Today in relative workflows Pete brought up the “what if” question. What if it all goes to shit? how’s it going to happen? So I thought I would answer a few of those right now.Â
Starting with what’s already happened this semester:Â
A loved one has fallen ill and been admitted to the hospital
2 weeks before the holidays my partner was admitted to the hospital with crippling stomach pain. I’ve written a separate post about this so I won’t go on about it now.Â
My living arrangements quickly change causing me to need to move house
Half way into the first week of the holidays my girlfriend was discharged from the hospital. It was a great relief. She still needed care but not such intensive care, and it could be done from home allowing me to work. So I plotted out a week long catch up session over the second week of the holidays. Sunday night before the second week I was told that I should move houses asap as the building I was in was leaky and would soon need renovation. The next day me and my partner had a house lined up, her grandmothers now unoccupied house. An over-run, near unlivable house filled to the brim with furniture, possessions and dust. The garden overcome with weeds. We set out to work, buckets filled and refilled with bleach until surfaces sparkled, old furniture moved out and ours moved in, cupboards full of rotting food emptied and refilled. By midway the second week we had reclaimed a bathroom, bedroom and kitchen. However we had just been piling boxes of unsorted things into the lounge. So we set out to sort them. By the end of the second week of the holidays we had a reclaimed the lounge.Â
I didn’t really deal with this. I did sketches and jotted notes in my spare time however my days consisted of waking up at about 10am and moving heavy objects around untill 2 - 4AM the next day. I still have a few weeks to catch up with studio. If this were to happen closer to final hand in I would most likely need to apply for special consideration.Â
I am without a personal internet connectionÂ
This was more difficult than I thought it would be. Through all the moving we were trying to get an internet connection set up. Firstly they needed to wire the fibre to our house, which they needed a cherry picker for, which was being used to build things. So a week later we applied for a temporary connection which apparently would take another week and alot more money. We went through with it. After a while we finally we got the email that the internet had been connected. It was not that easy. Hours of being on tech support before they decide a technician is needed. A few days pass and a technician gets to our place to test the house. They test all the ports, no connection. Apparently they had been given the wrong port to connect us. Long story short, almost three weeks of back and forth and finally we have a connection far worse than the one we’re paying for.Â
To deal with this, once we had cleared out a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, every night at about 10 we would drive to the carpark outside the library and use their internet. They only required an unchecked email for 1gb of data. This worked somewhat, and we both managed to get a little work done before it got too late.Â
I have fallen ill and been admitted to the hospital
The day before university started I felt a dull pain inside my jaw. I ignored it and went to bed. That morning my jaw could only open to about half it’s usual amount and there was a constant stabbing pain in my through and neck. I hoped it would settle down by the next day. But it got worse, after a sleepless night my jaw had almost locked shut. Again I waited to see what it would to the next day. Another night without sleep I decided enough was enough. By this point my jaw had locked shut so I headed to the hospital to see what they could do. They gave me painkillers, antibiotics and high strength medical grade mouth wash which I was to inject into the back of my jaw every night. Wednesday the next week as I’m writing this, my jaw has almost returned to its full capacity.Â
Again, I didn’t really deal with this. I tried to work where I could but the pain killers made it difficult to concentrate. I applied for special consideration in my electives. However I didn’t for my studio project because there is plenty of time to get it done satisfactorily.
Now for other worst case scenarios:Â
I would apply for special consideration and either get compassionate consideration or re-submit my exhibition the next year.Â
Apparently if the establishment is somehow demolished by something like a fire, all current students immediately pass with a degree, so not really the worst case scenario. However even if not the case, majority of my work is conducted from home, so a building fire would not set me back a great deal.Â
I have 2 physical copies and a cloud copy of all important files. It would be an extremely rare scenario for all of these to simultaneously fail. In the event of this happening, I would have to simply roll with the punches. Save what I could and make use of what’s left. For me this wouldn’t be too difficult. I’m creating a concept design so the final outcome will be extremely malleable. I could do a large design sketch and display this. I could create a physical cardboard replica and then use a projector to overlay an image of the features. There are many ways my project could be displayed and so file loss is not a large issue.Â
The paper would be delayed by however long the outage was. If all students are unable to work, and all staff are equally unable to work then there wouldn’t be any expectation to get work done. If for some reason there was, I would revert to pen and paper design.Â
If the government for some reason decides to get involved in war and requires by law that all the healthy men are conscripted well then I suppose the paper doesn’t matter. By the time my service finished I would either be dead or the world would have changed so much, I doubt BCT would still be here. No solution.Â
I have a fair amount of equipment to use. A laptop, my partners laptop and my desktop. If all of these were to fail I would use AUT’s equipment. If there were to all fail, I would apply for course related costs and buy a new laptop. If this were to fail I would give up and revert to pen and paper. If all my pens ran out of ink I would buy more. If there was a pen shortage I would use pencil. If there was some extreme disaster that caused all the pencil leads to crack I would use charcoal. If all the charcoal and paper burned in a freak “paper+charcoal” spontaneous combustion accident then I would use my body to act out the experience of my final outcome.Â
If the utilities failed, such as internet, I would use someone else’s.Â
Basically: Can I work around it?Â
no - Special considerationÂ