Do you know what I love about TedTalks? It’s not motivational speaking: it’s just information, research, and experience. You take away the lesson by applying it to your life. Mmmm, taste good on my brain.

Maybe it’s reside from the awesome concert on Friday…

01. Asian market with Matt to get him some fish for his GAPS diet.

02. Drawing with my new monoprice tablet. It’s not ok how hilarious I thought this drawing was and how much joy it brought me.

03. This American Life Live with Sean. (Drawing of my reaction if I won the signed poster).

04. Work. (Specifically, driving home and the street art that was “installed” this week).

05. The Lumineers concert at the Bluebird with Sean thanks to Jordan. Amazing show. They’re singing with Joe the Sawmiller (Joe Pug)  who literally sawed off one of his fingers the week before. He showed us the stump.

(Thanks to instagram for making my photos look better, @jackpham)

Whoa. My one year BA anniversary! It’s flew by! It’s been a year since I started my five year diary! I’m on the second row now! At this time last year…I think I was probably at the Buckhorn with Carissa!

I can’t even comprehend right now.

Last Thursday I attended Cliff Kuang‘s fantastically stimulating talk about Co.Design. He talked about what good design means to him. How good design is made. How he curates it. To him, design is not a thing that can be showcased or is a passing trend (like fashion or sports) but it’s a lens through which we see the world. It informs the way we interact with it and it’s becoming a bigger part of the average Joe’s life as well. It’s more integrated into business decisions. Design.Co showcases not “design” but as innovations in products (ways of thinking, architecture, etc) through design. Design actually influencing the product and our interaction with it. He’s the one that showed me the MIT Media Lab logo that I thought was simply fabulous.

It was so good in fact, that I’m forced to think once again about what I want to do. What I’m really passionate about. Ugh. But then there’s a road block. So I thought I was try smaller and think about things I know about myself, which yes, is unfortunately similar to what that girl did in The Hunger Games. Don’t judge me.

I believe in myself. I mean, for all the self-doubt I carry with me on a day-to-day (second-to-second) basis, I really do think I’m capable of pushing back whatever is pushed at me. I believe that I am a creative person. It’s the hot, red flames of stress, deadlines, and panic that make it bloom like meadow in bloom. And I want to be pushed. Even if I am just a cog in the machine, I want to feel like the best cog in a machine that’s kicking ass.

I need a catalyst. And that’s quite unfortunate. I consider myself an extremely self-motivated person, but my weakness is that I need something to set it off. I’m more of a once-the-ball-is-rollling kind of person rather than a someone who kicks the stopper. Is that a paradox? Let’s say: I consider myself someone who puts out fires instead of one who starts them. My ambitious, idealistic, and well-meaning To-Do list is growing longer and longer…

I’m not done learning. Not that anyone is or really can be, but I still can’t stop thinking about the things I want to learn. I want to take more classes. Web design? Coding? Java? PHP? Copy writing? Does that sound fun to anyone? I think it takes a certain type of person to graduate and settle into their job. To somehow settle into their future and do it for the rest of their lives. I’m not there yet. There’s too much unrest in my wee heart. There are things I haven’t seen, places I haven’t been, painfully awkward situations I haven’t hilariously gotten myself into! I keep thinking that all my best friends have been spending the last year abroad while I’ve been…making car payments and buying iPhones (ok, I do love my iPhone though). It seems nice to be content, but there is something that makes me want to keep going.

If I were a plumber, I’d build pipe dreams. To be fair, I think if I did carry out all the of the 1,000s of whims I come up with in the course of a year, I could be fairly successful in them (see no.1). And I don’t know if this is  a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just a thing I know about myself. Once something flutters into my thoughts, it quickly wedges itself into my brain wrinkles and takes roots. Then I can’t stop thinking about x, whatever x, is. I want to accomplish the project and take off–right away! As soon as possible! Now! Yesterday! Please!! While it can be cumbersome sometimes and a bit emotional (not like, girl emotional, but Regular), it means I feel passionate about things. Who’d want to give that up?

I’ve been thinking about what I want for a while now. What’s next. What goes through my mind most is what Michael Salvo said in a talk to the Professional Writing minors: The jobs our children will have don’t exist yet. Maybe mind doesn’t either! Heck, I’d be happy if it did already exist and I just didn’t know about it!

I love design.  I really do. But I’m not 100% positive how I’m meant to interactive with it. How I can be the most effective 60-inch powerhouse of concentrated energy.

So stay tuned.

You know I have a lot more laconic blog posts in my back pocket. I always do.

more soon, promises!

Cliff Kuang showed us this at his amazing lecture. The article explaining it is really great too. I want to write something meaningful soon. But for now, enjoy this.