one year down...

who knows how many to go. i wrapped up my first year and 2008 feeling really good. in academia land, i somehow pulled off straight A's. woot woot. in primate design land, i landed the GRAMMY Museum business. All awhile being super involved with my family. i also had a great christmas break/new years, and i can't believe spring semester is already here.

i had time to reflect on my first year in grad school and i realized that i don't have to get anxious over all the resistance i get from school and its makeup: deadlines, advisors, balance, and the quest for self-motivation. i'm just going to keep doing my thing and everything will fall into place. the more i get into what i'm doing, the more i realize that my work will never be done here on earth. i will always have goals, i will always be reaching for something and no matter what i do, things will always become more complicated. that's just been the trend in my personal history and i need to keep teaching myself how to breathe again.

i literally took a vacation from school this break. my intentions were to build a dreamachine, read, assemble some research and my bib outlines, and prepare for 500A - a grad thesis writing class. but i did none of that. well, maybe a couple hours here and there, but not enough to record in history. it will be tough ramping up to meet the demands of another full-time semester, so i'm going to ease into it slowly. i'm only registered for 2 classes as of now:
ART 478 - Studio Expanded, an exhibition course of sorts, and
ART 503A - Graduate Problems in Graphic Design with one of my committee chair members, Chen Wang.
i'm still contemplating if i want to enroll in the writing class, ART 500A. with my current workload and with two boys starting baseball in a month, it's not likely.

so, this is where i stand now. the frustration took a break, but it's not far (i can smell it) and the obstacle course continues as i guess-my-way, pretend-and-smile, research-the-facts, and do-my-thing into Spring 2009. here is my initial research goals: i want my thesis to be based on rhythm, from an artistic view and heavily influenced from the written word. i categorized three elements that make this topic: 1) kaleidoscopes and flicker, 2) calligraphy and mandalas, and 3) patterns and wallpaper. my interest in poetry will drive all this research. i hope that a love for story-telling and visual nostalgia will express my intended outcome in rhythm.

here we go again...