Present Joys

Day 29: tue, 22 oct 2013. Theresa brought caramel apple suckers into class but was too embarrassed to share them, so I did the honors.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a week since I returned from Minneapolis. Here is a cute photo we took thursday night at the AIGA photo booth. (I forced everybody to jump.) Now that I’ve had a week to process my wonderful, super-fantastic time away, here are some things I want to say about it:

It was fantastic to break out of the school routine and to enjoy rest and leisure with so many friends. It was good to meet new people, too: mingling with professional designers, talking to them, and visiting their spaces gave me a sense of pride for the graphic design community. The people I met were kind, talented, and interesting. More importantly, they were creating meaningful things that people interact with every day. This is the creative community I am a part of!

The trip I also gave me a keen sense of pride for our school. Over the few days we were in Minneapolis, my classmates and I participated in a ton of portfolio reviews. During these times, I was really impressed with my peers’ professionalism and by the quality of their work. We are real designers! Our work holds up in the real world—and happily so! It’s nearly time for us to graduate and start making a living. After this lovely trip, I think we are all the more ready to get out there and start doing big things.

Okay, I promise to stop with the #14minnikids stuff now.

• Experienced a little bit of culture shock after being away last week. I was pretty out of it on tuesday morning. Spent most of jewelry class this week listening to presentations about new project. Tried to do some caning which ended up really poorly.
• Upon returning to Senior Ad after lunch on tuesday, Mr. Mohr asked us to give an impromptu presentation on our 14minnikids trip. (This seemed to be in poor taste. Coming back to school is hard.)
• Had a very dysfunctional wednesday morning in Branding. We are technically starting a new project but we aren’t finished with the first one and no one is making any good work.
• Ate wednesday lunch alone in the library while studying for a History of Cinema midterm (for which I was woefully underprepared). Then, I went to class, took the test, and went back to the library to get some more work done.
• Had a few hours of free time late wednesday afternoon and spent it with Andrew and Max figuring out drum parts for my band’s new album. Then, I drove straight back to school for a Portfolio Social, where the entire senior ad class squeezed into two small classrooms and reviewed each other’s portfolios. Chaos.
• Had presentation-filled jewelry class, ate lunch alone. In Senior Ad, started working on new project and chatted with friends.
• Skipped class on friday morning to record with my band. Well, I technically didn’t even skip because Jim Johnson ended up canceling class!

Day 28: thu, 17 oct 2013. Chatting with Theresa outside class, snacking on some of Audrey’s lemon pizzelle.

Day 27: wed, 16 oct 2013. Evan’s broken power adapter almost creates an explosion at a late-night portfolio social; Amanda enjoys seeing the comedy unfold.