Back to school. My schedule this semester is as follows:

• World Architecture 2
  
• Trigonometry
  
• Design Studio 2A: Program and Space
  
• Materials & Methods
  
• Digital Fabrication Mini Studio
  

Today I had World Arch. 2 and Trig. The World Arch class seems like it is going to be quite interesting. The instructor, Dr. Paulette Singley, appears to be as interestingly nuanced as she is intelligent. One of the projects for the semester is to read Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas and write/produce our own book Delirious Los Angeles. I'm looking forward to this. They have also restructured the format of the class to be more modeled on the studio/applied learning concept. One meeting a week is lecture and the other meeting is seminar/discussion. This is great. Even though I love history classes, it can get a little boring to have someone talking at you at 9:00AM for 15 weeks straight.

I also had my Trig class. I have been in College for about 10 years now and have somehow avoided all things math. I was pretty good at algebra in high school, umm, 15 years ago. I am incredibly out of practice and pretty consistently confused in all numbers-related classes these days. I'm gonna lock myself in my room for a weekend and try to get a grasp on this real soon.

Tomorrow I have Materials & Methods taught by Nick Roberts, who is a professor at this school that I have the utmost respect for. And then I begin Studio. We are in the studio space that I prefer to be in. It is large partitioned room that offers you at least a little privacy. I have a feeling that we will be shoulder to shoulder though. From what I hear, we had 10 students dropout, but are taking in 25 transfers. Woodbury is definitely experiencing some growing pains, but seem to handling them sufficiently. There is a temporary building in the north parking lot that is to function as a studio space while new permanent buildings are constructed.

On Thursday I begin my digital fabrication class. I am looking forward to this studio almost as much as my proper studio. Woodbury currently doesn't own any CNC machines so we are using the facilities of a nearby college and of different service bureaus. All of this is fine aside from the fact that I am having to pay tuition at this other school (a very small amount, but still...) in addition to the tens of thousands of dollars that I am paying Woodbury. I certainly don't know the details of the deal between schools, but I don't feel as though I should have to pay twice.

And money is a subject that I would rather not currently broach anyhow. For various reasons that I won't detail, I lost a few thousand dollars in grants. I still owe $3100 in tuition and I have absolutely no clue where it is going to come from. If it doesn't come soon, you can just assume that this Woodbury Blog might become the Architecture School Dropout-slash-7/11 Night Manager Blog.

Good luck to everyone on a fun and productive semester.