This is the term that never ends...
I am so tired of this term. I feel like I've barely been keeping my head above water for the last month and a half.
One of the things I love about Mercyhurst is that it uses trimesters instead of semesters. As such, each term is only three months, we have shorter, but more evenly spaced breaks than most schools, have fewer classes per term, and the terms tend to go by fairly quickly. The drawbacks of this system, however, are that the pace is pretty quick without any breathing room, and that pretty much as soon as you're finished with Mid-Terms it's time to prepare for finals. Usually, however, this pace is manageable for me, but this particular term has been a real challenge.
I'm taking two studios which I've never done at once and has added a lot to my stress. The first of these is Photography which I am greatly enjoying, but first off it's expensive. I had to buy a camera and filter which was a bargain at $90, on top of which I have to buy film and photo paper frequently. I need at least a roll of film per assignment and thankfully the photo paper doesn't run out as quickly but is still very expensive at about $0.50-$0.75 a sheet and if you've never worked in a darkroom you may not realize that you'll typically go through 4-5 sheets of paper for each photograph testing exposure and contrast before you manage to get a good print. This is fun. I enjoy working in the darkroom, but it's also extremely tiring and time-consuming. I don't think I've ever gotten an assignment printed in less than three hours and we have assignments due every week and a half.
My other studio is Figure Drawing which I truly love. My drawing skills have improved from practically non-existant to quite presentable. Again though, this is a class where the assignments are time-consuming and come rapid fire. Thankfully this one's not so expensive; I've only had to buy a few conte crayons which were only about $4.00.
On top of these two classes is my Senior Art Thesis Seminar which is kind of 1/3 studio to 2/3 seminar. We have a few studio-type projects but most of the class is discussion. The discussion tends to make me feel like I have no business being an art major because I just don't know/understand/think about the kinds of things he talks about, but from talking with my classmates they seem to feel the same way, so maybe I'm not in such bad shape.
Speaking of which, my thesis work is going to be abstract painting. Apparently I love that? I didn't realize it but both my Photo professor and Thesis professor, on separate and unrelated occasions commented that from my work they could tell I was interested in abstraction. I mean, I do like abstract art and the more I think about it I really do find it fascinating and I guess it's my biggest interest. I had originally proposed to do Native American Pueblo Pit-Fired Pottery in the style of Maria Martinez, but my professor thought (and I agreed) that there was too little room for creativity in such a highly traditional style.
The musical has only added to my stress. We're doing The Secret Garden which I absolutely adore. It's such an all-around beautiful musical. It also has a lot of sentimental value to me as it was my senior show in high school and I mostly loved working on it. This musical has been put together in about 5 weeks though so it's been a very urgent, high-stress production process which has only added to my frenzied distractedness this term.
Anyway, term ends on November 15 and it can't come soon enough. There's an end approaching, it just feels ages away.