life’s not a paragraph

this past week we had a few meetings/classes for my el salvador trip. it was a little stressful to have to go to all the extra classes but it was worth it. we had some great discussions and i learned a lot about el salvador’s history and it’s current issues.

the best part of the week was when i got to listen to some of the life stories of charlie clements and sister peggy. they both were in el salvador during the salvadoran civil war. they both entered the country voluntarily and helped civilians. sister peggy as worked in the church in the town. charlie worked as a doctor and a surgeon in the mountains, helping the civilians and families of the guerillas.

this post can’t really describe the experience i had listening to these two amazing people talk. i don’t think i can really describe it. but i can say that these are the two most incredible people i have ever met. they have stories of climbing 50 miles hikes multiple times a week, sneaking medicine through check points, challenging border guards and digging up shallow graves to return the bodies to the families. insane stories that you want to think are just from movies, but they are just so hard to believe because they are so real.

i just spent two hours with them. that was just the tip of the iceberg. we are going to sister peggy’s centro del arte para la paz (center of art for peace). we are going to get to spend days hearing her stories and seeing what she has built for the people she has lived with for the past twenty years.

even though i knew this trip was going to be life changing, the talk we had this week convinced me completely. i’m  going in less than two months! life changing experience– here i come!

last sunday was suffolk’s fall open house. i sat with by boss nichole at the new england school of art and design table and got opportunity to talk to a bunch of perspective students about their interest in art and nesad.

this is the second time this semester that i’ve had this opportunity (the first time was at boston’s national portfolio day on halloween weekend), and it keeps on getting stranger for me. well maybe that sounds a little weird, but let me explain. i am now at the end of my college career. in less than a year i will be out in the world, a degree under my belt. all of the students i am talking to have just begun the journey that i am about to finish. it’s a really strange experience to be at these functions that i attended about four years ago and to be looking at them from an entirely different perspective. it’s making me realize how much i have changed since those fall days of searching for colleges. it’s actually a little terrifying. the time has gone by so fast but really, freshman year feels like such a long time ago.

it’s also really exciting for me to experience, because i had no idea where my life was going four years ago. i had no idea that i would be spending a year in spain, traveling to el salvador, leading alternative winter break trips or even writing this blog. all the students i have talked to in the past few weeks are living in that same state of mystery that i once was living. is this the right college? is this the right major? what opportunities will i have?

and then i realize that even though four years of college and life separate me and these perspective students, i am, in essence, going living in the same mystery. i don’t even know if i where be living in the summer. my mystery is just as vast and overwhelming.

this idea comforts me a little. i’ve been freaking out a bit about the future and a job and what do i really want to do when i graduate. but i’ve done this before. i’ve graduated, struggled through the questions and the doubts and made final decisions, and i have survived. actually, i feel comfortable saying that i have thrived within the decisions that i have made. this gives me just a bit more faith that things will work out, and maybe i shouldn’t try planning every moment because who knows what kind of opportunities will arise. i still have seven months to find out.

digitas is a primarily digital design firm in boston. they work with really big clients like GM and Colgate. there are two suffolk alumni who work there now, so one of the foundation professors, susan nichter, stays in contact with with a man named tony who has been working at digitas for years. he organized a round table discussion for new england school of art and design students at digitas this past thursday.

i am really glad i got a chance to go because it was my first time in a large design firm and speaking with a wide variety of professional graphic designers. they all came from very different backgrounds (from knowing what they wanted to do since high school to getting into design while studying mechanical engineering at MIT) and it was educational to learn about how they did their internships or  compiled their portfolio.

i have to get an internship lined up for next semester so this meeting came at a perfect time to motivate me! i have a lot to do to start applying so i needed something to really get me inspired. now i am ready to start sending out my resume and get my portfolio together. i should probably work on doing that now….

halloween was a complete success!  despite the homework and the stress of throwing a party, i had such a great weekend. everyone had so much fun!

it was a good thing that i had such a wonderful weekend because this week was awful. stressful to the max. i had three projects due this week. wednesday, thursday and friday. and to top it all off, i broke my computer on monday night. yup. that’s right. dropped it. it fell right off my lap when i was sitting on the couch. when i picked it up, half of the screen was white. 🙁 it worked great, but i could only see half the screen. it was a fun week to say the least. there’s always a few of these throughout the year. and yet again i survived! woo! it is now friday night and i can sleep!

i had a project due for illustration, graphic design 3 and web design 2. in illustration we had to create a repetitive pattern and then create a product with it. i made a headband with a bow and some gloves. the headband turned out really cute! i actually wanted to wear it around! haha

in graphic design 3 we are rebranding/designing gift bags for a museum. i am doing the southern food and beverage museum (i’m just a little in love with the south). we had to make all of our packaging (gist bag, gift card, poster bag and tissue paper) at half size. it was kind of like a test run. it worked out pretty good. i still have to rework some of my designs but i feel pretty good about it!

and lastly, my flash banner ads for web design 2. i made ads for the company i am rebranding in my corporate design class, guayaki yerba mate tea. the ads need a little reworking too. but i got some good feedback about my concepts. so that’s good. i am just glad that this week is over and i don’t have so many projects hanging over my head. and i can move into this weekend and start checking off all of the other things on my list. let’s just hope that this week isn’t as crazy as the past one!

this week i had my last advising meeting…. so strange.

i didn’t realize it was my last one until afterwards, when it hit me that i just planned out my last semester of college. i just chose my last group of classes. after this, i am done. crazy.crazy.crazy. i cannot believe it.

considering it is going to be my last semester (gah! it freaks me out every time i say/think/write that!), it made creating my schedule really easy. i only have four classes left before i need to graduate: professional practice, internship, graphic design iv and a studio elective. besides figuring out what sections and times work, it was the easiest advising meeting i’ve had to date. i’m not saying that next semester is going to be easy, because it’s going to be far far from that, but at least planning for it was simple.

there was a designing for the greater good class that was going to be offered that i was really looking forward to since i want to get into non-profit work, but unfortunately, the professor who had created the class is now working in new york, virtually making it impossible (or at least really inconvenient) for her to come to boston twice a week to teach. i was really disappointed but then laura golly, the director of the graphic design program, told me that i could take advanced printmaking. i had a little dance party inside! i took printmaking this summer and i loved it. i have been meaning to get back into the printmaking to finish the project that i started this summer but i haven’t gotten the chance. this would be perfect because the time would be built into my schedule!!

also, i really miss creating things. the computer only satisfies part of that need to make. making art with my hands just has such a different quality and you don’t realize how much you miss it until it’s gone. that’s probably why i have started doing illustrations for every one my projects in all my classes, which is a bit like shooting myself in the foot because i am just making extra work for myself. but i just need to work with my hands sometimes. now i am superduper excited for next semester because i think it’s going to be a perfect balance of computer and hand-rendered work! wooooohooo!

happy early halloween! i cannot believe that one of my favorite holidays is almost here! this semester is going by so fast!

i don’t know about you, but i love halloween. it’s not just the candy and the costumes, it’s that feeling of mystery and mischievousness that comes along with the new chill in the air. it’s a creepy holiday but i love it! and i am thankful that my roommates are just as into it as i am. well actually, i think hope is an even bigger fan of it than i am. she brought back all this halloween stuff from the last time that she was home. we had this thing that screams every time you brush up against it. originally it was on the fridge, but someone thought it was a great idea to put it behind the towels on the bathroom door. i had no idea it was there and it scared the crap out of me when i got home really late one night. it stayed on the door for an amazingly long time, even though we all complained about it every time we went into the bathroom. haha

i’m gearing up for this weekend along with everyone else. my roommates and i decided to throw a party so julie came back with 800 sq ft of fake cobwebs to decorate the apartment. i’m going to have to set aside time to get my homework done or else i will probably be having too much fun carving pumpkins (that’s tomorrow nights plan), decorating and eating candy to think about design, which would be a major issue since we just passed the halfway point in the semester!

who doesn’t love a nice long weekend? i don’t think i’ve met anyone who has said that they prefer a short weekend to a long one. i’d probably think they had something wrong with them if they did. this weekend was columbus day weekend. and i was so appreciative that it just happened to fall when it did.

senior year is proving to be quite tricky so i will take any extra time that i can to get work done or to have a free moment to breathe. this weekend was packed with homework (i pulled a good 10 hr homework day today– go me!), going home for about 24 hrs and of course, fun!

i went to an improv show on thursday night. i know a few people in seriously bent, suffolk’s improv team, so my roommates and i went to their show in the 150 tremont dorm. i think this actually was one of the first times i’d seen them since orientation…  i can’t believe i hadn’t seen them very much (or even at all) in the past two years since i’ve been in boston. they were hilarious. there reputation proceeds them, so i was expecting a great show and they were awesome.

friday i had class all day (friday class isn’t nearly as bad as i was expecting it to be! it actually goes by pretty quickly!) and then friday night was my friend’s 21st birthday so my roommates and i travelled downtown to gypsy bar, which was fun, but probably not a place i’d go back to. becca had a great time though, so that’s really all that counts!

saturday afternoon i went home to new hampshire! i hadn’t been home since i moved in and my sister was coming home as well so  my parents picked me up from the bus stop and we had a family dinner, which was so nice. you never realize how much you miss them until you can’t really have them anymore. i am glad that i live so close to home so that i have the opportunity to go home for a bit and see my family!

sunday consisted of homework, shopping (yay new conditioner!) and traveling back into the city! and today i honored columbus’ memory with some good ol’ fashioned homework time– meaning, i didn’t go outside once. i sat by the window though.

see? i packed a lot in this weekend. amazing what i can do if you give me an extra day! now i have a jam-packed four day week to get through. i’ve got projects due left and right (including my first web design project!!) so tonight i am going to get a good sleep so i am ready to kick this week’s butt.

today, october 7th, is a balmy 80 degrees. strange, you might be thinking, considering this is boston and its OCTOBER.

even stranger is that it was 60 degrees yesterday. yes. sixty. i-wake-up-freezing-and-wear-a-scarf-all-day kind of fall weather. it was cold.

so i really shouldn’t be complaining about the weather today. it’s gorgeous out. sunny, clear skies, nice light breeze. but i was kind of getting used to the pants/tshirt/sneakers combo i was wearing. i’m looking forward to the leaves changing and the crisp chill of fall. i’m ready to shiver a bit when i first step outside. i’m ready for my hats. i’m ready to snuggle in my bed underneath a pile of blankets. fall is my favorite season. it’s what we are known for up here. i guess you could say it’s kind of our thing. apple picking, pumpkins, apple cider (and even better, apple cider doughnuts), leaf peeping… people travel from all over to see this part of the country during the fall.

so forgive me for complaining. i should be appreciative of this amazing day because before i know it everything is going covered in a thick layer of snow, but all i really want to do is wear my jeans without overheating.

we had our first class for my alternative winter break trip on friday! in case you don’t know what that is, alternative winter break is much like alternative spring break; we are going to be working with habitat for humanity during the second half of our winter break. the major difference between asb and awb is that instead of working domestically in the united states, awb takes place in EL SALVADOR! wohoo!

there is a history class attached to the trip because we are going to a country that is still recovering from a twelve-year-long civil war, and much of the reasons why we are going there is because of this terrible war. this week we had our first few meetings. social justice training on thursday (it’s a presentation provided by diversity services to help people learn a little bit more about discrimination/oppression/advantage in the global society). our first class was friday night. and then we all volunteered as a group for the first time saturday at the boston local food festival!

the festival was awesome. i am so glad that i got a chance to be a part of it! there were so many amazing people and incredible vendors. we worked as “zero-waste ambassadors” which makes us sound really fancy, but what we really did was stand near the compost, trash and recycling bins to make sure that people put the right waste in the right bin. i know it sounds a bit unglamorous but it was actually really fun! they were trying to divert 90% of the waste from the event to compost or recycling, so our job was incredibly important. and it’s amazing how much people don’t know about their trash. (just so you all know- food is compostable. nature at its best. i can’t even tell you how many times i would be asked after i told them to put their plate in the compost bin, “but it’s got chicken on it”).

i got to talk to some really great people and meet some really interesting people. it’s amazing how much the boston area has to offer. we are always so quick to go to the big national brands. i’ve determined after saturday that equal exchange makes some of the most delicious coffee i have ever tasted on this side of the atlantic, farm fresh eggs make the BEST breakfast sandwiches and a booth filled with fresh vegetables and fruits is one of the most beautiful things i have ever been lucky enough to see.

my first project of senior year is officially done! i passed it in today and i really love the outcome. it was in illustration. we had to pick a condiment and create a label using illustrations that we made.

i decided to do a label for creole seasoning. like good designers, we did a lot of research about our product first. i learned about the history of creole cuisine and how it has changed and developed since the 1700’s. i also learned that in both creole and cajun cuisine they have a “holy trinity” of ingredients: onion, bell pepper and celery.

after i considered using a plantation home on my label, i decided that the holy trinity would make the perfect illustration! the label had to be in black and white so we were limited in our options for media to use. i ended up going with pen and ink, which developed into sumi ink and brush. i attempted stippling (lots of little dots to create value– tedious, but when done right, gorgeous) and crosshatching (layers of lines crossing over one another), and i failed miserably. i am much better with gestural drawings, so i did a bunch of gesture drawings of an onion, a pepper and celery (celery is a lot harder than it would seem!). i actually brought all of the vegetables into class one day and i sat in the computer lab drawing celery. hahaha it was actually perfect because i got really hungry so i ate my pepper!

i ended up making two different labels, just by chance. when i was experimenting with layouts, i found two that worked really well, which is great because now i have two labels to show in my portfolio. the type came together really well too! overall, a really great way to start off the semester! 🙂