Present Joys

Editor’s note: I’ve been keeping a weekly digest of my schooltime activities since sophomore year. As I begin my final semester, I’m going to try being a little less cursory. Here we go!

I started out my final semester at 3:30pm on monday afternoon; I got distracted talking to Evan and Theresa at the Crane Café and didn’t leave myself any time to walk upstairs to Motion Graphics. By the time I walked in (with Julia and Anna), the teacher had already started talking, and the room lights were off and it was a little awkward. Despite all the drama, it was fantastic to see a bunch of my friends who were also registered for the class. Once our teacher realized that most of us didn’t actually have After Effects installed on our computers, he let us leave very early. After that, I killed some time with my peeps.

Tuesday morning saw me back in the jewelry lab. I cut a cap R out of plexiglass as part of my first assignment. Then, friendship lunch at the Hills! After lunch, I went back to Senior Ad, which was positively packed full of people. Mr. Mohr used up most of our three-hour period lecturing about projects (specifically: THESIS), leaving me both overwhelmed and excited (mostly: EXCITED). It was just good to be back with so many people I love.

After that, I went to History of 2-d Design—a required class I should have taken years ago—held in Circle Hall, once home to the illustration department, now home to liberal arts. Though the building has been painted and minimally remodeled, it retains a signature dank smell and total lack of windows. It was pretty weird to take a history class there (the class itself was unremarkable). We’ll see whether it turns out to be engaging or boring.

Wednesday afternoon, I drove to school for 3:30pm Motion Graphics. Though it was very odd to “start school” at 3:30pm, once I was there, I got into it. This felt like our true first class because after an unproductive monday class, Mr. Lutz moved us into a classroom that was an actual computer lab. This class ought to be great because it is full of people I enjoy and everybody seems to be keepin’ it breezy.

Thursday in Jewelry, Chris substituted for our usual teacher, Anne, who is out of town until next week. Jewelry with Chris was lots of fun, as you might imagine. I took apart an old bracelet of my great-grandmother’s and set one of its charms in a ring. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch, so I treated myself to an expensive salad, which I ate peacefully in the school library. After that, I went to Senior Ad, where I started working on a project for the 2014 One Show with a new team. We brainstormed concept ideas on the steps outside our classroom; Mr. Burleigh came out and visited with us for a while.

The week came to an anticlimactic conclusion with History of 2-d Design, where our teacher lectured on illuminated manuscripts. And that was that! One week down, fifteen to go. It’s a terrifying proposition.

Day 58: mon, 13 jan 2014. Glad to be back at school—all the more because our first class only lasted a half hour.

• Experienced a little bit of culture shock after being away last week. I was pretty out of it on tuesday morning. Spent most of jewelry class this week listening to presentations about new project. Tried to do some caning which ended up really poorly.
• Upon returning to Senior Ad after lunch on tuesday, Mr. Mohr asked us to give an impromptu presentation on our 14minnikids trip. (This seemed to be in poor taste. Coming back to school is hard.)
• Had a very dysfunctional wednesday morning in Branding. We are technically starting a new project but we aren’t finished with the first one and no one is making any good work.
• Ate wednesday lunch alone in the library while studying for a History of Cinema midterm (for which I was woefully underprepared). Then, I went to class, took the test, and went back to the library to get some more work done.
• Had a few hours of free time late wednesday afternoon and spent it with Andrew and Max figuring out drum parts for my band’s new album. Then, I drove straight back to school for a Portfolio Social, where the entire senior ad class squeezed into two small classrooms and reviewed each other’s portfolios. Chaos.
• Had presentation-filled jewelry class, ate lunch alone. In Senior Ad, started working on new project and chatted with friends.
• Skipped class on friday morning to record with my band. Well, I technically didn’t even skip because Jim Johnson ended up canceling class!

Editor’s note: I’ve been keeping a usually-laconic digest of my schooltime activities since sophomore year. And now we’re back, for senior year!

• Had no monday classes at all, for the first time since starting college.
• Started out the school year tuesday morning with Intermediate jewelry, a class I am still slightly uncertain about keeping. It’s going to be a busy semester.
• Went straight from jewelry to friendship lunch, which we’ve tentatively moved from mondays to tuesdays.
• Started out wednesday with Brand and market development, the only class this semester where I get to see Jason and John, two of my favorite dudes. Our teacher, Jim Johnson, filled the entire three-hour class period with a lecture which he shared with a visiting professional.
• Met my dear friend Amanda for wednesday lunch. We have no classes together this semester. We spent time chatting outside while maintaining a safe distance from CCAD’s involvement fair thing. We even ran into Mr. Burleigh who, after I yelled to him, came over to visit. Very sweet.
• Finished wednesday by attending my only once-a-week class, History of cinema, which is held in the Canzani auditorium. I am reserving judgement for a few weeks; be sure to check back soon to see if my attitude has devolved into antipathy!
• Went back to Jewelry on thursday morning and worked the whole time to produce a very poor-quality married metal solder. At least the teacher is growing on me.
• While soldering, received a nice compliment on my trousers from Matt Flegle. I confess I was very excited.
• Drove off campus to have lunch with Jim Kucera, church pianist/friend/man of mystery. Had a nice time, got back to campus just in time to spend 15 minutes looking for a parking spot. There are going to be serious problems with parking this year.
• Finished off thursday with Ad, which was dismissed early due to wifi outage problems, but not before we’d done a very cute exercise
• Used my unexpected extra thursday afternoon time to go back to the jewelry lab to visit Chris Hill, former jewelry teacher/dear friend/excellent dancer. Then I went downstairs and got Dawson Kellogg to help me use the belt sander.
• Back to Portfolio and got to leave two hours early, again indirectly related to the school’s wifi outage. Get it together, CCAD.
• Hauled myself back to school on friday morning (a first for my time at college) for the second part of Brand and Market development; spent the whole class on a client briefing; received free pill containers. The visiting professional was back, and he is turning out to be quite a fun dude.

• Started out the week 8am monday morning in Web design I, which I wasn’t looking forward to. As expected, the course seemed like a real waste of time.
• Had my first friendship lunch of the year, which was nearly perfect! It was good to see all my food-service friends.
• Went to my second class of the week: Literary studies of graphic novels! Colleen and Dorian are also in the class! It looks like it’s going to be an amazing time.
• Had a bunch of free time from 3:30pm to 6:45pm monday afternoon. Most of this time was spent in the library pretending to do homework but actually talking to Audrey K., Theresa, Amanda, and Evan.
• Went to the first of my Marketing class in the auditorium that Artie Isaac guy. I was not as amused as my peers. On the bright side, it’ll be over in fifteen weeks.
• Got to school extra-early tuesday morning for Ad concepts with Burleigh. I spilled darjeeling on his boot at 8:05am but it was ok because I think he was glad to see me.
• Met with Mr. Lutz, the ad chair, to try to get out of Web I. He encouraged me to do an independent study project instead of Web I, which is exactly what I’m going to do! I wrote the Web I teacher a nice note and said goodbye.
• Went to my first Copywriting class, which is during lunch on tuesday and thursday. I sat in the front of the class and ate a noisy lunch and felt quite self-conscious (but not too self-conscious to stop eating). The teacher, George Felton, is cool, but the other people in the class aren’t that exciting.
• Went to my first Jewelry class, in the upstairs of Battelle Hall. I was ten minutes late because of my meeting with Lutz, but the teacher, Christine Hill, was absolutely charming and cool. Our first project was to cut Lincoln’s head out of a penny, an assignment I enjoyed on many levels. This is going to be a great class all semester!
• Didn’t go to school at all on wednesday (since I got out of my web class!). I stayed home and did homework.
• Had another meeting with Lutz on thursday; while doing so, Mr. Mohr came into the office and invited me to meet Stefan Sagmeister with a few students from his senior class. It was a hugely flattering offer.
• Left my jewelry class early to go visit with Sagmeister in the Canzani gallery and watched him review senior portfolios. He gave very thoughtful, even-handed critiques. After that I got to ask him some questions about one of my favorite topics, the postmodernism love of novelty and gimmick in the arts. It was a very good, thought-provoking time.
• Finally got all my independent study forms filled out and turned in! I also registered for the Package design class on monday mornings, which fills the hole left by Web I. So now my schedule is perfect!
• Killed time at Amanda’s apartment while waiting for the Sagmeister talk on thursday night.
• Went back to school to see Sagmeister give a talk in the Canzani auditorium. In a fluke turn of events, I was able to offer two adjacent empty seats to Lutz and Aschenbrand, who later thanked me for the “perfect seats”. So that was pretty great. All in all, it was a great week which exceeded my expectations on every level.