accomplishment

School ended the week before Christmas for a break but many of us stayed to work work work. For me, it was challenging and ultimately rewarding. Enough people were around to help each other (okay, there isn't much I can help others with outside of being the required other in the building for using the machines) and a sense of ganging together was all apparent; our own li'l family, when most of the rest of the world was familying up. I got a list of what to do from Tim and Austin before they left and daunting as it seemed, to just march through it without having them to check my steps every inch of the way was weirdly good for me. I got downright brave, bold even. Made outrageous decisions. And, pretty much did a fine job. Not everything is right, but now I know for the next time. The idea that they won't actually be accessible forever and that I may be able to still make something is slightly more thinkable.

I did finally go home and in the 4 days cooked food, decorated tree, tended to poor Xmas day 24hr-stomach-bugged daughter and then got in the car and drove back. A big storm was nipping at my heels, but I made it before it hit big time.

We had only 4 more days to finish our 2nd project. 4 more days with Austin before he was not just leaving but moving out of state, far far away. 4 more days meant 4 days of such intense hunkering down on our work that it was... quiet, no chatting. Thursday late afternoon, Tim and Austin were so exhausted from our super intense drawing off of them they looked like bloodless vampire victims. Monday we start learning about bending and veneering. We start our last project which isn't to be strictly rectilinear. It is to have curves. The goddess emerges. The days are getting longer. A new year has been born. Oh, where was I...? Yes, we'll see what happens when a room full of linear thinking dudes is faced with unpredictable, soft, rounding shapes. Hee-hee.

Here is Austin on his last day, chewing on a stick I peeled for a possible pull for my cabinet. It was his last day...