Beginning

I'm all moved in. Vinicent Stabile Hall, Room 114 is my new home for the next year. Calling Stabile home will never happen because it has as much charm as a prison. Funny that I should say that because the Pratt graduate who designed it previously designed mental institutions and, you guessed it, prisons. I can't complain though: my roommate is easy going, its clean, my RA is a nice guy, and the folks on my floor are a cool collection of people from every part of the country.

The orientation schedule has been keeping me pretty busy since I got here. Every day there has been meetings (oh how I love listening to information that I have already been told!). I have been to so many "get to know you" sessions and what not. If I never have to do another ice breaker in my life that would be fine. Unfortunately, all of this orientation stuff has left me very little time to go exploring. Though I have made the walk up to Williamsburg which is fascinating (I will save its story for another time).

The big story for today was my trip to Dress Code with a couple of my class mates and one of the orientation leaders. Dress Code is graphic design firm run by two guys: Dan and Andre. The two of them attended college in California while doing design work on the side to bolster their portfolios. After college they both got senior position jobs working for MTV. After a little more than a year they grew weary of working for something as corporate and huge as MTV so they moved on and started their own studio. Today, they are finishing a book about making the transition between art school and getting a job in the real world. On top of this, they teach classes here at Pratt and continue to do graphics work for companies like Adobe and Fila. The story isn't over yet. Here is the kicker: Dan is 26 years old and Andre is only 22. I am still trying to figure out exactly how that makes me feel. It gives me hope that I too can accomplish so much at such a young age, but at the same time I feel very inadequate since I won't even be graduating until I'm 23.

I am happy to be here in New York. I miss home, but that is to be expected. Thank you for reading this, and I am going to try to update it as often as possible. Classes start Monday, so we will just have to wait and see how much free time I will have to make entries. Hopefully I will be able to keep y'all up to date and informed, maybe I'll even take some pictures one of these days.