I failed my portfolio review and I don’t have the slightest idea why — as soon as I got the email I started crying in surprise/shock/disbelief. If my work wasn’t good enough, I should have felt that and expected this outcome, right? If I suck so much, why do I have a job as a design assistant and why do people want me to freelance for them? I got an A in every one of the 3 classes (computer graphics, typography, and methodology) and no one had ever told me that I needed to “step it up” or “work a little harder.” I followed the directions for the review: included every graphic made in those classes (printed them all out, cropped them, and placed them in the nice portfolio case my grandpa gave me for Christmas) and turned it in the week before spring break. Yeah a couple weren’t examples of my best work, but what graphics student is proud of everything they’ve done? I emailed Dawn (the person in charge of the whole thing who told me not to worry because most people pass) about what happened in hopes of finding out what I did wrong. The rejection email has turned my ordinary Monday into a pitfall of tears and fears and confusion, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, not passing means the following:

• I’ll no longer be able to graduate in 4 years
• my dad will have to pay a hell of a lot more money
• with 2 required classes left, I’ll only be a part-time student in the fall
• I’ll have to take the review again next semester, and if I don’t make it, that’s it: I can’t get a design degree

So yeah, I’ve been upset for a good couple hours. I’ve calmed down a little, but only because I have yet to hear back from Dawn … I keep wishing the portfolio judges made a mistake or the rejection email got sent by accident or they lost my portfolio … I don’t care what she says as long as the above doesn’t come true because, frankly, I deserve it. If all the work and hours and stress and money spent to pursue and succeed in design has been in vain, I don’t know what I’m gonna do … I don’t even want to think about it …

I just took my online midterm for Foundations after studying on and off for 3 hours, and I aced it! Granted, it was open book/open note (probably ’cause there was a time limit, no pause button, and no backtracking), but still, making a 100 is really good for me since I suck at tests. At first I was confused when it told me I got something like 40 out of 11 questions right, but then I went through the results and there were green check marks next to every question and the “View Grades” part of Blackboard assured me that I got 40 out of 40 questions right and that 11 was how many points the midterm was worth, so yay I’m so glad the blown circuit (our space heaters and circuit locations and overload amounts are weird) didn’t affect/void anything.

Spring break will officially be here once I get through work tomorrow, yet I’m not going anywhere except home for the weekend. I have lots of things to do for ceramics and 3D and a foundations midterm to take (not to mention catching up on my reading), and since I’m not taking any extra hours for real work next week, I’ll allegedly have all the time in the world to get myself academically organized. We’ll see what really happens lol.

With my GRPH 250 portfolio due tomorrow, I finally got around to fixing and uploading my final typography project. Check it out! The 4 new files are brightly colored and hard to miss.

Me and funny Jezabelle:

Google now has a free, no-HTML-knowledge-required Page Creator. You get http://yourgmailusername.googlepages.com and sign in using your Gmail account. Due to high demand, however, a waiting list has been created for everyone (not just those without Google accounts). Anyone get in early and make a page?

I went to get a drink before Geology today so I wouldn’t pass out in class, and discovered a new addition to the vending machine: Vault by Coca-Cola, claiming to “drink like a soda, kick like an energy drink” (which, of course, was sold out). I got a bottle at Wal-Mart later, and found it tastes like a mix of Sprite and Mountain Dew, despite the whole Surge thing that I never got into. But yay for the “kick” factor, which I’ll definitely be partaking of more :

… Vault contains 47 mg of caffeine per 8 oz. serving, thus, 70.5 mg per 12 oz. can. This amount is substantially higher than Surge’s 52.5 mg per 12 oz. or Mountain Dew’s 55 mg per 12 oz.

Well, that was a sucky experience. Just got back from my assessment test and, like all the other tests I’ve taken in that lab, was the last one to finish. Now in addition to the headache I have from staring at the computer for 2 1/2 hours answering hundreds of stupid questions on stupid subjects like “how do you interact with people?” and “let’s see how much you know about theater,” I also feel really dumb. Yeah I major in art, but the people who put these tests together clearly assume everyone is an English, math, or science major. There were 7 tests in all ranging from 5 – 60 minutes in length, and I couldn’t even complete the 60-minute one with 100+ questions *sigh* At least the nice old proctor guy (who’s been there for years and witnessed me being the last to finish before) said that I won his “perseverance award” and gave me a bag of candy for Valentine’s Day. Speaking of which, I got a package from Brian today from ThinkGeek and he’s nowhere to be found (he drilled it into my skull to call him while I open it lol). I had an idea of what it is, but can’t be too sure

Blah, why is more and more spam getting through Akismet?

Note to self: never try to print a 100+ page document in “best” quality when you only have a couple hours to do it. I’m barely halfway through now, it’s been printing since like 6, and if I stay I’m gonna be here ’til 10 *sigh* Good thing I can sleep in tomorrow. Oh yeah, and I have a lot of stupid ceramics to do by Wednesday, and I don’t feel like getting my hands scraped up on the wheel again

We got about 6 inches of snow in both Fairfax and Harrisonburg last night, and while everything was closed in Fairfax, Harrisonburg went on with life like nothing was wrong. WTF. A 4-day weekend would’ve been nice.

I’m 2 frickin’ credits away from being exempt from Assessment Day, which conveniently happens to be on Valentine’s Day (at least classes are canceled). I’m annoyed ’cause I’ve heard of students who took just the right about of credits to bypass it, but I guess I didn’t do it quite right (not that I was trying to) … it’s just that 3 hours of a test on something with no relevance whatsoever to anything important kinda sucks. On the bright side, I’m not in the morning section.