*raises hand weakly, waves*
I'm alive!
Hi!
The situation on my end:
It has been "Project Week" for the past three weeks in a row.
Group project. Three members, none of whom did I get to choose on my own.
Project is worth 30% of semester grade. Double-plus-ungood if we mess it up at all.
The project itself involves building a 1 1/2 upscaled model of a 1950's pay telephone, using ONLY corrugated cardboard and glue. However, on top of the phone, there are about nine accessories that MUST accompany, as well as the coins, telephone book, and other various things that are expected.
That's just the building component. We also had to have about a foot-tall stack of papers EACH: research, essays, drawings, orthographic projections, perspectives, dynamic renderings, photographs, project journals (as in more than one of each thing I've listed, usually 3-5)... and these all had to be assembled in a cohesive way that could be presented before the class later.
It didn't help that we were criteria-limited in usable materials, and the paper we are required to use was dark brown and smudges and rips very easily, requiring both very dark and very hard lead with a
very careful touch for every single item.
Many things had to be done twice; the orthographic projections themselves were re-done at least five times in my awareness, and that's assuming that none of my teammates went into studio and made changes when I was taking my sleep-shift.
That's part one of where I've been.
Part two: the state Illinois is in a financial crisis right now, and there were about nine days where $4980 USD were literally taken back (the IL MAP Grant) from my financial aid account. IL paid the grant, took it back, and then TODAY re-paid it back to the university.
Suffice to say, there is a considerable measure of stress involved in being told that the state has just reclaimed five thousand dollars of the money you need-as-in-literally-need to attend school.
[For those who are not aware: I receive no family assistance to fund my education; every cent in my account is either a grant, a scholarship, or a loan of some variety, and obtaining just the ones I have (which are only exactly enough to pay my non-living-expenditures, by the way) took me the better part of my last two years in high school and all of last summer. This isn't a situation I take lightly, you might say.]
*breathes* But yeah, there y'go. Everything is shiny and peachy again in Esty's world, thank God.
Also, my boyfriend is a saint, I think. So thank God for that, too.
Aaaand while we're doing our Academy Awards speech here, thanks to my IRL-BFF's for being so patient and lovely about everything; I love you both very very much, even if I'm absent a bunch lately.
Thanks finally to RAF for remembering my name after I've been gone so long.
I adore you people, and I owe you more than I can say in terms of sanity-maintenance provided for me by people I've met here.
If you guys even notice my post, which you mightn't, three more things:
Broken: *huggggg* Miss you. (Miss everybody else, too, of course.)
Horsie: You rock; please keep writing. I'm sorry RAFGone has had so many ridiculous lacunae.
Blue: Great animated series, man; I look forward to it every time I log into dA.