Say Something...

Looks like it's time for a back to front story where flashbacks are provided for no particular reason than to annoy the audience. If JJ Abrams can use the same trick on Alias and Lost, surely I can have a shot too. And here we go... "By the time I got home on Friday night, I had been awake for only 21 hours. I would've stretched it out for another three for dramatic effect, but I imagine that's not such a great idea..."

39 hours earlier - Thursday morning, 11am
Caught up with Keyur for lunch. Forgot to ask him about his trip to the SPC factory. Mental note for next week.

38 hours earlier - Thursday afternoon, 12pm
Decide to finish off sketches for design class at Union House (or as Josh calls it, Onion House) where all my card playing friends are. Fortunately they're already stuck into a game of 500 so I don't get sucked in. I'm pretty awful at it anyways, it makes me feel less of an Asian. If only there was a solution for it that was as simple as downing a can of Solo. I guess the Asian equivalent is something from the Bubble Cup.

36 hours earlier - 2pm
Sit through mind numbingly confusing Theories of Architecture tute. Something about the interiority of architecture. Thoughts turn to self defenestration.

35 hours earlier - 3pm
Sit in computer lab for the next three hours drawing up my design. I had done most of the backdrops at home but I didn't have the programs to finish it of there. It really makes me think more about getting a new laptop, I almost finished most of the drawing the night before but the lack of a certain program made me run into a brick wall. On the upside there aren't half as many distractions in the computer lab so I did manage to get a lot of it done. No procrastination zone is in effect here.

31 hours earlier - Thursday night, 7pm
Get home, have dinner only to realise I am no longer in the non-procrastination zone and proceed to waste the next hour checking my RSS feeds for nothing in particular. They build up so quickly that it becomes a bit compulsive to sift through.


24 hours earlier - Friday morning, 2am
I arrested my stuffing around at about 9 and cleaned up all the loose ends with my drawings. I should probably explain what it is I'm doing. The brief is for a ferry terminal down at Federation Walk by the Yarra, right next to Fed Square and across the road from Flinders Street Station. There is no real limitation on the scale of the entire thing, but I assumed this would be a little shelter for people waiting for the ferry as part of the greater public transport network so I went about with that scale in mind.

We only had a week for the design so I just went with the first thing that comes to mind which these days tends to lean towards organic, nature inspired forms. This one came about as a gentle swell of current washing upon the shore. I was afraid it might look a bit too aggressive and come across as a tidal wave coming to destroy us all, but I think I kinda got away with it by stretching it out.

One other thing to note is that I put some benches under the shelter running in the same fashion as the structure just to run the theme home. Building them over each of the existing docking areas gives a sense of repetition you would see of a series of waves sweeping along.



21 hours earlier - 5am
I conk out at 2, stressed out by the difficulty of building the physical model. I really set myself up for these things when there are so few straight lines in the entire proposal, so I really have myself to blame. When I regroup after three wholesome hours of sleep, I am able to concentrate a lot more on what the hell is going on and fortunately I am able to put it all together by 7am.


16 hours earlier - 10am
We all line up our work in the Atrium of the supposedly asbestos infested splendour of the Archi building to pin up our work "So You Think You Can Design A Ferry Terminal?" or as I like to call it, SYTYCDAFT. Just rolls off the tongue, that one.
Designs of all sorts litter the boards and it's certainly fascinating seeing how people have gone about it all. Strangely I don't feel all that tired when it gets to my project, the adrenaline from the nerves is doing its job well. I manage to get through it fairly unscathed with only a couple of minor criticisms coming my way, with my half arsed presentation layout letting me down somewhat. But otherwise I think I did alright for a short exercise like this.

13 hours earlier - Friday afternoon, 1pm
A solid day of studios is broken up by a midday lecture in what has to be described as the most uncomfortable lecture theatre on campus, the Baldwin Spencer Building theatre. I swear it was designed for midgets or something.

9 hours earlier - Friday evening, 5pm
I hang back in the Rowden White library (gotta get the most out of my $200 union membership somehow) for a bit after class to look up a copy of Shaun Micallef's 'Smithereens' which is sadly so out of print I cannot find myself a copy. Shaun's writing and sense of humour is ridiculously random which is exactly why I'll watch almost anything he's involved in.

7 hours earlier - 7pm
I bum around the city for a bit like the proverbial while waiting for Kavi to pick me up to go to Harry's place for a night of food, booze and poker with some of my Property & Construction friends from uni. It's a bit odd with our timetables that we rarely see each other during uni so this is something I've been looking forward to all day.
I manage to scrounge a cheapo BoP from Dungeon of all places, I'm still checking it for forgeries. Walking back up Swanston, the cold change the weathermen have been promising for so long finally shows up. Maybe it's time they took large chunks of ice from the Antarctic and put them on city blocks so we could all cool down. I blame Adelaide for this awful heat wave.

6 hours earlier - 8pm
Kavi has been driving for a month and a bit so I quietly start writing my last will and testament. But seriously, his driving is as good as anyone else's. I play navigator but he supplies me with a giant version of the Melways more suited for the blind. The damned thing is as heavy as the encyclopaedia and turning pages is awkward when I have to reach across the centre console. We get there half an hour early only to find Harry's on his way back so we decide to order food early but get lost as none of us remember the way. Roads in Doncaster/Balwyn are a pain to navigate.

5 hours earlier - 9pm
The catching up is cool. Losing to a straight on the river isn't much so. Oh well, that's what you get for trying to muscle people around by going all in. I blame my extended operating hours for such a lapse in concentration but all in all I had a pretty good time. Playing four different types of poker at once is puzzling to say the least unless you've forgotten the name of one of them and end up referring to it as "ice cream!!" Lots of stupid stories and inside jokes about contract management are exchanged during this time. I know what you're thinking. It's a lot less cool than it sounds.

0 hours earlier - Saturday morning, 2am
We depart at about half past one and I manage to somehow guide Kavi to my place with his giant atlas of suburban Melbourne. I keep reminding him I am not too far from certain fatigue and will endanger us both if I don't take a power nap soon by directing us into a creek somewhere. Now yet another person knows where I live which is particularly dangerous for me as more and more people are able to threaten me with that exact line. I'm too tired to worry about details like that though and thus we end up in the "present".

Join me some other time when I don't have all nighters to pull where I attempt to backtrack on the last month and a bit of mobile phone pics. It'll be as bad as you think.