Wackolah

I was trying to think of a title, and that word popped in my head. I know it makes no sense, it's not meant to.


It's almost 11 and I'm tired, and about ready to go to sleep, but I figured I should write about what happened a week ago so that I don't completely forget to post about this milestone in my school career.

Plus I feel like I should do something productive with my day.

So Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 was my midpoint review. Big deal at AAU, it's when you stand in front a council to basically prove that you're worthy of starting your thesis and pitch your idea for your thesis and see if you get a yay, a sort-of yay or a nay. Right off the bat, I'll tell you that I got yay'ed, so I was (and still am) super jazzed about that. Basically when I went home for a month in May, I started researching for my thesis. I did the drawings of the site, and started writing what I could for my midpoint book (of which I had to submit six a week before my presentation). I got back to San Francisco, went to a meeting to sign up for my date and started powerhousing trying to finish, print and bind the books in time for my submission date. Luckily I went to school to print on a Saturday, thereby avoiding the whole "there's a shitload of people printing at the same time, how long is this going to take to get done???"

Fastforward to a day before my midpoint, I go to school to drop off boards from a class I did last summer, and wade through the boards that were in the Spring Show in May to find my projects from Spring. Then I go into my director's office to ask if she could request a computer projector for me, since my proposal was in powerpoint form. She lets me know that she has a concern about my project being to small, mainly, the initial site being too small.

Shitbuckets.

I already knew this might come up as a problem, and she's letting me know so that I can properly defend myself during the question and answer period, which as nice as it was, worried me like crazy. Onto the next day, go to my six hour drawing class hauling my laptop, dress, pantyhose, heels and makeup in a bag, haul that all again to a different building and start my set up. I have to pin all my boards to the wall, get dressed, get my make up on and set up my powerpoint. Got it all done with time to spare, and so spent half an hour wandering the hallways (in sneakers, I am not a fan of high heels and concrete), and then start my presentation. Which took longer than I thought. And then onto the question and answer section, which was haaaard. Then I left the room for the council to deliberate, which in my mind took forever since I had absolutely nothing to do out in the hallway, but in reality it was only fifteen minutes.

Then I was called back in, and told that even though they don't ever do this, I was going to be let into the discussion to hear all the new ideas that they have come up with for expansion of the project since the scope was too small, one small building working as a single business is simply not large enough for a true thesis. I agreed, they told me things, I explained some, and then FINALLY they told me that I passed (seriously though, did they have to drag that out until the end? I was dying.)

So now this is the project (taken from an e-mail I sent to some professors):
"The project was originally a small healing arts and meditation center in Bangkok, which would have been a conversion of a home into a commercial project to create a hub for the new age community in Bangkok that focused on the utilization of new age, Thai design as well as the use and promotion green and universal design. After much discussion with the midpoint review council, the project has been expanded to also include a satellite center somewhere else in Thailand, as well as prototypes for expansion into other countries such as Tokyo, Milan and San Francisco, with an emphasis on a smaller footprint, and the ability to insert the centers into skyscrapers to reuse space and reduce new construction. Another addition is also a prototype for a modular system, so franchisees can pick and choose what services and rooms they would like for their branch."

So I'll be having a fine and dandy time for the next year, and now you know what I started out with when I'm bitching and moaning every semester.

Nitey nite!