an unusual turnout for the snacks at mess today. You put two and two together. The mess people have messed up their schedule again and are now serving Maggie today instead of on Monday. You race past the security at the mess entrance calling out your full name and asking for your ID Proof (Error 404: Logic not found).
You reach just on time to grab a plate of Maggie but the Chai is over. Nevermind, something is better than nothing. Ahh, you see, I didn't say fork or spoon, because you eat Maggie with your bare hands because cutlery is hard to manage and your foolish ass forgot to carry one. You look with envy at the ones who managed to get their forks and spoons in their pockets. You wonder how they were prepared for this emergency and accidentally bite into the curry leaf that was contextually added in the snack to keep up with the cultural aspect of your college's location.
The sun is setting and you are looking at the sky asking your imaginary Gods to shower money over you so that you can take printouts and buy materials for your model. Not to forget that all you have is a single line plan.
Your friends put an arm around you and ask if you want to go out for an 'ahem break' and all your sadness vanishes into thin air. You walk into ignoring your problems and end the day on a good note. On your way back, you set a playlist for tonight as you are going to pull an all-nighter. You send a personalized message to your parents asking for funds only to be left seen zoned. You enter the mess to glance at the dinner menu. You return confused as you couldn't even identify what vegetable was sacrificed today to make your dinner. You return to your room, take out that cup noodles, and put the illegal kettle on for some boiling water.
The three minutes you wait for the noodles to cook is when you review your life and promise to work on time for the next submission.
The day never ends for an architecture student.
A big thank you if you have read until here. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this piece. College days remain the closest to my heart and I miss you, buffoons. I'm not crying, you are.
Disclaimer: Newbies might never get to experience these due to the present Covid season 2 situation and further season renewals.