I wanted to wait until I was able to post pictures along with this, but I think I just really need to get it out of my system: Yesterday wrapped up the first semester of Architectural Drafting.

For the first half of the semester, we learned basic drafting techniques (with pencils and vellum, not with CAD) from the head of the Interior Design program. The majority of the class didn’t like him. The class is filled with 18 year old girls who are fresh out of high school and whine a great deal. They don’t understand the concept of being on time, reading syllabuses and assignment sheets rather than having someone spoon feed things to you, etc., and the teacher was pretty adamant about these things, as they are all things he preferred in his classroom. Everything was to be turned in on time at the beginning of class and no later or it would not be accepted. His office hours were rigorous and he insisted that appointments should be scheduled if you could not make his office hours. Most of the class couldn’t stand him.

A changing of the guard occurred during the second half of the semester, when we no longer learned drafting and switched to model-making. This is when we ended up with the batty teacher I had last year for IDE 101 & 102. I like her as a person (most of the time), but she is constantly making things exponentially more difficult than they need to be. She’s unorganized and forgetful, and tries to cram everything in at the last possible minute.

Homework assignments were given out, and she completely forgot she had assigned them. “Rough sketches” were insisted for our sketchbooks with the criteria that these should be rough, freehand drawings, and when they were returned to us, we found them graded harshly and received a huge lecture about how much better they should have been. I was the only person to receive an A on the assignment, and that is because I had taken her before and went through great pains to carefully draw with a ruler and measure — even though she specifically said we weren’t to do that. Quizzes were scheduled and then forgotten. In fact, she was supposed to give us a couple of quizzes but never did so gave us a rush quiz on the last day of class after we turned in our final projects - she’s not organized at all. Assignments were given out with little instructions and then when we received them back, we were marked down on things she admittedly forgot to teach us. And, for the grand finale, instead of receiving the instructions for our final project when the other classes were receiving them, she held off for two weeks to give us other model assignments as filler and “practice” so we wouldn’t have the model to work on over the Thanksgiving holiday. And then when we finally received the assignment, her instructions were exponentially more difficult and required much more than the other classes were required to do - with less time to do them.

On the last day of class, before the teacher came in, I was in a discussion with a group of girls who were comparing the teaching styles of our first and second teachers. Everyone in the discussion (except myself) agreed that they liked the second teacher better. Why? They said:

Because she’s a girl, you know, so she’s, like, more understanding.

I could hardly believe it, either. Their grades were worse with her and the assignments were exponentially more difficult, but because she’s female, and because she lets people take breaks whenever they want and eat in the classroom, they find her to be a better teacher.

I couldn’t stop laughing to refute the argument and just had to let it go. But the good news is that this second “better” chick teacher will not be teaching anything at all next semester, and we will be getting the first guy again, who I liked better. I can’t eat or drink in the classroom but he shows up on time and gives assignments back on time? I can live with that.

But anyway, this final project. All semester we had been learning to draft this house - the same house. For the final project we had to build a foam core model of this house, 1/2″ = 1′-0″ scale, of a two-story 40′-0″ x 20′-0″ house. Our model was required to have the ceiling come off, as well as the north and west walls come off — oops, she changed that to north and east walls a week before the project was due — so we can take a look inside. We were required to turn in a practice model of the staircase and roof, at the very least. My practice staircase was disassembled and my practice roof was not good enough for her, so it was severely marked down.

One and a half weeks before the project was due I had all of my exterior and interior walls cut out, but had not yet done a staircase and roof — and there were girls in the class who hadn’t even started with exterior walls yet. Needless to say I felt pretty good about where I was at.

Tuesday night, the night before the project was due, I sat down to do the stairs and roof, cut out the windows on my final exterior wall, and assemble. I thought I’d be done by 11:00.

We got done at 4:00am. The entire night was a series of things that just kept going wrong. Tom stayed with me the whole night, changing the music CD, making me coffee, beveling edges, gluing and pinning and piecing together my entire project.

He has won the Best Husband Award of 2007, which is good because there are only a couple of weeks left in the year and I was getting worried.

Seriously though, he was amazing. I don’t think anyone else would have done that for me. Well maybe my Mom would — I can think of a few school projects she did with me until the wee hours of the morning (I love you, Mom!). But those I procrastinated on, and this one I hadn’t procrastinated on.

In the end, my project looked pretty beautiful. The windows were beautifully cut, the beveled edges of the house were perfect, and it really was one of the best models that were turned in.

The next morning I made it into class 30 minutes early so I could review for the test we were supposed to take. My brain was only half functioning at this point. I walk into the classroom and there are a half-dozen people in there, frantically trying to finish up their projects which look horrible. Immediately as I walk through the door they’re begging me for pins and glue and supplies — and of course I happily donated whatever I could to the cause. Most of the girls couldn’t figure out how to attach the ceiling to the roof (because we were never told how to do this stuff, just that we were to do it) and I said that in the end, I pinned them together instead of gluing. I had purchased a $20 beveling gizmo for the ceiling, so it would glue to the slanted ceiling, but it just wasn’t working. We pinned it. I told the girls what I had done, and they all started lining up so I could pin it.

Now, when I pinned mine, Tom and I did it carefully so we wouldn’t pierce the ceiling. Of course by then I was so tired that I did make a couple of tiny punctures in the top, but I fixed it so that at least no one would get stabbed. One of the girls said she didn’t care, grabbed pins and started stabbing the ceiling into the roof so that four pins were sticking straight out of the top. And when I flipped her roof over you could see that she had, at one point, cut herself badly because there were smears of blood all over the model.

It was quickly dubbed the “Stephen King House.”

Most of the other houses were messy and many of them didn’t even have exterior walls that came together. Even though I was really proud of my house and I did a great job, it did not receive the A- that I had expected. Because I ended up not taking the additional 4 hours to install skylights and vaulted ceilings in my house, nor did I give the assembled practice staircase and an acceptable practice roof, she gave me an 87.

Everyone was marveling at what a great grade that was, because she was pretty harsh in her grading. I was furious. Absolutely furious. Maybe because I was tired, I don’t know, but I think it at least deserved a 91. And, admittedly, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t think. Everyone had stayed up as late as I did, and some hadn’t even gone to bed yet (like the Stephen King house girl).

The beginning of the semester was fun, and I really enjoyed myself. Drafting was fun and I felt like I was learning something cool, but when the second teacher took over, I found myself caring less about doing well, and just wanted to get assignments done. I know the other people aren’t looking forward to having him back in the classroom next semester, but I am.