The end of the beginning

College is over. School is really all I’ve ever known. It’s kinda crazy to be thinking that whatever I encounter next, I’ll be doing times longer than I’ve been alive. It’s crazy to think that this was just the start – it was always just intended to be the start.

I’ve aspired to this job thing forever. And now that it’s right around the corner – I realize that I have no idea what to expect. I wonder if I’m prepared, if I’ll like it. I realize how much of my life is left to live.

And all of the sudden, at the time when I finally felt justified to feel like I was “old’ and “adult” whatever you may want to call it. I find myself feeling younger and less experienced than ever.

I’m sure I’ll pick it up quickly, because in years and years of school I’ve learned how to learn. But that doesn’t make it any less daunting and sort of.. ironic.

So… here goes nothing I guess.

Goodbye chapter one of my life – appropriately titled “school.” I’m excited for whatever the rest of the chapters may bring.

And I move forward knowing that with God writing my story, everything will turn out exactly as it should.

This likely will not be my last post here, although it is the 10th of the semester and last required. 

I have enjoyed this blogging experience. A little venting, a little marketing, a little life – really a little bit of everything me! I suppose that is the point of a blog.

As this is potentially my last, and as there are only a few more weeks left in the last semester of my undergraduate education I cannot help but be sentimental. I know, I hate it too. Especially with the way the sun has been out the last few days, it makes me think how much I’ll miss this place. The beauty that is “among the pines” the joy that is the smiling faces in the loop, slacklines, frisbees, all of it – all of it that we take for granted every day we drag ourselves to class and complain about Saga.

But how fast it’s all gone. How I wish I could live it all again “just without the time suck that is school” I say – jokingly aware that that is after all the point of this place. How I wish I’d had even more time to do even more things, to spend quality time with more people. There really just never is enough time to do everything we want. 

What a wonderful lesson to learn. This time, while it has often made me angry and tense, has also brought me peace. It has taught me to appreciate the little things, to take an hour to sit in the sun – to worry later about the paper that isn’t due Friday, to take a road trip just out of town – just because.

It’s taught me to make time, to recognize that there never will be enough of it. And it’s taught me to cherish what’s real and embrace what matters and spend time doing things I love with people I love. Why waste such a precious thing.

So enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the liberties that senioritis brings, and embrace this place that a part of us will always call home. Before you know it it’s gone and the opportunity is lost. What they say really is true, you never remember a grade on a paper that seemed at the time to be the end of the world – but the time we spend with friends is priceless and creates memories that last a lifetime. 

Research

Research is a funny thing. There’s a few reasons research is funny to me. First, it’s not easy to spell, as is apparent since I spelled it twice incorrectly thus far. Thank you spell check for saving my life, my reputation and my grades. Anyway here are the reasons:

1. It takes place on a computer – funny thing about computers. It takes approximately 30 minutes (2 hours when you’re a second semester senior) to get around to doing anything you set OUT to do on a computer once you open the internet. I’m talking facebook, email, gmail, twitter, pinterest, linkedin, monster, indeed… what else do i have open right now… allrecipes, you name it i’ll do it before I do my research now that my computer is up and running the beast that is the world wide web.

2. Often, more often than not and certainly more often than we realize, we don’t find out what we set out to find out in our “research.” And in my case, when you apply to “conference” to present your research, you haven’t done your research yet. And being a first semester senior, over-achiever, and an optimist you think “eh, I got this, this is gonna be cool, my research is gonna rock.” And it doesn’t. And then 3 days before your report is due (this is purely hypothetical by the way – totally hasn’t happened to and surely isn’t happening to me RIGHT NOW) you realize “oh my gosh, nothing correlates, I found out nothing cool, and now I have to stand in front of these people and tell them my research is dumb – AWESOME!”

3. Research is an ambiguous term. And to do it well, is very different than to do it decently. What the difference is, is hard to know. But when you do it well, you know. And it looks a lot like thinning hair, neglected self, and sleep-deprivation. Hmmm.. that’s a lot like what senioritis looks like.

So.. I could go on. But I think 3 funny things is enough for now.

Oh research. For 3 more days you will make me crazy. And on that 4th day I will forget you. Until April 21st when you will try to ruin me. But it will all be ok. Because anything that happens before 10am doesn’t really count.

Love, Kara

Pinteresting

I think it’s interesting this Pinterest thing. But I think I’m addicted. I don’t know. I suppose it could be my senioritis. Somedays I feel as though I could get addicted to applying for jobs – truly just about anything other than what I got on my computer to do in the first place. I can be addicted to things I don’t even like.

But anyway, there’s this new person in my life – well not a new person but an old person in a new role – that I’ve been spending a lot of time getting to know lately – and I think it’s a funny thing when you get to know someone by telling them about yourself (this really isn’t important to where I’m going but it’s insightful). I think we always tell people about the us we want to be. And I think we do it subconsciously. Because to a fault I will think that I’m not that great or not that good looking or not that smart or not that impressive. And while the people around us may get annoyed by what they think is fishing for compliments, I still think it’s better than being egotistical. Maybe it’s the way I was raised. But regardless…. I think we just do this where we say “this is what I’m like” and it’s not. Maybe it’s that in real life and in learning about each other in context you actually see so much more than you can think to tell. Or maybe they are that way but you don’t like it the way you liked the way it sounded when they said it… Either way.. back on topic – you’re going to laugh at this tangent I just took.

One of the things I confessed to this friend was my obsession with home decor magazines. Yeah. because I’m going to own a home someday soon. And even if I were, goodness knows I wouldn’t have the thousands of dollars to put into my dream kitchen for the next like you know, 5 years after my unborn children are out of college.

What a waste of my time. Let me go back, maybe it’s the senioritis – but I don’t think so. Something about that big but not too big country cottage style house with the huge green yard and wrap around porch and the red front door and the white fence and the long driveway and the whitewashed kitchen cabinets, the pristine countertops and the gorgeous view out the living room window, the shower with the intricate tile detail and the bathroom sinks that look like bowls resting on the counter, and the… yeah – something tells me that’s not senioritis.

But I suppose it’s important to dream. It’s important to set goals. I’m bad at setting goals, but I’m far worse at sharing them. Because I’m afraid that if I fail, everyone will know that I’m sad. I don’t like people knowing how I feel. It makes me feel weak and vulnerable. Feelings are dumb.

So to bring it all back. I got invited to pinterest. Invitations to things like that are silly. But either way, I feel cool so I guess they work. So now my senioritis and my love of kitchens has collided. It’s official – I’ll never get anything done again.

Subaru – 200,000 miles

I think in our over-saturated world, simplicity rules. I see these ads come out and I try to figure out what the “good ones” have in common. Is it what they say or is it how they say it? Is it the technology they use or the depth of information they provide? Is it something they make us connect to – something we live and understand? The answer I find is always yes. But what they all do, all the good ones that is, is much different from what we’d expect. 

In our fast paced world we would think they’d say a lot, but they say little. We’d think they’d flash images and facts, text our brain speed and challenge our creativity. We’d think that they would function much like our lives, quickly, and over in 30 quick seconds.

Gosh, how do you leave an impact in 30 seconds or less?!

Like this. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvx3YX09N6Y

Life: it happens fast. When we let our hearts do the talking, when we tug at the heartstrings of others, a much more significant work has been done than any work our words could do.

At Saatchi & Saatchi they call them lovemarks. Find yours, and do the world a favor. 

Oh the Job Market

I apologize as I realize that these posts are mainly about the job market, and the advertising industry and all of that modern technology stuff. But truthfully, that’s where my mind is these days. And it’s getting more and more that way as spring semester lingers on. Busy work? Reading response? How about you make me go out and apply 10 places this week – let’s do something productive. All things I think to myself as I evaluate the ethics behind some play some man wrote centuries ago or create a survey template to be “edited” and recreated again the next week. Let’s do something that will get me a job eh?

So as I look to find a job, I stumble across articles like the one my dad sent me this morning.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46792761

Check it out, I mean really?! How do we let people get away with this? And how have we gotten to the point as a culture of people where such actions are necessary – obviously enough bad stuff has happened, poor hires been made to lead us to these drastic measures? Or more importantly how is our society so desperate to get a job that they’ll happily oblige?

Whichever of these “answers” is the most related, I still feel that any of the options are sad and depressing. But how do we escape this pathetic dependency we find ourselves in? More importantly, can we escape it at all?

 

Creative Company

http://sxsw.com/interactive

I’m excited to be around smart people. I never thought I’d say it, but I’m stoked to be the runt of the litter, to be in the presence of people with so much experience and so much insight and intellect. I can’t wait to learn from those with real world experiences.

Even as I’ve gone to some of these “meetings” or interviews or whatever you would prefer to call them, I’ve seen myself learning so much more than I realized I’d be learning outside of the classroom.

It doesn’t help much with my excitement to get out of the classroom or my bout with senioritis but it does inspire me to continue to learn. 

And I think that’s exciting. To see the world as something that still has so much to teach me. To perceive that as a good thing, and to embrace it. I think I’ll get a lot more out of life that way – and I’m ready. 

So bring on the conferences, bring on the trade shows, bring on the principals who know so much more who are willing to teach the insignificant “freshman” again. Bring it world – I’m ready!