…barely.
I just completed the most brutal round of finals I have yet had, finals that sent me to school both days this week on no sleep…and not even due to massive slacking on my part. Yes, there were days here and there when I did not live up to my full homework potential, but overall, I busted my butt this quarter…and right at the end, I was not entirely sure that I would be able to finish everything…but I did manage to wiggle in just under the wire.
If it hadn’t been for my stupid, evil Design Marketing class, I probably would have been alright, but instead doing work on my Illustration and Corporate ID final projects I spent a lot of last weekend putting together some weak-a** floor-plans so that I didn’t leave my group members high and dry. I even 
threw together a last-minute PowerPoint presentation to go with my notes on Monday morning…notes which I forgot at my desk when I actually had to go present, and I really could have used when every bit of information about my project promptly exited my head when I found myself in front of the class. That sucked. A lot. I was super angry at myself.
The rest of my final stuff went pretty well, though…my Illustration project was WAY too big for the time frame and I cursed my teacher’s name repeatedly for suggesting I do that one…but by working on it part of the evening and all night Sunday, all day Tuesday and all night, into the morning, enlisting my boyfriend’s mechanical and technical skills and arriving to my first class an hour and a half late, it got finished, and turned out pretty cool.
The composition is a little off balance, due in part to my tiredness at the time of assembly and in part to us not knowing exactly how far over the girl would swing…but overall, I’m pretty pleased. (if you can’t tell from the picture, it is three dimensional– the girl and cat are above the background on cut-out illustration board. She is on a flexible piece of wire — scroll saw blade actually– and wiggles back and forth through the hoop of wire the cat is holding) The painting came out well…even if the cutting is imperfect–the cutting was HELL–and I managed to really achieve the concept I wanted (with a lot of help from Briggs).
My Nutrition teacher was totally understanding about me being late, and I didn’t even have to do my presentation because we ran out of time.
Everyone seemed to really like my illustration project and we didn’t do a formal critique in Illustration class…pretty much put our pictures up and 
looked at them and were free to go — which meant I was able to get up to my Corporate ID classroom and throw together a Standards Guide (a thing that tells people using it how your logo should and should not be used…stuff like proper colors in Pantone, CMYK and Hex, fonts, minimum size to use it at, etc.) and get all my stuff into my teacher’s folder before class started.
And I even managed to stay awake through the whole class. (it was close)
By the time Briggs got me home, however, I wasn’t good for much of anything–I fell asleep on the couch and slept for about 12 hours. After I woke up, I embarked on a busy day of doing absolutely nothing.
I watched TV
I read my book
I had dinner at Anna’s
I came home and watched more TV
It was good. Today I still plan to be a little more constructive…I was actually going to have some stuff done already but Anna asked me to come over and help her and her dad with their barn roofing project, so I my last few hours were spent in mortal terror as I clung to the narrow boards that were the only thing separating me from a tumble to the unforgiving earth below.
I have cleaning to do and I have art to do, but I think I want to get cleaning done first,
a) so I can relax and work in a lovely clean house, and
b) so my hand can heal a little from work on my illustration project.
Overall, I really enjoyed this past quarter…with the exception of design marketing…but my LORD am I glad those finals are over. The only other time i had to pull even ONE all-nighter was when I was working on my over-the-top bear book project for Concept Development. I am hoping next quarter is a little less insane…especially since I’m going to be involved in two separate weddings during the first month of school.
Hmmm…this blog felt very rambling and unfocused. Oh well. Deal with it.
