Second Year = Final Year

Next week my summer employment ends and my short vacation begins. I will spend two lovely (hoepfully lovely anyway) weeks on the East Coast at home with my fiance, my mother, my friends, and will be meeting my honorary nephew for the first time. I hope to get to NYC for some fun and hopefully a show, and then two short weeks later, I fly back to California for a very brief week of prep and then the beginning of the SECOND YEAR OF GRAD SCHOOL. And for this MFA student, the FINAL YEAR.

I am very excited about the upcoming year. I have so much to do and three ten-week quarters to do it in. And at the end, a Master's Degree (I think that Masters' should be like Doctors - you should get the title added to your name). This is almost a terrifying prospect - the work, not the degree. I will be designing three practical's (actual shows) - one per quarter - working on my thesis project (a very large paper project - a complete design for The Threepenny Opera), and completing the rest of the coursework (includes at least two paper projects per quarter). It may not sound like much to some of you, but its a lot - for instance one regular paper project means 12-15 completed costume renderings, plus fabric swatches, plus research, plus a concept statement to tie them all together. And my thesis - its the same only for every costume int he whole show, plus a larger quantity of research and a much longer more in depth concept statement. And each show I work on will require the same.

I had intended this blog to follow me as I navigate grad school, though obviously if I am going into my second year and this is pretty much the first mention of actually being at grad school, I haven't done a very good job. I wonder if I can manage to actually keep up with it this year?

Don't get your hopes up...