One semester left.

My desk chair has permanent imprints of my ass cheeks. My desk is littered with crumpled up failed design ideas, pencil and eraser shavings, and cigarette butts. But with my final Art Direction project finished, all I have left for this semester is a 7 page paper and a presentation on Tuesday. That’s it. Then just one final semester until the real world…but let’s leave the sappy stuff for down the road. Here’s my last project for Art Direction – various billboards for various products:

Here’s Where I’ve Been Lately:

Plopped firmly in front of my desk, eyeballs deep in second-to-last-senior-year-semester work. Plenty of papers and advertisements to work on, so without further adieu, here’s some of my most recent projects:

Other than that has been business as usual. Hanging out with friends, giving tours (some nice father gave me a $5 tip the other day!), and looking to move outward with another job and beyond graduation. Luckily, a member of Owl Team I used to orient students with is now working at Apple, giving me a much better second shot when I submit another application this week.

As for beyond graduation you may ask? It’s still up in the air. I’m looking into programs in LA, NYC, and Philly as well as companies overseas in Australia, Europe, and Japan. Who knows – I’m just going to let the wind carry me.

And the winner is…

…not me!

But I’ll take second any day. I’m definitely proud of myself for making it as far in the Homecoming race as I did and truly thankful for all those who pitched in with my campaign: Kappa Sigma, my parents and grandparents, roommates, Toby, Marshmallow the cat, and anyone or any other creature I may be forgetting right now.

As promised, here are the posters and other things I did to campaign:

 

 

 

 

 

Homecoming aside, last week was actually pretty eventful – on Tuesday, some Brothers (including myself) went on a trip to see Jerry Springer filmed live in Stamford, CT. Brother Nick aka “Digi” called and got us tickets and a bus, all paid for by the show. If you’re a fan, or just want to see me on live TV, tune into the new episode at 11am on October 16th! I’m the guy that says “We’ll be right back with Jerry’s Final Thought” at the end of the episode too!!

 

JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!

Big Things

I’m very happy, and extremely proud to say I have been selected as one of the finalists for Temple’s 2012 Homecoming Court. Basically, it means I get to be extra-Temple for the next three weeks or so (as if I wasn’t enough already – ha) as I campaign around campus to encourage others to vote for me as Homecoming King.

As an advertising student, this is one of the best opportunities I’ve had in some time, because I have 100% complete and final approval for everything I promote myself with. Essentially, I’m running an advertising campaign for myself. Again, as an advertising student, this is a goldmine.

Unfortunately for you, the reader, I can’t tell you about any of the ideas I have because I need to finalize my concepts and actually create them. Even if they were done, I wouldn’t put them up here quite yet. But I will eventually, I promise. I’ve got a few other things in mind other than just posters, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

So my life is insanely busy once again. But I’m looking forward to the next couple weeks. Will I be frustrated more often than not? Jup. Will I be suffering form a severe lack of sleep? Of course. But in the end, win or lose, it’ll be worth it. Life’s about the journey, not the destination after all.

In other news, myself and AJ have decided to teach ourselves little fidgety parlor tricks in our (insanely tiny) amount of free time. To start, we picked coin rolling (across your hand/fingers) because we saw it on Reddit. Here’s the video, so if you’re into learning little things that will never truly benefit your life but are still neat to know, you can get on it too:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/UY6v1IQ9bpc

Keeping things class-y

The new semester is in full swing, and now that I’m in my senior year, it means I have all kinds of fun advertising things to do. I’m glad that, despite it taking me awhile, I finally settled on studying something I’m passionate about.

Anyway, gushy stuff aside, my first projects for my ad courses have been, well, fun. One assignment (for Art Direction) was to design a poster for an event. Any event of our choosing, any event type. No limits. Free range. My kind of assignment. I picked the upcoming movie The Hobbit, and decided to take a stab at a movie poster since my ultimate goal within my career field is to design them professionally (it’s like advertising’s Green Berets). I also wanted to do something minimalistic. I’ve never really tried it, and it’s something I’d like to get good at. Anyway, enough talk – here’s what I did:

 

 

 

The final piece is the one that will actually be graded. Everything was/is just for fun, and eventually I’d like to use these in my portfolio (once I make one, that is…).

Next up are a couple little things I did for my Creative Thinking course. Yes, there are college courses dedicated to learning how to better think outside the box. We use lots of crayons (no, seriously). One (I think) can speak for itself, but the other needs explaining, so I’ll do that one first. The project was to come up with a theme for a Crayola 24-pack of crayons (told you). I decided to go with a UPS theme. Every color in my palette is brown, and every name does actually refer to a real shade of brown (‘Buff’ is a real color, and Pullman brown is the actual shade used by UPS):

(if you happen to be a Futurama fan, this font should look familiar)

Isn’t college great?

 

My dog just passed gas. What a goon.

 

 

 

 

PS - It’s rush week, so if you happen to be a male Temple student interested in rushing Kappa Sigma, come on out! we’ve got some great events lined up all week at 2022 N. Broad.

Plug over.

 

 

Moving out, moving up

Well folks, today is the day. After some assistance from Mugga, Myles, and AJ, my last piece of furniture (a ridiculously large, heavy, and comfy futon) has been moved out of the Kappa Sigma house and is on it’s way to my parents shore home.

Myself and the rest of my possessions (save a few I left for AJ since he’s now living in my old room) have been succeeds fully moved to my new home for senior year. It’s in a cul de sac called Dondill Place right behind Temple Towers – only a block off campus. I’m living with three friends of Liz’s; Sam, Amanda, and Veronica. The ladies have their rooms on the topmost floor, my bedroom and (private) bathroom is on the ground floor, and we have a floor separating us with the living room, kitchen, and dining room.

It’s a nice upgrade: cheaper rent, my own room/bathroom, a real kitchen…the whole works. Plus I have three ladies that will cook and clean for me as long as I provide them protection in the (unlikely) event anything should happen. I think it’s a fair trade.

But the best part is my other four-legged roommate – Toby; Amanda’s pit bull/something mix she rescued from a high-kill shelter a little over a year ago. Say whatever you like about pit bulls, but Toby is the man. A spoiled ham, but still the man.

It’s gonna be a good last year at Temple. I can feel it.

Summertime

Summer is in full swing here in Philly. So far, it hasn’t been too bad. I wasn’t accepted for a position with Apple, unfortunately, but instead I’m back at Undergraduate Admissions giving tours. I move into my new house tonight after work (which will be LOTS of fun), but most of my furniture has already been moved from the fourth floor, so it’ll be as simple a process as I could make it to get my things to the new place which is just a block south of campus – ironically closer to most of my classes than I’ve ever been before.

Liz is both doing well and enjoying her internship in Florida – but she’s working for Disney, so how much complaining could there really be? I’ve been down to visit once already, and I’m hoping to catch a flight down for a few days before the semester starts up again. When I visit in November, we’re planning on taking a tour to go swimming with manatees, which should be a good time.

Until then, I’m just finishing up this move and taking things one day at a time – trying to get in as many hours as I can and save up some money before the semester starts. It’s going to be my senior year of college…my last change to pull everything together before I hit the real-world. A bit nerve-wracking, but exciting all the same. 

 

The above photo was taken from the roof of the Kappa Sig house last week when we had a massive storm system roll over the northeastern section of the United States. The skies turned black at 5:00 in the afternoon, and center city Philadelphia was completely covered by low-lying clouds, meaning I couldn’t see it from the roof of my house (I typically can). It was an impressive system – lots of good lightning strikes and high winds. This photo was actually the last I was able to stand on the roof without getting pelted by raindrops, blown over by the wind, or potentially struck by lightning. Fun fun.

Summer I

Liz left for Florida yesterday and her trains should arrive at noon today. I’m really sad not having her around, but at least I get to visit her (in Florida!) next week for her birthday. We’re going to Disney World, Homasassa Springs Wildlife Preserve, and Universal Studios (mostly just to go to Harry Potter World). It should be a good weekend, and it’s going to be nice to step off a plane on another side of the country for a few days. Definitely going to try to catch and bring back one of those little lizards they have everywhere too. As if to mcok my mood on the subject for the past few weeks, Mother Nature has been kind enough to make sure this is the view I have from my roof almost every day:

But before she left, I made it a point to take her out for one more excursion into the area. Last week, we started the day at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden before deciding to walk across the Ben Franklin Bridge rather than taking the PATCO light rail line. It seemed like a good idea at first, until we realized the bridge was MUCH longer than we had anticipated (found out later in the day it’s roughly 2 miles long! Yikes!). But despite being a bit more sweaty than we had been, we made it across without incident. From there, we strolled around Olde City, took a horse-drawn carriage ride around Society Hill, and wrapped up the day with milkshakes in Franklin Square (from Square Burger…get the Cake Shake!).

Well, that’s where the day almost ended. Before we left the heart of the city, I decided I wanted a new tattoo. So I got one:

The internship is rapidly approaching it’s halfway point, and it seems forcing myself to become more productive the past two semesters has rubbed off – I’m almost done with all of my summer projects! Granted, I’ll have to go back and edit all my created emails at least twice before they’re sent out, but still…good for me. Keep an eye out for emails from Temple University this summer – if it came to you from Undergraduate Admissions, I probably made it! Pretty cool, huh?

I haven’t been scheduled at Hydros since almost Memorial Day – last I heard, there were problems with suppliers getting parts to us, but I’m not 100% sure. Since I’m not working there, I’ve started applying elsewhere – it’s not that I don’t like Hydros, it’s just a waste of my time to be sitting around waiting for hours when I could be somewhere else. So I put in a few apps at the aquarium and will be going into the city this weekend to try and beg for jobs. I’d rather not be a server/busboy, but I guess I can’t really be picky. A buddy of mine, Nate Wilson, was telling me the other day about being a lot maintainer for a car dealership – apparently it’s good, easy work for decent pay…too bad I can’t get to a car dealership around here without, well, a car. Haha.

That’s it, really. To wrap up, here’s a few shots from Liz’s and my last city adventure. Stay classy.

PS – I got a haircut, so I don’t actually look like a ragamuffin anymore.

PPS – while double-checking to make sure I spelled ‘ragamuffin’ correctly, I found out that there is a breed of cat called, wouldn’t you know it, the Ragamuffin. And now I want one.

Rubberband Man

Well, my summer internship is well underway, as are my water-bottle assembling skills, tan lines, and Nintendo skills (which, curiously, seem to peak this time of year).

Being mostly all work and no play leaves Aleks in a precarious situation when it comes to blog updates – but since the summer has started, I’ve been down the shore a few times with friends and family to go fishing, to the beach, Avalon/Stone Harbor, Wildwood, etc. I’ve also made another trip to the zoo, and was recently introduced to Bobby’s Burger Palace. Located in West Philly (on UPenn’s campus) and owned by famous chef Bobby Flay, this place is awesome. Great burgers, scrumptious fries, and – get this – spiked milkshakes. So for all of you legal readers, head on over and try a Carmel Bourbon shake. I equate the taste to having your taste buds hit by a train filled with ice cream, whiskey, and unicorn dust.

Unfortunately (well, also fortunately – it’s a weird feeling), Liz is leaving for Florida next week. I’m so happy for her – she’ll be interning for the Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida until January next year. I’m so proud, but also a bit selfish – I would rather not let her go for so long, but it’s been her dream for years, so who am I to stand in her way? Plus, come January, she’ll be coming back (unless she’s offered a job – in which case she stays and I go to Florida immediately after graduation next year).

Just gotta roll with the punches as they come, I guess.

 

 

The Summer Begins

To continue from last time’s ramblings:

My apartment hunt is over. I won’t be living alone as I would have liked to, but I’ll be living with three lady friends of Liz’s while she’s in Florida for the fall semester. I get an entire floor to myself, so I can’t really complain. Plus, they already have a dog for me to take care of, so there’s a penny saving move too. Haha.

I was also just (and by just I mean all of an hour ago – 5:06pm May 3) hired by Hydros, a filtration water bottle company from right here in Philadelphia as a product assembler. If you can put two and two together, you’ll realize I’m assembling and packaging water bottles. Glorious? Not necessarily, but the pay’s good and I know their marketing/advertising guy pretty well (it’s Kip!), so I’m really looking forward to it.

Summer internship starts soon as well – guess we’d better hammer out the final details, eh Niki?

This weekend I’m headed down the shore with my parents for some fresh salt air, bay fishing, grilling, and to finish up my last two projects for the semester. Nothing like writing ads at the beach.

Catch you on the flip side, and enjoy the weather.