We kicked ass on Friday. Fragile was a huge success at our presentation to the Pratt faculty. We dressed down for the presentation to make it look like we were in the midst of moving (that was the point of the book, after all), and I threw in a little editorial commentary by wearing a t-shirt that read “I HATE DOING THIS SHIT.” I don’t know how many of the faculty realized how much editorializing I was actually doing, but I suspect hat the chairman of the department got the point.
So I end my second illustrious attempt at graduate school with a similar record as the first — A solid “A” to match every incomplete. Except I’m letting those incompletes turn into failures at Pratt, because I don’t think I’ll be needing a transcript again. And if I do, I’m willing to explain why I aced upper-level courses and failed basic requirements.
I ran into Mel Byars, the professor for my “History of Communication Design” course, who was wondering why I stopped going to class after Thanksgiving, missing the second paper and the final class presentation. I explained my desire to devote what little time I had to my studio class, and he told me that my first paper (on Piet Zwart) was the best in the class, and that he wanted me to submit it to the Pratt library, which inexplicably had no reference material on Zwart. so he thanked me for being a pleasure in class, and urged me to send the paper in to the Pratt librarian. Pretty good for a failure, I guess.
The only real disappointment of the day was that I realized that this one really handsome guy I’d been seeing around the Puck Building was one of the CommD faculty, and I never got to talk to him, even though I think he’s been checking me out. Maybe he was just smiling at the t-shirt, though. Oh well, another day, another lost opportunity.