Some Dude on the Internet

I could say a lot about 2011 -

It was a good year, despite occasional rollercoasterness.

If I had to give it a title, 2011 was the year of
"How I learned to stop worrying and love myself"
more than any year up to this point.

And that's pretty cool.

I got back into art, accidentally started myself on a new career path and am LOVING it, started fooling around with comic art, and rediscovered my love for illustration. And learned a LOT about time management.

And got suckerpunched in the jaw with a corkboard about 60 seconds before the new year. Gravity doesn't pull punches, I will tell you that much. XD

Here's to an even better 2012

So actually the biggest thing going on in my life right now hasn't started yet.

I'm going back to school. It's funny because I actually saw a friend from college say something a little cynical about the Art Institutes right around the same time I started looking into going there. It bothered me for a while, particularly because I remember holding much the same attitude about them when I was at Ringling.

Here's the difference. Ringling is a Fine Arts school. The Art Institutes offer degrees of Science.

Sure, it's a little weird that any kind of Art School would accept a student without any kind of portfolio review required. But then, Ringling didn't interview me, to see if I was a good candidate for the school. Ai did. They are interested in their numbers- they want to keep a low drop out rate and a high success percentage of job placement within 6 months of attaining a degree. And I don't see that as a bad thing, where once I might have.

The teachers are all working professionals, and part of their job is to develop students' real world contacts lists. This may or may not be very different from what Ringling offered, if I had put forth a little more effort at that time.

But I'm in a different place, too. Healthier, certainly, and that runs deeper than you might think. At Ringling I was determined to go the freelance route, and I had all sorts of misconceptions about what that would mean. I didn't develop my contacts or try to get hired doing an art job because I didn't want to interact with people that wouldn't understand who I was.

And darnit I want a chance to go to school -as myself.-

It'll be a Graphic Design degree. More on that later. =]