Grad School Report Card and True Tales of the Unemployed.

I originally wrote this post a couple of weeks ago, but never managed to post it. So as usual, I am playing catch up. But still worth sharing. More soon. In the meantime...

The due date for my 2^nd packet suddenly snuck up and took me by surprise. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I spent a 40 hour week pulling together what is essentially a progress report on my reading, art making, film viewing, gallery and museum going?

Apparently not. Three weeks slip by in a millisecond. While you are just back from a beach vacation that started with driving rain and ended with food poisoning, but was sunny, warm and relaxing in the middle. And by some kind of miracle, you take a curious peak at your due dates before dashing out the door for another week long journey away from home and studio, into the city and every night booked for business and/or pleasure.

So while the last packet was a full time, 40+ hour job, this packet is both more intense and more relaxed. I’m compiling the last 3 weeks of art work, reading, reflections and more – in a single day. But because this isn’t my maiden voyage into packet work, I’m less stressed about it. And actually finding myself more at ease with looking back over the last 3 weeks from the vantage point of this particular moment in time.

The thing is, I really love this. I love the reading. I love the ideas that percolate because of the reading. I love having the opportunity to focus on my art in a more concentrated way. It’s still hard getting into my studio to do the real work. Still, I am making leaps and bounds.

In every arena apparently, too. I revamped my online advertising portfolio and moved it over to cargocollective.com/rivaweinstein. Within a week I have an interview. Please let it not be with a gaggle of 20-something product development girls who don’t know what they are looking at when I hand them my portfolio. Or a 30-something marketing diva who dramatically throws my resume across the room because she doesn’t really need to look at it. Or a creative recruiter who is looking for a unicorn. True tales.

Which brings me round full circle back to grad school. I’m waiting for someone to ask in an interview how I expect to work and go to school at the same time. And I can’t wait for the question. I can’t wait to say that I don’t know anyone who hasn’t worked full time while completing their graduate degree. It’s usually a matter of necessity. Education is expensive.

And expansive.