Now that the lovely summer days are over, it's about time to get ready for some serious learning experience.

But there's still some time for a little dancing and boozing and lying around doing nothing, right?

Apparently a lot of my friends in studio think so. The first project of the school year would be the Corbelletti Competition Charrette. Held in honor of Professor Ramiero Corbelletti who served as the head of the Department of Architecture at Penn State University from 1968 to 1988. Students from all years participate in it. This year the topic is a 'Space for Spectable', located at the new Architecture and Landscape Architecture building. (Note to potential PSU arch students - the building is near completion which means you the lucky ones will be getting a brand new studio!) After reading an introductory packet that is pretty much Greek to me except for the part about Marcel Duchamp, Peter Greenaway and the analogy of mechanism and change, off I went to generate some ideas.

And I was pretty clueless until I flipped through my Man Ray book and saw the rayographs - maybe that is what I needed; a trace of some object, a mark in the present moment that reminds us of its existence in the past. Like a space that collects the memories of architecture students' presence.

Studio over the weekend was pretty empty. Everyone is probably still in summer schedule. I did went out for a bit over the weekend. I would have got 'studio guilt' - like, Oh my God, I should be drawing and sketching right now. I use to feel that all the time when I was a freshmen. I know that some professors would judge you on how much time you spend in studio but I believe that partying is quite natural for all young people and it doesn't mean that you're not a hard working individual. So, dance a little, glue a little. And have fun learning.