Fin

Lucky me, my classes and finals are all over!!! i am proud to say that i done much better in this semester than i had recently believed. i just want to say that you really shouldnt stress yourself out when you feel bad about your work because chances are that you are doing much better than you believe. as christmas has grown closer i have been worried about what to ask for, all up untill today. i decided that i need to step up my game in my program and become one of the best. so for christmas i ended up asking for books and supplies all related to my field! if you really love something, you should put your efforts and love all into that one thing.
so my final thoughts about this semester are the following. i have learned that i can do anything i want and all i have to do is step up my game. i have come out of this semester with some awesome work and some awesome friends. i have an amazing girlfriend and everything seems to be wonderful for this christmas break! good luck to everyone and i hope you all have a wonderful break!

Form Project

Recently in principles of form class we have been working on our final projects. These projects were simply outlined as being a hand tool that we completely make ourselves. I am coming near the end of this project and even though I have a ton of work to do the experience has been amazing. I've used plasma cutters, steel grinders, polishing stones and many things that real craftsmen in the real world would use. After a lot of work already it is incredible to see how the pieces of work have transformed. What once was a solid block of wood or a bar of steel has become an elegantly shaped form and a gleaming sliver of metal. Although I will not give out the details of what my tool is I will say that it has been interesting work. Using spring steel and red oak I have composed some pretty interesting forms that I would not have felt I could do earlier. I hope that it will all turn out okay and clearly I have a lot of work to do in the next couple weeks! Wish me luck!

Break

So, as i walked down the lonely road from Dellplain to Crouse i couldn't help but feel distraught at how little people were around. Seeing as how i live in Syracuse i decided not to go stay home for the week because i can just drive home if i need to see anyone and for thanksgiving. I woke up, dropped my girlfriend off in the morning and came to work. besides the lack of human activity it is a beautiful day and i am going to be doing work on some projects and clean my room so hopefully it should be a productive day. I know i should be taking an actual break and do nothing but lounge around and wait for thanksgiving dinner but i feel that if i get a lot of work done now, the upcoming end of the semester will be a lot easier. i am kind of scared for the end, just because i always hate worrying about what grades will be, and also how sad it is going to be to be gone for a full month this time. But, there is still time before that so i wont worry until we get back to school on Monday!

Wrapping it up

so now there is literally around 30 days until winter vacation and legitimately i am so pumped. not only is this a time for holidays and festivities, but we are coming down to the end of the school year and we thankfully get to do our final projects. i have been working on one of them for a couple weeks but due to its content i probably shouldn't post what it is ;) its a big secret of mine. in my screen printing class as well we are wrapping it up and already starting the final project in which each student will get a piece of work from every other student, which means we need to make nearly 30 perfect prints. i am so happy that i only have one final and the rest are all just projects, it really makes things a lot better because that way i have a lot of time to focus on that one big test. the one thing i am worried about however is the second year review. this is when all of the industrial design professors take a look at all of the work we have done throughout the year and evaluate us! sounds exciting right? well anyways I'm going to get back to work so i can do a really good job on all of my projects.

vacation

i totally need what my title implies. a nice long stress free vacation. the work has been piling up, the weather has been progressively getting worse, and my cold still is kicking strong. thankfully we are coming up to a vacation though. I am so excited to have thanksgiving break and not have any stress besides which slice of turkey to choose. unfortunately i need to make this a short post because i am still sick but i will be back weekly now and i wont be missing any more classes or work!

Fall

Hello everyone, I know have been away for quite some time now (almost 2 weeks!) but now I am back in action ready to get excited for Halloween this weekend. Thankfully, these past two weeks have been nothing more than simple work weeks where in most of my classes we are just using the time to work on projects such as our final form project and other various design projects. We now are getting into the full swing of "Twine" in our program and for those of you who don't know what it is, Twine is a big/little system where 4th and 5th years pair up with 2nd and 3rd years to work on collaborative projects outside of the classes and help each other with class work. It really is a great way to get to know others in our field and get help from our peers. The main thing I am excited about however is the fact that soon we get to choose our classes for next year. As of right now I am in:
Principles of Form
Principles of Industrial Design
Technical Graphics
Survey of Film History
Serigraphy (Screen Printing)
For next semester however I want to try and get more into some skill classes that will teach me useful techniques for industrial design. I know one of my classes is a second part to the form class and there is also two more I.D. studios (one being computer processes such as photoshop, indesign and solid works). However there are two other classes that I would like to take outside of those three studios which are Biology and functional sculpture. Also, I still want to take classes in the fields of psychology and other art forms.
Even in my 5 years I do not think there will be enough time to take all the classes I want to take. well either way I cant wait to get into learning new things and I'm excited to see what the rest of the semester plus what next semester has to bring.

Lessons

The previous week has been incredibly hectic for me, and it is so close to being over. For the most part, it's been crazy because I went away for the weekend and haven't been around to do any of my homework. On top of that, life has been becoming more and more difficult as time passes on. But somehow, I still am happier than ever because of all the brilliant little lessons I have been learning from faculty, friends and even people I do not know. I just want to share a few of these to hopefully help others see the positive sides of things as well.

First off, the best thing you can do is to stop thinking only for the benefit of yourself. What I mean is that even though we are all different and special in our own way, it is definitely notable that if we only work to make ourselves happy what good does that do for our community. Part of life is helping others, and if we don't do this, we can not survive as a species. Secondly, nothing is ever bad enough for you to quit or give up. As hard as things get, you must push through it because to be honest, you can do it. I've noticed that most people have little faith in themselves and their work when really others around them put those same people up on a pedestal. We are not alone and there is always someone else out there who knows how you feel.

These are just a few of the many things that have helped me feel better and hopefully for those of you having difficulties, it will do the same.