good. the next one will take you 9h45 min. and will still feel like a C. and before you realise it, you’ll look less and less at the tutorial, and people will tell you it’s a solid B.
there is a saying, in creative fields, that people aren’t paying for hours or days of your work, but also for the years behind. The reason it would take me an hour to do what you did in 9 is because I spent 15 years shaving these 8 hours off, bit by bit, with a plane. And yes, extension can help you shave off big chunks, like using a chisel of doing a rough cut first.
Plus, there is the fact that you did it. so you see all imperfections, all improvements to be. People around you see the result and have no 3d education. This is true of many creative fields. I paint, sketch, and make paper art, and by far I’m the harsher critic of my own work. You say it’s a C, what do other people say ?
(this is a hint that you could go to the Gallery and start your own “this is my work” thread to show project after project what you’re doing. you’ll get help, criticism, praise)
this is what I did my first few days of SU, 15 years ago. reverted faces, walls with no thickness and wrongly grouped, lines here and there I didn’t erase nor hide, and this took a pair of brains a solid 8 hours (4days, 2h).
With the same material, same plans and dimension, last time I did this exercise in class, It took me maybe 20 min, because I was speaking at the same time ?