Finals? What Finals?

Next week marks the beginning of finals, and I really have no desire to start studying! As you probably have noticed, I have done a fantastically horrible job updating this. :( I'm hoping to use this as a good break between studying during the next few days.

I am currently sitting in my room listening to Christmas music, enjoying our 3 ft Christmas tree, and listening to our yule log DVD crackle. But before I get into all of that, below is my floral design final. We were told that we would be tested on 1 of 5 different floral arrangement designs: Symmetrical, Asymetrical, Centerpiece, Contemporary, and Round. I spent a week studying the rules and intracacies of each. I was able to draw out the different planes and discuss placement on all of them... except the contemporary design. For some reason I was just not grasping it. Part of the problem may have come in when the contemporary design we did in class was in a vase, and our final was in a bowl!

I know right? Complain, complain. I understand that was the point of the final - to challenge us and to encourage us to use what we've learned in the final. Either way, the arrangements were split among the class. Our professor had put the designs in a hat and we had to choose our fate, if you will.

When my professor got to me, I was closing my eyes, crossing my fingers, and chanting "not contemporary, not contemporary...." as I reached my hand into the hat. Guess what I picked?

A centerpiece!!!

Haha yeah right. What would be the point of all that set up if I picked something I could actually make?! Of course I picked contemporary out of the hat. As I read the word, my heart sank! My professor leaned over to me and said, "good luck!" Oh comforting!

Well, here it is. Sort of... I transported it home for break and the Oasis foam split. I ended up having to completely reconstruct it. But this is what I was graded on:

So I was given the 5 Birds of Paradise, the 2 Ti leaves, and the 3 Curly Willows... the rest was up to us to figure out. This was especially hard for me because I used Orchids for the in-class contemporary unit. (Here) There were 4 of us who were "lucky" enough to have selected this style. The 2 boys in our group just shoved flowers and leaves in all willy-nilly and were done in like 5 minutes. The girl next to me would not stop talking to me about random fun facts about her life. Meanwhile, I'm like SWEATING and freaking out about how I'm going to do this.

I probably took the whole time to do this piece, then I had to wait for the professor to come over and grade. It was sort of funny, I couldn't stop fidgeting with it. When she finally came over, I got a few compliments like, "You have a very relaxed eye. I have not seen Birds of Paradise used this tall successfully before." and "I enjoy the color you chose for your focal point, its a great compliment." However, I did receive the comment, "You arrangment is not incredibly sturdy." Hmm what to know why? I couldn't stop fidgeting!!! Dangit!

While I was bummed about that, I received an 87%. Ok, that bummed me out, too. My professor could tell, though. She whispered to me, "You got the highest grade out of the group - be proud of that."

I am! At least I know that I need to study this style a lot more before attempting to do something like it again!