first big review!

Ohhh jeez. Yesterday was long. Really, really long. My review ultimately went well, thankfully, but the day itself was pretty brutal. The VCC lost one of my plots, made me print it again, but I cancelled it because it was taking too long and I had to present, so I instead just printed it on 11x17s. When they didn't come out, I ventured downstairs to get them and what did i find? Lo and behold, the plot they lost. alkdjlfjsdljf. Plus, I went towards the end and the reviewers were inevitably getting crank and being pretty brutal. I was actually scared. And I never get scared for reviews anymore, I'm usually cool as a cucumber. Luckily though, we started doing 2 (mine was 3) people at a time because we were running out of time. I say luckily, because the people who I was presenting with didn't have too great projects and acted as a foil for mine, so that was lucky for me. I did feel bad for them, though.
In other good news, 2 people who have had yet to hear bad criticism (when it's so rightly deserved, in my opinion) finally got it yesterday. I've explained this to Andrew, but I'll explain it again here. Basically, as you get further along in architecture, you learn "scripting". I don't fully understand it yet, because i haven't done it, but I know that it's a way to set mathematical/computer equations to generate a model. There are 2 4th years in my studio who are particularly fond of it. And Monica and I have been really frustrated because we're taking a very literal approach to the project, and they're "scripting" and turning out all these images that look amazing but don't seem to mean a whole ton to some of us, let alone solve any problems on the site. Actually, before I go on to that, let me describe in full our project this semester.
Our site is in Lagos, Nigeria. Our mission is to design a new housing prototype for the area. The specific site is the slums, which have overflowed off the land and are literally situated on the water. Nobody has running water, and few have electricity. They get around on canoes. The main industry is fishing, which is difficult because the water is heavily polluted. Trash is laying around in piles. Houses are on stilts, and made out of CMU's with corrugated metal roofs. The houses themselves have no partitions and usually house 8-10 people, not necessarily of the same family. Here area few pictures so you can get the gist:

On the aerial photo, our site is within the box: all the squares on the water. The area also deals with dangerous flooding, often 4 meters, and so our designs also need to take that into consideration.
Anyway, back to the 4th years, Eric and Joe. They have both been turning out crazy things that barely seem to relate and are crazy futuristic looking. Their attitudes seem to be "If I make really pretty boards and slap up some really fancy images, I've solved the problem and will get an A." Well the reviewers yesterday weren't going to stand for that, and thank god! Comments included:
"What would happen if we lost everything and you could only use pencil and paper?"
"This seems like BS. It has potential, but right now it's just BS." OUCH.
(With a 7-board presentation, pointing to only part of 1 board) "I mean, this is the only place where you're doing something architectural."
Sooo needless to say that made me much more confidence about my work so far, and hopefully it should also hope push these guys in a more realistic direction.
A bunch of us just skipped modernity recitation (6:00-8:00) because we were totally tired and hadn't even done the readings. Oh well! I came home, ate, talked to my family, and was asleep by 9:00. 12 hours of sleep? Glorious.