-A fashion business needs someone who loves fashion.

-I realized after working, that as an ENFP, I work better alone where I have full creative control of the product output.

-I do not understand how a designer is not aware of margins and alignment. Really, when I see things that aren't aligned, I go nuts. My eyes burn through the computer screen willing the text to go two pixels down.

-I think God knows that I work more creatively under 'creative persecution'. I am more imaginative when people tell me to think more logical.

- I do not understand why the size of a title is the same size as the caption.

- I do not understand why they want everything. In design there is a visual hierarchy. You must control what the person sees first and how he or she must be guided through the visuals and text. There is meant to be interaction. Words must be seen, visuals must be read.

-I realized I am passionate about layouts. Indesign is my bread and butter.

-I want my own studio. I want to work freelance. I want to be able to go outside in the daylight. I want a tripod.

-I want to build a white box out of foam core for studio photography.

-I am very not cut out for the office. Back in school I could not study in libraries. Silence and the lack of changing visuals drives me nuts. The air is stale. But stick me in a cafe where I can consciously filter out noise and I am most productive.

-I'm pending and I'm very afraid of what other people think.

-I printed three recipes today. I'm very eager to start these ones.

-I met a girl at our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday who was also from NY. I asked her where she was from and she said 'Dewey'. It's sad that she thought I meant which law firm she was at.

-A guy was proud to say he may become a broker after three months of being in finance. To me that means nothing, to them it means jumping three grades ahead in half a year.

-People often say here "I'm at Nomura" or "I'm at Credit Suisse" or "I'm at HSBC". I guess that's the equivalent of "I'm at Theory" or "I'm at The Gap" or "I'm at Comme des Garcons"

-I want freedom. To be free of the fear of my friends. Yeah I'm afraid of my friends on Facebook. In honesty, if I defriended them all on Facebook (pre-college years), I'd feel more free to be myself. But what's the point? If they asked, why this all of a sudden? What can I tell them? I was like this all along but I never had the courage to show you?

-I probably care about what these people think more than they ever even think about me. Oh irony.

-Someone called me a visionaire. I'd like to think so. I'd like to think that the brand I am building inside my head is something that will come forth in the physical. But before that, while I am waiting, I want to start building a history, a network and a foundation of taste. That's why that exists.

-I'm being vague but I'm afraid. If God is for us, who can be against us? At the same time how do I know if this is the right thing? Fellow bloggers who know me as neighbors in NYC, I'm addressing you. I read your blogs and I miss you guys.

Man what a month.

From Cirque du Soleil show and a night at the Hard Rock in Macau to sitting front row at Seoul Fashion Week to 'hiking' through the national parks in Sichuan to eating yak (yum) to wedding cake taste testing.. I can say it's been a very good month.

China was a bit of a disappointment because I couldn't see the one thing I wanted to see there which were the calcium rivers. The mountains were icy so the buses couldn't get there. But the parks were beautiful albeit that they looked exactly like Banff with Tibetan villages. Honestly it would be a really romantic place to go to: snow fluttering around with evergreens on either side, mountains that soared above, waterfalls that flowed right under your feet and rivers on either side of you. Beds of moss lit up fallen trees. Gorgeous.
Too bad it looked exactly like Canada.

I heard this song for the first time at church yesterday and I can't get enough of it: You Are God Alone by Craig and Dean Phillips. Beautiful song.

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Ever since I started this job, many people have already been asking me when I'd be leaving. While in the past I would immediately say asap, now I'm hesitating because I feel like I'm in a Daniel or Joseph position. I'm getting a lot of opportunities here. For sure this is a relatively small company yet I feel like I can grow and learn more with a company that is also growing.
The system is messy for sure but as my aunt said, the messier the system the better. It lets you set your own rules, your own standards.
My entire job is on the front-end and though I do not want to boast, but there's no one here who can do what I do (for now). I guess it's because I do love fashion and I see text and read into graphics. I've realized that this is a huge blessing. While most writers write and focus on grammar, style and content without thinking of the end product in its totality, many visual artists only stress upon the importance of a pretty and compelling image. But because I trained as a visual artist and have a strong background in writing, I visualize words and distill images into short phrases. In essence what I do is translate words to image and photo to text.

It makes me realize that as a high school kid I had nothing to be ashamed about buying magazines. I realized that after so many years of looking into Vogue, InStyle etc.. I've developed a sense of how to market things, create layouts and engage readers.

I never gave myself permission to love what I wanted to love.
In my shame, I hid all my magazines underneath my bed, I clipped out the fashion section and stored them in boxes which I would open every so often to find inspiration or to make collages and mood boards from them.
But now I'm creating a magazine with all its content, art direction and layout. And I get paid for it.

My dream job is to become a creative director. I knew I wanted to do this after researching the industry and reading about industry leaders like Tom Ford. That is my ultimate dream job. I don't want to design products so much as I want to oversee the packaging of it all. I want to create, direct, set the tone, chose the content, give depth and meaning, evoke a mood, add value, capture a mindset.

I told my mom that I want to have a brand by 28 years old. She asked me why not earlier. Hahahaha.

I went to a store opening because the CEO sent me to cover it. I can't help admire this brother/sister duo who nows sells in over 19 stores and got their own physical shop running in only three months from signing the contract to getting the renovations done. They graduated from Central Saint Martins (equivalent of Parsons in London) and created their own brand. In their store they host workshops such as pinhole camera-making, they invited this dude who owns bee farms on the top of a HK apartment to teach people to make candles... It's such an artistic space in this finance-heavy center- this sounds really pathetic but I want to email them and ask if they want to be friends. Not joking. I will offer my Parsons design skills to do whatever. I just want some art friends.
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