Apocalypse Thursday

I have three main final projects/presentations other than studio this semester.
For urban books, I need to make three (3) final copies of my book, which must be well crafted including making covers and binding it. For my urban issues class, we have a final presentation which the client will be invited to attend and review our recommendations. For my advanced building systems class, we have to put together a final board of drawings, diagrams, essentially a final project. While the last two projects are group endeavors, which helps, there is one glaring, evil, monster of an issue.

They're all on the same day. In one week from today.

I've started changing my sleeping habits- in my undergrad for the serious crunch times, I would take two three-hour naps every day. My problem is that if I'm in studio 18 hours a day, and sleeping for 6, the 18 hours kills me. My productivity just drops to nothing and I feel like crap, so I'm testing this nap method.

A friend of mine gets by with an average of four hours of sleep a night, but then he nearly sliced his finger off the other day, so I'm sticking with a minimum of six hours.

Studio is going ok. I still feel like my project is Cadillac ranch, but oh well. Had a good discussion with my studio professor today. The issue is I have a very modular project, and the question is, how does one terminate the modules in a way that meets the city? He described it as a problem that Mies van der Rohe spent most of his life investigating. The fact that I need to solve this issue last week is not encouraging. He also informed me, surprise surprise, that is 'concerned' about whether my project will be developed enough to finish in time.

He's been 'concerned' about the entire class since the beginning of the semester as far as I can tell, and that really hasn't changed.

I got into a discussion with my roommate yesterday as I was beginning to worry about grades. He told me that actually there is an unofficial curving system in place for studios. Typically, in a studio of 12-13 students, there will be only 2-3 A's, maybe 2-3 A-, 2-3 B+, 2-3 B, and 2-3 B-. There may be a few students who get C's, which are passing but may hold you back from degree project studio. It's not great but its not the end of the world.

Looking around the room, I feel like I'm most likely to fall into the A- range if I'm feeling really optimistic, B range if I'm feeling pessimistic. My gut instinct and the conversations I've had with my professor makes me think I'm looking at a B+, depending on how my final project comes out.

Other interesting bits- not one, but two Chinese classmates got married within the last two weeks. They got dressed up and went before a US judge with their Chinese brides to officially tie the knot. I'm not sure if it has to do with the 11th month, (11 being an auspicious number for long marriages in Chinese numerology) or what, but if I was getting married, you can bet its not going to be in the most stressful part of a semester in the middle of grad school.