It just doesn't end!!!!

I keep telling myself "just make it to Sunday and things will calm down" "one more paper" "this weekend I can relax"

... but it doesn't happen! Somehow new things come up, or I don't realize what day things are due, or things take way longer than expected!

After I installed my exhibit and held the opening I thought things would slow down. But they didn't. This past week I had my thesis defense. It was much harder than I had anticipated. It was an hour of questions from my advisers and I wasn't nearly as prepared as I had hoped. Good news is - I passed with revisions, which means after I make a few changes to my thesis and submit it, I'm done with it! These past few days I've been working on a research paper that I put off due to my exhibit.

Today, I uninstalled my exhibit. It was very unpleasant. Today was the only day I could uninstall. Yesterday was an MFA student's opening so I couldn't clog the hall while she had people walking in and out. And tomorrow the next exhibit is being installed, so today was my only option. Unfortunately, today was also the Jazz Festival, which I didn't realize would be taking place in my exhibit hallway!

I arrived around 10am and there were litterally 50+ middle and high school students lining both sides of the hall and the entire floor. Almost all of my framed prints were hanging crooked and students were actually leaning up against a couple of them! I couldn't believe it! I know that younger students may not be as aware of their surroundings, I know I wasn't, but I was still considerate when things were hanging on the walls - I made sure not to touch them or even get close. But these students had not only knocked and bumped them sideways, but some were leaning against them! I was frustrated to say the least. First of all, I can't believe the students didn't realize what they were doing. Second, where were all the supervisors and parents and such? I walked up to the couple students leaning against my work and asked them to move. Then I loudly asked for everyone's attention and explained that they needed to stand in between the images or sit on the floor. very very frustrating.

I took my images down one by one and moved them into the other gallery (with a locking door) so I could pack them up away from the crowd. The crowd dispursed and Jaime arrived to help me patch a paint walls. There will still people filtering through the hall so we setup some chairs with tape to keep people from running into the walls. The rest of the afternoon was frustrating. The Jazz employees or volunteers kept moving our chairs in towards the walls because they said there would be big crowds soon and we needed to keep it open. We had to keep moving things around. There has been an issue with the paint the last few weeks and so two of the three exhibit walls in my gallery were painted the wrong shade of white, and so our touch up paint only made the wall worse. Jaime and I repainted the entire surface of those two walls and then on the third wall we just patch painted the scuffed areas.

Multiple times during our painting the jazz organization people came by and made a fuss. One lady came over and rudely tried to tell me I needed to stop and come back and paint later. Apparently, they had been promised the gallery space for people to stand in, but I was also told I had to take everything down today. She argued with me and was very forceful in suggestions for me to work on it later, trying to convince me the walls would get ruined later by people leaning against them and I'd have to redo it later anyways. I told her I felt she was being very hostile towards me when I was trying to work out a solution. She left. I understand their frustration of having someone in the halls when they expected them to be empty. However, I was just as surprized to find out that I was expected to not be there during that time. I was frustrated because rather than speaking to me as an adult, and having a civilized conversation, she was rude. The director of some part of UNR came over and had a civilized talk with me and we straightened things out. Four hours of painting and the walls were done, and dry enough to hang little signs that said "Do Not Touch!"