Don’t you hate it when you start doubting? I sometimes doubt if design is something I can do. It’s not that I doubt whether or not I really love design or not, but if I can survive? Will I be good enough? Can I handle the responsibility that comes along with the title? I remember reading in a book about some famous designer who was asked what he feared. To my surprise he answered he was insecure all the time; that he wasn’t going to be relevant anymore or jokingly that the world will discover that he’s really just a hoax. That was encouraging in an odd way.

So I set some goals for this winter break. It’s a little over the halfway point and I’ve checked off zero of my goals listed. The first couple weeks were really busy as I was working full time and spending time with family. But now the holidays are over; my out of town family have gone back home and there’s much less hours for me at work. I’m back at it working on my final book from GPHD 25 which is one of the pieces required for the portfolio submission. This class never ends! I had some edits to do on Series 5 (point line plane) and had to redo part of Series 3.3 (stacked interval). I just finished the vellum overlays for Series 3 and 5, which take forever by the way. I’ll post a picture to show you what I mean. Other things I’ve been working on: finally created a cool little email signature when I start emailing studios for potential internship, doing some drawing, and some reading.

On a side note, the day I hoped would never come happened one night when I was cutting out 4×4 squares out of bristol. In one quick motion, the x-acto blade went up and over my t-square, across both my index and thumb. It was so fast I didn’t realize I had cut myself until I saw blood, which luckily did not get on the bristol. The cut looked pretty deep to me, but found out later it wasn’t deep enough to get stitches. It’s been really frustrating because of the time and money I had to waste. Not having a fully functional thumb also makes simple things so much harder to do. I’ll spare you the macro picture. A good thing that came out of this humbling experience was that it pushed me over the edge to invest in a quality rotary trimmer. I was always too cheap to get one, but the experience is way too much of a hassle.

Currently Listening to…
Artist: rogue wave
Song: postage stamp world
Album: out of the shadow

It’s been a long semester. I worked harder in this one semester than any other quarter or year at UCLA. There’s many things I can go into detail about as far as assignments and other design related topics, but I’ll save that for a later entry. I’m unofficially on my winter break right now because I have one exam + 1 paper left. It’s GPHD 05 which is basically my easiest class this semester. As a pre-graphic design student, the work never really stops. Actually, designers in general never really have time to stop learning and moving forward. It’s a constant fight with competition; with staying relevant.

So this winter break, I’m setting some goals for myself to hopefully keep me ahead of the competition. Whenever I set goals though, I’m always overly ambitious, and as a result fail to reach my goals. Well, this time around, nothing’s really changed, but I’m still optimistic about meeting my goals! Here they are in no order of importance:

• maintain a habit my art 20a teacher tried to instill in our class: 1 drawing a day, either from imagination and/or reality
• complete my huge drawing of a Japanese factory (potential portfolio piece)
• complete my GPHD 25 book, spiral bounded and all
• finish my personal promo pieces to send out to potential employers (ex. business card, portfolio take away material, cd)
• contact all the design studios about possible summer/fall internship
• finish one of those books that have been accumulating faster than I can read them

That’s quite a list on top of work work and play as well. I’ll let you know in a month how I do.

I mounted my last photo of the 12 required for my photo 40 class. Luckily I was able to avoid the madness that is going to ensue in the dark room lab in the final week before portfolio submission. I kind of gave up on the last photo due to lack of time and basically compromised for a mediocre photo, but it’s only so that I can put all my effort into GPHD 25. This class takes up so much time. Two weeks never seemed so far away…How should I celebrate the end of the semester? Oh wait, portfolio’s due finals week of next semester, then summer, which means……yep, 1 month to work on my portfolio and start inquiring about internships.

WordPress didn’t make a mistake. I am currently writing this entry at exactly 5:11 am PST. Surprisingly, I’m not up because of school work. I ran into a blog before I was about to doze off and it really got me thinking. About many things in general, much of which I won’t get into, but what really interested me was the honesty and amount of self this person put into their entries. One of the things I couldn’t help but feel was sympathy and empathy for the person. I am so abundantly blessed. So many privileges are given to me, none of which I really deserve.

I have a shelter and a bed to stay warm in. I have clothes to choose from. I don’t have to worry about getting food, I just eat it. I have a means and ability to make money. I am so rich in so many ways. And finally, I get to study what I love: design. Before I started attending Sacramento State, I had actually crossed it off as the last school I’d ever attend for graphic design.

Being away four years in LA gave me that desire to be independent and explore beyond the 97 square mile radius of a city called Sacramento. Ironically as I began applying, each state school shut its doors to second bachelors and I saw my options one by one dwindling. This left about three schools, one of which was Sacramento State. I took this as a message from God telling me I was purposed to go to Sac State. It’s been over a year since then, and I could not be any more grateful than where I am right now. (I recently found out that Sacramento State will stop accepting second bachelors for Fall 2010.)

With all this in mind I need to have an unwavering focus and absolute resolve in school. I am currently working on my portfolio to submit in the Spring to determine my acceptance into the graphic design program. I’ve been working harder now than I have been in my entire four years at UCLA and I feel I’m only at about 70% of what I could be doing. I’m shooting for 110.5%. I hate it when coaches say that because mathematically it’s impossible, but you get the expression.

I am so grateful for the opportunity and putting in everything I have is the least I can do to show for it.