Deadlines

This pretty much sums up my life right now. Tomorrow a classmate and I head to the DC area to present at a conference, and right now I am up to my eyeballs in PowerPoint slides of 1970s church architecture. Oh, and I need to also be working on a thesis seminar presentation that I will give in 5 days. EEEEEK!

At 2:30am last night I hit the point where I usually ask "why do I do this to myself?" But I realized something - maybe I need this adrenaline rush of panic to get my brain to fire on all cylinders. I've been thinking about my thesis for weeks, but have had trouble making a concise argument. Likewise, it took a looming deadline to inspire some serious presentation editing, which was a hard decision to make.

How about you, 2.5 readers? How do you think through a project?

The Final Lap

This is it folks. My last week of class. By Friday I will be done with my first year of grad school! In the meantime I only have to live through the next four days. Here's what my hellish schedule looks like:
Tuesday morning: Turn in Metals project on wrought iron toasters
Tuesday night and Wednesday morning: work like crazy on two projects
Wednesday afternoon: thesis topic meeting and phone interview with a curator in Indianapolis
Wednesday evening: resume work like crazy
Thursday: Turn in paper on vestment fragments in our collection, attend guest lecture, work like crazy
Friday morning: Give presentation about and lead class in discussion of postmodern design
Friday afternoon/evening: Hightail it to Virginia for my brother's college graduation.

After Friday the craziness continues, but it's fun craziness. Oh well, for now I will take up my cross and pay my dues for the education I want. I'm having flashbacks to that last week of undergrad when I had 4 papers due in 8 days and saw the sun rise from my dorm lounge several times.