a place

“Biking in Beirut has the feel of bungee jumping, without the bungee cord. You leave your house with two choices: do you want to ride on the road or the sidewalk? Half the people on the road don’t know what a driver’s license looks like, the other half acquired it by taking a bribing test. Throw in the crazy cabs and the delivery scooters phenomenon and that eliminates the road option. Sidewalk it is, people cussing you out won’t kill you, uncovered manholes will. Suddenly disappearing sidewalks, trees, traffic signs, dog shit, and cars parked on the sidewalk make it a very challenging obstacle course.”
Jamal’s Propaganda: Beirut by Bike…

I found this blog post when I googled the phrase “biking in beirut.” I’ve been really enjoying biking around Savannah lately. I haven’t driven my car in over two weeks. I want to buy a bike when I get to Beirut this winter break. My brother and sister already share a car, and throwing me in the mix means we’ll be arguing over who gets the car when a lot.

But this post isn’t very comforting. It got me thinking about the chaos on the streets of Beirut, and my slim chances of survival on a bicycle. On the other hand, I know that one of my sister’s friends bikes in Beirut, and he’s still alive (last I heard). I also have no idea where one would go to get a decent bike, bike lock, lights, and helmet in Lebanon.

I’m still going to try. It’ll make the vacation much more interesting, and keep me from growing my vacation belly.

My first week back at school is over. I’m taking four classes to make up for not being here for two quarters, and I hope to graduate this spring like I was supposed to. From this first week, it looks like it’s going to be a busy but interesting quarter.

I’m taking a class called Design for Sustainability. Verena, our professor, has a lot of mini-projects and field-trips planned for us, which is exciting, but first we’re going to learn more about this whole sustainability thing. It’s a relatively small class, only seven people showed up last class, so it’ll be intimate and unpredictable. Next week we’re doing a design charrette in which we’re going to come up with a “green” bag for JC Penney. I’m a little skeptical, especially considering that just about everyone is doing a whole bunch of greenwashing right now, but apparently this is the real deal. In any case,I’m really excited about the class and I’m hoping to get some good work out of it. I just hope that I’ll have time to do good work with all my other classes.

The other class that’s going to be a lot of work and a lot of fun this quarter is the JCB project. It’s a studio class sponsored by JCB, which kinda puts it on the opposite end of the scale from the Design for Sustainability class. This quarter we’re going to build upon the research that some of my colleagues did last spring and help JCB develop their brand. We’re going to work with some advertising and graphic deisgn students, which should be cool.

I’m also taking Intro to Anthropology. I’m going to be designing for human beings, so I might as well get to know them. This class will give me new ways of studying and thinking about people that should make me a better designer.

My last class is Portfolio and Resume Development, which is exactly what it says it is. It’s great that the SCAD industrial design program offers this course, not many schools do. I’ve been meaning to put together a portfolio for a while, and now I sort of have to, and I’ll be getting constant feedback all the way. I really like the first assignment for this class. We had to evaluate ourselves using something classed a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It forced me to take a few steps back and really look at who I am and what I am good at, as well as what I suck at. It’s been making me think of what I can do to be better, to do better. It also neatly coincided with my reading of Merlin Mann’s article, aptly called “Better”. All I know is, I want to keep getting better and better. And then even more better*.

*I realize “more better” is very incorrect. It’s just something my friend Beau says.

Finals are over. A pretty tiring experience. I got everything done though.

I won’t be going back to SCAD until next fall. I recently interviewed for an internship position at Husqvarna, an outdoor products maker. I got offered the position, and accepted, and will be starting in January. I’m excited; I’m going to be sketching up tons of concepts, researching human factors and ergonomics issues, presenting ideas to marketing, collaborating with experienced designers, and just learning A LOT in general. Can’t wait! I’m going to miss SCAD though. I’ve spent more time at the industrial design building in the past year than I have anywhere else.

Because I’m not coming back to SCAD next quarter, I had to move all my stuff out of my room. Normally, at the end of the school year students are given until 5 pm the day after last day of classes to get moved out. But for winter quarter, they only gave me until noon the day after classes. I was packing for 7 hours and still didn’t get everything out on time. My RA was really cool about it though, and I ended up getting more time. I left at a reasonable 3 pm. It was still really tiring.

I had to pack again for my trip back home to Lebanon. That was easier though. Hardest thing was making sure that anything fragile was sufficiently padded with clothes to prevent damage. I’m getting better at this packing thing! Still not my favourite thing to do though.

Now I’m at the airport in Atlanta, waiting at the gate for my flight to JFK airport in New York City. I managed to avoid wireless internet fees by using my phone as a bluetooth modem (I have an unlimited data plan from AT&T). Setting it up was confusing, but it worked! Gotta love my brother’s new MacBook. The connection is kinda slow. I wonder why my HSDPA enabled handset isn’t getting blazing fast 3G speeds. Ah well, at least I’m online.

Here’s me being exhausted from one of the most stressful weeks of my life, waiting a the gate so I can fall asleep reading Don Norman’s “Design of Everyday Things” on the flight to NYC. Taken, of course, with the built-in iSight on my brother’s MacBook. Hi y’all!

Coroflot, a “career and community site for creative professionals,” just launched a blog called Creative Seeds. According to them, it is:

“A blog dedicated to creative work: How-to’s on finding design work and creative recruiting, advice on what leading designers are looking for, and showcases of great work from Coroflot portfolios.”

Should be a valuable resource to us design-types. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.