Sweet Relief

Wohoo! Last night was my midterm presentation. As usual, there were many late nights and a few all-nighters in order to prepare everything. The house turned to shambles, the laundry piled up and the kids were left to their own devices most of the time. As the days grew nearer I began to feel more and more nervous about everything. But I was able to get everything done that I needed to and after an hour and a half of printing (due to the time it takes to stream and send to the plotter, a million other people plotting at the same time and a couple of printing errors) I finally had my presentation ready. The stress instantly lessened, only to realize I hadn't really eaten since dinner the night before. (Am I ever going to miss this?) I may have set the record for scarfing down a 6 inch ham and cheese.

While I was printing someone came down and told me that my teacher wanted me to go first. Since I wasn't there she planned to have someone else go first. Then when she saw me there she had us choose who would go first and I let the other guy go, thinking I would go second. But, evidently it was a choice between going first or going last (I guess she chose two of the most developed projects to begin and end with). Going last is the worst! Everyone is really tired after four hours of crits, including the jury, so you either don't get as many comments or they just notice the bad things because they're sick of looking at the same thing over and over. And inevitably at least one of the jury members has to leave three people before the end. So not only did I have a chance to go first and didn't take it, but the jury member that I wanted to see my project had left.

Even though I didn't get as many comments as I would have liked, I got a good review. My teacher said it was the most complete project in the class and it showed the rigor I have put into my work all semester. That was very good to hear, especially since I strongly considered dropping the class after three weeks. This teacher is very demanding and expects a lot. There is another teacher during the day who is really easy and everyone is literally loving the class, as opposed to everyone in our class stressing out each week. But I do like her in the way she pushes me to make my design better. I really owe a lot to her critiques, even though a couple of times I've had to almost start over.

The other reason for the stress (and the reason I almost dropped the class) is because I have been working a little part time. Not really by choice, but it's for the bus shelter thing. I was ready to work on it this summer (when I didn't have design) but wouldn't you know that the notice to proceed came in mid September, and when it did the county wanted it right away. Could it have possibly been any worse timing for me? Not really. I told the architect I'm working with (and my professor from last semester) that I was working on my thesis project and I can only do so much, like half a day a week. But the fact that I had a huge midterm did not seem to matter to him, I had to get these things done or they would cancel the project. Crazy! I am learning a lot in the process though.

Today, I woke up slightly rested for a change and breathed a huge sigh of relief. I still have to focus on the final which is in 5 1/2 weeks, but since I got so much done for the midterm I hope there won't be as much to do as the first part of the semester. The end is near!