all grown up

Its weird, being so close to graduating. It feels like I've been in school my entire life. And yet in just over 4 weeks, it will come to an end. I'll be done with school.

I've been working harder than I have at any other point in my school career. These last few days have been rough, but God is so good and has given me strength when I feel like I can do no more.

Friday I worked a full day at my office job, came home, napped, and spent 7 more hours working on my thesis (from 7:30pm to 2:30am). Then it was off to bed to catch a little shut eye.

Saturday I was up at 9am and headed up to UNR to print. I'd been trying to print in the afternoon-evenings, but I kept getting kicked off the printer. I'm printing my photographs on matte roll paper - and there are only 2 of 13 or 14 printers that can do that. One is designed to print on 17" wide paper (that I am printing on) and the other goes up to 20 or 24 or something, but is much slower. I've been sticking to the one printer (Epson 4800) to stay consitent. Unfortunately there are TONS of beginning classes that have been in lab these past couple weeks. When a class is in lab - they get priority on the printers - which means I can sit down to print and 10 minutes later get kicked off. Its frustrating. So all last week I managed to only get 2 or 3 prints done. So Saturday I headed up to school and from about noon until 7 or so I printed. My friend Elizabeth came and kept me company and let me bounce ideas off of her. I managed to get 3-4 prints completed, for a grand total of 7 of 12 finished.

Monday rolled around and my routine of getting kicked off after one test print began again. I managed to get one print done by 8:30pm and headed home.

Tuesday I ran into a new problem. The lighting in the gallery my exhibit is going to be held has two walls and two tracks for track lighting. However, only one of the two tracks works. Apparently the other one hasn't worked for a few years - and the last time someone tried it sparked and almost started a fire or something. The light canisters can be pointed at either wall from the one working track; however, they only have 5 working canisters. Five lights for twelve prints isn't ideal or even really workable. The entire track system is so old that you can't buy these canisters anymore. I spent all of Tuesday afternoon working with my two photography professors to find an alternate solution. Its unprofessional that I'm having to come up with my own lighting for an exhibit in a school's gallery - but it's good experience to prepare me to troubleshoot for exhibits in the future. I was really bummed out because instead of printing I was now having to solve a problem that shouldn't have been something I needed to deal with anyways. But after some food and quiet time I got back to troubleshooting. We figured out the only option was to purchase some clamp lights and run an extension cord up the side of the wall to plug in 7 additional clamp lights. Thankfully I still had enough money left in my grant to pay for the 7 clamp lights and bulbs. A run to Home Depot and I had what I needed to rig up my own lighting system.

Today (wed) I had another full day. I spent all morning (9am-2pm) printing again. I had a few printer problems, but I finished the rest of my prints. I now have all 12 prints completed. It was a huge relief when I sleeved my final print. I still need to lay them all out next to each other and see if any of them need to be touched up, but I have 12 prints. Now I need to get the windows cut in my mat boards and then assemble each print into its frame.

The biggest thing still looming over me is my actual thesis. After working on it on Friday night, it grew to 79 pages. I have edits from multiple reviewers in multiple forms (tracked changes, text boxes, handwritten, and summary in an email) that I need to sort through and incorporate. And I still have a few more artist summaries to add, my conclusion to write, and my intro and abstract to rewrite. But I'm getting there. I'm feeling way more confident than I had.

I should also mention that a few weeks ago my photography professor informed me he was going to nominate me for a deans award. I was very honored and excited. They accepted my nomination and asked for a resume, transcript and short bio. It was a small confidence boost putting together my resume. I've already had two joint exhibitions, had my art published three different semesters, had a scientific paper accepted for publication and presentation (coming this june), recieved a grant for my honors thesis, and will be presenting my thesis research at the Nevada Undergraduate Research Conference next week. It was exciting to see how much I have accomplished.

Then this week I got exciting news! I won the 2010 College of Liberal Arts Dean's Award for Outstanding Graduate in the Arts. I'm very excited. When I transitioned from being a math major to undecided to photography one of the biggest things that loomed over me was the nagging feeling that I wasn't pursuing a "scholarly" degree. I felt that many people looked down on art degrees as though they were less worthy than other degrees like engineering. [In fact, I've had some people flat out express this view to me in conversation]. However, with a growing resume of both artistic and academic/research accomplishments - I'm proud to say I'm an artist. I'm an artist and also an honors student. I'm an artist, but I also do research and work hard in my studies. I'm an artist, but it doesn't mean I'm not as smart or hard-working as my peers. And it feels really good to be recognized as such.

I received an email yesterday from a journalism student asking if they could do their final project for their class on me (and my project). I had to read the email a couple times to believe it. Someone is interested enough in my work (from only a research abstract in the conference program) to want to learn more about it and do a presentation on it/me. Its weird! I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Its a mixture of excitement and hesitation.

I also bought graduation announcements today, and I just can't believe I'm almost done. A few more weeks of hard work and then poof! It'll all be over. And then I can catch up on everything I've pushed off to the side - like laundry and editing/posting 365 pictures.

I'm procrastinating by writing this blog rather than spending a productive 20 minutes on my thesis. But its time for bed. For once Jeff and I might get to sleep before midnight. Goodnight everyone!

Don't forget these key dates!

Exhibit begins Mon 4/12
Research Presentation at NURS Tues 4/13 ~1-3pm
Exhibit Reception Thur 4/15 - 6:30 to 8pm-ish - Be there!!!!
Thesis Defense Tues 4/20
Exhibit ends Fri 4/23