such is the life

I was able to catch up on some sleep today after pulling an all-nighter on Thursday evening. It was pretty pitiful--I left school at 5:50AM to go home and shower, after which I turned around and came back to school to work at Institutional Advancement at 8:30AM. I basically got home at the same time I usually wake up in the morning. There were about nine of my classmates who were studio all night too, so I tried to keep my spirits and caffeine level high. The reason for the late night was our mid-review/critique on our final project for the semester. We're designing a kayak post for a site along the Chicago River that we've spent a while studying and working on this semester. It's a pretty exciting project but it's throwing us into a lot of new material at once...like architectural graphic standards, building materials, Chicago Building Code, ADA Code, etc. My critique went pretty well or as well as can be expected, I suppose, since there's always something that can be improved upon.

I got a decent amount of sleep last night, but I still had to work this morning in the library. Except I had to be there earlier than normal (at 7:45AM) to help set up for a portfolio workshop. My triple-shot latte was probably most of what got me through the day. I left work at 1PM when my coworker, Dong Soo, showed up for his shift. Then I went upstairs to figure out how I was going to hang all of my work for the final review for my Visual Training Class on Monday. I had reworked a couple of pieces I did earlier in the semester and then I made three new works dealing with the same issue of analyzing how other people see things--particularly, buildings and environmental spaces. My professors told me I should also post a proposal I submitted to a competition at the Notebaert Nature Museum. I had done a bit of work on the competition proposal as a part of the class, but completed the work outside of class. As I was pinning up that work and seeing how I wanted to hang it with the other pieces, I got a lot of attention and laughs--that's a good thing given the topic of my material--from people leaving a different workshop happening in Crown Hall. After about 45 minutes of moving things around, I finally decided on an arrangement and took everything back down. Then I went home and crashed ~3PM and woke up at 8PM. I feel much more rested now!

I like seeing how our studio space changes throughout the semester, so I took a photo of the space and my desk this afternoon, which is what I posted here. I love the explosion of creativity.

Oh, and the proposal that I submitted, may get into the exhibit! I had a conversation with the director of the museum's exhibitions this past week. He told me that he thought my project was really great and said that it was 80% likely that it would be approved by the selection committee.