Back to 'normal'

Joel is home from his month abroad (that makes [cough] three this year... not that I'm counting) and my family have all gone home now. My mother and brother were here for two weeks. During that time we did a whirl wind trip to Penang and saw lots of stuff in Singapore. My mother decided to stay on for three more weeks. We traveled to Bali and finished off her bucket list of things to do in Singapore. It was a great five weeks but it's nice to have Joel home and be back to another version of normal.

Will we stay put for long? Probably not. I'm looking at flights right now actually... Thailand and possibly Bali part 2 are on the horizon. In the meantime I've got three more weeks of a history class left. I decided to bite off a big research paper that has me tracking down out of print type specimen books from a 16th century typographer and having them couriered to Singapore. I'm in heaven.

You're probably wondering what the image above is all about. Yes, that's my kitchen table set for dinner and that's Joel's new Lego train. He has been visiting this train in Lego stores for more years than I can count so while he was in Colorado I went and bought it. It was such a hit! I can't quite bring myself to ask him to take it off the table so for now we're eating with our plates in our laps watching the train go around. Choo choo!

(Online) schools's out!

Package design final project ready for submission

My spring semester is finally over and I'm trying to turn my nights back into a time to sleep in my bed rather than being slumped over my laptop. It's been a really interesting experiment to do school 100% online and to be doing 4th year design classes at that.

My school, like most of the big American design schools, operates on the philosophy that successful designers need to be able to operate under extreme duress for long periods of time. The full time work load is usually 70+ hours a week of homework with often tyrannical instructors at the helm hoping to emulate the initiation they themselves went through in the industry back in the 70s. Very few students make it out the other end and that's the whole point of the process.

Taking my course load down to 3 classes and being online has really changed this experience. The online teachers are more organized and conscientious because everything they do and say is recorded.  The online students are older and more likely to question authority. I wish I'd made the switch a while ago. Even though it's less social, it's a healthier learning environment for me and I'm happy to keep doing this for another year.