a long silence

the senior show was meet the parents

graduation was interminable
(but i did graduate with honors, which was gratifying)

and now it's over
i am a free woman!!

my brother was here for a few days
and my mom stayed thru the weekend
not the best timing for a visit
since i was (am) whacked out of my mind
but we had a good time
and got the monster fever



























we spent the majority of the past 3 days
obsessively making stuffies out of felt
which was a nice mental break
now it's on to spinning wildly in circles
packing and getting ready for spain
very exciting
we leave in about 31 hours
give or take

to do lists

each time i mark an item off the list
it feels like a weight lifted off my shoulders
there are still a few important items left
but all the big looming scary things are done

what should this blog be about now that all this is over?
i guess i should do a final blog entry
about the senior show and graduation
but then what?

should jak and i do a food blog?
should i start making crafty?
blog about the job search?

now what?

i really can't believe it's over
i keep waiting for the other shoe to drop
i feel pretty good
my crits went well
everyone agreed that i'm too hard on myself
which, if that's the worst thing they can come up with
is not so bad
i can certainly agree that i'm too hard on myself
they had other thoughtful comments
and nice things to say
i was so amped up though
it was hard to be present and feel like i could relax
and now it's over

graduation is next week...

insanity reigns

what a completely loopy 2 days
i really thought i just had a few things to print out
and i was done...

it never ever seems to be that simple
i always seem to run into problems
wrong paper, no paper, bad paper
printing upside down, backwards and inside out
running out of ink
cutting things too small, too big, the wrong way
the mistakes are endless

but, as of just now
i am done
with several hours to spare
i can go to bed at a reasonable hour

i was a crazed printing, cutting, gluing, sewing, formatting, designing, coffee drinking, re-printing, re-cutting, tea drinking, trimming, re-gluing, re-formatting, re-designing whirling dervish all weekend

(dude, i'm almost for real and for true all completely totally done)

more ends

yesterday was interminable and exhausting
we had a formal 2 hour long critique with 10 different people
some of whom i knew, some i didn't
i got some really good suggestions for ways to push it further
but the response was primarily positive
everyone seemed to really get that i had chosen something
that was difficult to understand, and made it really clear
so that was gratifying
the only hard thing was seeing things
that i wish i could go back and do better

then i had to hang around for 3 hours and wait for "closing comments"
which was self aggrandizing, pompous, arrogant crap
so glad i didn't miss that....

it was really refreshing to have new objective insights
from people who had never seen my project before
the whole thing was extremely stressful though
having to talk it up each time in a new way
and mentally ticking off who had been by already
and who was still yet to come
all with varying degrees of anxiety
it is such a relief to have that be over

monday i have my final final crit
and i have quite a few things i need to get done this weekend
we have to all come in at noon for a meeting about our senior show
and my crit is at 2 , and they always run late
so i am sure that i will be sitting around there for a good 4-5 hours
after all of that i hope we will be going somewhere
for some decompressing libations

next week i REALLY need to finish my portfolios
and clean the house.....

it feels completely surreal
it isn't quite hitting me that this is all done

tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow

i'm anxious about monday
but i am MORE anxious about tomorrow
i don't know what to expect
or how it will be
it will probably be completely anti climatic
just like every other highly anticipated (dreaded) event
but until it is over my shoulders will feel like bricks
and my stomach tied in knots

i still have to make my cover
i screwed up 2 of them yesterday....

spiral thinking

today i get my project spiral bound
there is no going back after this point
i will spend the rest of tha day, and possibly tomorrow
doing the rest of binding
a little anxiety
i'm always scared so,mething could happen
i could spill water all over it
cut or damage it in some way
get glue all over the wrong place
glue something backwards

i've done it all

when you have 2 perfect clean copies of something
it's hard not to imagine all of the possible things that could go wrong
this friday at 11 am is my final review
aaaaaack