Happy April Fools!!!!

Well time for an update.  I got an acceptance letter from the Herron School of Art & Design at IUPUI campus in Indianapolis. I am one of six candidates they have selected for the program.  Good news!!!   Now I don’t feel so uncertain of the future.   Of course the big decision now is this the program I want?

Some of my goals are to work at an IT company say Google leading in visual design AND to become a tenure track university professor.  Also to do creative volunteer work for the greater community.  I believe Herron’s MFA program will provide those desires.  Herron’s program is a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Communication focusing on what they call Design Leadership.   I like Herron because their MFA program prepares you for both academic and a working professional track.   You can read more about it here.   One of their sayings is “Creative Solutions to Complex Problems”.   A Masters level degree in the School of Arts is the highest degree you can get.  I like to called it an uber Masters or a Ph.D light.  Unlike other fields or schools like English or the Sciences.   This means the MFA program is 60 credit hours and often takes three years while other master level degree program are 30ish credit hours and take only two years or less.   Herron’s program is quite intensive and focused to be completed in two years.    Which is a good thing for I rather do a faster pace curriculum and receive the degree quicker so I may join the work force earlier.  I am already 32 and will be 34 years old when I am done.   I feel like I am getting a late start a restart in life and want to move faster to make up time for it. 

Another program I applied at is a Master of Science (MS) in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at the school of Informatics which is also at IUPUI.  This Master’s program is 36 credit hours.  While I can not be a tenure track professorial with only the Masters of Science it is a good program with an emphasis programming skills and a field I am really interested in.   They also have 90 credit hour Doctoral program which looks good but I felt it would take too long to complete.  I still have to wait to see if they will accept me.

One question is the cost.  Herron’s MFA program is new this year and for some strange reason their tuition cost is the most of any public university I can find.   Even more costly than several private universities.   For being a brand new program it seems a little presumptuous.  A public university at that.  Of course I do feel a minor ego boost to be accepted to the most expensive public university MFA program.  Yet, I dislike people or institutions who proclaim self importance and act as if they are better than others.  The question is Herron being egotistical and is the extra cost worth it?

To to Herron I will need some form of aid.  I will not know until mid April on what aid or scholarships Herron will provide.  I will wait until I hear from them and other schools before I make my decision.   

After 6 months of not working I have returned to the work force, at least part time.  Instead of doing my usual IT support thing I have taken a different path.  A road less traveled if you will.  I decided to become a substitute teacher of young impressible line.   Scary eh?   Specially, I am planning to sub at all the schools I used to attend as a child.   That includes my 2nd grade school at Walt Disney Elementary, Schmucker Middle School and Penn High School.  Its a unique opportunity to return to ones root and I hope to make the most of it.

Happy new years all! It has been a while since our last posting. After much relaxing and thinking Becky and I have decided not to travel for another 3 months at we originally plan back in august of 2006. Primarily due to money running out plus we not felt that wonder lust desire again. We may still go somewhere for a couple of weeks. For now we plan on getting jobs by February and yours truly is applying to graduate school for august of 2007. Lots of exciting and scary changes ahead.

I am hoping I will get accepted to an Informatics or Visual Communication Master Degree program with an emphasis in HCI (Human-computer interaction). My dream job would be to work with a cutting edge international IT company like Google. Designing the best software and/or Web 2.0 product that is not only easy to use, but highly useful. There is a saying in design that I firmly believe in “Less is more”. The iPod design is great example of that philosophy. Now if only I get my house to be not so messy. =)

Best of all, we plan NOT to see any remarkable architecture, museums, and ancient ruins.

Ciao! Happy Thanksgiving video from Rome.

Here is a link to the better quality but slow download video. 4.5megs

I am sure, by now, you know how the story goes. The Internet Train is like a drug dealer. Sure you can have an hour ma’am. Here is your bag of www “crack”. Go have fun. But then, when your time is up you need another hit. Over the next few days, we made several trips to that counter to buy more time. There were so many things we needed to do, like pay bills, blog, email, call family and friends on Skype, not to mention, it is ridiculous how much you need the Internet when you are overseas trying to arrange/research future traveling sites, like hotels/hostels, language classes, car rentals, etc. So, how much did we use over 3 days/4 nights you ask? Well, I am ashamed to say, but it was 15 hours, and truthfully, we probably would have bought one more hour had they not closed early on the weekend. We are sad aren’t we? Here we were in Florence, Italy and we spent 15 hours of it on the Internet. LOL

Today we also went to Vivoli’s. Vivoli’s is the BEST gelato that I have ever eaten. We shared a medium size but had them mix chocolate and banana together. I would have liked more banana instead of the super rich chocolate though. Chocolate is Chris’ favorite flavor, not mine. Next time, if ever I go back, I get my own serving, NO MATTER WHAT, and he can’t share! Silly Chris trying to cheat me out of gelato. What was he thinking? Is he insane? What’s wrong with him? Doesn’t he know by now that I am a gelato connoisseur?

To get an appreciation for this renaissance, we visited the Uffizi Gallery. It is loaded with most of the great artists. Botticelli’s famous Birth of Venus painting, that I LOVE, is here along with several of his others. I found myself just sitting down and staring at her beautiful face. There were also unfinished paintings by Leonardo DaVinci, and even more impressive, in a special exhibit, were some of the actual pages from his notebooks documenting his studies of flight, architecture, and even more fascinating for me, his studies of human anatomy. His detailed drawings look pretty similar to my anatomy textbooks in college. It made me a feel a closer connection to him. I think I was in the DaVinci exhibit almost an hour before I even entered any of the official Uffizi galleries. They were actually my favorite part of the museum.