End of the Semester Blues.

Well here's this little gem I just finished -____-;; The requirements were *drumroll*: Stairs, a 1'x1' base (at least), a removable roof, and at least one curved surface. In all honesty, this was not an awful project to do! It's quite fun to have something you sketch out on a piece of paper come to life! I was just getting frustrated that the joints weren't coming together the way they were supposed to and the roof didn't sit right and I couldn't get the turret thing to work out and stuff got benttt. Oh whatever I got a B- on it. I'll take it. I just hate doing this stuff knowing that if it doesn't look like a machine pumped it out, I'm gonna get a bad grade. It makes me even angrier to know that I spend all of this time working on projects...and I have to do them ALL over again! I have to do it for Specialization Review (which is at the end of the first semester of my sophomore year). I'm not feeling optimistic about it either because I've heard plenty of people saying things like "Oh yeah, 20 people went up for spec and only 4 passed." and it's just like... what?

It's like a giant spit in the face. Here, do all this work that we're going to tell you you're bad at, tell you to redo it, and still tell you that you suck. Well thanks guys, I really needed that encouragement there. This project I need to do over especially because, and I quote my professor, the head of the design department "really has a boner for the 3-D projects."

It's insulting that I'm paying all of this money just so they can tell me that I'm not good enough and I can't move on to the classes in my major. I came here to draw shit, not to cut out little black squares and glue them on a piece of illustration board you tell me to.

I can't say I don't understand why they want us to take these classes, but I don't like it. While other art majors are off drawing oranges and naked people, I'm staring at squares. How very inspiring. I can see where all this stuff would be applicable to graphic design majors -- make me all these black squares but there needs to be a focal point -- yes, if you're making a new logo or identity for a company, you need something that draws the viewer's eye to what's important right away because they're not going to stand around and look for it and if you haven't caught their attention in the first thirty seconds they're staring at it, you've lost a potential customer. Great. How exactly does that apply to illustration?

It's just...infuriating. I'd come to terms with it until I was talking on the phone with my mother. "...What do you mean you have to re-do ALL of your projects!?" Yeah, mom. I think it's bullshit too.

I'm considering very seriously looking into the art institute of Boston. It's not SCAD, but it's an art school and it's still close to some family, so that makes me happy. Plus, north=good.

I don't want to seem like I'm giving up here. I would keep on it if I thought I wasn't wasting my time. But that's exactly what it feels like. I don't have the time to fail spec and go back and re-do projects (each of which I slaved over for like a minimum of 15 hours) and retake classes. I want to practice drawing, learn how to draw stuff I don't know how to, learn how to use colors, and all that other fine arts stuff. But guess what? Illustration just HAD to be in the design department here. These classes did not sound the least bit hellish when I looked at them in the course catalogue. There should be a warning on them: CAUTION: THIS CLASS MAY MAKE YOU SUICIDAL, DEPRESSED, OR PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE. TAKE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

It's a damn good thing I've already got some happy pills because I know of two people already who've started going to counseling because of the stress.

I don't want to go to design school to learn how to control people's minds with useless UPS logos and billboard ads. I don't care. I hate that stuff.

I want to use my imagination to help create stories that carry people out of this world and make them happy and interested. I want to come up with characters and develop their personalities. I have my doubts whether I'm ever gonna get there if I stay here. I understand that it's going to be a lot of work wherever I go, but I don't want to spend every waking moment of my life doing work that I don't learn anything from.