If you could go back five years & tell yourself something...

What would those five things be? A twitter friend of mine asked this on her blog and this is what I commented;

“01. Grow some balls kid! Kiss the girl! (or at least let her know you like her)

02. Don’t get woo’ed by the fancy fine arts department of your school! Keep to your guns and go into graphic design or illustration

03. Minor in Art Therapy, I know you want to focus on your art, but this will help you in the 2nd semester of senior year when you realize you want to go to grad school for this!

04. Keep up with the vegetarian eating, you’re losing tons of weight and the family is actually supporting your diet. Keep it up. (i have severely slacked in this department lately)

05. Push yourself to the limit with networking, jobbing and interning, the socialization can happen in class and at night, make those connections, don’t focus solely on friendships.”

I always say I don't have regrets, because quite frankly I don't like to think of making the "wrong" decision because having not gone into sculpture, and ultimately printmaking (i switched majors my Jr. year) I wouldn't have met and formed awesome relationships with the people I did. I mean they say hindsight is 20/20 so its easy to see where decisions could have been made different and the ultimate outcome would have left me in, not necessarily better, but a different place. Who knows for a fact but I'd like to think that I made the right decisions in the moment.

If you could have gone back and told the five years ago "you" five things, what would they be? Either comment here or write your own post about them! ( and send me a link to your post). I'd love to hear them!

revelations in 140 characters

One of my favorite past times, as of late, has seemed to be watching my twitter list refresh over and over again. Why? Because I'm pretty bored and have nothing better to do becasue I follow some pretty inspiring people and those people tweet pretty inspiring and encouraging things, be them quote or their own blog posts! (i follow some pretty awesome people)

But today, I was reading, and I came across this tweet

"When it comes to chasing a dream, don't confuse "can't" with "won't." Because chances are you can, you just don't."
       - @prodigaljohn

That really hit something in me; not in a negative way, more of an affirming way.

In a few weeks it will be one year to the day, that I have graduated from art school. One year... and what do I have to show? A small portfolio, living at home with my parents... the list could go on and on... but I'm generally a positive person (atleast I try to be) so I try not to complain about that stuff much.

but... I am going to vent a little today.

See what I don't say a lot, is I'm met with a lot of discouraging remarks that I hear through the grape vine or told to my face from some of the people I live with. To them (they either are happily unemployed, young, or have worked at the same position for years) it looks like I am just playing around on the computer, "oh look at him playing with art on the computer", look at that, he's on the computer again! Whats he do? Sit on facebook all day?" All of that is untrue. Most of the time I am job searching, making connections or in some cases doing client (read: getting paid to) work!! Its frustrating to say the least, to be met with such discouraging words. Looking in the newspaper isnt a viable way to find a job anymore (last time i looked, there was 5 jobs, two teaching jobs and three nurse jobs. None of which I am qualified for) but they don't understand that... so I give them a little forgiveness when it comes to thinking im just playing on the computer.

Back to the tweet... this was really affirming. I have a ton of negative energy directed towards me externally; but I also have a lot of my own insecurities about finding a job (its weird to me not working for a year, I've worked and/or gone to school since I was 15) but I've not lost my drive TO find work, I've managed to stay positive (we all have our down days) and continue to job search and just... not sit around doing nothing and not chase what i want( read: dreams)