On the road…

… to a less industrialised, more eco, enviro, sustaino piece of mind.

and it’s hard.

and expensive.

however there is no going back now, there is far too much knowledge and information out there for me to passively pretend I’m a better person without actively trying to do anything about it. Plus the guilt is huge. Massive.

Yes I’ve always been environmentally friendly conscious – I don’t think it’s possible to not be anymore and shame on you if you aren’t! (spreading the guilt to make more people get on the road) – but it’s no longer possible for me to believe that JUST not using plastic bags at the grocery store and buying organic potatoes (that’s currently the only food we buy that’s organic) is enough.

I realise it’s quite difficult to change your way of life overnight, but after watching Food Inc and then reading up about farms in NZ through Nat’s blog links, I have decided that I want to try. Completely. I want to buy locally, know where it’s coming from, and how it was made, and by whom it was made. Plus I want to think about my own actions and what impact they have on the environment, you know how you always wanted to be a person that made an impact??? well I guess we all did… only not a good one :/

It would be awesome if you could have a little breakdown of your daily day (hehe) and the impact in numerical something negatively on the environment. For example (10 being BAD and 1 being NOT SO BAD): woke up = 1, had a longer than necessary shower = 7, ate breakfast made from crap that in the end came from massive money makers with no conscience = 10, drove massive gas chugging car to work = 9, etc etc. verses: woke up = 1, had a no longer than 5 min shower with solar heated water = 4, caught the bus = 5 or even walked = 1 ……. anyway you get the point – may seem a little extreme, but isn’t that the idea?? tip the scales the other way to bounce back to a happy medium?? or even tip the scales completely over and realise that we’re better off and want for nothing anyway so what were we ever thinking?

I wish I had the power to run down these massive corporations that do nothing but make money for moneys sake with no morality or consequences to worry them.

But those are the bigger dreams… for now I’m looking for products that I can rely on and am jumping on the band wagon to change to my lifestyle – for the better (no matter the $$$ cost)

The Job Hunt

After a long and plesant few months making no effort at all the pressure has increased on The Job Hunt. After Exhibition I mentally decided to wait til the new year to start. Fortunately that meant that I have completely and utterly relieved myself of all design stress over christmas and new year. Unfortunately I have completely and utterly relieved myself of all design motivation over christmas and new year. Now is the time to get it back!

So with a pretty new spreadsheet (yes. That’s correct ANOTHER spreadsheet) I have started to organise my job searching.

This of course is in procrastination for doing the thing that will contribute to my finding of a job – the Portfolio – and now I find myself procrastinating again whilst writing this post.

So… bow and arrow (because it sounds far more point, shoot, and score then any other kind of hunting weapon) ready… Off to find a job!!!

Final Year Interior Design Exhibition!

A whole years worth of work (and a little bit more) from me and 10 of the most wondrous designers I know In celebration of the END of our Interior Design degree! WAHOO!!!

Come along if you’re interested!!!

It is at Chaffers Gallery, Herd Street, Oriental Parade, Wellington
Open Saturday 8th to Sunday 9th November from 11am to 4pm

Failure to Succeed!

Normally this simple phrase has such negative conotations to it. As in – I have failed to succeed, ie. I was trying to succeed but failed, ie. I was trying to succeed but didn’t so therefore I failed.

Well I have failed to succeed.

I have just recieved a mark for a (relatively important) project that was, shall we say, very unsatisfactory. To put a long story short, the project that a while ago I was stuck with deciding on an idea… yeah well I took to long and subsequently did not have the work content to pass one particular hurdle of a presentation.

However, and this is where we go back to the ‘Failure to Succeed’ heading, I have (after a good counselling session with Nat) decided to NOT take this the negative way. I haven’t failed to succeed, instead my failure will enable me too succeed! What?! you say – well (and this is where I relay major points from a tipsy conversation) as Natalie kindly pointed out to me, some of the most successful people in life have failed at some point. She also told me that sometimes the better people to hire are those that have suffered failure, as they are the people that have picked themselves up. They are the people who can turn situations around for the better. And quite simply they are the people who have LIFE experience.

This (and the $1 bubbly’s) made me feel a lot better.

Now while the presentation that I failed has not affected me too much (as in I’m still well passing my degree (thank goodness otherwise its $30,000 and something down the drain)) it is still good to hear that this is something that I can learn from. Not only that, but then later when I was talking to Ingo, I realised (with a lot of help from him) that if I come back, try and do even BETTER than I’ve ever done before, well not only will I feel obesely satisfied with myself, but also I’ll be able to *stick it up* at everyone that smugly thought ’she had it coming’. (totally not the point I should have taken from that conversation, but again, the thought made me feel better)

Yes I did have it coming. “Procrastination is Key” is my favourite saying, and a new one picked up this year: “why change a habit of a lifetime?” Well… why? because a mid-project presentation doesn’t usually cater to the “pull-it-out-of-your-…bottom” type of person. No certainly not *damn them!* and as a last minute harry, I have finally been fully and utterly punished for my method of working.

Previously stated: The reason I get distracted easily and can think of a million other things that I could do is not procrastination, it’s a Creativity Block. I am physically and mentally unable to come up with any work, and if I force myself to do it anyway it will never last the cut. hmmm yes well, still think this is true, but am seeing now that I definately need to work on it :s

Anyway, not really concentrating on the writing at hand at the moment, but onwards with my succeeding from failure!!!! Ie. Failure to Succeed!

Splurge

I have started my Major Project for my final year of my degree. When I say started what I actually mean is I have come up with 15 million *exaggeration* different ideas all of which I would like to do and 15 million *again exaggeration* different things I would like to incorporate into my childcare facitilty. Including changing childcare in general. Of course with only just under three months to go of my final year this is a bit ridiculous.

Hence my problem – How do I decide on which aspects of what ideas I have had to date that I should use yet have a project that is worthy of being a final project.

Put plainly I’m stuck and don’t know what to do.

Best Awards

Am EXTREMELY stoked!!!! Am a finalist in the Best Awards

So after all it was a good idea to listen to my tutor and submit my apartments design instead of my dancing studio project

Anyway here are the panels that got me through

Best Awards

My apartments got picked to be entered into the Best Awards competition! stoked!

Awesome website!

I have just come across in my ProDesign magazine, an advertisement for “The missing piece to the ultimate Design Resource” and decided hmmm this looks interesting! so to the website did I toddle (sorry that was another way of saying “toddle off to the website” or for those of you who don’t understand my granny ways of speak – “went to the website”)

and when I got to the website what did I find??? Awesome-ness!

If you are a design student who’s always asked to “go and find it in the product library” or to “look on the internet” then you will also love this site, when wanting any sort of information on aluminium “innovative solutions” not only does it give you massive amounts of help when looking for something to fill your design needs, or when you can’t figure out how something should work, but it also has these handy little easy to understand diagrams with the classic expandable points (only virtual) which gives you a detail drawing when you click on them! YAY!!!

Where oh where was this website through bathroom project??? :s

Crashing into the Real World

I have crashed into the real world. Fast. No more is my student status a protective cuddly layer of ego boosting.

This has come as quite a shock, and has forced me to think not only about my resilience and the need to quickly harden up, but also about what I have to contribute to, well, life in general.

It began with my Interior Design class of eleven, giving twenty minute presentations yesterday. We walked ino the room and were introduced to a guest listener we had had no prior warning about. This person preceded to rip us to pieces. Literally. Un-surprisingly enough we were outraged. How dare this person come in with no idea how long and hard we’d been working on this research, and question us like that!

By the end of the day we were not very happy to say the least, and a few of the girls went for a wine to disuss the days precedings. After talking the positive’s through with my friend Nat, who helped me to see where my next step was, I went home for a sleep.

Following this I then tried to explain my outrage to a couple of other close people, who didn’t so much share my opinion and also agreed with some of the things that had been said to me. This is where I fell apart. All of a sudden I could not explain myself well enough to prove these people wrong, and not only that, but these are people who’s opinions I respect and they agreed that what I had written was not good enough.

What am I doing with myself? Where is this going? and what on earth is my Thesis? – is there any point in carrying on?

I had to be distracted to get over it. (Was told to stop thinking about it)

Today I have re-assesed my opinion of the guest listener and my outrage at not being warned. This is the real world. You don’t get hand-held, spoon-fed, and told how wonderful you are every minute of the day. In fact you don’t get that at all. Our tutor did us a favour. We are going to come into situations like that every day where we are having to explain and stand up for our designs and ideas to people who we don’t know and who won’t agree, and these people don’t have to be nice, some of them won’t be constructive in their critisism. We need to learn to steel ourselves to aggressive questioning, and to learn in situations like that to take the helpful information from everyone’s comments.

I personally also need to harden up. To get upset about being told something you’ve done is perhaps not good enough is pathetic but also not pro-active, and a waste of time. I need to take what they’ve said onboard and either turn it around and prove that they are wrong, or use it to improve myself and my work. I don’t need other people to boost my ego, I need to always strive to do better.

This then led me onto thinking about my future (which is something I don’t like to do too often, as I am a firm believer in living on a day to day basis and enjoying yourself) and decided that I don’t just want A job, A house, A dog (or 5), A family, I want to do something that I am passionate about, and follow through with that thing no matter what I am doing or where I am. I want to do something that is important and that I feel contributes – to what? I don’t know :s

The real world is a harsh place though and you need a really strong ‘thing’ that you are really passionate about and you need to have what it takes – whatever that is :s

I hate spam

As I think most people do, but here I was thinking that someone was actually interested in what I was writing and -even better- agreeing with me! but it turns out that the comment “I absolutely agree with this !” is actually spam.

Well you can imagine my disappointment.