One thing that I like to do as a designer is do announcements. I guess I like it a lot because I like doing it because I'm tired of seeing not well designed announcements with weak font choices. I want to change that. People look for cheap prices for announcements but its cheap for a reason. Either its poorly designed or its a template. I'm not saying templates are bad because some of them are well designed. I like creating unique announcements for people. So here is my sisters announcement for graduation. Can't believe this gorgeous girl is grown up!!
"Rather than being judgmental and critical of each other, may we have the
pure love of Christ for our fellow travelers in this journey through
life." -Thomas S. Monson
I know the title is long but it is a truth in my life. It is my 7th semester of living with roommates. My 6th living with new roommates. One thing that does not cease to amaze me is how catty girls are. How catty I can be, and how quick I start out to judge. I find it remarkable how easy it is for women can tear down other women, and after the fact that they have tried to empower the same women.
I thought once I got to college high school drama would disappear, thinking the people who said it does happen were lying. Boy was a wrong. High School seems to haunt around in collage like the mono virus, just waiting to come out to make you really sick.
Last night I was frustrated, I was upset at things that were being said. I was mad that my roommates hadn't paid me back, when she said she would. And I realized I had the same "stupid" expectations about somethings and I had been wrong myself. Everything seemed petty. I was reminded by what my truly inspired Graphic Designer had said in class one day. "I understand that life is hard but are we going to let little moments that seem annoying get in the way of service. Your roommate drank your milk, it ruins your day. Why would your roommate do that. But didn't the Savior teach us to take care of one another and to share." When he was talking about a ruined day and our roommate drinking our milk, he was talking about sharing what we know with others, and helping each other become better artists. But as I was thinking about it I thought it should hold true to charity. I have been upset before by a roommate eating something of mine or about their cleanliness or how they have treated me. How they've used my stuff or broken a dish or ruined a DVD. And I was thinking about how petty it really is. People matter more than things, dirty dishes, and judgements. After such incidents in my life have happened I have been reminded by the spirit those people are more important than the item that got ruined. My roommates weren't doing it on purpose and they didn't mean too. Yet when things like this happen we treat people as if they are doing it on purpose. They aren't and we shouldn't treat them as if they did so.
How stupid is it that dishes got in the way of having fun together as roommates my second semester. We all liked each other and then dishes became the problem. We let dishes get in the way of friendships, we let little things like that get in the way of helping each other and loving each other. We were judging each other about dishes, we were judging others about how they took care of the situation. We let the dishes get in the way of having fun with each other. We let judging get in the way. A wise Mother Teresa said," If you judge people, you have no time to love them." I know this to be true because I lived a semester in such a way. Its not really fun and it doesn't really lead to living happily.
And you are wondering how has this taught you Charity. What does Charity have to do with judging and dirty dishes. Charity is the opposite of judging. It is the willingness to give the benefit of the doubt. It is the understanding that none of us are perfect in this life and we shouldn't expect others to be perfect. Charity is the willingness to serve even when we don't understand why this person needs help. Charity is the pure love of Christ. Charity is doing your roommates dirty dishes even if its the 10th time you've done it that week. President Monson described charity as "Love in action." I'm pretty busy working 18 hours a week, juggling 12 credits that have a work load of 20, my health problems that like to make life difficult, and keeping my testimony in tact. Trying to be good and keeping up with my dishes is hard. I try to do my best at it. Its hard, I get tried easily because of my thyroid, I get frustrated with myself but I'm always appreciative of the roommate that does do the dishes when I don't have the time to when everything else in my life is crazy. For the roommate that doesn't complain having to do that. As much as I would like to have more roommates like that (I've only had one) but that doesn't mean I have loved all other the roommates less. I still love them for who they are and what they have taught me. With all the different roommates I have learned, we are all unique and different for a purpose. And that purpose is not to be judgmental or critical of each other. It is to help each other, serve each other to make us better. To become like the Savior and our Heavenly Father. Was it not in King Benjamin who taught
"And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learnwisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."
Charity is serving and loving with out question or judgement. I have become closer to my Heavenly Father and have been able to see what true daughters of God my roommates are when I set aside judgement and have had Charity towards them. We are becoming like God when we serve, we are serving the very Being that has blessed us with our life and all the things we have gained in this life.
Let us quit looking through dirty windows and stop being critical of others. None of us are perfect, and we don't know the whole story of others. We don't know their desires of their hearts. They are trying their hardest just like you are. Be glad to serve them instead of complaining that the dishes got piled high or that they forgot to pick up after themselves. Be happy you have the opportunity to help them. Be an example, not a complainer. Yes its important to have a clean home/apartment and clean dishes but is it worth ruining a friendship. President Thomas S. Monson, who is an exemplar of Charity, said this,
"Never let a problem to be solved, become more important than a person to be loved."
I'm still a work in progress in Charity and I'm an imperfect person. Charity never faileth when it is in progress. We are all works in progresses so lets give each other some slack and help instead of complaining about it.
Hurray that the sun is shinning more and more each day in little Rexburg. I've missed the sun and the power of sunshine making me feel good. The soaking in vitamin D feels good. And I hope my tan starts showing because I'm tired of being pasty!
Love when the sun starts shinning in Rexburg because everything seems to come to life. Plants and people. People aren't buried away in their apartments because its so cold (I hated winter semester!). Best part of spring semester in Rexburg is there is more too! One of my favorite things (which I'm appalled I never went last year) is to go out to Egin Lake. Its really not a lake, more of a big puddle in the dunes. Yesterday was the first day I've been to Egin in forever! I loved it because it was peaceful and serene. And of course I had to make sure I was doing some sort of homework so I wasn't completely wasting my time. Since I wasn't going to take my computer out there, I figured it was approriate to take some reading material and my pet, for my graphic design class. This pet is just an object and I have to take pictures of it. Good pictures. I'm excited for this project because I hope it will help with my photography skills. Egin is beautiful. If your in the area definitely go out to visit!
Enjoy the rays everybody! Having light in our lives is a wonderful gift, whether its sunlight or a spiritual light. Summer to do list coming soon!
Since getting into more Graphic Design classes I felt like I've been plagued with a desire to scream constantly. Why, you ask? Because there seems to be a plethora of bad design in this world. Mom blogs, blogs in general, pinterest quotes, and even in the business world. Sometimes its makes me sick to think I was one of those people that thought teeny tiny picture collage announcements were such a genius idea (excuse me while I go through up). Some may say I'm being too critical, but my amazing Graphic Design teacher says its just honesty. And our society expects perfection. You are critics when it comes to everything and you expect perfection. You always pick the nice box, and quickly push aside the dented box, that may have a slight rip in it. Why because you pay for it, right. Might as well make an effort to have things well designed.
And I've gone through some old projects from previous classes and let me tell you, some of them need some serious work. I'm not perfect in my design. I'm still working at it. Sometimes I need to go back to those projects and give them some more attention or as my teacher calls it TLC, tender love & care. I'm not saying I'm an expert and I'm not saying my designs are perfect but I know how to look at something and go oh I see the problems, I can think of ways of making it better. I can say I'm good at that because I've spent time with teachers and students going over my own work and other students works. I've read several books that have helped my understanding.
So I'm starting a new project, Design Me Better and I would have a lovely new graphic for this project but that won't happen until Friday when my software finally comes (FYI I'm selling my CS5.5 Design Premium for a reasonable price. If interested contact me at chloevictoriadesign@gmail.com). But here is the project along with my regular school work and I may start posting these on a different design blog. The project is to share what I have learned with all of you by creating. I will take examples that I find anywhere and make it look better visually. A lot will come from pinterest and you can even submit stuff to be redesigned. I plan on doing one a week.So send your ideas to chloevictoriadesign@gmail.com. You can send me projects you have worked on in the past and I'll help you by showing you how I would make it better. One thing that I have learned as a student of Graphic Design talking with other designers will help your work. Honesty in design is important. Design is solving problems, not creating problems. So join me on this project and we'll learn together. Excited to hear from you and what you think. So be apart of my Design Me Better project! There is design out their that needs more love! By doing this I'll improve my portfolio immensely so help a college girl out!
I use to know my place in Rexburg. I use to have plenty of friends to hang out with. I use to do things every Friday night. I had somewhere to go when things got rough. I use to be able to tell if people were truly my genuine friend and weren't faking it. I use to be able just call up a random friend in Rexburg and be able to pour out my heart ache. I use to be able to make friends easy in Rexburg. I use to be happy about a lot of things in Rexburg but nothing feels right anymore.
I feel like my appreciation of being alone has jumped immensely in the last 4 weeks. I'm constantly reminding myself patience at this point in my life. I've received the answers to my prayers and I just need to patiently wait for the time to come. But I know I will find happiness the best way I can. It will require some help from the atonement of Jesus Christ. But good things are coming and things are changing fast. All things are possible for those who believe and I believe things will get better. Patience, the thing I need the most and the thing I hate working on.
I will take a few minutes from my homework I should be tackling right now. Spring 2013 has officially started. Two days done, so far so good. Well sorta. It would have been good if it hadn't snowed yesterday morning. That was a little disgusting. Thankfully I left the apartment after that disaster. Let's just say this semester I will be busy and focused. My schedule seems extremely tight on Mondays and Wednesday. I have class at 9:45 until 11:15 (Art Theory, which will be super interesting). Work right after that until my 2 o'clock class. Thats marriage prep. The only reason I'm taking that class is because I felt like I should. It should be really fun, I have a lot of friends in the class and the teacher is super hilarious. Glad I picked him. It was a 50/50 chance. Then right after that I have History of Graphic Design. So Busy. Luckily I just have one actual class on Thursday. Then I'll have piano classes sometime during the week. While working a good solid 18 hours a week. I've already decided I'm going to be the boring roommate that just does her homework all the time and never goes any where unless its to go see her family or something like that. I guess it helps that I've finally appreciating the being alone thing. I'm super stoked for all of my Art Classes. I feel like its going to open up my creativity a lot. Graphic Design is going to be intense but I'm going to learn a lot. Art theory is going to really make me think deep. And History of Graphic Design is going to look to the past to help solve my design problems right now. Its going to be busy but I already love the classes so far. Ah school I just gotta keep at you until I'm finished. So close but so far away. So maybe I'll do posts, maybe I won't. We'll see. But I'll do my best to keep you posted on my progress in Design at least!
Check out my new number one Jam! My sister recently posted this on my facebook wall and I'm in love! I'm not biased at all. Okay. You caught me, I am. But strangely this song is fairly true minus the part about the 3 adorable singing it to me in real life. I love my sisters but they have had more boy action than I do. One alone has had more boyfriends before I actually had one(which wasn't a really one because he wasn't here). It really did make me laugh the first time I listened because the sister part seemed to be true in my life. My awkwardness is probably in direct relationship for my lack of a dating life and a lack for having anyone interested. Definitely makes my life interesting and full of adventure! So show the Chloes in your life some love. Cause they need it! I think i want to have a national holiday dedicated to Chloes but that probably won't fly. So I'll just feel special wearing my Chloe perfume (its real, click here) while listening to this wonderful song. Maybe someday a guy will fill this way about me. :)
