Signs.

It has only been the last two days since my 'crit' really that the signs of the exhaustion and anguish I put myself through to get the work done have really begun to show. Whilst I was actually getting the work done I perpetually was bright eyed and bushy tailed, and now it seems as though I have aged ten years almost overnight. My skin has gone greasy, my hair has gone greasy, my eyes and cheeks have sunk. I just look absolutely gaunt. To tell the truth, I feel the eys and cheeks actually look better now than they did weeks ago, but then again I like the gaunt look.

Despite the fact that I am coming apart at the seams I find myself once again having to work. This time, to reconsider my site plan, to get more of the outcome of my site analysis into the final scheme. Which I have been doing today. Nice. Except I now have to alter a section and three elevations, and draw one section and four elevations. In the next week. Plus redraw an external rendering due to the changes in the landscape and the new building. Oh, and change a detail, and redo as much of my technical as time allows, although considering this accounts for a mere 10% of my grade, and that what I already have gets the required information across, this may quietly be dropped.

So, before my tutor sees me on Monday I want to get this little lot advanced to the point of no return. The site plan I have been dealing with, taking the plan of the third building with it. So sections and elevations are called for.

Anyone contemplating architecture as a career path should take note- run hard, run fast and never look back. If, however, you are still boneheaded enough to take it up... good luck (you WILL need it) and you'll have the time of your life with sarky critics, tutors who don't tell you critical information until it is nearly too late and the sheer beaurocracy inherent in Universities. Wonder why all architects have grey hair and thick glasses? You won't by the third year of your degree.

Outcomes.

I can honestly say that I have never in my life been quite so relieved as I am now.

My assessment began at about a quarter past three this afternoon. It should have started at two thirty.

What can I say about it?

My critics were my tutor (head of third year), the head of Interior Design and the head of the School. Tough crowd, I am sure you will readily agree.

As with all these things, there were bits they hated and bits they loved. In my case they loved my site analysis, and my concert hall, but felt that the landscaping was hit and miss and that the music school was treated as an 'object' rather than an acoustic experience intimately connected to the site. They also felt that the accommodation needs to be moved.

So, what now? First thing- to pdf my site plan into my site analysis on photoshop to get a better idea for landscape. Second- to move the accommodation to a more residential area. Third- to convey the idea of the two sides of the music school having very different characters.

Oh, and to meet my tutor at nine tomorrow morning. But for tonight- I'm going to take it easy.

In the grey light of a new day.

I can not truly bring myself to believe that it is now all over. I finished my work at 1 PM yesterday, and as the deadline passed at 8PM there is no going back.

Tomorrow I have my internal assessment. Although the presentation of the sheets is not as polished as I would like, I bear in mind that what the examiners look for is not 'pretty pictures' but a thought and design process and a coherent final scheme. All of which my work shows.

So, today I am presented with a poser. For the first time in maybe ten or twelve weeks I have a day where I am obliged to do no work whatsoever. Lucky me. But I've gotten used to working! What shall I do? I'll be lost all day!

Just a little more, just a little more...

In twenty-two hours all of this stress and insane rush shall be over.

Yes, for that is the time the whistle blows and our work officially stops for marking.

I can not quite bring myself to believe that.

Over the weekend I have mounted perhaps 90% of my boards. What this leaves is one sheet to priduce tomorrow morning (artificial lighting) and then to produce a pair of book-type things f about 20 sheets each, one for my technical work, the other for my development work for which there simply isn't room on my boards. Oh, and I have to take my models back in as well.

So, after this, then what? My internal examination is Wednesday, so I have a whole day to relax before what is, in effect, judgement. Because Wednesday is internal marking day. Then there are a few weeks of alterations I can make before the external examiners arrive and moderate the marks the tutors give. By June 20th I shall have a letter informing me that either I have passed the year, or else shall have to resit. I'm confident I'll pass. Both previous crits have gone well.

On June 20th my exhibition opens, on June 29th it closes, on June 30th I have to take my work down and on the same day, or the day after, my lease on my rooms expires.

So that's the upcoming month sorted out. It is ironic really that this Easter I was looking for a job, whilst next Easter I shall be looking for a post-Graduate course.

At the moment however I am almost totally spent, exhausted. This time tomorrow evening I shall have collapsed into a coma or something no doubt.

By jove!

I say, I note I have been somewhat tardy in keeping this thing up to date. Considering that I have two blogs, one here, one on Myspace, and a private journal, I can't really say that I'm surprised. Nor, when my workload is taken into account, should you be surprised.

This week I have been working twelve hours every day without fail, well, except today when I it all just got to me and I stopped after six.

What this means is that all of my major work is now complete and it is merely a case of printing it off (mostly done now) and mounting it (a devil of a job I have barely begun).

We got our exhibition boards on Wednesday evening... I started first thing Thursday morning pinning up. What I didn't anticipate was that my tutor wants to see our work mounted on foamboard... quite some expenditure has ensued.

Never mind! I freely admit the work looks better for it. It's just that mounting it is d--n near impossible to do without rucking or creasing the work in some way, leaving air bubbles that although don't stand up to close scrutiny do at least appear discreet at a distance of a metre or so. But my critics won't be looking from a distance of a metre!

And with every exhibition or crit, it is always the same. Everybody, everybody, looks at each others work and declares their own to be rubbish in comparison. We are our own worst critics I guess.

I have until Monday to pin up. My plan is this: to pin up tomorrow and give myself Sunday and Minday to identify gaos in my work and rectify them. I have already beaten the printer rush by plotting my bigger sheets yesterday and today. Lets hope I have the same presence of mind over the weekend.

Strain.

This, I fear, may prove to be a shorter blog than I am accustomed to writing.

There are, as we speak, nine days until my final pin-up of my years' work. Practically everyone is pulling all-nighters. For some reason, I am not. I can only assume it is because I started upping the ante immediately after Christmas, negating the need for them.

Nevertheless, the strain is starting to show. I've been working six-and-a-half hours flat out today, firstly on a 3D CAD model, now completed, secondly on starting a replacement for a piece of work the School lost, thirdly on trying to get 3D renderings. The last has eluded me, and reduced me to printing off wire-frame drawings, outlining the parts I want, hand-rendering with felt tip pens to get rid of lines I don't, and then scanning back in with a view to importing them into Photoshop as a JPEG to render them properly. A 'round the Wrekin' approach, as they say back home, but there simly isn't time to experiment and blunder on another way.

So one is now done, leaving another four to do.

Guess I had better get on with it.

All the time in the world.

On Saturday you will no doubt recall that I was a little, ahem, irate at how I had experienced nothing but bad luck with my computer.

But now that I think about it, it seems a bit of a blessing. For one thing, now that once again I find myself traipsing around University to work I can ask neutral opinions of friends and tutors as to the progression of the design.

For another it is a d--n sight more sociable, and far better than being stuck in my flat day in day out.

So long as I have a list, or know what I am doing, I can quietly put a CD on the computer and get on with what needs doing. Today, for instance, I sorted out finally my landscaping, completed two of my sections and progressed with the first floor site plan. I also, at home, managed to start a replacement hand drawing for one the School lost.

Now that I think about it, I have, if I keep this work level up of around 8 hours a day, plenty of time to get my work done.

I have all the time in the world; I am at a loss to explain quite why my friends seem to think we must rush.

Visitations.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. What they neglect to mention is that absence also makes the heart grow stronger, and that presence makes the nerves go weary.

Permit me to explain.

Having been away from my parents for some weeks, I was, naturally enough, looking forward to their visit today.

So when they arrived I was understandably in high spirits. I then experienced what I have described above. For the first hour we were catching up. By the second hour I was checking my watch. The third hour saw me grinning and bearing it, and the fourth hour saw me downright impatient for them to leave and let me be, especially as I was basically put in charge of my brother and dragged around computer game shops.

This sounds cruel I know, but as Bill Bryson observed, there are three things you just can't do in life. You can't make a waiter see you until he is ready to see you, you can't beat the telephone company, and once you have left you can never return home again.

So perhaps you can understand why, with my freedom of independence now three years old, I take immediate offence when I am called into question by them. Last year I fumed when they spent an hour turning my room upide down merely because it didn't meet their standards. This year I am left fuming that they had the tenacity to declare that my room smelt. Oh, I could stand that; just not their telling me in front of all and sundry. Now that is out of order in my book.

Mechanical malaise.

The healthy scepticism I have always harboured towards the wisdom of drawing on computer has, today, been given a second shot in the arm and is stronger now than ever.

You will recall, Monday last, how my external hard drive had an episode, the net result being that for ten hours it looked as though I had lost all of my work.

Now, today, my computer, upon being started up, displayed repeatedly an error message concerning my instant messenger, which I rectified by removing my IM as I scarcely used it anyway.

Once this was achieved my computer overheated, and upon being restarted came up with another error message, this time going through my files and then shutting down to restart itself. This done, my 'AcDb resources file' is no longer on my computer, the net result being that my AutoCAD programmes won't run and hence I can no longer do my work on my laptop.

This being the case I have now had to transfer my work onto my data stick and contrive to copy that onto my University network space. Needless to say that meant I had to delete other work from there to actually get it on.

Sometimes I wish that we were still using drawing boards and technical pencils. That way at least, a drawing can not be 'lost in the system', 'deleted by mistake', 'corrupted' or any other mishap.

These things are sent to try us, I suppose.

The future.

Now that my crit is over and gone, I am considering what my future holds.

In the immediate future; there is still work to do naturally, but after that....

I do have a job lined up to start in July, and it was the email I recieved last night from my boss confirming my start date that has got me thinking.

You see, the plan was for me to commute to work every morning. However, the company is moving in September to premises elsewhere in Birmingham, and as anyone familiar with that city will attest, Birmingham is a really, really big place.

Now, the company being the size it is and with the work they undertake I can not imagine it moving out into the outskirts from the city centre where it currently is. No, I imagine it will remain in the Broad Street/ New Street area within walking distance of New Street Station. Which, if my logic is right, suits me fine.

If, however, they do move further out, making it impossible to get there by train each morning, I have only one recourse of action to take. There is absolutely no way I am going to let this job go, so it must remain for me to find rooms closer to my work.

I reckon I could do it. I've survived three years on only £4,000 per annum, my job will be giving me £14,000, which should be plenty enough for rent and services. Obviously things like a land-line telephone and internet may have to go, and it is an absolute certainty that I won't have a television, through choice rather than anything else, and if I can cut back on my other spendthriftery (DVDs, CDs and smart suits being the main offenders), I could not only do that but also perhaps save enough to be able to put myself through my BArch without having to wait two or three years to build up funds.

The crit.

The crit yesterday went superbly well. There are, admittedly, one or two issues to resolve, but the fact is I've got a very strong project which the tutors rather like.

So now I have two and a half weeks to sort it all out, not only this project but an assignment I have yet to begin, a model and a drawing to replace that the school lost or destroyed, and some drawings to complete a project I failed just before Christmas.

I'm confident I can do it all. Just don't expect to see me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed anytime soon.

So close, yet so far.

I can't quite believe that tomorrow is my final crit.

It seems like only a few weeks since we started the project; in fact it has been four months.

The time has gone so quickly. It is almost surreal to even contemplate that three weeks hence my work shall be complete for the year; that three weeks hence my fate shall be decided as to whether I graduate, or whether I suffer the ignominy of having to resit the year.

I suppose that tomorrow shall be a barometer of what is to come. There is absolutely no reason to suppose it shall go badly; I have just as much work to show as any other, and my response to the brief is just as valid as any other.

At the end of the day, a crit boils down to two things. Firstly how pretty your drawings look (despite my belief that content should take precedence over appearance), secondly the ability of your 'gift of the gab' to sell your proposal to the tutors. If you go in and say 'um, errr, well, I did this...' , they won't be impressed. If, on the other hand, you walk in and say 'I did this because I feel very strongly that...' they start to feel confident that you know what you are talking about.

Which in my case will be an assertion that a music school should not be too institutional (hence my accommodation layout), that a music school should have flow and rhythm (hence the layout of rooms, rooflights and windows) and that a concert hall should have character (hence my re-use of the electricity works).

This time tomorrow we shall know if all this hard work has been in vain.

The current state of play.

I left you, this morning, with news that my external hard drive had failed me, and you will recall that I was almost blase about the whole thing.

I left it for an hour; then tried it again. Still no joy. I have taken it to PC World, and the best tey could do was to firstly agree that it had broken, and offer me the option of having the data retrieved, with no guarantee of success, for the cost of £100 and the time of a week to ten days. This is time I don't have and money I am loath to spend.

So I have the taken the only recourse of action left open to me. I have copied all of my pre-Easter work to my data stick, and I am to start re-drawing all of my work and saving it to my computer hard drive.

I anticipate starting just as soon as I finish this; I have my printed drawings, a scale rule, a calculator and tea bags by my side.

And so, onward ho.

Murphy's Law.

With two days to go before my crit (ie- Today, Monday 5th May, and tomorrow, Tuesday 6th), my external hard drive has chosen this moment to die- taking all of my work with it.

Very fortunately, whilst it was still working this morning I extracted most of what I needed, bar the floor plans. I'm going to try a little later on to get it working, and if it doesn't then I suppose it's off to PC World or some other place to sort out the mess.

Not that I am worried. This crit, after all, is not the be-all and end-all. No, after the crit we have two full weeks to make changes and amendments to our work. So all is not lost if this little hiccup upsets all of my plans.

Now then, I am considering the following. I want to change the roof structure of my details, but because they are on the external hard drive I can't. So I guess the steel roof shall suffice for the crit, to be replaced as soon as is humanly possible afterwards. So long as I have details, which I do, it matters not if the roof is steel or concrete.

Precedent is done, just leaving my client analysis which I shall produce presently and print off in the library.

If all else fails I suppose I can still use the old floor plans I have just for this crit.

So what appears on the surface to be a catastrophe is in fact not nearly so bad as it could have been. If I hadn't printed off my elevations, sections and details when I did I would now be up a certain creek without a certain instrument.

C'est l vie, I suppose.

Concerns.

Looking back over my entries for the past month or so, I have become concerned that I have a one-track mind. I'm talking, of course, about my work. How it rules my life and how it is assimilating my musings on the aethernet here, on myspace and on facebook.

But bear with me! This shall last for but a few weeks more! This coming Wednesday is my final crit, three weeks hence is my final portfolio submission and following that is my exhibition.

So, just to bring all up to speed; I now have all plans, sections, elevations complete and details are progessing well. The only concern I have is that some friends appear to be working far, far harder than me; at the same time however for some bizarre reason they do not have as progressed a final proposal as my own.

Are they dawdling? Or am I missing something here? I know not, and it worries me.

But enough of work.

And so onto other things.

My collection of Classical music continues to grow. I now possess:

-Bach's Adagios, Brandenburg Concertos 1-6, Orchestral Suites 2 &3.
-Barber's Adagio.
-Beethoven's Piano Sonatas 8, 13, 14 and 23, Egmont, The Ruins of Athens overture, Leonore overture, Symphony #3.
-Brahm's Symphonies 3 &4, Piano Concerto #2, Violin Concerto, Double Concerto, Ein Deutsches Requiem, Clarinet trio, Clarinet Quintet and Hungarian Dances 1-21.
-Chopin's Piano Favourites.
-Holst's The Planets Suite.
-'The Magic of Mozart' 3CD collection, and Mozart's Requiem.
-Rachmaninov's Piano Concertos 1 &2, and Symphony #3.

And there may be one or two other little pieces here or there hiding in the woodwork.

This has come at the expense of cultivating my library of 19th/20th Century Gothic/ Scientific Romance literature, but one can't have everything I'm sure you shall agree. It has also come at the expense of alcohol, but as I'm a pretty poor drunk I honestly can't say I miss the experience.