KalYouBloggin.

So Close I Can [Feel] It…

Previously: So Close I Can [Smell] It…

Eyes half open with my mind in a zombie state, bitter black coffee trying to kick my brain into gear, grumbles of hunger emanating from my neighbor’s stomach as if it was a guard dog trying to shoo me away… it must be the first week of a new quarter. 

And that it is, the beginning of my second to last quarter till I graduate in fact. Each day I feel like I realize more and more of what I have to do and I can already feel the stress building ever so little at a time. I need to take heed of this and actually make attempts to catch it before it builds too much. The good thing is that last quarter helped do a lot to get me starting on my preparations for this last stretch.

As I had previously mentioned, I had to take a Portfolio Prep class; I came out of that class with an immense amount of new knowledge from the graduating seniors as far as preparation for the end and with a good amount of my own work prepared for my portfolio show and graduation. Still, I am only a fraction of the way done with where I need to be in the upcoming months. Right now, I have a preliminary idea of my print portfolio layout (which is likely going to be changing quite a bit) and a revised version of my website (which is still a work in progress). With these in place, I still need to think about doing informational interviews with potential employers, start researching print prices and techniques, business card printing, designing give-aways for my portfolio show table, getting an interview for my last quarter… at the moment the list appears to be never-ending. The most important thing is to take a deep breath, take a step back, and take my time. I know I have a lot to do, but the reality of it is that I still have two quarters worth of time left, rather than only one. So, I can’t let the gravity of the situation overwhelm me; I need to take control and steer it, one thing at a time. 

Previously, I was only as close to my Cappucino as to be able to smell it. The bitterness of the espresso was fresh in my nose and I was ready to grab it and go. Now, with the beginning of this new quarter, I’ve taken a step forward; I’m closer now to the end and the coffee is in my hands. However, the mild warmth of the cup is deceivingly hiding the scalding hot contents. I have to handle the next quarter carefully, as I mentioned, and go one step at a time. With care, I’ll make it through, with the inevitable lost drop here and there, but if I’m careless with my time, I could lose control and only end up getting burnt.

California Dreamin.

The warm afternoon sun beating down on my face, the soft hum of the train tracks beneath me, I open my eyes and see the beautiful glimmering water and distant mountains outside my window. It’s at this point that I know, I’ve fallen in love with California.

More specifically, northern California. Sure, southern California is enjoyable with the constant hustle and bustle of the city, but it’s the calmness and serenity of the north that seems to be calling my name. In the past two days, I’ve experienced almost every form of public transportation, minus the ferry which we were very close to taking. Today alone, we’ve taken a car ride, to an Amtrak train, to a city bus, to the BART (subway system), and finally to another car. It was on the train that California took hold of my heart.

I’d never ridden on a train before (at least not to my recollection) but today’s ride was an amazing experience for me. Whether it was with my eyes closed and the sun on my face, or my eyes open soaking in the gorgeous scenery, I just didn’t want it to end. Even on the bus, surrounded by water, something about it all just said… home.

Overall, this trip has been an amazing experience. I’ve seen all the amazing sights San Francisco has to offer, eaten more food than I could have ever imagined, strengthened the ties with my Californian cousins whom always seemed so far away, and made new friends and met new family whom I already look forward to visiting again. With all of this in place, I could definitely see it easy to be able to make a home here. However, in time, with two quarters of school left, I need to finish my swimming lessons before I try to dive into the deep end of the pool. I gotta admit though, this warm weather really makes me anxious to go for a swim.

Woosa.

I had come on here with full intention of creating an angry, hateful post, venting about this and that from tonight. However, after a moment of thought, I came to remember something that someone special to me reminded me of:

…notice to the smaller joys in life that may be overlooked by others and as well as myself sometimes…

And so I decided against my previous plan. Oddly, something someone at work said to me just earlier today actually also came to mind, she mentioned to me that I always seemed to be able to to keep calm and level-headed in high-stress and high-anxiety situations. This is something that I’ve actually come to be thankful for. Rather than complain about insignificant things and insignificant people, I’m going to relax and catch some sleep. There’s no reason I should need to bring this kind of drama and tension with me into the new year. So, goodbye 2011, you can keep that shit, I’m with 2012 now.

More Than Words.

One of the reasons I enjoy my job, and why I’ve loved customer service positions in the past, is the interaction with the customers. Working in a bank, of course I get my fair share of angry, irate, furious, “raging and screaming at the top of their lungs in my face” customers, but there are a few that stand out and make it worth putting up with the difficult ones.

Some customers provide good conversation. Sometimes it might be amusing (like the woman who tells me stories of her very successful collectible coin selling business and her plans to someday move to France and open a patisserie). Sometimes it might be informational (like the old man that taught me how to use a roll of quarters as a self-defense device). Sometimes it might just be interesting (like the guy who comes in and talks about his lucrative pull-tab business around town). 

Some customers are just fun to talk to in general. I like to joke around with my customers a lot of the time, and it’s always nice to get one who not only enjoys the jokes, but actually jokes back as well (like one couple for whom I opened an account, they appeared to be their mid to late 40s, but still poking fun with each other like they’ve only been dating for a month).

Some customers that I talk with are just so unique, they can’t even be categorized. Every once in a while, I get a customer that comes up to my window, we chat for the 2 minutes they’re there making their transaction, and once they leave, I’m just left in awe at what had just occurred (like the crazy guy that told me this ridiculous story he had written about Mount Olympus being on Jupiter, the asteroid belt lighting on fire and consisting of smaller suns and galaxies, humans actually being larvae that mature into giant insects once they’ve reached 150 years old, and other things that I wish I could remember).

Yet, among them all, I think I’ve recently found my favorite customer. There’s one particular little old lady that often comes up to my window that always makes me smile when I see her next in line; and I don’t mean the fake smile that I have to put on for those customers that make me cringe when I see them next in line, but I mean the sincere, straight from the heart, not just on the surface smile. She’s not exactly everyone else’s favorite customer, in fact I’ve had several people tell me that they hate helping her because they think she’s mean. I’ll admit, I’ve had my own difficult exchanges with her, but I don’t think she’s necessarily mean. Part of the misconception might come from the fact that her face seems to be naturally in a constant state of a slight grimace, but I’ve seen that grimace become a warm, thankful smile. And yet, with all of this, I’ve only ever spoken to her once in all of the times that I’ve helped her, and that was the very first time, because actually, she’s deaf.

My first encounter with her was the difficult time that I mentioned. She had a problem that would have already been hard to fix, but proved to be even more challenging due to the fact that we had to do so through meticulous message writing and pantomiming. At one point during the exchange, I even had to enlist the help of one of my managers, who assured me that this customer was a difficult person she’d helped in the past and advised me to find a quick way out of the situation. However, against her advice, I continued on and eventually resolved the issue. It took much more time and effort than it would have with someone who could hear and speak, but it was worth it for me to be able to help her.

Since that first encounter, each time I see her walking up to my window, it’s as if the world around me suddenly goes on mute. I may not be able to have the conversations with her as I do with other customers, but our exchanges together are always just as interesting (if not even more so) than those that I have with everyone else. I’m not entirely sure how to explain it, but I love the way we interact in complete silence in the midst of the hustle of the world around. There are times when the transaction is so momentary, the fact that it we don’t speak makes it seem almost like it didn’t happen at all. But in actuality, at the end of the day, that single invisible moment may be the one I remember from my entire shift. 

Indian Summer.

Sitting in this concrete park, surrounded by urban nature under green and golden trees, the occasional cool breeze creates a whirlwind of autumn leaves to envelope me. Blanketing my keyboard, shrouding my screen, embedding in my hair, stowing away into my open backpack, I smile in amusement as they dance around. Suddenly, the lyrics in my ear catch my attention at the perfect moment…

…things have changed, it’s not the same…

The words ironically reflect the world around me and my life itself, but I don’t look back. It’s okay to remember, but never dwell; don’t let life become stagnant, move forward and grow. The songs have moved on as well, but the current one ends appropriately, as if with choreographed timing to my last pen stroke…

…a part of my past.

So Close I Can [Smell] It…

Wait… what?? The title sounds a little odd and maybe kinda gross when read out of context, but I’m actually referring to my graduation day. I’ve mentioned it a few times, and I suppose that it’s not actually all that close time-wise, (I still have three quarters, around 8 months) but I keep thinking about it. This is why I’ve decided (and hopefully will stick to this decision) to make a multi-part series, chronicling my experience of finishing up these last few quarters leading up to the big day.

The end of last quarter brought up a lot of changes in my life as far as priorities and decisions go, and it leaves me at a bit of a crossroads. For the last few weeks, I made a huge shift of priorities as I dedicated a large portion of my time to doing schoolwork and ended up having to sacrifice a lot of the time I previously spent on hanging out with friends. While this ended up putting a larger stress than I had anticipated on my friendships, I can’t say that I regret or would change the decision I made. Those last few weeks really showed me that I know how to work hard, prioritize my assignments, and get good results and I’m really happy about that. Most importantly, they showed me that it’s possible to have a low-stress finals week! (please note that it was still only low-stress, I’m not sure the no-stress finals week is possible). This is something that I’ve been striving for for years ever since my academic career began taking a downturn, and it’s something that I am very proud of achieving. I was even able to carry that through my week break from school and finally start working on my portfolio website which I have been putting off for the longest time. It’s still in its very early stages, a work in progress, but I’m hoping that within the next few weeks, I’ll be able to present a functioning website (we’ll see what happens, that might be wishful thinking). 

Now, I feel like I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself; I suppose I still haven’t explained the awkwardness of my title. As I said, I’m still three quarters out from my graduation day, so I didn’t feel quite right saying that it’s “so close I can taste it”. Rather, I say I can smell it because it’s close enough that I have some sense of it, but it’s still fairly faint. As of right now, I think I’d say it smells kind of like… a Caramel Macchiato (or some other type of sweet coffee drink, pick one you like). Now how does this make sense?

A Caramel Macchiato has the sweet smell of caramel (obviously), the creamy smell of the light foam on top, but it still has that faint bitter scent of the espresso underneath all of the fluffiness. And that’s kind of how I see graduation at the moment. The fact that it’s so far away allows it to seem so sweet and easy; I think about it and that it’s coming up, but I don’t feel the stress of anything quite yet… at least, not that much. There’s still the faint idea that I know it’s going to be stressful, I know it’s not gonna be easy in the time leading up to it, trying to prepare and finalize my portfolio, but that time’s not gonna be coming for a little while, so I try not to think about it.

In these next 8 months, I’ll be getting prepared as much as I can to get out there into the real world. I’m already planning on dipping my feet in the water and trying out some logo design projects I’ve been following for a while; just to get myself into freelancing and hopefully get some extra cash in my pocket. For graduation though, I look forward to having to get my portfolio pieces chosen and finalized, finishing up work on my website, finding an internship, and starting to market myself out there as an upcoming Graphic Designer. But for now, while I still can, I’m gonna take the time to kick back and smell the coffee.

UPDATE: Considering I never actually posted this earlier when I first finished writing it, I guess it doesn’t really seem like an update to anyone other than me. Anyway, after finishing my first day of this new quarter, the reality of graduation has sunk in a little more… actually, it kind of sunk in the way a fist punching me in the face would sink in to my cheek. My last class of the night was my Portfolio Prep class, getting me ready to create my online and physical portfolio for presentation at graduation, and I gotta say, that class was intense. The amount of work that we need to get done and the time frame it’s scheduled in, the teacher, the level of work that’s expected, everything was very in your face. Coming out of the class, I took two things from it…

A reality check of what I need to get done… and that it needs to happen sooner than I expected. As you could tell from what I wrote prior to the update, I was fully prepared to set this ride on cruise control for a while and let it happen. But I’ve really come to realize that that it’s not gonna work that way; if anything’s gonna happen, I need to make it happen.

A defibrillation to my brain, jolting it with new found excitement and energy. Not only have I realized I need to make things happen, I’m ready to make them happen. Seeing some of the work of students I’ve been looking up to for the past years, I’m ready to be that for someone else. These guys don’t realize I’ve been seeing and admiring their work, and I only hope that I can be the same for someone else.

After tonight, I can definitely say the air has changed a little bit. I don’t know if I’d necessarily call it a Caramel Macchiato anymore, maybe we’ll switch it over to a Cappuccino… dry with an extra shot of espresso (still fluffy, but a little more bitter, I’m glad I can still make some use of my old Starbucks training).