icons.

So, I was thinking a nice aspect to my portfolio book would be to categorize each piece I do. I have 3 parts to my purpose for going back to school. I think each piece within my portfolio book should refer to one of the parts, and should have a clear icon to depict where is falls. It would just be another level to take in as one peruses the work. I think it will also help add more depth to aspect that might seem like self-expression. If I have a clear, informed way of supporting the value in my documentations, I think it will be a stronger piece.

Parts:
1. Change
2. Designs ability to make life meaningful
3. Take the guilty conscious out of graphic design

4d.

http://designmuseum.org/design/r-buckminster-fuller

I like this dude. He had a philosophy of 4 dimensions to consider when design, the fourth being time. He suggested a careful consideration on long-term consequences over the span of time for the things we create.

Sometimes I feel cheated. I want so much to do what is right for the world and planet, but I do not feel that the design of the world we now live in makes this entirely possible. In order to succeed in planning to fix the things that are wrong, we still do damage. I suppose the hope is that the good will have an exponentially good effect.

damn, rick poynor (in a good way).

I eat up Rick Poynor's words. Brits have such a good way of seeing the world.

When questioning the search for that newness to which humans are so obsessively attracted, Poynor says, "One thing you might start to wonder is whether all the effort that goes into this search might be better directed into trying to gain a deeper insight into what you have already discovered."

That's another thing that really interests me. I want to study change, and this idea has a deep connection to change. Just because I intend to study change does not mean I am pro-change all the time for any reason. Change should happen when change is needed.

Like church. WHY DO WE NEED DRUMSETS AND ELECTRIC GUITARS IN CHURCH!!!!!!!! Can't there be one thing in our lives that celebrates hundreds of years of tradition. Something that stays solemn and beautiful. It seems to me that church would a decent stage for keeping it pure. I like feeling connected to centuries of humans before me celebrating the deep and meaningful philosophy of our own existence.

But that was off-topic.

Poynor says that "more information does not necessarily add up to greater understanding." I feel that comments like these are very helpful for me personally when needing concrete information to help support my intentions in returning to school. I want to study it all. Learn it all. Understand it all.

making my mother worry.

So...Josh is visiting now and got me really excited about an idea. I think I am going to teach English in Taiwan starting in January.

Why?

Josh loved it there. It will be good experience. I will work 20 hours a week, make more than I make now, and spend about 100 dollars a month on rent and utilities. WHAT? This just seems to be a good idea of something to do before I head off to grad school. And I can save some monies.

After a year there, I hope to go teach English somewhere French speaking. Then...I'd like to go do the school stuff.

I am getting certified to teach English abroad in May. It's a six week course. I don't necessarily need to do this course to get a job, but I think it would be interesting to get trained in this stuff. I really would like to teach, so this is a baby step in learning how to do it.

I am so excited about all this stuff. Writing it out helps me not totally flip out from all the excitement, and since I just want to sleep for the next 9 or so months and wake up and be doing this stuff...I should probably search for ways to calm myself and focus on my current position in space and time so not to take it for granted. Sometimes I get so caught up making plans for the future that I forget about my life in the present.*

*That non-sentence is the kind of bad grammar makes English teachers cry. Kind of ironic, since I am thinking about teaching English. Hopefully, the knowledge I have to share will stay sort of basic. Haha.

500 sheets of paper = 6% tree.

I am researching how to start a guerrilla tree-planting project. I don't think this will necessarily make a difference, but it might make a statement.

I don't have the audacity to say I am right. I screw up all the time. I am trying to the best of my knowledge, and I want to know how to make things right.

List of Names?
TreesNOW
Seed Theory
Guerrilla Tree Club
Urban Jungle
Tr[ees]
[SEE]D
Hypothesis
[Plan]t
City Jungle

i watched the Gandhi movie.

Ever since I first learned about Gandhi, he has always been really special to me. Knowing a person like that existed at one point in time leaves me with a positive feeling about mankind's possibilities. But we live in a world of polar opposites. It seems whenever we have a person as great as Gandhi, there is someone despicable enough to carry out his assassination.

It infuriates me that there are problems like this in the world.