I hate fucking people, you are DEFINITELY no different. Yes? get out of my life.

You Know You Go To Art School When…

1) You’re awful at math, but that seems to be the norm.

2) You have at least 4 roles of tape. They are all completely different, and they all serve completely different functions.

3) The naked person in your classroom does not arouse or disgust you because you’re too busy trying to get an ‘A’ in the class.

4) Your professors do not give A’s because (and they drill it into your head) you are not Da Vinci, Spielberg, or Tom Cruise.

5) It’s Halloween for AT LEAST two people on your campus every week.

6) You opt not to buy the $40.00 pad of paper because you think it’s too cheap.

7) You and all of your peers know at least seven times as many colors as your friends back home.

8) You’ve been yelled at, or you’ve witnessed someone being scolded for calling violet purple.

9) You know the difference between violet and purple.

10) After looking at the 12 different shades of red acrylic paint in Michael’s, you feel it is more than necessary to complain loudly because they do not have the one you need.

11) #10 is the exact reason why you drive several hours to find a Blick.

12) Playing with clay is more stressful than fun these days.

13) You’ve pulled an all-nighter on a project and still could not see any progress in the morning.

14) You’ve exploded at your friends for belittling the amount of work you receive.

15) The man that you thought was a woman at the beginning of the year isn’t so bad- in fact, you guys are friends.

16) Your friends from home do not understand #14 in the slightest.

17) Everybody fits in. Period.

18) You know everyone in the copyshop, customers included.

19) The people you go to school with do not ask you to draw anything for them.

20) People are ALWAYS shooting independent films.

21) Despite your best efforts, you still mange to get charcoal on you every other day, and you don’t even have a class in which you use charcoal.

22) Your campus has run out of weed at least once, and it was a terrible, terrible weekend for everybody.

23) Your professor is an asshole, but he is excused because he worked on Family Guy.

24) You know that there is a right way and a wrong way to use rubber cement.

25) The lamp you built out of sticks and paper is still in use.

26) The closest coffee shop to campus is open 24 hours and makes more money in a day than the president makes in a year.

27) You know how to pronounce gouache.

28) You go through empty classrooms on Saturdays when you’re low on drawing materials.

29) You know 1 person who knows more directors than actors, and you know 1 person who knows more animators than Hollywood celebrities.

30) You don’t know what it is, but something in the air tells you when America’s Next Top Model is on.

31) You are not the only person (anymore) who has read the Harry Potter books multiple times. In fact, every other person you know has read at least six of them six times.

32) The date July 21, 2007 is significant to you.

33) You have sat in a classroom and discussed, in great detail, the significance of an ad in which a black horse is fucking a white horse.

34) You can’t show your sketchbook to anyone under 18 or over 60.

35) Weed is easier to obtain than alcohol.

36) Aderoll is easier to obtain than weed, in fact, some just walked past your dormroom.

37) Out of the 20 people in your class, 16 of them are Agnostic, and one of them has been wearing the exact same pair of shorts for 6 weeks straight.

38) When you are verbally assualted for not seeing The Rocky Horrow Picture Show or Edward Scissorhands.

39) If you have ever waited in a bookstore line for 2 hours to buy $200.00 worth of supplies, and still don’t have your books yet.

40) If you cringe when you see people take pictures ‘the wrong way’ or with a camera less than 5 megapixels.

41) The Nightmare Before Christmas is a lifestyle choice.

42) You make the last bit of toothpaste last because you have to buy a tube of paint instead.

43) You can easily point out at least 3 different types of columns to your friends- and even name famous places where they are used, but you get lost when conversation turns to the Greek System.

44) You notice that the circles under your eyes aren’t black, but the color you get when you mix neutral gray #3 and verdigris.

45) You write notes and phone numbers on ‘scrap’ bristol board.

46) You steal fruit from the cafeteria, not to eat, but to draw for your Still Life assignment.

47) Your school’s only reason for not allowing alcohol on campus is because they don’t want you operating their machinery & equipment with a hangover.

48) Your favorite comics haven’t even been published in hard copy.

49) Your textbooks are full of pictures.

50) Your partial scholarship package is enough to cover all costs of a traditional school- and perhaps buy a half decent car or home.

51) You have- or you’ve considered paying a homeless person to model for you.

52) You develop carpal tunnel over the course of one assignment.

53) Your professor takes smoke-breaks with you.

54) Your professors swear by wikipedia.

55) You know how to pronounce Chiaroscuro. 

56) You have been so desensitized that seeing a slip n slide used with jello doesn’t disturb you in the slightest.

57) You know the difference between magenta and cyan.

58) What movie magic?

59) Your X-acto knife officially replaces your scissors to open common things.

60) Something in your room has been used in a student film or photo shoot.

61) There’s a pack of cigarettes in your pocket or close at hand.

62) You have trouble respecting your friends back home because of the garbage they go to the movies to see.

63) Your friends back home don’t invite you to the movies.

64) Sitting in a circle of chemistry, pre-law, and accounting majors is awkward.

65) You don’t care because you know where to get opium from.

66) You’ve seen a documentary on the typeface Helvetica.

No one cares about your addictions. 

I found this list, as I scoured the internet for new music in recovery after loosing an organ. It was called “You Know You Go To Art School When.” Yeah, I’ve seen the others. And yeah. They. All. Are. True.

Whether it’s telling you how you know you’re from D.C. or that you’re a reckless driver, they tend to know your soul. Well, can you guess? I go to art school. Not only that but I go to a three year art school in Washington, D.C.

The Art Institute of Washington. I can even taste the stress seeping from those words.

So when I looked at this list and I saw number 17 I was stuck with the innate feeling that I wasn’t alone. It also reminded me why I choose art school to begin with. Everybody fits in. Period. I was the kid in high school that didn’t really care about much. I drank my way through the early mornings, tallying a ton of absences in the process. I slept through the art projects, and the music classes, and I cursed my way through more than one authoritative figure.

Yet, I passed my SOL’s with perfect schools, I loved to read, and I graduated with a pretty good GPA. I was cocky as hell. So when I looked down at those college applications littering the floorboards of my car they were good for one thing, and one thing only. To cover the alcohol that I was taking to the next party.

Good idea? Probably not. Do I regret it? Fuck no.

Did I have any idea where I was going to college when the time came? Not a clue, because I was too hungover to take my SAT’s. Next best option?

Art school.

Sure, I liked art, I liked to write, and make things organized. I like how things looked, and with my out of control pseudo-OCD I liked making things balanced. So I decided I liked the city, because I always wanted to live in the heart of it instead of Ballston, or Manassas where you had to drive EVERYWHERE. The sounds of traffic just made me giddy with excitement.

But was I an art FREAK? Hell. No. I can’t drawl, nor do I like to sketch, doodle, or make little hearts in my notebook with Di Vinci in the middle. I just wanted to be somewhere and I don’t believe the name on the diploma really matters.

So with my 3.875 GPA I headed down three weeks before my high school graduation and I applied, took the test, and was accepted with honors and two free english credits already on my degree. They said I could be out in three years. Needless to say I was pretty happy. At this point I didn’t know nor care what Helvetica was, and photoshop was a distant dream that those cool kids used for the wallpapers for my computer. I was an empty vessel wandering around in a typeface wasteland. I even remember my first teacher, the first day, and the first people I met.

Color Theory, Ye, 11:00 a.m.

I sat next to a girl, her name shall be left out but I will tell you it started with a D, who had a gorgeous tattoo on her back, she was a pretty lesbian (this was a fact I did not figure out for about two years) who had just got out of the service. Beside her was a mop of dreadlocks and a smiling face. His name started with a J. They became my best friends. And what baffled me about the whole place was it was nothing like high school. Sure, you’re not allowed to miss more than three days or bye bye $500/per hour classes.

You were the freshman’s in a place full of people that knew you would want to kill yourself before you graduated.

But they loved you anyways because everybody fit in. Period.

Compared to my bullshit hundred-thousand-dollar-whip-for-their-first-car-as-a-junior-in-high-school background this was fucking glorious.

Gun ho art school!

I’m now a senior. Now those freshman might as well load and cock now. 

Hey douchebag, big words won’t save you, hop off.