final countdown

so it's very early in the morning the day before thanksgiving. i have one day left. can i accomplish everything?

well... i'm onto a good start. just finished packing and getting together everything. so i can leave for the airport straight from campus. i'm taking my rolly bag (the small one) so that i don't have to lug everything on my shoulder. especially after i get to new york. though now that i'm thinking about it, i might want to spring for a cab. it'll be pretty late when i get in, and i don't want to spend an additional 2 hours waiting for the nyc public transit.

i've given in. i'm bringing the giant roll of plans with me to ny. there's no other way! plus i know i'm not going to get to campus at any sort of ideal hour, so i really need to maximize my time there. and i know i'm not going to use them in ny, but this way i could also go straight from the airport to campus if desired. especially if i still have a lot of work to do.

also i got yelled at by the monitor for eating in the lab. that is the only monitor that has ever said anything to me. he's also the only one who actually checks the labs. and he did it every 15 minutes! what an uptight stickler!!!! i ate anyways. i was hungry!

holy cow! it's late!

so i'm at it again. more estimating. this is how much time it takes... currently my entire life. i've been poking around, and i just realized that it is almost 5pm. i didn't mean to start so late today. but i did have to stop off at staples to get a memory stick. so tomorrow i won't have to lug my external hard drive to new york as well as the massive set of plans i have next to me. well see how useful the thing is. 2 gigabytes... not bad. i remember when a kilobyte was pretty good. now we've moved onto terabytes(?).

but back to the estimating. i have a lot to do. i picked out all of the sheets i have yet to look at, and there's a lot of them. the ultimate hope is that it will go by quickly. i have the entire architectural section to do. yesterday i established which wall types will ultimately get the exact same amount of materials, and decided to deal with them in these groups. that way i can count more types at once, and establish how much i need of a material much faster. we'll see if this works. wish me luck!

another one bites the dust

well... almost. currently i only have one more task to finish before i'm done with the structural estimate! hurray! finally! granted it was due a week and a half ago. i'm a bit behind. but once i finish the second floor/high roof i can move onto the architectural estimate, which is what i'm actually concerned about finishing before thanksgiving.

i'm currently in a bind about how much time i have left. i know i'll need to work on it on wednesday, but i also fly out on wednesday. do i come to campus then travel all the way home to drop off the plans and pick up my luggage to then move onto the airport, or do i bring my luggage to campus and subsequently have to take the plans to new york? i'm currently leaning towards taking the plans to new york. because i'm bringing along my laptop and my econ homework and a set of plans and some addition pens won't really add much. plus i can work longer if i don't have to spend an additional 30-45 minutes getting from campus to my apt. but i was schedule myself to the tee, later. right now i need to finish that structural estimate!

round number eight hundred ninety and...

hitting the plans again in hopes of finishing the structural estimate by tonight. and i'm just starting now. yes i know it's five thirty. i know it's late, but i put in a productive day at home cleaning so i trekked to campus later than i normally do. but i still have hopes. the lab is open until midnight, and i hope that i will take advantage of that. i wanted to do the same yesterday but the energy didn't stick with me. today i brought along lots of snacks, and i intend to eat them all before i leave. and if i stay til pretty late i've given myself permission to order a pizza. which is currently my treat of choice.

but back to the estimate. i have a hefty list of things that need to be accomplished. including: the foundation walls, a concrete topping to the air disbursement system, all of the masonry walls on the first floor, the joists for the low roof and the high roof (yes there are two roofs), the second floor's decking and concrete, the low and high roofing, the support for the chiller, and any louvers included in the building (i think there's a few). so i have a lot to accomplish in six and a half hours. woo me! let's hope i can rock it!

back in the saddle again

things are going smoothly. which i admit isn't the normal setting for my life. i worked around the ridiculousness of this week and actually accomplished something today. namely the first floor structural estimate for my final project. hurray for me!

to further explain: i'm trying to get my master's degree in construction management. i am currently in a certificate program because my school feels that i need to prove myself before seeking a master's degree. the certificate program entails taking four of the classes required for the master's degree. (in the long run i will be able to apply these classes to my master's.) two of which i'm taking this semester, economics and estimating. and they are worlds apart. one is economics and math, the other is building practices and cost methods. it is for the later class that i've been working so hard (and sometimes not so hard). we have been given a full set of construction documents and the entire specification book and the entire semester to cost the entire project. this isn't particularly hard; it's just ridiculously tedious. counting everything in every square inch of the project. crazy! but i have help. although each of us had to turn in each homework section, only one of us is actually assigned to each section. i allotted myself to the structural and architectural. apparently i am crazy to take on so much. but i have experience in architectural so i don't think that will be as complicated as the structural has turned out to be. oh and have i mentioned that i have to have it all done by thanksgiving! only 6 days away, and i've only cracked the surface. but from doing the other estimates, i've learned that it builds upon itself. once you've done one floor or one quadrant the others fall into place.

so i have hope, and interest, and enthusiasm once again. i'll keep you updated about how it goes.

craziness

sorry for the lack of posting, but my life has been thrown into complete chaos! first the bf was here to entertain me all weekend, then on monday i got a job interview!!!! hurray hurray!!! except i totally bombed the thing. tuesday because of the interview was a total loss. but on wednesday i got an email asking me to come in for the 2nd interview!!! i guess it didn't go that badly, or more accurately, he just really loves pratt students. i'm now waiting for an email telling em when i should come in for the interview. here's to me not flunking this one!!!

but so now i'm back into the swing of things, more or less. but definitely more productive than i've been for the last week.

countdown til finals has started. i really need to have everything done by thanksgiving. i've started to break my project down to smaller parts so that it isn't as daunting. but if i don't get any of it done each day, i'm practically screwed. so getting nothing done over the last three days has really set me back.

i'll post more later. things are crazy!

scholarships

why is it so hard to find money for college? it's amazing how skimpy the government can be about educating it's populace. finding many road blocks as i go. even though the government is quite willing to pay my bills (thank you, unemployment) it is unwilling to assist me with my tuition. the hardest issue i have had to deal with is my family. i come from a upper-middle class white family. the money to assist students in my bracket doesn't exist. society assumes that out parents can pay for our tuition for us, but that doesn't ensure that we get the education we want. i have had the luck of being accepted at two of the countries highest rated universities for my studies. that doesn't mean i can afford them. i barely escaped undergrad with only $75,000 in student loans, compared to the 4-year cost of $160,000. the new hurdle is graduate school. with a yearly tuition of $12,000  i won't escape without a mountain of debt on top the mountains i already i have. and most scholarships are next to impossible to qualify for, they assume you have either been to a remote country, or read a rare book, or have a strong opinion about random political ideas. also that people have enough extra time in their day to write a ten-page paper about these things. if an applicant is in school and getting high grades and possibly have a job, there is no time for things like that.

a job? what's that?

i have to say: thank god i woke up at a reasonable time today! sometime around 11.30 this morning a recruiting company called to ask about the resume i posted on monster.com. not that they have any jobs available at this time. but this means that when things do become available i will one of the people considered for the position! finally things are sort of looking up. as long as they don't crazy pre-interview me. though i guess that's what their clients pay for them to do.

that also makes me feel better about posting my resume online and checking those online job databases. i just need to get in the habit of responding to the posting. this also applies to the scholarship databases. not only do i need a job, i need money for school. i absolutely need to keep plugging away. for a week's worth of energy i've done pretty well. hurray!

success

i'm always a little jealous when i find out that people in my graduating class are doing extremely well for themselves. i always wonder what exactly i did wrong, but i usually remember how ambitious these people were during school. the other day i came across an acquaintance from school with her own business and webzine. the fact that she is still doing well, even in the shit economy, is a crazy thing. though my memories of her at school  were always of awe. she was an industrial design major and was having her projects professionally produced, so she could sell them. or at least to have an awesome prototype to show retailers. the webzine, designglut.com , is a slew of interviews of people who are leaders and/or innovators in their field. what a wealth of knowledge she has of the production side of design?!? she is also quite a designer. i remember chairs and tables from school projects that were outstanding. and looking at her current work, it isn't lacking any of that vision. my favorite piece is the candlestrip candelabra. the candles plug into the powerstrip-like base!

enthusiasm...

i'm lacking the enthusiasm to do much these days. without being at school i don't really have any urge to do any of my work. i don't want to clean; i don't want to do my hw; i especially don't want to look for a job. where do i get that from. can't buy it. can't create it. i feel like you get enthusiasm from doing something you love, and then it sort of rubs off onto things you aren't as interested in. i'm definitely not doing anything that i love right now. i like grad school. i do like what i'm learning, but the projects aren't pushing me to fully invest myself. and chores... really? who loves doing them? i like the after-effect and i like organizing, but cleaning, i'm not so thrilled about. the last thing, job hunting, that's probably my least favorite activity of the bunch. i have to search out something, anything that pays that i'm qualified to do. that is really motivating.

i've definitely been thinking about it though. i'm definitely more involved in my life when i spend a few hours on campus. i have more direction in my day. and i more willing to do chores when home. it allows me to think of something to do when i wake up. i need to get ready to go to campus. and figure out what i will do when i'm there. if only i could find a convenient way to transport my drawing set to campus the homework situation would be ok. i end up waking up, eating breakfast and showering. then getting my things together and spending a few hours working away on campus. sometimes i get there before lunch, sometimes in the afternoon, but either way it doesn't matter. i end up being more productive in the hours i spend on campus then i would at home. at home i just stare at the work i need to do. on campus i have nothing else to do. when i finally get home, again it varies from 5pm til 9 or 10pm when i'm done with class. either way i'm more interested in picking up after myself and cooking something nice for dinner (even doing the dishes) than i am when i don't go to campus. even if i get home at 10pm. and if i'm not extremely productive in the time i spend there, i'm still more productive than i am at home. so this compels me make the trip to campus as many days a week as possible.

though i am productive on campus, i need to set a regular method of working there. i need to decide how much time i will allow for job hunting, for homework, and for miscellaneous stuff. i'd like to apply for one job a day, but that hasn't been happening. and i'm scared that i will have to revise my portfolio and/or resume too many times and that it will take up too much time. currently too little of my time is spent on homework. a job is important but doing well in my classes is also. i've been spending most of my homework time at home, but that hasn't been working. also i spend a crazy amount of my time at home and at school looking around on the internet, doing random things. how much time i do not know, but it's a lot. i need to allot a certain amount of time for that, which would also include any important updates or emails that need to be sent not related to school or work.

current thoughts on scheduling: spend first minutes checking and sending emails, second period would be trolling job websites and scholarship websites, third would be school work (whatever is specified for that day), fourth would be sending out job/scholarship applications (preferably one a day), and anything else would be used to update my portfolio. so far sounds like a good plan.

but the key is getting my butt to campus almost every day. i've just got to do it!

big lump of

today i woke up early, 9am that's early in my world, and got going right away. i started my laundry. then i ate breakfast. i did something before eating breakfast! oh my god! then i partook in some news. after watching 30 minutes i decided to watch tv on my computer. i ended up giving up my plan of completing my estimating homework, and decided to catch up on my tv. boo! but oh well, too late now. i've watched a week's worth of tv today. i have refrained from being more than a week behind. now for dinner and some real productivity. i did finish my laundry (almost), i just need to fold and put away. so that, dinner, and some homework (either estimating or economics, i don't have much of a choice).

good luck to me.

my real goal is to wake up early tomorrow as well and maybe get some exercise in. woo yoga! though that depends on the roomie waking up and leaving by an early hour.

extraordinary machine

happy november!

if there was a better way to go then it would find me
i can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me
be kind to me, or treat me mean
i'll make the most of it, i'm an extraordinary machine
-fiona apple

been stuck in my head for days. enjoy!