Rocks in the Fast Lane

Stimmford pulled the little white mouse from his pocket, and the dear thing only hummed to himself, ignoring the expectant crowd.

This week is Spring Break for my Uni. So, life has developed a much needed change of pace. Not necessarily that there's less to do, just that there's a different environment and schedule to work with.

Things have been going extremely well. Between designing some new shirts for a well known marathon in my region, homework, and club activities, there has been hardly any room to think outside of school. With Spring Break, I've come back to my childhood home and began to move from the 'dungeon' downstairs (the smallest room in the house, used for storage) into a larger room upstairs. I've filed my taxes, continued work on the marathon shirts, and contemplated how to move forward with my other required tasks.

Today I'm leaving to go trilobite hunting with my parents. We'll be spending three nights out in the desert, and that's time with just us, sky, rocks, two four-wheelers, a trailer and a dog. No internet and probably no cell phone reception. (Hopefully I'll get my design work done too, but let's take everything just one item at a time.)

Next week, on Wednesday, I'll be going with 17 of my classmates to attend the AIGA Y Conference; it's a professional design conference being held in San Diego, CA, from Thursday until Saturday.

After that it's back to the regular schedule at school for the last few weeks before finals.

It's interesting to consider the contrasts that I'll be faced with over the next few weeks. If I believed in karma, I'd be forced to believe that I must have done something incredibly good to deserve all these wonderful opportunities.

Contemplation, 2008

Stress and Finances

Roadblocks are meant to inspire solutions.

This semester has been pretty tough. The news of a recession has hit many American pockets pretty hard, and it definitely disappointed some expectations of the Graphic Design Club on my campus. Being unable to rally needed funds from the school's Assembly, we have had to turn to desperate money-making in a way we were hoping to avoid.

Next week is our self-proclaimed 'Graphic Palooza' week on campus. We're hosting everything from Halo, Wii mini-game and Guitar Hero tournaments, to an improv comedy night (generously donated by our local improv group), to a raffle, to car washes, to tie-dying... and yes, some of our members are seriously discussing donating plasma at the nearest facility, which is fifty miles away.

Why all this activity? So we can send eighteen students to an AIGA design conference in San Diego. We've already paid our entry fees, and all that's left is to garner enough funds to defray the other costs.

This all comes at a rather inconvenient time for many of the students; midterms are here, and we're all working with already overloaded schedules. Add to that the stress of designing to advertise for all of these added events, along with somehow scheduling time to assist at these events, and you're met with a rather frazzled, highly sleep-deprived group of students.

They're all heroes. Faced with a challenge, they've bucked up and stepped up to the demands with a grim smile and an undeterred determination. They're tenacious, and well-deserving of the opportunity to spend some quality time in California, working on a professional opportunity.

When faced with courage like that, there's little doubt that we'll make it somehow.

Outlet, 2008