life’s not a paragraph

the semester is officially over! all my projects are done and my portfolio review is done. my review seemed to go pretty well. i had my book done before midnight last night, so i got a good night sleep last night. when i went to get dressed this morning, i realized that my selection of professional clothes was fairly limited, so i had to borrow this fluttery one from hope. it’s something that i would never buy myself, but once i put it on, i really liked it. i’ll have to go on a shopping adventure during break to get some interview-quality clothing. the review itself was good. i knew all of my reviewers which is always comforting and they didn’t really critique my work (yay!) as much as they critiqued the way i presented it in my book. it was too cluttered apparently. after they said that i realized that it actually was, and it wasn’t really showing off my work as well as it could. but it’s okay because it is definitely something important for next semester and for my official book for job interviews. they said i was ahead of the game by presenting a book anyway so i think i am on the right track for graduation!
ahhhhh…the relief.

well, sort of. even though i am done with the school work, i still have to do applications for internships for next semester. 🙁 so i can’t relax completely. i am lucky because i put together my portfolio for my web design class so i have that  all set (well i am satisfied with it enough to keep it for now) and i got my resume set a few weeks ago so now its just a matter of finding internships i am interested in, researching the firms/companies and writing cover letters. it’s not too bad. but now it’s just a matter of motivation… i’ll give myself the weekend off. i think i deserve it right?

since this is now my senior year, a lot more importance is put on portfolio reviews because they start to resemble, more and more, job interviews. tomorrow i have my second to last portfolio review before i start to have real job interviews. and i am surprisingly calm.

i mean, i am sure i won’t be tomorrow at 3:15, but right now, i am almost done with most of my printing and i just have to cut my pages down before i organize my book, so i am feeling pretty confident. but anything can happen so this is me mentally knocking on wood so that nothing horrific happens tonight.

this semester i am laying out photos of everything and putting it in a presentation book instead of printing and hanging on boards. at first the whole portfolio book thing freaked me out, but now i think i actually like making the book better. i am at an advantage because i had to photograph all of my projects for my portfolio website, so i had mostly everything photographed and edited by the time this week rolled around. i had also sort of branded myself for my website, so i already had a design aesthetic to use in my book. such a major weight off of my shoulders. however stressful the past few weeks have been, i am glad that i did a lot of work then because now that allows me a little more time to get the most out of this presentation as possible.

yesterday marked the official end of classes for the fall 2011 semester. it ended a very stressful week of little sleep and too much craziness. it’s still kind of crazy that this semester is over. my portfolio review on wednesday is the only obstacle between me and my winter break freedom!

which also means that i have one semester left of college before i graduate. a few short months and then i am out in the real world. needless to say, i have some majorly mixed up emotions about the end of this semester. underneath all the euphoria of being (almost) done, a little part of me is saying, “no! no! no! make it last a little longer.”

this has been one my favorite semesters of college. school was hard. all of my classes really challenged me, but at the same time, i really enjoyed them! outside of school, i have spectacular roommates, amazing friends and an awesome boyfriend. i probably hadn’t had this much fun in school since i was in spain! i am looking forward to next semester because i know it will be much of the same (and if the weather stays on the path its going, i won’t be trudging through snow and a below zero windchill for too long).

it’s a bittersweet end. i still haven’t quite recognized the fact that it’s over because i still have so much work to do for my portfolio review, but i am sure that sooner than i think i will be relishing in the wonder of having absolutely nothing to do.

i just accomplished a milestone in my graphic design career– i designed, coded and published my very first website! WOO!

it was my final project for my wed design two class. we had to design and publish our portfolio site. it was also one of our shorter projects in the class. building a website is a lot of work, but despite the time and the frustration, it is completely worth it! the end result is so exciting.

i actually really enjoy html and css… well at least when it’s working it’s enjoyable. haha so putting together this site actually took less time than i thought it would… i mean i guess if you consider three weeks a short amount of time.

it was due this afternoon. my professor and my classmates seemed to really like it, but they made some suggestions on how to improve it that i really want to implement. there is this really cool javascript gallery that my professor was talking about. i just have to find it and reconfigure my code a bit. that’ll be my project over christmas break!

i’m just so happy it’s finally up on the internet! woo!

i was booked last night. i had two celebrations to go to. count them — two! (originally i had three but one birthday party got cancelled). a christmas party and a three-person birthday party. two parties. two different groups of friends. two different areas of the city.

my friend jeff was hosting a christmas party at his apartment in beacon hill. hope and i headed over there and rachel met up with us after work. everyone was dressed up, and jeff and his roommates had decorated the apartment with a bunch of christmas decorations. for the first time (for me anyway), i really felt like it was christmas. i borrowed one of hope’s dresses. it was red with white stripes on the back so i had the whole candy cane thing going one. it was nice to not think about all the school work ahead of me and just enjoy the fact that christmas was coming soon and it gave me an excuse to eat gingersnap cookies. 🙂

jackie, moira and eric’s party was not very christmas-y but just as festive. jackie had decorated her apartment in brookline and had this awesome streamer wall, which provided an excellent backdrop for photos. there were a lot of people i didn’t know there so i met some interesting new people. i had a great conversation about vegetables and the american food system with this guy named ryan. and i learned that the guy that was dancing tectonic was from houston, texas and was going to school at mass pharmacy.

overall a great night! i was kind of dreading the party hopping thing but i kind of enjoyed it. it was like i had two nights in one!

as i said in the previous post, the holidays have snuck up on me this year so i was a little shocked when black friday rolled around and i remembered that i have yet to buy one single christmas gift. not one. opps.

cue the christmas stress. i was wracking my brain for ideas. trying to figure out the list of people that i need to buy for. this was my thought process: should i attempt to make things? should i just buy things? but i’m kind of broke so i should make something. but what should i make? do i have enough time to make things?… etc. i only produced one idea and it was for my boyfriend’s gift, which i had thought of a while ago. so really all my thinking went nowhere. awesome.

but then i had an epiphany while walking down the street with my roommate rachel! i am going to a foreign country right after christmas… people love things from foreign lands (well at least i do). and things will be cheaper there and everything will be handmade. perfect! everyone will be happy! christmas comes around and everyone will be receiving a I.O.U.  a christmas present from el salvador note.

now that will be an excellent way to spend my free time in el salvador and it will give me a great excuse to explore all the shops! woo!

this thanksgiving holiday came way too fast this semester. maybe it’s just the warmer weather or the fact that i have been so busy, but thanksgiving snuck up on me this year and it’s one of my favorite holidays!

it was a surprise for me! but it was a welcome break. i really needed a little vacation from school and boston to gear up for the last three weeks of class which will be filled with final projects, portfolio reviews and holiday parties. i went home on wednesday afternoon after my corporate class. it was my first time home since the beginning of october. it was so nice to sleep in my own room!

thanksgiving this year was hosted by my mom’s sister down in hopkinton. i love having huge thanksgivings! and this year was one of the biggest ones i have ever been to. my mom’s parents were there as well as my cousins, their grandparents and aunt and uncle and then their neighbors and their kids. there were at least twenty of us! it was wonderful! so much food and so much talking! we got there at two and didn’t leave until eight. that’s my idea of a perfect thanksgiving.

this past year my sister became a vegetarian, so this holiday i had somebody to share my vegetarian dish with! woo! last year i was all alone in my veggy bliss. we ended up making butternut squash saag a recipe from my favorite cookbook, veganomicon.  it was probably one of the easiest things i have ever made, which turned out to be a good thing because i completely miscalculated the time we were leaving… opps. for some reason i though that we were leaving my house at 2 even though i knew we had to get there at 2. so i come back from the store (i needed a lemon) at 12:30 and my mom is looks at me and says “we’re leaving in a half-hour! what took you so long!?” haha thankfully, i had roasted the butternut squash the night before so i only had about 20 mins of cooking ahead of me, or else i would’ve been in a bit of a turkey day pickle. my time mix up, though, made it so i couldn’t make the dessert i was planning, a pear cranberry gingersnap crumble (from smitten kitchen!), but i just made it the next day. it was delicious!

the rest of my weekend was pretty low key. i saw some friends for breakfast. we went to a local breakfast on saturday (hurray for shop local saturday!) and caught up because most of us hadn’t seen each other since the summer. i got a wonderful new bag and some fleece-lined tights (whoever invented them should be awarded sainthood) for whenever boston finally decides to become its typical winter-like self. and i just really enjoyed being home with my family. it was the perfect break to gear me up for the final crazy, stressful last weeks of this semester.

one of the previous participants of the alternative winter break trip to el salvador heard about the devastating flooding that just occurred in el salvador and he decided to hold a fundraiser so that we can bring the money down to help with the victims.

chris organized this great acoustic show of student talent for last night. it was in the donahue cafeteria. chris got some food donations, so there was some pizza from cafe quattro and ribs and pork sandwiches from texas roadhouse. the concert was awesome! a lot of people came and we raised $320 for the cause!

it’s really exciting that this event was so successful! chris did a great job organizing it and he just proved that as young people we can make a difference. three-hundred twenty american dollars will go far in el salvador. there are a lot of people who need help, and this will definitely provide some relief! i am glad that i got to be a part of it! congrats chris!

like most universities, suffolk usually hosts a concerts for students every year. the past few years that i have been here i’ve gone to a sean kingston and girltalk concert and a ludacris concerts. they’ve both been awesome. usually the artists that they get are not typically bands that i would pay to see normally, but for $20 why not go see ludacris at the house of blues? it’s really not a hard decision to make.

this year, though, instead of having a concert in the traditional sense suffolk hosted dayglow. it’s basically an international touring house music show that pulls in a bunch of different djs depending on the location and throws a huge party. but here’s the best part– THEY THROW PAINT ON YOU. yup, lots of paint. awesome, right?

it was one of the most fun things i have done in awhile. i know this wouldn’t be everyone’s favorite thing, but i like house music, so jumping up and down for a few hours and getting splattered with paint sounded like something that i didn’t really want to pass up.

and i am really glad i went. i had so much fun. i didn’t get nearly as much paint on me as i had planned, but i just danced for four straight hours and honestly that was enough for me. i’m having a hard time walking (really, you should see me try to walk down stairs! it’s pathetic) because my calves are so sore. i guess i haven’t jumped up and down for four hours in awhile.

here’s a little proof of how serious this thing is:

leidy and i before:

leidy and i after:

completely covered in paint. and leidy’s nothing compared to the guy we rode the train home with. he literally had pools of green paint sitting on his head. i’m sure he had a fun time getting it all out of his hair. this show has got my roommates and i wanting to go to other house shows. i’m sure there will be some coming to boston soon but there probably wont be any paint. haha

since i am putting my portfolio together for internships i now have photographs of some of my work from this semester:

from illustration- LaSalle creole seasoning label
i did all the illustrations and then created the label!

for graphic design three– e.e. cummings poetry book
i designed the entire book, from selecting the poems to the photos to physically making the book. i had a lot of fun with this project!

there’s a little sneak peak into what seniors do at the new england school of art and design!