Almost there....

Previously on The Blazing Sun, our intrepid hero stands on the eve of a really nasty history of architecture test...

The final exam for that class was a nightmare. The professer used images from inside the cathedrals, and while I got most of them, I know I mis-identified one for sure. As these questions are 'compare at least four points about the two buildings shown', I don't know how much he will take off. The set up for the test was five image comparisons (each with a page of writing in 8 minutes) and the option for either two shorter essays or one long essay (45 minutes for this portion). I did the one long essay, which had a question which was completely unclear and deliberately tricky. I think an A is out of the question for this test, but a B is more likely. As this is a quarter of my grade, I am glad I have gotten As on my major other tests / papers. My paper on Islamic architecutre also got an A.

We were going to have dinner with Sally and Jonathan that night, but as they had just got thier power back on at 4 pm that afternoon after about a week after thier fuse box fizzled out, they had to postpone it to Sunday night. Saturday night, Jen and I went to a performance of Handel's Messiah by the Phoenix Symphony. We both dressed up, and I wore my suit. There were a lot of little old ladies in horrible red christmas sweaters there that night. Afterwards, we drove around in PV looking at the nicely decorated million+ dollar houses.

Sunday night, Jen and I went over to Sally and Jonathan's for dinner. They gave me my Christmas presents early: A box of legos and House of Leaves , an experimental novel which was highly recommended to me. Dinner was good, and Gabriel and Sara both chatter away.

Today I went in at 10 AM for my exit interview with my studio professor. The last day of studio, we had voted on which projects would go downstairs as representations of the best quality of the class. None of my projects made it, but two other excellent projects did. The number one favorite had three models at different scales showing different parts, as well as a series of a dozen hand rendered perspectives going through the project. It's tough to beat that.
However, at the interview, the professor told me that my projects were highly regarded by the other students, with a cumulative rank of fifth with all the projects we'd done. ( I think I would have scored higher, but I destroyed my really cool box model after it began to fall apart midway through the semeseter). Anyway

He liked the stuff I had done, and said that the floorplan I had designed for the library was the most mature in the class, and that I'd solved the problem very elegently. He really liked the way that even though I had turned whole building sections, the angles never created dead spaces. He recommended that I pick up a few of my favorite architect's monographs and try to deconstruct thier buildings, to read about thier process, in order to understand how the building took form in thier mind. He also recommended S,M,L,XL by Rem Koolhaus (what architect wouldn't want a name like "coolhouse"?) as a classic place to begin.

I looked through the copy we have on reserve here in the library, it looks really cool. I'll have to see if I can't pick up a copy somewhere.

Tomorrow is the last day of finals. I'm turning in my powerpoint and documentation and I'm taking the "exam" in Human Factors. I've got such a strong A in that class, I dont think there's any way I could screw it up.

Sally and Jonathan are going to take me out to dinner saturday before dropping me at the airport. Whew! can't believe I'll be in Oklahoma five days from now.

Still working in the library my evening shifts. Today I mostly reviewed the exam questions for the Human Factors Final. Friday is my last day working here this year. I told my superviser that I would not be available until school started again, so I can spend more time with family and friends during the break.