Nothing will work unless you do. -Maya Angelou

Welp, I made it. I finished this semester. I can honestly say that it was probably my busiest AND most successful semester at Long Beach yet, and for a few reasons. The reason I say it was both of those is because it was the first time I accomplished more in the past few months than I have in my previous semesters. I'm sure that if a lot of other people who know me actually read this, especially my teammates, they would totally disagree. But here's why it's true: Before the semester began, I changed my plans (and probably some of Ryan's plans) and my life around for possibly the next 2 years so that I could do something this Spring that would be completely me, and just something that I've been wanting to do my whole life basically. I changed my major so I would finally be able to take some art classes, post-poned graduation by doing just that, figured out what my goals would be for these next 2 years so that I could pay for school and other crap since my scholarship ended, and totally had the best time (scholastically) doing 2 things that came from all of that: I came back to my artistic roots and I started my own graphic design business with a great client who I'll have a lasting job with! I know that to a lot of people, that might not be too big of a deal because to them, it's not the most difficult thing in the world (and they're right on this one) to just take some art classes and pay about $80 to start a business. Well listen up punks- it was for me so I'm proud about it! I'm not looking for a huge pat on the back for saying all of this, but I do want to sit back for a sec and be happy about all I've accomplished over the past 4 months because for one, this isn't something I do very much and all and 2, it took a lot of compromising to get there for me. I won't get into it any more than that because I think all the people who are close to me understand what I'm talking about already and if not, I'd rather talk to them instead of write about it here.

Basically, I have huge plans now for this summer now that I've got Huddy Design going.
-At the moment, I'm finishing up my first published website, http://www.hudsonshuffleboards.com/ for my brother. I launched it 2 days ago and have gotten some cool feedback already so that's good. There are a ton of small things I wan to fix and add to it, but for now, it's what Will Hudson, President of Hudson Shuffleboards, wanted.
-I'm also working on some more t-shirt designs for Wah-Tah!, an awesome company I've been working with since it started a few months ago. I've talked about it to a bunch of you guys, but I haven't told anyone really what exactly it is. I'll make a separate post right after this one that tells you all about it. If you have 2 minutes, take the time to read it all because although Wah-Tah! has somewhat of a cheesy presence to it, which is exactly what Seth (the guy who started it) wants it to be, he also wants it to become a hugely powerful and positive concept, which everyone including myself sees its potential in becoming just that. So read on, kids. "Tap the Power Within... Wah-Tah!"
-Scott Harvey Wines has some new wines coming out soon, and I'll be doing more shelftalkers for those throughout this week. I also worked on a new wine label that will be coming out soon for them... it's part of their superhero-themed collection of InZINerator wines, which is very tasty by the way. So I'm excited to see that come out. I hope it's a huge hit.
-Although each of these jobs have helped me build up my business a little more, the biggest plans I've made for this summer are to get my website finished and polished within about a month and a half. I could probably do it before then, but the thing is, I want to grow a really really strong understanding of Flash- one of the most sought after jobs in the design business right now. If I can become somewhat of a master of Flash and object oriented programming (OOP), i'll be golden! There's this huge graphic design convention called Siggraph that happens once a year, and a TON of great companies are there doing their own promotions, and demonstartions and most importantly for me, recruiting. If I can show up as an experienced and knowlegable Flash Designer, I garauntee I'll be hooked up with a sweet job in no time, especially since I'm a female. It sounds weird/sexist/ i don't care what it sounds like actually, because females working in graphic design tend to be totally valued these days since most people working in the fields are males. and females have a totally different perspective on, well, basically everything- on what the designs of the characters, settings, layouts, story lines, etc. in video games, in movies with special effects, in music videos, in websites.. females are totally sought after for those jobs because males obviously dominate it right now. I mean honestly- you don't go to see LOTR or Ironman or some gaming convention without feeling overwhelmed by the nerdiness of all the boys/grown men who think they're boys that day in their favorite superhero t-shirt or better yet their favorite characters costume!! I've totally gone off on a tangent.............

This summer, I'm making it all happen:
-Wah-Tah! will have a sweet website up and running with more t-shirt designs than customers will be able to handle when looking for their favorite style.
-Will's site will be done soon with all the details, so he can start selling a whole boat-load (haaa, literally though) of shuffleboards. then to celebrate, we'd dance and sing, "do the shuffle! do do do dodo do do do do.....do the shuffle!" (sorry, had to throw the corny line that's been in my head a lot lately while working on his site!)
*****-www.HuddyDesign.com finished and responsible for landing me my first big job- hopefully as an art director at a company in OC and not LA.

Last thought for the day- I realize more and more that the creative process, paired with the inevitable process of problem solving (and especially debugging, in terms of Flash and web design work), can literally make you go crazy sometimes.. but what is so important in what I've been doing and what I will do the rest of my career is the choice I make each time a client has a new idea or job for me, or each time I'm creating what I envision. All it really takes is the choice to finish what a client sees in their mind or what I've started instead of giving in to whatever it is that's making me crazy.. the program I'm using, the blank sheet of paper, my over-worked imagination... all of these things and more. That's really all it is- it's just making that choice, sometimes a lot more often than other times, to figure the crap out!! I know for a fact now, after only 1 semester of Intro to Computer Art and Foundation 2-dimensional, that making that one single choice is what categorized just about every single student into those who got an A and those who got a B and so on.

What's great about this realization is that it applies to basically any aspect of your life that you want to deal with honestly. If you want to make an honest assessment of your life and what you want to accomplish anytime in the future, all you have to do is ask yourself if it's worth it to you or not to choose getting through all the issues that will or have already come up within them. For me, I'll have to decide a bunch of times this summer during my training if it's worth it to me to fight off feeling out of shape or tired in order to win my next race. That's what I mean by being honest- it's taking the time out to realize you have a choice instead of playing it off like the choice has already been made for you.

This summer I plan on doing all of these things, finishing in the top of my division- whether it's in designing or in Triathlon and just in life in general- all while being honest throughout all the hours I'll be putting into each job or race. I should say job AND race, actually.