Nearly there..

In less than 48 hours we will be done! I have been writing an extra part to my essay, and now have too many words, so I am working out which parts to cut out right now! It feels kind of surreal that this is all about to come to an end!!

Just realised I never copy and pasted the bits I wrote when I couldn't get in.....

Monday 4th December - Today was spent designing the book, and making the 2 ways of presenting the book so I can decide - one is with subject headings, one is each child having a double page of their own photos.
Tuesday 5th December - Today I met with Yang. He talked to me about the portraits, he feels that they should be proper studio portraits.....aaaargh, what a nightmare. There is no way I have time - and the families would not agree anyway most probably. I thought a lot about this, but then also decided that while it is a good idea to do in the future, I actually don't feel that it is an appropriate style for my book right now.
Wednesday 6th December - Again I did some book design, and had a quick flick through all the photos in case I had missed a key image!
Thursday 7th December - More design, and I checked the text today, and the references for it.
Friday 8th December - I finally finished the 2 designs. It had been a suggestion of Barbara's that I do a version with the kids pics all together, but I am favouring the one in sections........
Saturday 9th December - I met with Dave today. He is not sure that the portraits are good enough and suggested that maybe I needed to finish in April....I was devastated. I had never planned to have the portrait section, especially one done by me. It felt like the whole thing would fall apart just because of 2 pages in my book. I spent the afternoon running round the kids and taking more portraits.............I had to use Hou Rui to translate today as Wang Meng was home.....panic definitely set in today. I went to Christine's later on and she helped me look at the portraits before I redesigned the pages they were on and sent them to Dave. By then I felt much better and it seemed like I could still finish.....
Sunday 10th December - I put the finishing touches to the book and started to do a print of a dummy copy. Dave said the new portraits were looking better, hooray. The print looked good......

Finishing off

Just tying up loose ends with my essay and stuff today - I have been organising the photos and stuff to add into the essay, and am about to write a bit more........It is feeling good that the end is near!!!!!! Finally!!!!

Class reunion in the printing shop!

Today I got a call from Wacro saying that he had found a printing place like the one he found in Beijing. I went there after class, and Zhou Wen and Wacro had books for me to look at. When I arrived, Guoqiang and Mickey were there but they left soon after. Me, Wacro, Zhou Wen and then Wuyi and his girlfriend spent the afternoon and evening in there, looking at the whole process happen and reflecting on the course. It seems both like so long but yet so short at the same time. It was fun to look at other people's books - I remember at the start it felt like we would never reach this bit - and here we are! We all went for dumplings whilst Zhou Wen and Wuyi had more books printed. I had 5 done altogether and felt they were much more professional than the other place. Hooray.

My first book is printed!!!

Well, yesterday was very exciting! Me and Purple went to get our first copy of our books printed hooray! It was soooo cool to see it! It was a long process though, choosing the paper, binding, checking etc. What a nightmare! Only minor adjustments were needed, and we went back today to order more copies. I needed the colours adjusted slightly, and Purple had to make some changes to her text and the front cover. So far so good. So now, it's just preparing for the oral bit and finishing the essay.
Hooray!

Still very busy

Got an email from Dave the day before yesterday telling us that the introduction for the book should be 1000 words.....aaaaargghhhhh mine is too short. So, I was up late that night finishing it, but lots of other stuff was going on to. I managed it though and have already got it back from Graham. Will read it later.
I have looked at the portraits, I am not sure what to do and I will show them to people later.....I am scared at the moment about time......The portrait shoot was very interesting! One family invited me for tea (I had never been to their house)and another (the girl who was VERY shy) had made dumplings, and the 6 of us (she lives with her grandmother too) had lunch around a tiny table, it was very cool.
Anyway its early morning so gotta get ready for work......

Busy times.....

The last few days have been spent tying up loose ends. The tutorials were great but also very tiring and we were given 4 peoples very different opinions about how to make our books. I have listened to the advice, but the essay started to take priority over the book this week. The essay is now, as of this evening, 100 words from completion and I as yet have no conclusion, I am waiting to finish my project for that!
So I have just sent it to Dave. I am not that happy with it but due to the time I think I have done my best.
Today Renbo and Niuniu had their final lesson. It was ok but hard work for me as I had to edit their stuff and make a powerpoint presentation from it in just under an hour – including the music too! They both played the piano and it was great.
Then, we had the slideshow – it appeared to go well but there was not much interaction between the kids, and families except the ones who already knew each other. Oh well, I am getting used to this kind of cultural difference.
Tomorrow I am off taking portraits (I have borrowed a light from Christine) and hopefully then I can start again with the book design lol! I have printed (yes I finally cracked and bought a printer) some pages and I am happy so far.

Editing and slideshows.....

Yesterday I had a tutorial with James which was OK, its definitely a challenge everyone giving us their own take on how we should do our book........He talked about the importance of starting with strong photos maybe then describing the process....And suggests I take the portraits for the start of the book.
Then I went to see two kids to choose their photos for the slideshow - of course then we find out neither of them can come (I asked my translator to check BEFORE I booked the room....very frustrating). However the parents can come so what we will do is then go over to their house early Sunday to show the kids in their house. The afternoon was spent learning how to make dumplings and meeting some of the parents I have seen many pictures of but never actually met! It was great talking to them finally, both sets of parents have spent time in Europe and are pretty open minded so it was nice to talk. I was not very good at making dumplings though! The fathers both joined in the dumpling making process, it was definitely a family affair! Then we had a big meal......