wtf a blog post. long time no write. (3 days shy of 5 months to be nearly exact.)so been thinking more about stuff. in my last semester here at the U for graphic design, and been trying to come up with ideas for life.
Teach for America was trying to recruit me. a guaranteed full-time job for 2 years and extra $10,000 to pay off my student loans is tempting. the biggest problems is i freakin hate teaching, and i really couldn't teach anything besides art and music, and i wouldn't want to anyway.
before i was considering joining one of those teach english in Japan things because i really want to be in Japan for a few months. but seriously, i don't even speak japanese and.. i dunno. man i really don't want to end up never having gone to japan in my life but i don't know if this is the best time.
i mean really i should be looking for a design job. do i even want to start this whinefest =_= i think that this is probably all i've talked about on this blog for a long time. basically, i dont' imagine most professional graphic design jobs will make me happy, and (as the title of this blog implies) all i really care about is my own personal happiness, screw the rest of the world. hahaha. but srsly i don't intend to waste a great portion of my life doing something i don't enjoy, i've had enough of that already.
Maybe all i wanna do is paint, draw comics and write symphonies.
But i do really love design. in fact today i kind of realized something about my love for design.
it's not really graphic design i love. i love design as an entire concept. this thing i like about design is taking this chaotic mass of content and sorting through it and making something of it. which leads me to believe what i've suspected for a while: i really like informational design. whether it's a simple chart, a technical diagram or an entire system of of direction like a way-finding system (signs, directories, etc) of a building or community, or a website. freakin, taking this hot mess of raw data and deciphering it and organizing it until it's easy for even the most pedestrian among us to understand.. that's freakin awesome. that's power. i think if i can find a way to work with information i will be happy.
so yeah we were all chillin at this design firm today and Randall Smith, a designer of note who is also a bluegrass guitarist, said he has a position open for a designer who is also capable of acting as a developer, like someone who knows flash, php, mysql, etc in addition to being a fullisze, real life graphic designer. the world is full of posers but i think i actually have the capability to be such a person.
oh yeah related tangient. i'm frikkin sick of people obsessing over right brain/left brain division. i don't believe that crap. well, i mean i do believe it but people take it way too seriously, like to the point where it inhibits their ability to do anything outside of what they think a person of their side-brainedness would do. ok look, everyone has functioning on both sides of their brain or else half of us would be robots and half of us would be barbarians. why is it (apparently) so difficult for a lot of people to look at things in inbetweens... not everything has to be ONE or THE OTHER.
so yeah. i think i'm fairly well balanced as far as the strengths of my two brain hemispheres. (i think i take after my dad a lot) anyway i think i could be totally good at coding and stuff, i just haven't taken the time to learn. should i stay in school for the sake of learning computer things? man. i'd have to take so much math. but i secretly like math. i was in a freakin math competition once, bet you didn't know that.
I went into art because i love it.. i went into graphic design because i was trying to be practical. but there's this little bohemian girl inside me going FOLLLOOOWWW YOOOOUUURRR DREEEEAAMMSSSSS and no matter how practical i am, she will not be quelled. if i do "follow my dreams" will i regret not being more practical when i'm dead broke and have nothing to show for my life (...according to popular values that i don't even fully believe in?) or... how can i find a compromise that will leave me happy? I'm the type to find a good blend between two extremes (really... i can't think of any sentiment that more accurately describes me in practically every way) and so far i've been pretty unhappy with the compromises between practical and fun that i've tried to come up with so far.
is the internet the answer? the internet is always the answer.
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1 comments:
Oh boy can I relate with you. I've even been looking into teaching in Japan just because it'll get me traveling. Sometimes I wish that science and math had been more appealing to me, maybe I wouldn't be in this position of choosing between following my dreams and ending up living under a bridge writing poems, or compromising my happiness for financial security...which could eventually give me the freedom to pursue my dreams right? I say you save up, take a month off this summer and couch surf Japan, then come back and find a job you're gonna love. The vacation might give you some perspective :)
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