(the) LAW: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. YEAR 1, TERM 2

"Apparently, it's May. I remember Christmas well, and I sort of remember having a birthday in April, but honestly, time has eluded and excluded me." Me, in May 2013.

I made it. I can't believe I made it! I managed to survive, I stayed alive, I still have my hair and a positive attitude towards life. It was without a doubt the most challenging year of my life.

Struggles existed not just internally - they manifested themselves in a variety of unimaginable, undesirable and stressful circumstances. The learning curve of unit 20 is so steep its almost inverted. There weren't any prerequisites from the unit, but that didn't change the fact that I had to conquer my computational illiteracy. Of course architecture is so multi faceted that there are any number of techniques to represent your visual thoughts, yet tackling 3 dimensional methods when you aren't proficient in them - is cause for struggle.

My tutors, were - to say the least - inspirational, understanding and never forceful. At times they pushed us so hard that we might have been pushed off of a cliff, but I'm so happy that they did. It's rare to have tutors that allow you to figure out your own agenda without you knowing it. I managed the whole year without ever feeling like I was being told what to do or how to do it. The only pressure I ever felt from tutorials was that of which I placed on myself, in order to produce work that I was proud of, happy enough with "a weeks" worth of work.

"A week". This an architectural anomaly. What is humanly a weeks worth of work is more like 3 weeks work done by a small team of highly trained professionals. Architectural educating, at any institution - not just at the Bartlett - is so inexorably demanding that in order to keep your head above water you have to flap around frantically, with weights tied to your ankles, bowls for hands and a swarm of small tiny irritating pincer fish nipping at your entire body - not to mention the impeding water traffic that's zooming past your head at all hours of the day (exaggeration used).

My friends and I sometimes use the expression 'percenting'. When one is 'percenting' they are in reference to the 5% of time spent in architecture that is pure enjoyment, architectural bliss - the dream. Why we do what we do.

In spite of the constant exertion, the never ending questions and statements; "am I good enough?" Or the classic "I don't know what I'm doing" I had a good (ish) year. I was overjoyed at the end of year show, of which unit 20 won the unit prize (I still feel a swell of pride) and I was so pleased with how everything turned out that I thought to myself, "you know what, that wasn't so bad."

I made a website during the summer - www.anahitachouhan.com