FINITO!

(well, almost!)

at least, i'm done with studio!!! the final review was this past wednesday, and the week leading up to that was practically one
very
long
day.

i never really noticed until now how important sleep is, not simply for the well being of your body, but simply in terms of separating days and giving you a sense of time. because of our crazy sleeping patterns (and i won't go into what exactly they were, for fear of too many comments), it was more like napping several times rather than truly sleeping and experiencing a more definitive passage of time.

this is the true time warp that rocky horror spoke of, although it was bizarre in a very different way.

the critique itself went pretty well. i think the reviewers (a smattering of professors/practitioners from various universities) were fair with their criticism and also gave some promising encouragement, which was really good. sometimes their comments can be unproductive, but this time i think they were pretty perceptive with their questions and suggestions. they even said that, given another week or so, the project could've been really pushed to a higher level, and to be honest, i agree with them. i know i could've done more and am not sure exactly how i would've done so, but hey - it's done for now, and hopefully the ideas generated will spur me on to further good works. i'll upload some photos of the final work once i actually document.

as for the process in general, this last week wasn't just pure torturous work, but had bright moments, too. some of the things that kept me going were:

1) supportive friends and late night visitors who gave encouragement and that extra push to keep going
2) wake up calls
3) prayers
4) praise music practically on pandora and ipod (some favorites: "hosanna" - hillsong, "surrender" - downhere, "
5) the other part of the 24/7, jason mraz and other laid back tunes
6) a supportive critic who urged us to "wind down" the night before w/ some wine (although...sadly we did not wind down but wound back up)
7) the wood shop laser cutter - sad, but true. it got my files cut and made model assembly easier!

and you know what's bizarre? i hardly relied on caffeine to stay awake through all of this. weird, right? i guess my body relies on other strength to keep going.

so much going on... i'm still figuring out what's going on for the summer. there's a chance i will be having quite a masonry one, but that's yet to be confirmed. who would've thought that masonry camp all those summers back would've resulted in this constant reoccurance of brick and stone in my life??

anyways... off to finish my laundry, a la jason mraz's "geek in the pink."

listening to vampire weekend and the viva la vida album (coldplay), reading a cook's tour - a.bourdain, feeling RESTED but still not quite completely awake, very excited for research prospects to come!
relieved, anticipatory (word?), curious...