Monday, April 26, 2010

Coffee and Adrenaline for Fuel

Also known as finals week at art school.

Sleep-deprived nights, weekends spent in one studio or another without barely a glimpse of the beautiful day outside, callused and cut fingers, dirty nails, multiple outbursts of filthy words directed at the all-too-fast passing of the hours, creativity pushed to the limit.

And then there is the adrenaline. If one manages to finish one's project on time, to one's exacting standards, there is always a presentation that must follow. Show off your work to your peers and teachers, name the flaws before anyone else can, rattle off something profound about concept and materials and process, and hope for the best.

I'm currently one project down, three to go. Plus two translation jobs Rico and I have taken on. Feels like the last few weeks we spent in Maputo, where everything was on overdrive and sleep was at a premium.

More later. I'm off to finish a couple more pages of translating and then knock out an art history take-home exam.

2 comments:

NOLA said...

Just don't answer the questions on the take home exam in Portuguese! :)

Good luck with everything!

Maputo Used Book Shop said...

One ca-RAZY finals semester in undergrad, I actually took a caffeine pill to help me tackle all of my final papers. Bad idea. I was so jittery that I couldn't concentrate and had to wait to 'come down' before I could get to work. It was so annoying because I'd wasted so much precious time. Anyway, I've learned a lot more about better time management and the restorative effects of slow and deep breathing since then.

You can do it, Ali!