Rome-Atlanta

I’m back, after a remarkable 2 1/2 weeks…

It wasn’t easy ato come back to the land of homework hell and criticism after all the cafes, relaxed strolls, and meeting of family…if fact, it makes me want to choose carefully the lifestyle I head into next.  There is much more to life than just working  Contentment and success comes in all forms and the stress of a non stop high profile job is not the answer for all.

So yes, I finally made it to Milan…after a night in Virginia, and a day at JFK.  We didn’t get in to Italy until Saturday afternoon, in fact.  But the days afterward make up for those delays….Milan, Lugano (Switzerland), Torina, Genova, Rome, and the region of Calabria.

Those are all posts or talks over coffee that will have to wait - I’m far too tired to write about those adventures.  While the 11 hour flight was not much fun, it was the 2 hours going through customs hell  in Atlanta that diminished my level of energy completely.  I did make it back for my 1pm class today, only to have the instructor not show up.  But that was ok - instead I had a relaxed lunch with a few classmates and did nothing but catch up and drink margaritas.  I never had a chance for that last quarter, and I was quite miserable with the isolation it created.  It’s good to know the fears and worries that I have are shared by fellow 7th quarters as well.  Well, I’m not wishing them to feel this way, it was just nice to vent together.

Anyway, I am tired and have the opportunity to sleep, so I will take it.

Milan-Virginia?

I’m supposed to be in Milan right now.  Sipping strong espressos and looking at cool people.  No, I’m somewhere in Virginia, the day after my flight departed.  Let’s just say problems everywhere you turn.  Upon departing Atlanta, a man on our plan has a seizure and then goes unconcious.  He won’t respond to any doctors that are on board.  We make an emergency landing at a little airport in Virginia.  Out landing gear doesn’t like the heavy plane landing on a small run way, and makes an odd thud noise.  Firetrucks come.  Siezure guy is removed from plane, but we stay since we are an international flight.  However, tech people see that this plane won’t fly out again, so after an hour we can leave and hang out in the tiny terminal.  For many many hours we are told several stories about what will happen (they will bring replacements for all the tires that blew out, they will ship us back to Atlanta).  However, By midnight we are shipped out to a hotel.  200 grumpy Itlians, Americans, and some Middle Eastern folk that were making connecting flights in Milan.  Did I mention the multitude of sreaming chhildren on that flight?  Anyway, next day we are about to take a cab back to the airport now, and see if the plane will be ready to fly out, and that we will have someone to fly it (another problem last night, we couldn’t just bring in another giant jet, and we couldn’t find someone available to fly it since the pilot here maxed out his legal awake time).  Anyway, I’m supposed to arrive in Milan at 2:45 am.  great.  Will write about those adventures when possible.  Ciao.

Euro Cup 2008

…is here.  Needless to say, I’ll be a Euro Cup widow for the next couple of weeks (even our time in Italy will be planned around the games).  Opening ceremony is on as I type…

The logo kinda reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog after he had a soccer ball for lunch.

Chest pains

Chest pains, weird rashes erupting on my arms and shoulder, and an ache in my stomach.  Studio week has taken new forms.  Whereas in the past things have just been an emotional ride from hell, my body has finally decided to join the parade.

I’m too young for a heart attack, right?  The amount of caffeine, printer problems, and lack of sleep today was making my heart feel like it was going to explode right out of my rib cage.  Maybe I will get to sleep when I die just yet.  Hopefully not…a week and three days this will all be over and I’ll be halfway across the globe…

Break for books

I slept last night, and that was something I definetly needed.  I’ve been spending the day just looking at books, which I guess might seem unproductive, but is needed to inspire creative ideas before panic sets in…especially when looking at reworking an entire huge project in a weekend and you’re already exhausted all you ideas.

So, determination remains.  I do enjoy what I am creating and I passionately want to make it come to life, which is why I get incredibly frustrated and flattened by 16 tons weights easily when those attempts go array.  But it’s that determination to create that  gets me to peel myself off that chunk of metal that sits on me and get back to work…after some rest of course.

So, today Martin Venezky’s book It Is Beautiful Then Gone has helped me refocus.  I am addicted to books and have bought quite a few from recent grads moving to New York.  I haven’t had time to read them, but allotted myself time this afternoon to flip through some.  And actually, the book I speak of was brought to my attention from the kind computer brains at Amazon.com but at least I can sound like a design snob and say, OMG!  You haven’t heard of this book yet?  So, when you’ve exhausted all ideas for layout, type solutions and smacking images next to text, take a break and flip through this.  Maybe it will help, or maybe it will be of use down the road - I’ve had it since December and haven’t found much inspiration from it until now, but all my books take their turns.  Enjoy.

End of quarter gray cloud festival

Ah, the PC experience. I’ll be a guest blogger on the subject soon, but I just haven’t had a chance to put something together with the end of the quarter coming.  But if you’re dying for a piece of raw, honest PC life, I’m willing to dish today.  Maybe even vent a little too.

Needless to say, I haven’t been able to get to bed before 4am all this week.  It’s the last week of classes, though next week being studio week usually means little difference - I still spend just as much time in meetings and make up classes as any other week…I’m just supposed to finish all my projects meanwhile.
Despite getting little sleep from Wednesday night to Thursday morning, I did have a nice evening after class, getting in a good 40 minutes of badminton time…I can’t let my slovenly body completely atrophy before I graduate.  My goal that night was to get out a massive amount of revisions for a class that I’ve been working on for the past couple of days.  I thought it wouldn’t take me too long to prepare them, but the sun was rising before I got to see my mattress.  The birds started chirping at 3am, the first garbage truck arrived at 5:30, and the sound of pipes busy with morning showers started at 6:30.  I know, I’m lucky, I got to sleep a few hours, I could’ve had nothing…but since I’ve aged 30 years in the past 18 months, my body handles this sort of thing worse with each passing week.  So, I did get some peaceful rest time until 9:30 when I was awakened to discuss some bank stuff with Pig, and then slowly getting my ass ready for the 30 minute hike to work.  But my giant amount of revisions was sent off for review and I felt pretty good about it…and most of all, relief of getting it packed in a PDF and sent before I left for the day.

I checked my email at work in the afternoon, and got response back from the files I had sent in the morning.  I felt something like that giant 16 ton weight from Monty Python’s Flying Circus crash on me as I read the feedback.  All caps was used at in part of it to emphasize the amount of fixin’ needed.  However, it was noted that there was so much wrong with it that it was too much to write in an email and would have to wait for class Monday.  But rework it meanwhile.

So. That is a little piece of the PC experience.  I keep asking if it’s worth it.  Is it worth the stress I put on myself, my health, my family?  I see other people getting oportunities, but I could be one of the unmentionables that just falls between the cracks.  Well, I don’t just fall, I’m sure it’s my own bloody fault.  I can’t get a grip on one particular aspect and end up reverting in my process, and I don’t do the shmooze and social thing very well.  And a lack of sleep makes that gray cloud just a bit gloomier.  I suppose if I never rise to anything at least I can be satisfied that at least I made it through six quarters of the program - hopefully all eight at the end of the year.

And so now I will sleep.  It’s almost 3, and that’s before 4, so I’m very happy and just a tiny bit guilty.  Hopefully I will wake up tomorrow and write cheery optimistic posts, but not likely…I have a lot of work to do, and there are enough of those posts by other classmates out there anyway.  You can tune in here to hear struggle, attempts, failures, and some weird determination that drives me with the simple hope that maybe all this trouble will be worth it somewhere down the road.

Extra thumb

I recently asked Pig, a loyal PS3 enthusiast, what he thought of this Austrian ad.  While I thought it was merely comical (what gamer has abs like that?), he was repulsed and almost started convulsing on the spot.

I guess Austrian men are different, or Playstation just doesn’t know their audience that well…

Brussel Sprouts vs. Mushrooms

Some people really hate brussel sprouts.  I tried them once, and I wasn’t really a fan, but maybe they’re ok if prepared some speacial way?

What I hate more are mushrooms.  If I could, I would have them gassed and exterminated off the face of the earth.  Yet, I’m doing a book about mushrooms…which in one way or another are a metaphor for the 1930s nazi propaganda stories for children, and positive modern German literature.  Long story, but in short I hope to be more open minded about mushrooms by the end of this laborious project.  I touched a mushroom recently, so that’s a start.

A quote I agree with, form one of my pages (that will be toned down as it was too busy or chaotic or something or another not good)

Snail-of-Fury

Snail-of-Fury-STORE

Originally uploaded by badbird

Oddly enough, i think snails and slugs are cute, so whenever an artist can put emotions into these simple shaped creatures, I’m in love.

The Jewish-Japanese sex and cookbook and how to raise wolves

I think one of the things that surprises the left-brained universe about my gruelling work schedule at Portfolio Center is the amount of research I have to do.  I guess when some think of grad school in an artsy setting, it’s just about gathering around the table and making cool pictures.  Well, on so many different levels it is different than that…However, it is similar to other grad schools in the fact that we have to do a lot of research.  A lot lot lot.  The first day as a PC student, you are required to go get a library card.  Library?  Musty old books that you can’t hit control+F to find what yer lookin for?  Yep.  Old school research, where the pages have real sources and often realiable facts.  These long forgotten buildings suddenly have a new purpose for me, as research papers and proposals require more ligetimate sources than Wikipedia.  And yes, in that artsy school that teaches us to design purty stuff, we have to research, we have to write long papers, and we have to compose proposals and briefs…all with strong facts to back them up.

So, while browsing online to see what the local Buckhead location has currently on its shelves, I found a most unusual title.  I’m actually in a writing class this quarter (I act as the designer and am paired with a copywriter), and from what I’ve picked up in the short time so far, this title is not working.  I believe I was looking up books on Judaism when this jem appeared.  If you’re read it, let me know how it turned out…