Not waving....

...but drowning. I've been looking through my old papers to find some of the technical drawing I did in the first year, in a vain attempt to work out what the f*** I'm doing. Unfortunately, I found the project we had to do back then - you remember, the five elements to photograph and draw, and there stuck to the front of it was the mark sheet. How depressing is that?





And here's a close-up, just so you can see quite clearly how well I did then....





This is possibly the hardest unit I've had to attempt. Since the Big F in the first year I've not really spent a lot of time doing construction drawings, it's just not something I do as a general rule, not part of my daily routine.

Actually - looking at the stuff I handed in then, I'm not really surprised it got such a poor mark, but the problem is I'm not sure I can actually do any better now!

Oh well - gotta keep going I suppose. One last push....

A propos of nothing

Although I know I need to completely focus on my college work, the pressures of being a mum have taken over for the last couple of days and I've been helping my daughter revise for her Psychology AS level exam, which is today.

Well - what an eye-opener! Man's inhumanity to man in the name of science and progress!

Apparently there was a study by someone called Rayner in the 1920s when a little boy was placed in a room with white rats and every time he stroked one of them the doctors crashed some cymbals against his head (or something equally horrid) and after a few hours of that he was a gibbering idiot with a phobia about anything white. Those bags of cotton wool balls would send him shrieking from the room - and the phobia lasted his entire life.

And in 1960 some guy called Milgram did a study where volunteers were asked to ask questions of a person hidden in a next door room, and if the answer was incorrect they had to press a button which apparently sent an electric shock to the other person. The other person was an actor and just had to scream as if they were in pain. The volunteers just kept on pressing the button until no more screams could be heard and the other person was apparently dead, but they couldn't stop pressing the button because they'd been told they had to. Weird eh?

Well it all put me in mind of the psychological torture that is the final year. I think there should be a study to see how students react to being systematically ignored, shouted at, ridiculed, pressured, kept in the dark, very occasionally praised, given tasks first and information second and generally made to feel stupid. Oh hang on.....I think I can answer that, no need for the study.

Parents eh?

Just had the most surreal conversation with my Mum about the final crit. "What about the lighting concept?" she said "They must have liked that, I thought it was brilliant, so pretty!". I said "no Mum, they said it needs to be stronger". "For goodness sake" she said "what do they want - spotlights? Can't you just put in a bigger bulb?".

Why didn't I think of that? Sorted!

The Show isn't over until the fat lady sings

And do I look like I'm singing? No

Do I look like a lady? No

Got a C. Got a grilling. Apparently I'm trying to recreate Versailles, even though I don't know what Classicism is. Never even been to Versailles. Jamie had his head in his hands when I was four words into my opening presentation. Those words were "Hi I'm Jackie Edwards".

Got marked down in the Masterplan crit for having typed annotations. Got marked down in the Final Crit for having handwritten ones. I think I compromised the overall quality by trying to tick all the boxes, and I don't think that was the right thing to do. So should you have all of the stuff just thrown together? or just half of it but have it printed in gold leaf or laid out by a professional graphic designer? I guess the right thing is to have ALL the stuff ALL perfectly done. Dur! Well if I've learned anything it's that I still don't know enough - and what I do know I can't express properly in words or pictures or even mime, which I was tempted to try at one point because I just couldn't find the words and my voice was shaking. I guess having half the stuff just thrown together isn't really an option.

Oh well, onwards and downwards. Talking to Katharina yesterday about a friend of hers who was a farmer, and she discovered after he had died that he had 3 degrees. I'm thinking of doing Philosophy next. Anyone care to join me? It might help me find meaning in my life after these last four years of torture.

Stopped off at my best buddy's for a celebratory glass of wine last night and she was so proud of me and full of congratulations, I felt bad about feeling so down! She said "knowing is better than wondering, waking is better than sleeping, and the most intractable failure is a million times better than never having tried". I can always rely on her to say the right thing at the right time and it's true - I'm proud of myself for even trying.

Not that I think it's a failure! It's not at all - I'm really pleased with myself to have come this far and still be in the game! And the feedback wasn't all negative, both said positive things about individual bits of the work, which I really appreciated. I think I'm just worn out and the crits always leave me feeling that maybe I shouldn't have given up my day job.

I'm sure when I've caught up on some sleep and re-established some sort of order at home (there's been a bit of anarchy while I've been otherwise engaged), I'll feel more like my old positive self.

I didn't get a chance to look at much of the other work- but what I saw was so impressive. Well done everyone - its an inspiration to me to see all that great stuff.

Well, I don't know about you lot, but I'm doing nothing now for the whole weekend. Stuff it - I deserve a break.
Seeya!

We have liftoff

Well, I think it should be postponed due to bad weather. Yes, Houston, we have a problem. Have you seen it out there? High winds.....heavy rain. Just what you need when you're carrying an A1 size model built mainly out of cardboard and cotton wool.

No matter - I will be too busy worrying about dropping the portfolio to care about the model.

Must dash...still haven't finished...doing a bit more annotating before setting off. I've got loads missing, but hey ho, too late to worry now.

1

Well, here we are with one day to go and the storm clouds are gathering. Only about 30,000 things left on my to do list, but I'm not giving up. I'm trying to think positively about the whole experience, and I'm telling myself that I'm doing my best, I can't do anymore than that and if it's not enough well tough.

Rather perversely, I'm quite looking forward to tomorrow. It has an "eye of the storm" feel about it. A moment of calm before another two weeks of frantic activity and pressure.



And once it's over, it's over, I'll never have to do it again.

That's enough now - better go back to the never-ending list of things to be done in the next 24 hours. See you all tomorrow.

3

I was getting really stressed this morning over my still unfinished planting plan, making really heavy work of the whole thing and generally moaning. I was saying to my daughter "God this is such a nightmare, I don't know what to do, I hate it, there's so much to think about etc etc" and she said..."Mum, this is the part you are supposed to like, this is why you are doing the course. Why don't you just relax and try to enjoy it? Look upon it as a treat after all the other stuff you've done that you really don't enjoy?. After all, making gardens with lots of lovely plants is exactly why you went into this in the first place".

And you know, she's right! Why am I letting it get to me? This IS supposed to be the nice bit. So I tried to take her advice and just immersed myself in it, trying not to worry too much about the end result, but just enjoy having this opportunity to learn about all the different types of plants I can use on this site and why I want them.

It worked for a while!

Here's a couple of images from my planting strategy.

4

Just started the 1:50. Thought it was going to be straightforward, after all, I've already designed it right? Hahaha. Wrong. How can I be so indecisive at this late stage? I really want to change some of the materials, but that completely ruins all the stuff that's gone before - materials strategy, precedents etc. So what do I do? Can I do that? Does anyone know? And if I change it at 1:50, does that mean revisiting all the other 1:200 stuff that relates to it?

Got this level of panic going on which is horrible. Keep thinking I'm gonna stab someone - or be sick - or both. Feel like I'm developing Tourette's syndrome because I keep shouting swear words at random.

Can't believe I felt so calm just a couple of days ago.

I'm never going to get it all done, never. There just aren't enough hours in the day and I'm just too slow.

Breathe breathe. No images. No time.

6

Well another beautiful day dawns, the little birdies are tweeting and my cats are stretching themselves in the early morning sunshine.

All is peaceful and serene - a perfect late spring morning in the suburbs. A gang (not sure of the collective noun) of racing pigeons just whooshed past overhead as I stood outside with my first cup of tea, gazing sadly at the wreck which is my garden and wondering how long it's going to take me to get the weeds back under control.

Got up early so at least some of the domestic chores are out of the way and I can start working on the long list of outstanding jobs I made during yesterdays lecture. Its the only way - get started before the family descends on me and start trying to break my concentration.

So - tracing paper, check, pencil case, check, cup of tea, check. Eyes down for your first number......it's gonna be a long 6 days, but when the world is looking so great just outside the window, everything seems possible.

8

Well well well! If I'd known what fun setting out was, I'd have done it ages ago! Why did no-one tell me? Just trying to keep all the fun for yourselves! How I'm laughing as I'm doing this - will anyone ever understand it? I think not. But the box will be ticked and ticks mean prizes.

Fell a little behind yesterday, so have to complete 4 sheets today.

Hope you're all still out there - the blogs are very quiet.

T minus 9 days and counting...

OK blogsters we've got 9 whole days left.

I have worked it out that on every one of those 9 days I have to finalise 3 A1 sheets (or 2.7 actually but I thought I'd round it up for safety purposes).

It's not all that bad - some of them are started, or even nearly finished, but not completely ready for pinning up. But I must admit that there are some which aren't even off the ground yet.

So, the time has come to stop mucking about and get on with it. Here I go. Yes, I'm definitely going. Oh I so don't want to do this anymore. Goodbye.

By George....

I think I've nearly got it!

This is a draft, practice attempt at rendering the design development plan.

And here are some sections.



Been practising rendering for what seems like several years now. I have a claw-like righthand and a squint, but I am beginning to think that I'm actually getting better at it!

Just another step along this bumpy road, but today feels like a better day, even if the unticked list is still haunting my every waking hour.

Right - just going to try and uncurl my fingers from this crayon.....

This sucks

Just had to turn down an invitation to Glyndebourne for Die Fledermaus on 2 June - daren't accept anything which might get in the way of all this bloody work. I just want my life back. Does anyone appreciate these sacrifices? I won't get invited again for another thirty million years.

The stress just creeps up and strangles you. Thinking of buying shares in Kleenex, because I haven't cried this much since my first husband left me. And the way things are going, if I don't buck my ideas up I can see the current one making like a shepherd and getting the flock out of here. And I wouldn't blame him.

Jesus. Just letting off steam. Back to colouring in.