So...

It's the start of week 5 of the quarter and I'm feeling the stress of trying to balance my output at school, my personal creativity and the other aspects of my life (church, family, social stuff.) We're half way through, and I sometimes wonder how I'm going to make it through these next few weeks.
I love my school and I love the growth that stems from the intense nature of the full time program, but it's draining at some points. It demands a tremendous amount of investment in regards to time, money, and soul. I sometimes feel guilty whenever I'm working on something that's not directly or indirectly related to school work.
When I was at CSUN I had a teacher who constantly drilled the idea of maintaing our personal artistic projects while we were working at a studio, or on work for others (like school assignments.) At the time I thought it was an odd thing to say. How could any creative person not devote time to their personal creativity? For artist it's suppouse to be as natural as breathing right?
During my first quarter at Laafa I finally understood why he would feel it was so relevant to tell us that. Four days a week of 7 to 10 hour days, and many, many nights when homework assignments would take me well into the early morning (I remember staying up until 4 AM finishing perspective homework.) It scared me at some points because I began to seriously question whether it would be possible in the future to work in the animation/illustration industry and do independent work. Could a person devote an equal amount of energy and passion to both without burning out?
Laafa's made me think about that alot. Of course again, I love the place and all the Atelier students can see the incredible progress we've made, but it can be so mentally and physically exhausting.....

The irony of course is that I feel guilty about typing this instead of doing more studying and classwork.