Bugger!

Well, I've worked my arse off all day today, hoping to make up for the absolutely pathetic amount of work I've otherwise accomplished this week. I finished one greyscale painting this afternoon, and got most of a second done as well, from sketch to finishing touches. All I've got to do is finish fleshing out the figures, and that one will be out of the way as well.

Unfortunately, it looks like all the hard work I've put in at school this term will have been in vain. I had a presentation this morning for one of my classes--the sort of presentation where you prove you've actually been working all year--and I missed it. I couldn't possibly have gone. I've hardly moved in the last two days. Yesterday, I didn't even draw, not a stroke. I can't reschedule the presentation, either. I was signed up for the last possible day. All I can do now is hope the teacher will let me do something else, instead--extra credit, sort of thing. (Given the disposition of that teacher, that's seems quite unlikely, alas.) Perhaps there's some way I can finish up the classes I fail in Sweden. Correspondence, perhaps. I'm almost certainly failing at least one class, at this point. Bloody brilliant. I've worked all day, every day for the last six months--yes, I even took summer school--so I could be in Sweden for Christmas. And for what? Absolutely fuck all.

My mother'll have my head when I don't get a degree and go to Sweden anyway. She'll rant and rave, and tell me what a disappointment I am to my father. But there's absolutely no point in staying for another term. I'm not getting any better. Indeed, this damp climate is having the opposite effect. My health is getting worse by the day. I'll never be able to get to school every time I'm supposed to be there, and that's the only way to pass these senior studio classes.

Ah, there's got to be something I can do! All this work can't have been for nothing! The Bad Rats Project alone took weeks, not to mention the projects I've done for my other three studio classes. I've got a group critique to attend today (again, on pain of failing the class) and I'm not even sure I can get all the way downstairs.

All I have to say is:

BUGGER!

I'll just have to find some way of finishing my degree from Sweden. Maybe I can transfer my credit from Emily Carr to...to whatever damn art school they have in the north of Sweden, or badger the dean's office till they let me either have the credits I've slaved over, or retake the classes via correspondence. Whatever happens, I'm leaving, as planned, before New Year's. I'm not going to wait here any longer, trying to do the impossible. It was stupid to stay even this long. I mean, I want a degree, but not nearly as badly as my mother wants one for me. I've stayed here for her. That has to end. The degree can wait; my health cannot. (What am I going to do with it, anyway? I draw for a living. Nobody ever even asks to see my resume. I could have quit school in second grade, for all anyone knows.)

Ha--I should tell Mother I finished all my classes just fine, no matter what happens. And then, in the spring, when she wants to come to my graduation, I'll just tell her I can't come back to Canada. I'll tell her I have to work and can't get away. She'll be happy, believing I have that degree, and eventually I really will. She'll never be any the wiser.

My mother won't face the fact that I'd have great difficulty getting any job that would require a degree, even if I wanted one. As things stand, I couldn't even take a job that required my leaving the house. I make enough money without having an office job, and people are willing to pay me more all the time. I've got work lined up well into next year. This should work out all right.

I ought to say, by the way, that I've got nothing against my mother. She gets a bit up my nose with the nagging about my degree, but she's got the best of intentions. She should realize that I'll always have my existing credits from Emily Carr, and I can finish my degree any time I want, in any country I want. There would be no point in staying here, now, and dying in the attempt. Then I wouldn't get any letters after my name, and I'd be dead.

On a more positive note, I was hired to illustrate another book cover, today. That'll be nice. I could use the cash.

And, on that happy note, I'd best get some sleep. I'm still hoping to get to that critique in the morning.