magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

i left the cad lab a little after four. people in my class were staying up later, but i figured that if my crit isn't going to go well it isn't going to go well, even if i put in a few more hours. (which would be pretty unproductive hours anyway.) and, if my crit does go badly, getting some sleep will make it all a little easier to deal with.

chris.k and garth were sitting in the living room when i got home.

bean: you boys are up late.

garth: and i'm headed back out to studio in a couple of minutes.

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garth came back at eight and his type, type, typing on the typewriter in the living room woke me up. he was only typing a dozen or so words, but it sounded like it was going on for much longer. i blinked my eyes and looked at the window and it was snowing.

yay snow.

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nikki was visiting people in providence for a day before returning home to hong kong for the break, and stopped by for lunch. (and brought me flowers.) her hair's red. it looks good. and it sounds like she's enjoying art school. even if she is a little nutty and doing projects with dead squirrels. (she isn't killing the squirrels, she finds them dead. and even if it is a little disturbing, i guess that nutty is good.)

and after lunch i had to rush back off to the beb, since no one really seems to know when our crit is, but last night the ta said he thought it might be at one. now it's just nervous waiting.

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checked my email mid afternoon to see if there was any word from sung ho. there wasn't but i did get an email from molly. wrote a short message back, basically to say that i'd write more when the semester was over. (that goes for anyone else that i should have emailed but neglected to. although you might want to refresh my memory if it's been a while.)

sung ho never showed up. which is worse than a bad crit. i totally just wanted this to all be over. so i could go home, have a nice dinner, relax, and then get back to work on my studio project. now it's going to sit there, in the back of my head, gnawing at me.

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at five-fifteen, when people had started filtering out, i ran into a student who had been in sung ho's class last year who said that sung ho had asked her to be a critic at five. mind you, this was already quarter past, and half the class had left. i stuck around for another half an hour. still no sung ho.

eventually went upstairs to see noy's studio project. she wanted some feedback on it, and i wasn't in the best frame of mind, but i tried to be helpful. it's definitely something i have to practise if i want to teach some day. which is something i'd like to do.

was sitting flipping through some books and talking to her when our ta came through to tell us that sung ho was here and was pissed. i had just about gotten the whole crit thing out of my head.

and so now back in the cad lab. don't know where sung ho is, but apparently he's around. i guess they're trying to round up our class and have the crit now. i'm kinda upset. i'm kinda scared. i'm kinda stressed.

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we finally had crit. started sometime after seven. lasted a few hours. it wasn't nearly as bad as i was fearing. but it wasn't really all that helpful either. and of course sung ho expects us all to continue working on these projects (through wintersession at the very least).

but it's done for now. i did lose half a day of studio time, it was after ten when i got home and close to midnight by the time i had eaten dinner, too late to go back. but hopefully i'm still in position to get everything wrapped up and still get some sleep the next few nights. i'll assess it all tomorrow morning and see.

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and another email from molly tonight. about how she's feeling (mostly in response to my really loving architecture thoughts). and then apologizing for being self-indulgent. i'm happy to get email about what people are thinking or how they are feeling. and besides, this whole webjournal thing is pretty self-indulgent on my part. but it keeps people in touch with what's going on in my life, and i like to know what's going on in theirs too.

so it's not self-indulgent (her letter anyway, the status of the webjournal is still up in the air), it's very much appreciated.