The last day of this semester...

Well, here I am, 3:50am. I went to bed at 11pm last night and got up at 2:30. I am working on final projects for my portfolio class. Prior to beginning the graphic design program, I had never been this stressed out and this productive at the same time. I've never done good in school before I started graphic design. I've never learned more about any other subject.

I've learned so much over the past couple of years. Its always at the end of the semesters or near the end of a deadline that I have to start catching up at a rather quick pace as a result of my semester long procrastination. I always get trapped at home, working through the night, several nights in a row. The clock keeps running all through the night and the days just run together. Its not good to work like this. Sometimes it is just an inevitable part of deadlines but in my case, I think a lot of the time its mostly preventable if I choose and work hard to keep up through the semester. I feel unhealthy--body and mind, when I have weekends where I am forced to work continuously and work through nights and separate myself from my surroundings as well as the rest of the world. It cramps my whole routine and being so Type A as I am, it messes up my whole week. This was always the case with the Newspaper at school. I'd spend all weekend working continuously on a layout and it would screw up my schedule for the rest of the week then I'd have one week where it was normal and I had to focus intensely on my classes and get back on an okay sleep schedule but then the following week I would get messed up again. Another element to this dysfuntional schedule is that I tend to accept and take on more than I can handle...on a daily basis...in my education, and in my professional and personal life. This increases daily stress but in my defense, I like to be busy. I seek it out and crave the chaos. I actually enjoy working. I am a hard worker and when I am doing work that comes naturally for me...such as graphic design, its almost a recipe for a fine line between high quality efficient productivity and an overstressed disaster. I tend to teeter and walk this fine line regularly. I would say most of the time the teetering is beneficial for me because I learn a lot when I am more involved but there are times when I get too far behind and its no longer beneficial or healthy. I need to keep myself in check more. While continuing to challange myself, I need to work harder at finding a better balance between my school, professional, and personal lives.

Still, I feel resilient. I feel happy to know I can hold my own and pump out a design I know is quality work under a tight deadline. I take pride in all my work. I usually put my everything into every design or layout. I pay attention to every detail and am a perfectionist...these both are probably to additional major contributors to my seemingly endless weekends, probably more than I would normally admit.

Anyway, even today at 4am, in the middle of the stressfull end of another semester, I still feel healthier doing and learning about graphic design than I have in my whole life. Its my thing. It feels good...great, to be knowledgeable about a particular field. It feels good to be hopeful about a future with it. It feels good to be doing what makes me happy.

I was meant to do this.