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I Can’t Handle It Anymore

I Can’t Handle It Anymore

I am not doing well again, and this is my best effort to put it all to words. I have been struggling with school assignments, I am feeling depressed again, and feel a lot of chronic pain. The saddening began after finishing my big watch project. I was yet to present my watch design to the company board, and tried to prepare the best I could. I could barely keep myself without shaking and crying and when it was time to present I could not properly follow my planned outline. I couldn’t stop stuttering and looking at the floor. I was stopped and called out by my low volume by the CEO, something I was warned would happen. At some point we crossed gazes and he immediately scoffed loudly, looking away and shaking his head. I couldn’t look at the rest of the room, but I knew I was letting people down. Other classmates had amazing designs too, yet somehow I was picked. After it was done, I felt relieved, but also overwhelmed by the many assignments I had neglected from focusing too much on one subject. Honestly, I barely tried getting those assignments done in the end, I was so exhausted and uninspired that I couldn’t do it. I decided to take the L and fail two classes… During winter break I attended a wedding, and decided to wear eye makeup, which I hadn’t in months. The mascara was quite old by that point, and I don’t know if it was contaminated, or maybe I crimped my eyelashes with a bit of the eyelid, but I began developing a large lump on my eyelid. Everything is blurry out of that eye; reading what’s on my phone is impossible until I hold it 10 cm away from my face. This makes sketching really difficult. It’s been there since, and my vision has not improved. Returning to school, I was surprised the two classes had not been failed yet, they were marked incomplete, and one of them I must complete in order to be registered for a new class this semester. I spent most of January working on those assignments, the interior design of a car. During this time however, I should have been working on my new classes, designing an impact wrench, as well as the exterior of the previously mentioned car, in addition to other assignments for general requirement classes. When I was done with the car interior, I moved on to the impact wrench. But I was not feeling inspired to draw anything. I was having some ideas on how to move buttons around, and how to improve user experience with the whole air compressor system, but in terms of how to make the tool look “good”, I was drawing a blank. This terrifies me, I’m supposed to be a designer. I can think of solutions to user problems, but thinking about how a modern power tool should look, it would simply not happen. Days went by without any ideas until presentation day. With nothing, I didn’t present, but I kept working on it. There’s some ideas emerging, but when I try sketching them, I just can’t seem to do it well enough. I’m also supposed to have superb sketching skills, but right now I just can’t. Assignments are piling up again, with the next impact wrench presentation coming next week, as well as physical models, a poster, and multiple speeches. I also need to finish my portfolio, one of those two classes I neglected. I have several projects I can show, but I feel like they all need improvement, there’s just no time, and with everything else going on, I feel too discouraged to work on that. I need to though. I need an internship and they are all hiring right now. I feel so scared about a job, I’ve honestly never done anything like that before, and when I can’t even greet people without feeling extremely anxious, or give a very important presentation, or walk around in public without feeling paranoid, how can I think about being in an interview. The job outlook for industrial design is also terrible. I can’t stop hearing from other classmates and professionals online that they just can’t find a job, or even interviews. Frankly, it’s making me scared about the future, I wonder if I’ll be safe and have access to healthcare. The instruction at school is not what it once was. With the program shut down, teachers are leaving since they have no one else to teach. We are left with the program director, who always pushes us to do our best, but sometimes leaves things to be desired. He has been understanding though, and has allowed me extra time to complete the missing assignments. He can be very vague when talking to me, while he spends a lot of time talking to other students. At some point he was looking at images of futuristic car designs and was amazed by some, which were AI, while a real sketch made him say “this one is not quite there.” At least one classmate used AI for the previous air wrench class, and while the idea is interesting, a wearable harness containing the hose for the tool, the images generated, delivered as final design, are just stupid. It could not be manufactured, it has pointless lines and cables; I can’t imagine how it was allowed. And so, should I just write whatever and use a generated image to just get the assignment over with? Well, of course fucking not, but, the barrier I’m hitting right now, the look of the tool, not the ergonomics, or user interaction elements, just the aesthetic part; that is something that a single prompt can solve, and then what am I good for? It is not right to think this way, but I can’t help it. All the garbage being produced with generative AI, all the aggressive marketing and implementation, lots and lots of money put into hardware for data centers, price hikes for consumers, information poisoning, intellectual property scrapping, all for what? This is only destroying our minds, the environment, the economy. I am sick of this obsession with an unregulated technology that keeps messing with how we live. Trans rights keep being eradicated in many places. It is genuinely dangerous, even illegal, to exist as a trans person in some parts of the US. I may follow bills and laws too closely, perhaps not the best for my mental health, but I want to make sure that I can keep me and others safe. I have started crying randomly again, and flashes of self harm flood my mind constantly. I don’t want to lose hope. This post is all over the place, but I’m beginning to feel like breaking again, and instead of sleeping, I tried to finally pen down some reasons why. I wish I didn’t feel this way.

Feeling Better

Feeling Better

School is finally over again! This semester has been very interesting. I remember struggling a lot at the beginning. I remember going for days without doing homework, and those horrible suicidal thoughts just made everything worse. As the semester progressed and I began work on my keyboard, I got increasingly absorbed into my work. I began feeling better and worked like crazy on concepts, Solidworks models, and renders. I enjoyed it so much. For my Adobe class, I designed a security camera, which I made into a little monitor, like a baby monitor, but for adults. It is colored a vintage blue and yellow. It has a little cute antenna and a push-to-talk button. Doing the Solidworks model was interesting. I really like blobjects and rounded forms. The camera is a little rectangle, but every face should have curvature. It just looks great. Just yesterday, I was looking at my Apple USB-C cable and comparing it to a very similar one that came with a MagSafe base. The Apple cable is completely continuous, even though the plug looks like an extruded slot. The expected planar horizontal faces are actually curved. That makes for a great look with smooth and continuous reflections and highlights. In contrast, the other cable is just a slot, two arcs connected by two horizontal lines. If you put it up to the light, you can see the reflections break where the arcs end and the lines begin. I thought that was very interesting. I’ll remember to use that in my designs. Anyway, I’m now realizing I didn’t use any Adobe software for this one, lol. Another project was to design our own watch since next semester we’re going to work with an actual watch company. I have my own brand already, my own logo, so that was easy. I made a minimalistic design, which is my jam. Everyone posted their moodboards and sketches on a collaborative board, and it was interesting seeing everyone’s different styles. Some preferred very involved designs, others went for fancy. I think I was the only one who picked other minimalist watches for inspiration, like Mondaine; ever since I went to Switzerland, I’ve been obsessed with the SBB clock and its signature movement. The design restriction was that the watch needed three complications: 24-hour, day, and date. Many just ignored the requirement, but I didn’t and got full marks! There was one class where I was falling behind, History of Product Design. Every week I was supposed to read the assigned readings and write a summary, find a quote, and find an object related to the reading. Since I was struggling so much at the beginning, I didn’t do many of the first readings; the habit stuck, and I didn’t do any work for the semester. At least I wasn’t the only one, and the professor was kind enough to open all the assignments until the end of the semester. Once I was done with the keyboard, I quickly submitted all the readings. I was not able to attend Hillel events for most of the semester because all events happened during my classes, although there were some that I could have attended, but I decided not to. Eventually, I went to the screening of the Prince of Egypt during Pesach and made matzah pizza. I attended talks about proper criticism of Israel and the connection to the land. For this last one, the coordinator laid out cards which pictured a connection to Judaism and the Land of Israel. I picked the one that had a person in front of a mirror. The person seemed sad, empty, but in the mirror, they were happy and had a Magen David on their heart. It immediately spoke to me. I know I am meant to be Jewish. I just haven’t gotten there yet. And when I feel bad for having my conversion on hold, I just tell myself in the mirror, “I’ve found my people. One day I’ll be completely Jewish, and I’ll be very happy.” The person sitting next to me had been to other Hillel events, but I had never talked to him. He picked a card with a family celebrating Chanukah and Christmas; he is a convert too! He told me, “You won’t regret it.” And then the event ended. I went to Finley to work on my keyboard renders, but I was distracted by a clear view of the New York skyline. I walked closer to take a photo and resumed my walk. I wanted to get something to drink from the vending machine first. After getting my drink, I was ready to get going, when someone stopped me. It was the same person from the Hillel event; earlier, he offered me Hamantaschen, but I was very full. He stood behind me holding up his cup of Hamantaschen. I laughed awkwardly and took two from him, then continued on my way. But before getting far, I decided to turn around and talk to him. It was a good conversation. He invited me to go to his synagogue one time and offered to introduce me to the Rabbi. I told him that I have not been satisfied with the observance of the Reform movement, and since he’s conservative, he told me that might be a good fit for me. I have been considering just that for months. I told him I was trans, and he reacted very surprised. He said he couldn’t tell; that was very nice to hear. It made me happy. So he said, Orthodox is definitely off the table, no objection there, and I want something deeper than Reform. So, conservative it is. Pesach was just next week, and we decided it would be too much for my introduction. We’ll see how this goes. I have not gone to the temple in about a year. I feel sad about that and feel like an imposter when I wear my Magen David since I’m not Jewish and I’m not actively converting. I know I’ll get there. Hopefully, now that I feel better, I’ll be able to move forward with that. And that’s been pretty much it. I’m finishing writing this post from Mexico; we’re on a trip with my grandma and aunt, and I’m exhausted because I woke up at 4 a.m., took a delayed 5-hour flight, then rushed to get from one terminal to the other and took another delayed one-hour flight. We managed to get dinner but couldn’t do much else for the day. So I’m happy to say that I feel better. It’s been rough, but I’ve found solace in my work. I create amazing things, which in turn motivates me to keep going. I know one day all this hard work will pay off, and I’ll be doing something I really enjoy, no matter how tedious it is, designing.

Overworked

Overworked

This last semester was crazy! I handed in my last assignment under a deadline extension and still late yesterday. When the semester started I tried to figure out if my workload was similar to or higher than my past semester and at first it seemed to be par, however, that quickly changed. For one of my classes, Form Language, each week I was asked to make a sculpture of sorts. Bending strips of paper, bending wire, cutting foam, using clay, etc. These projects required me to go to school when I didn't even have class—one such sculpture took eight hours to finish, although it was the simplest one, I'll get to that. For that same class, after the sculptures, we began designing our own lounge chair. In the ideation process, we had to draw 100 sketches—I believe I mentioned that in a previous post and that combined with assignments for other classes. I went from being able to observe Shabbat to needing to use that time to work on homework, it feels terrible. I began staying up all night, sometimes forgetting to eat and having to leave in the morning back to school. I drove so many times without proper sleep—Baruch Hashem I am fine. I was trying my hardest, but I began failing to deliver things on time, however, I am proud that the quality of my work did not suffer, my health did tho. My final projects included designing a chanukiah, designing a chair, and breaking down the manufacturing processes of a vacuum cleaner, all of which turned out beautiful. The goal for my chanukiah was to make it modern but still fit for fulfilling the mitzvah. It is made of Jerusalem stone: dolomite and limestone, and has a suspended silver Magen David filled with Eilat stone. I had to present my design and process to the whole class and everyone liked it, and thankfully no one protested; I think the only anti-zionist in the program left the classroom before my presentation. My chair came together beautifully! Iteration after iteration, I arrived at a design that represented three words that served as my design goals. Me being me, failing to see that I could barely keep alive, I decided to give myself a challenge. Along with my chair design, I also had to make a 1:3 model of it. Teacher wanted them to be all-white, so foam was probably the choice material. I immediately knew that if I were to use just foam I would need to do a lot of sanding. Someone asked teacher if we could use wood and she said that if we were to use wood, we would have to go all the way, using real fabric to upholster the chair. Everyone decided to go with foam, but I decided to upholster my chair. It was easy, I know how to sow; and during the process I learned how to stain wood, using pre-stain, and finishing it with polyurethane. However, after having an all-nighter finishing my model I failed to make my presentation, so I went to class Monday morning with just my model. Teacher seemed to like my model, and she just requested I finish my presentation before midnight. Having finished my chair presentation at midnight, I immediately needed to work on the manufacturing breakdown project due Tuesday at 2 pm. I only managed to sketch and render a hero view, and a sketch showing the pivoting motion of the vacuum cleaner. In class, teacher asked nonchalantly "Who's dropping out? I know you are all tired." I've heard him say in the past that people have left the program not because they don't have the skills, but because they can't keep up, and others because they don't have the passion. Now, I certainly have the skills and passion, and I worked my hardest, and yet, I was failing to deliver. About to start crying, I asked my teacher for an extension, which he agreed to. I told him I would probably be done in two days—I was so, so wrong. Failing to determine how long something will take me was a frequent challenge. After talking with him I went for a walk, I entered the staircase and went halfway upstairs where I knew no one would see me, sat down, and broke down in tears. How was I the only one who struggled so much with meeting deadlines; I worked day and night and still I couldn't finish. I remember spending hours, hours on a single sketch; up to a point is normal, but it's just too much. One of my sculptures for Form Language consisted of three rectilinear shapes, aka, just three rectangles put together. It really shouldn't have taken me more than one hour, it took me eight, I went home 9 pm. Being autistic I pay extreme attention to detail, something very useful in this field and frequently recognized. However, it's too much it has become a hindrance. I sat sobbing on that thought for a few minutes before going back to the classroom. To meet my planned new deadline in two days, I probably should have left right away and keep working. However, I decided to stay and asked my friend Liz if she wanted to play Among Us which we were unable to play last week. We were just two people and Among Us online with strangers sucks, so she introduced me to Brawl Stars. We played until 6 pm and during that time we bonded further. She then walked me to the bus station and said goodbye for now. It was so nice to just relax and play with a friend which I hadn't in years. I finished the vacuum project Sunday midnight, I decided to keep Shabbat and not sketch. And even though I didn't finish in the two days I had planned, my project turned out beautiful. It was one of my first attempts at rendering with color pencil yet it looked awesome. And my teacher gave me a very good grade. I put myself through a lot, I could have just waived a white flag, accepting there was too much on me, and prioritized my health instead. I didn't do that and instead ended up with As. I have conflicting opinions about that; on one hand, I am closer to success, and with those grades, I finally made the honor roll—I was 0.005 GPA points short last semester,— but on the other hand you have my mom's opinion, what's the point of getting straight As if at the end I'm gonna be dead. So now I can finally rest and get ready for next semester. So many things have happened with my Judaism, and I can't wait to get that stuff written down.