KalYouBloggin.

So Close I Can [Taste] It…

Previously: So Close I Can [Smell] It…
Previously: So Close I Can [Feel] It… 

Prior to beginning to write this final installment in my coffee-themed road to graduation chronicle, I decided to go back and read the previous two entries, and I can’t believe that 8 months have passed since I decided to start this. Looking back at my journey so far, it was most definitely not a cakewalk.

This past quarter was most likely the roughest, with the most stressful finals, that I’ve had to endure along the way. Having four studio classes with no gen. ed. classes to act as a bit of a buffer, my plate was always more than full and it was not easy. I mentioned previously that I was going to need to take care not to burn myself and I must say, I definitely had some close calls throughout that quarter. Overall, my outlook on the results of my classes are pretty diverse.

There were two classes that I came out of with some pretty good work that I’m proud of and I’m currently developing further to become solid portfolio pieces.
One class that I had to work with a group for the first time ever to develop and design a project over the course of the quarter. For this class, I was happy with my personal results from my contributions to the project, but the project as a whole was a bit lackluster.
My last class was the one that gave me the most trouble, as it was my only early morning class (which I have not had to deal with for over a year, thus was out of practice). In the end, I came out with a few projects that I’m proud of in that one as well, although I was not necessarily proud of my contribution as a whole.

All in all, aside from a few potential portfolio pieces, the most valuable thing I gained from this past quarter was knowledge from a teacher I had never known before. He’s been around, though he teaches in a different field so I’d never had him for a class in the past. However, this quarter I had two classes from him and ended up learning a lot about logo designing and web design in particular (since he is primarily a web design teacher). Although we didn’t necessarily develop a close bond or anything like that, I developed enough of relationship with him that I could bring my portfolio to him and trust him to critique it honestly.

Still, although I’m so close to graduation, the one thing that’s been stressing me out the most over the past few weeks is that I need an internship to actually be able to finish out the quarter. Over the past few weeks, all I’ve seen are a few missed opportunities, but earlier today I got my first chance to actually land something that sounds fun and like something that would be a valuable opportunity. All I need now is to wait for my advisor to give it the thumbs-up and I’ll be ready to go.

So, I got through the quarter without any major injuries, I have a potential internship right before my grasp, and now here I am, settled down and ready to enjoy my drink. I took the first sip today and as expected, the beginning is still sweet, light, and fluffy. From here, the quarter is looking entirely manageable; it’s all a matter of taking control of it and not letting it control me (which I have been known to allow to happen in the past). As I continue to drink, I know things will quickly go from sweet and light, to bitter and maybe a bit harsh. The most important thing for me to remember is that I can’t let up on the work, this is the home stretch and I need to put in 100%. 

Relax, take it one sip at a time, work hard.

This is will be my mantra for my final quarter. It’s all right in the palms of my hands; 6 years of hard work has led me to this, and I am not going to drop this spill everywhere. I will to do everything I can to see this through to the very last, bittersweet drop.

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.

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).

Strangers.

noun. a person with whom one has no personal acquaintance. 

For each individual person in this world, there are billions of people that could be considered strangers. Every single day that you step out of your house, you see strangers that you see on a regular basis and (even more frequently) you see strangers for the first time, that you may never see again. There are billions of strangers in this world that you may never ever encounter or even know existed… and you are nothing but the same to them. You are just another one of those strangers that they see at the bank, or witness crossing the street, or stand in line behind of at the grocery store. And yet, all it takes is a second to change that relationship; all it takes is one word, two letters, to make a difference: hi.

From a simple greeting, a person can suddenly switch paths from being just another of the billions of strangers in the world, to a select number of acquaintances, or possibly eventually a friend. The funny part is that you never know who could be the next person ia to make that switch in your life. It’s funny how you can meet a person, become acquaintances… maybe become friends… maybe even become lovers, then one day realize how close you had actually been to each other for years before that chance encounter that changed the course of your relationship. But many times, it’s that time apart, living parallel but independent, that makes the world of difference.

Relationships built with other people are based on your personalities at the time that you meet. If your personalities are compatible, a relationship is formed and an acquaintance is made. However, there’s always the possibility that if you had met each other a few years prior, the relationship would have never sparked. It’s all thanks to the growth and development, the experience you earn through the years, and primarily time, time to become who you need to be to form that spark. Still, this growth and change over time can have a positive, as well as a negative effect. While we can grow and develop to form new relationships in the future, there are times that we outgrow existing relationships during the process. This is not to say that these relationships that we’ve outgrown were necessarily meaningless; simply that we’ve taken all that what we can. In some unfortunate cases, it could even be that the relationship has become poisonous and need to move on, in order to allow other relationships to develop. And it’s in these cases that acquaintances… friends… and even lovers, can once again become just another stranger.

Autumn Leaves.

All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.

- Pablo Picasso

Tonight, I got reacquainted with an old cartoon that I might say (along with Boy Meets World) helped define my childhood; that cartoon is Rugrats (for anyone who may not be familiar with this show, you can click here to read a little about it, otherwise, I’m going to continue on under the impression that you do know it). One episode in particular reminded me of the quote above and made me think of my career in general. The episode was entitled Autumn Leaves…

The episode is set during the rugrats’ first autumn; Chuckie has just gotten over being sick. The others say that he’s looking much better considering the last time they saw him he was oozing things out of his nose and ears, was making funny noises out of his mouth, and was turning funny colors. Upon hearing this, Chuckie feels ill again and sets his apple juice next to a Maple tree without noticing it spilling on the roots. The rugrats go on to play until they realize the tree looks a bit different; once Chuckie sees the spilt juice and they notice the changing colors of the leaves, they deduce that it must be sick, as it’s acting a bit the way Chuckie did when he was sick. Tommy mentions that he heard his dad say once that this was Mabel’s tree and that they had to help it. Upon hearing this, Chuckie makes the connection that when he was sick, he drank cough syrup, thus Mabel syrup should help the tree feel better. Nonetheless, they go on to eventually learn that it was none of their faults and this was in fact something that all trees experience during autumn.

While watching this episode, my friend and I began to feel a bit nostalgic as we both grew up with this show; we started thinking about how these days are lost and we’ll never retrieve them. However, this made me think of something that I could potentially retrieve that could also be the missing something that I’ve been searching for lately in all of my arts (visual as well as writing). Watching this episode made me envy the way their minds seemed to work; the way their naïve minds made connections between misunderstandings and half-truths to form conclusions that, to them, seemed to make entire sense (but to those who understand the full-truths, made no sense at all).

What I envy is not so much the naïvité of their minds, but rather the freedom they had. Lately, what I lack is the ability to be original and come up with new ideas; this ties back to the quote that I had at the beginning. As a child, we don’t know anything, thus it’s up to us to use our creativity to discover how things work. As we grow up, our minds get filled with truths and knowledge and I feel like we reach a certain point where it can be difficult to look past these. As an artist, what I would want to be able to do is not forget what I know, but rather look past it; un-know what I know and find new ways to know it.

I know what I want now, but I don’t know how to get it. It’s a matter of using my creativity to discover how this thing works.

…And in Health.

As difficult as love can be to find, and as rare as society can sometimes make it out to be, there are times when perfectly healthy relationships can go wrong.

Anyone who has been in a previous relationship brings emotional baggage into a following relationship. The baggage can be good, in the form of lessons learned and fixed in the new relationship, but the baggage can also be bad, in the form of residual feelings and emotions left over from being with someone else. I don’t necessarily mean this in the sense that there are still lingering romantic feelings for the other person (though this can sometimes be the case), the baggage I’m referring to is more along the lines of negative tendencies or habits that have carried over from the past. For example, feelings of jealousy, expectations of being let down or disappointed, or other emotions similar to these can carry over if they were often experienced in a past relationship. There’s one very important thing to remember in a situation like this, and that is the fact that…

The person you’re with now, is not the same person you were with before.

If they’re a completely different person, it wouldn’t make sense to treat them the same as the other. Just because one relationship is bad and one person treats you wrongly doesn’t mean every other relationship will be the same. The point is to find that one person who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated. 

Still, even with proper baggage handling, a healthy relationship can turn rocky for no reason if you allow what I’ll call non-problems to become problems. These non-problems could also be any of a number of things. For one thing, overthinking small issues and blowing them out of proportion into larger problems is something that can be easily prevented. This could result from that residual baggage that I mentioned previously or it could just be the product of overreaction. Wherever the source is, one just needs to maintain a rational mindset and these types of situations can be avoided.

Another place issues can arise is from handling a non-problem that could potentially become a problem, too soon. For example, if two people have differing long-term goals, such as aspirations to live in different states, I don’t believe this is a conflict that needs to determine the existing status of the relationship. While the situation may eventually require consideration, if the relationship is currently healthy and happy, I see no reason to compromise that; feelings are one thing, but no one can say for sure where they’ll be years in advance. Life happens. So, in my opinion, rather than making a mistake such as ending a relationship early in order to save yourselves the pain of breaking up later on down the road (which is not even guaranteed), why not stay together and see where life takes you? Things could change for the better or things could change for the worse, but I think what’s more of a tragedy would be denying love its chance before it’s even begun to grow.

In the end, there are plenty of reasons to have a bad relationship. And while I’m sure no one intends to compromise a healthy one, it can happen if you’re not careful. Just be sure to maintain good communication, and most importantly, accept happiness as it comes.

Once you find it, just let yourself to be happy.

In Sickness…

Love’s intentions can often be misinterpreted. There are people all over the world, in every country, every culture, of every nationality that are in dysfunctional relationships. They supposedly stay in it because they are in love, but there’s another way to look at this.

Love isn’t easy, but it shouldn’t be impossible either. It should bring a relationship more joy than unhappiness, and if the ratio is imbalanced, it could use a second look. There are many times that people stay in relationships full of fighting, abuse, and constant arguing, because they love each other. However, love shouldn’t be the reason to stay in this type of relationship, rather it should be the reason to take a step back and reconsider it. If two people truly love each other, they should want the best for each other, and a relationship full of problems isn’t the best for anyone. Love should be the understanding and willingness to let go, so that they can find another who will bring the love and joy someone else can bring. So then, what is it that makes it so difficult to quit this type of relationship? It’s often said that…

Love is blind.

And although I do agree with that in certain situations, I believe it’s often wrongly applied to these types of abusive relationships. Love is blind to little things… 

the way your girlfriend slurps the last drops of her drink…
the way your boyfriend chews with his mouth open…
the way your wife drools in her sleep…
the way your husband farts without consideration…

These are all little imperfections that I believe love can turn a turn a blind eye to. However, when the imperfections truly physically and/or emotionally hurt the other person, this is what can cause real problems in a relationship. These are the types of problems that start small and snowball into greater ones. When these situations go uncontrolled, it’s usually very difficult to bring an end without devastating results, many times including damaged or destroyed friendships.

Witnessing these types of relationships from an outside perspective, it’s easy to see the wrong that is occurring. In hindsight, it’s even easy to look back having experienced this type of relationship and escaped and realize the mistakes that one had made. However, it’s the time within the relationship when it’s difficult to realize or accept the problem that’s at hand. It can be hard to understand or comprehend why people stay in these relationships, and that why it’s in these cases that I believe another phrase can be applied…

Love is blind blinding.

Love can cause us to look past the truth of the situation. It can make us believe that if we tough it out through the abuse, the end will justify the means. While there may be a few cases where this could prove to be true, more often than not, the abuse just gets worse. There can be brief moments of sunshine through the clouds, but the storm is usually too large (or even impossible) to ride out; this, however, is impossible to tell without being able to see the future. 

I’ve witnessed this type of relationship from both first and third hand accounts and know the kinds of devastating results it can bare. By no means am I a love expert, nor am I in any position to tell anybody how to run their relationship, but I believe that everyone deserves real love. I’m just a hopeless romantic, hoping that I can help love find its way.

Life in Numbers [6].

6 strings on a standard guitar. 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. 6 afraid of seven because seven ate nine. 6 quarters left in my college career.

Hell, I’ll even throw in another one for good measure…

6 years of my life have been devoted to my college education.

At the age of six years old, I was just beginning my educational journey. I still have fond memories of elementary school. My time from Kindergarten to fifth grade is full show and tell, recess, puppy love, birthday parties, building snow forts, and so much more. This was the height of my childhood and quite possibly the most nostalgic portion of my life thus far.

In sixth grade, I made my next step, moving from my elementary to middle school years. The transition from elementary to middle school was not a big deal, though it was very exciting at the time. It didn’t involve new classmates, a new building, and barely any new teachers (I attended a private school with joint elementary and middle schools). Though, it still marked a stepping stone in my life.

When I turned sixteen, I was halfway through my high school period. Following my elementary and middle school years, my high school years were little to be remembered. Though, while for some, these years are difficult to remember due to the introduction to alcohol and drug use, this is far from the case for me. I didn’t have anyof the classic high school experiences; no drinking, no drugs, no sex, not even any dating or romantic endeavors. For me, high school is nothing but a blur of forgetful and forgotten instances; four years of memories that I struggle to condense into what feels like anything more than ten, maybe twenty minutes of time.

It wasn’t till six years ago, the beginning of my college education, that I began to discover who I was… who I am today. The past six years have been an incredible journey that has molded me, calloused me, overall transformed me, and, primarily, introduced me to myself. I’m still in disbelief thinking that within the next two years, I will be done with my educational career (at least for now) and thrust into the real world to use my many years of experience to fend for myself. Two years may sound like still a long time to some people, but considering that I expected to be done by now, I have a feeling it’s going to go by in the blink of an eye. 

I’m not sure where I’ll be six years from now, but to be honest, I’m not in a huge rush to find out.  I’m happy with the pace my life is set at right now; I’m able to work hard and still take time to enjoy the (big) little things in my life. One thing that I can be certain about for the future, these past six years have been the most memorable of my life, and I look forward to sharing stories of them with friends and loved ones for years to come.

Time is nothing but a number, it’s up to us to get the most that we can out of it.

Life in Numbers [24].

Twenty four hours in a day. Twenty four beers in a case. Twenty four carats in the finest purity of gold. Twenty four years in my life.

It’s pretty weird to me thinking about the fact that I’m already twenty four years old. It’s easy to say that I’m still so young, I’m only twenty four, but then again that’s all relative. Under the assumption that I’ll be living till I’m at least a hundred years old, then yes, I’m only a fourth of the way through my life, but we usually don’t know how long we’re going to live or how much time we have left. If I was to find out today that I have cancer and have just under twelve months to live, that would dramatically change my outlook on life; I would have gone from having lived only 25% of my life to having already lived 96%. This is why I try my best to live in the present and not think too far ahead or behind. Appreciate life for what it is now, it’s too short to worry about where you’re going or where you’ve been. 

This being said, I feel like my past twenty four years of life have been defined in just the past four or five. Up until I entered college, my life was as mundane and uneventful as you could get. I never did anything, I had very few friends, all I did was stay at home, watch TV, and play video games. When I entered college… technically not even then, it wasn’t till my second year of college… it felt like my life suddenly went into hyperdrive. All of the experiences that people tend to have in high school, I didn’t have till then.

Friends— social life— work— alcohol— independence— love— heartbreak— failure.

I feel like I was suddenly given this crash course on what life means, and let me tell you, at times it really wasn’t easy. 90% of my life so far has been on cruise control; I never really had to make an effort in school, didn’t have any work or social life to worry about, and then I was finally given a chance to get behind the wheel and take control. Just like driver’s ed, it was a difficult learning experience. Over the course of these few years, there have been many bumps and potholes in the road along the way, but over the past year, I feel like I’ve finally really started to get the hang of it. So far though, my car still has the Student Driver sticker on it. I’m working my way up there, one day I’ll get my license.

Time is nothing but a number, it’s up to us to get the most that we can out of it.

Homes.

Huron. Ontario. Michigan. Erie. Superior. This is the first thought that came to mind after reading a friend’s comment on Facebook pertaining to her internal struggle with finding or defining one’s “home”. But after cracking my joke, this thought continued to linger on my mind for the remaining 20 minutes of my journey to my first class of the day.

After thinking about it some more, the next thing that came to mind was the fact that we’re both dancers. I’ve been dancing on and off for the past 5 years or so, but I feel like with my recently growing passion, I’ve just now been able to call myself a dancer. With my new found love for dance, I often find myself wanting to dance wherever I am; I realized that this is because even though there’s no music playing aloud (brace for corniness) there’s always the music that’s constantly playing in my heart. Thus was the conception for a phrase I came up with:

Home is where the beat is.

Still, as I thought about it some more, while I do feel at home on the dance floor, this is only one of my many homes.

I’m at home on my laptop, designing and digitally sketching. I could (and have) sit in a cafe for hours upon hours pouring my heart out into a project. Toiling over the most minute details that others may overlook, so I can get it to look just the way I want it to; get it as close to perfection as I possibly can.

I’m at home when I’m holding my guitar. Whether I’m practicing the same old songs that I learned ages ago, spending time trying to learn a new song, or just sitting and jamming to whatever happens to come out, it all comes from the heart.

I’m at home when I’m translating my thoughts into words. I have a total of three blogs online documenting my ideas and opinions spanning the past seven years of my life, along with several hardcopy records. It’s thanks to these that I’ve been able to develop this comfort and feeling of being at home in my own skin, with my own mind.

And with all of this in consideration, I’m not just a dancer, designer, musician, or writer; I’m a artist. And wherever I am, I’m always thinking about the music in my heart, my next project, my next song, my next blog, or a combination of all of the above. Even if I’m not at my house or on my native land, even when I feel lost or physically find myself somewhere I don’t recognize, one comfort that I always have is that…

Home is where the ART is.