I spoke to my mom yesterday, haven't spoken to her in a while. My cousin's funeral went well and she told me she read a scripture for her. Her husband and the kids also said their piece. My sister was there also. So relieved that she went as she once lived around the corner from her and with her own personal problems I am just glad she took the time, although she never went to see her in hospital. I guess she found it difficult because all along when we knew she didn't have long my sister was always "going to go" and then she admitted that she was afraid because she didn't know what she would say to her. I thought of  "The last lecture" again and thought how many people could face death like Randy Pausch did if we knew.

My classes end next week, bit nervous because although I have done quite a bit there is that small part of me that wonders if I will get it done on time. Even with the extension for thesis I still haven't got the plans for my chosen site although I contacted the architectural firm. I emailed the principle who told me they had no working drawings but they may have presentation drawings they could email. This particular Ivy league uni wouldn't let me have the plans. They own the building so I am being a bit sneaky by going straight to the firm but they own their own creative work so why not. The other building I looked at was also owned by this Ivy league university and I got all the plans for that without problem so it was really down to who I contacted. If  still no luck I will have to spend hours finding a new building and days trying to locate the plans again. That makes me nervous.

I am doing the design part of thesis in the fall and just realised I have the same professor. I really want to change to the other section and have a different professor but I don't know if it's a case of "better the devil you know" His method is to create fear, he was even disappointed when he found out one girl dropped the class because of medical reasons and not because of his terror methods. I always feel so brain drain when I leave his class that I have no concentration for my other class afterwards.

I am now working on my "parti" all weekend. This is the part I hate, don't get partis, never have although I know what it is trying to do. I think they are over rated and I feel just a tad pretentious.

I am actually feeling quite calm tonight, not stressed for a change. The prof was really really mellow on Tuesday. We all thought he had been on something. He even suggested we relaxed this weekend and have some wine. A  complete contrast to the first couple of weeks when he was being a complete bastard. He is giving us an extension, yeah!!! which means I have time to to go back and re-edit my 100 or so pages. One of my sites, the one I was going to use, they wouldn't let me have the floor plan, typical. I am trying the architectural firm and see if I can get them that way, otherwise I have to pick a new site.

 

I am glad I have nearly finished this half of the thesis. The second half is designing the whole thing. I have started to work in Revit now, not an expert by any means but I love the fact I can get so many views with one drawing. I don't think you can ever just stick to one program though, sometimes I have Revit, Sketchup, Cad, Artlantis all open up and I import from one to the other, then finish laying everything out in Illustrator. For the written part of the thesis everything has to be in Indesign so my poor laptop is overworked. When I am stressed it can never work fast enough. It's nice being here at my sister's house because at least I get fed, otherwise I would forget about eating. I can't wait until everything is finished. By Christmas the difficult part is over with, I can see light at the end of the tunnel, and a social life, and reconnecting to my friends. I feel really bad because there are so many that I haven't contacted for a while. I have even switched off from emotional involvement with men, haven't even flirted in ages, but then again I wasn't ready, that's another story though.

Just getting over a really bad migraine which I have had for 3 days. It started when I spent the whole day trying to find a site for my thesis project. There were a few buildings that I really loved but they either didn't have parking or were too small. Parking availability is one of the criterias for my site. My professor has decided my topic isn't so bad because everyone he spoke to apsolutely loves my topic of chocolate. He was like, what can you do with chocolate? but I could pick any topic I liked so I chose chocolate. He doesn't want us to do something run of the mill like a school or a hotel for example, the building as to have an innovative purpose. I have spent hours looking at past projects and still really like my friends' work. She did a science center in a church. Her issue was the conflict between science and religion but her whole work was really good. The design and the materials chosen were great.

Now I have to try and find the perfect building and hopefully get the floor plans. 20,000 square feet is a lot to play with and took me days to do the program. I have to think about things like building codes, lighting, air circulation. Math, not my strongest subject.

I am getting there slowly but surely. My professor is not the easiest of people and he really peeved most of the class off. There were 7 of us in the beginning, now we are five. It's a hell of a lot of work and he is just never happy. Every week for me now is like playing catch up. Three sites to find and document with floor plans by Tuesday. O joy, when will it be mine........

I haven't written much because I have so much work. I guess with all the writing I have to do for thesis research I just haven't been in the mood. Plus last week I was really depressed and thought about dropping but now I am ok. Don't feel very confident though and that's not like me.

I haven't done most of what I wanted to do for this half of the summer. My older sister came to visit and she has been ill most of the time. She never ate on the plane so had stomach pains the first day and then back pain after that she had fever and flu one after the other, so we didn't get to do anything I had planned. On top of that I got an email from my friend which contained the most shocking news. I still see Mark, those gorgeous green eyes, that sparkling personality, faded away to dental records. O Mark, you couldn't quite overcome your demons but I hope you're happier now. RIP