[flickr id=”6505137207″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”]

It’s a true testimony to your absolute insanity when you schedule a pin-up photo shoot with your girlfriend from work for the day before your last day of classes.

Actually, I didn’t really have much say in the scheduling now that I think about it. She just told me it would be a Monday, and since Monday is my day off I said, “No prob.”

If future me could only give the past me a whack upside the head.

But at this point, past me still doesn’t have a clue. I still don’t have a clue the day of the shoot. I think, “I’ll wake up really early and get everything done before the shoot at 1pm.”

Amazing the lies your brain can tell to itself.

The morning of the shoot, I start making phone calls for my final project, a profile of a humanitarian photographer who has cancer but still continues to travel and work. The good news is that people actually call me back…

In the middle of the photo shoot.

[flickr id=”6505137431″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”]

We’re talking bra, panties, feather boa and me, balancing a notebook and a recorder.

Not exactly a high point for this writer, but then again, when life gives you lemons, throw some cute panties on those lemons and shake ’em.

Anyway, it’s not over yet. Directly after the photo shoot, I make a break for the Blue Line to go meet up with a photographer who is letting me interview him for the 2 minute video part of this final project.

This happens often in both grad school and life. You envision a project going one way, and then something unforeseen happens and you dive into survival mode.

I was planning to do a short video interview with the humanitarian photographer I interviewed for my story. I was going to ask him to explain shooting technique while in a foreign country.

We had talked for over an hour, I had taken photographs of him and his work, and then I pitched my video idea and he said he had a very specific technique that he did not want to share with the public.

Hard to see that one coming.

[flickr id=”6505137635″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”]

But the point is–you will get it done. My good friend from class and I have a mantra: “It will get done.” That sums up the greatest lesson I’ve learned through my time here at Columbia. Even in your darkest moments, don’t succumb to the fear of feeling overwhelmed. Rise up and challenge it. You will get it done and most likely, you will get it done well.

And my work? It did get done. All of it.

And it got done well.

[flickr id=”6505137845″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”medium” group=”” align=”none”]

http://vimeo.com/33597468

(This is this writer’s final post for Marginalia. But please join me at my other blog site: International Thoughts From Chloe Ann. Would love your company.)