My journey was not my own....

Many people are familiar with the faces that they see every day whether at school, in the bank, or just driving; but no one really knows their true stories. You know the reason why they are here. What brought them to this point in their lives. It is funny to see and hear their journeys and see that they were brought here through multiple tunnels all leading to the same exit path. (okay, really not trying to be too philosophical haha) But here is my journey..the path to Ai!

Growing up, I was always surrounded by family. The eldest of five children, an ever expanding family that always showed feelings and emotions and never hid anything. I always knew that after high school was college, then a degree, then working, marriage, children, family etc. That was the process. Doesn't change. But for me, it was a bit different. I was born and raised in Boston. Lived there for 13 years and was taught the Northern way of living from an early age. My parents are not American. They both grew up in Jamaica relocating to the states in their early teenage years. For them, America was the dream. You wanted to come to the states and have a better education. They were taught properly and were well educated as well as articulate in speech,

When I was born, my parents instilled values in my life that I will never forget to these days. Those were the values that I plan to instill in my children's lives one day. So as a young child, I was always taught to think differently. Many people don't believe it, or wouldn't expect it, but I was homeschooled for a majority of my life. The reason for this was because after seeing how the public school system operated, my parents decided that Home School was the best way to educate their children. So my entire life, I relied on being an independent child. I was able to completely shut out the rest of the world and concentrate on homework. Getting things done was easy for me. I was not distracted or swayed by anything because I didn't really have that growing up. You can say I was sheltered, but not from society. Social involvement, contrary to what many people believe was very important to my family. Both of my parents were heavily involved in the sports world. My father was a track and field star, a baseball/softball star, and pretty much Mister Popular. My mother was in the arts and also a basketball star. So yeah, it was pretty much expected of me that I was to either be in the arts or sports of some kind.

I chose the sports track! No questions asked. I did tennis, track & field, volleyball, soccer, softball and dabbled in basketball. I had regular lessons, private lessons, group lessons. I went on field trips and summer camps. Training camps and the gym was my life! This was just one section of my very busy life. I was also heavily involved in the arts. I took art lessons, music theory, choir and vocal lessons, painting class, dance class and a whole bunch of activites. My family never sat still. After schoolwork it was all about staing fit and healthy and not being bored on the couch. So you could say that my life was never boring, but exhausting!

My mother used to always say that I never sat still unless I was doing work. I'll never forget when I first started designing. Since I was the oldest child, I always saw the addition of another child. With the addition of another child, came the boxes of Pampers. Here is where I got creative. Me and my brother would take the boxes and saw them in half and create houses. We would X-acto out windows and use packing tape for "windows". We would use bendy straws to make "plumbing" from the sinks to the bathtubs to the gutters. Floorplans were drawn out with crayons on the bottom of the box and furniture was constructed with cardboard and Elmers Glue. Little did I know that this was a part of my future in Interior Design. I never imagined any profession along those lines. I figured I would go to my dad's Alma Mater (Northeastern University) and study business or nursing or something similar. Everyone told me that I should go to Harvard (pronounced Haaa-Vaad in Boston's twang), and become a lawyer since I talked soo much. (Do I??? Don't answer that..it was a rhetorical question!)

Of course, THAT didn't happen because in 2004, my life was changed and I moved to South Florida with the family to enjoy the warmer weather. So of course, me being 13 at the time, I was a freshman in high school. I didn't know the school systems down here so my parents agreed to homeschool me for one more year and if I really wanted to, I could "try" public school. (Of course I wanted to try public school!) So I went to public school. uh...yeah I wanted to go back to homeschool soo bad but I also wanted to be with all the kids and change classes, have a locker (yeah not the cubby hole my dad bought for us) , and eat school lunch! Hey a girl can dream! But it wasn't what I thought it was. High school FYI is not like the movies. I was slightly dissappointed. So I decided to pursue my other passion and turn to sports. I played softball, soccer and ran track. I stayed after school to become more elite and make my dream more of a reality. Truth is, I didn't really enjoy it. I only did it because I wasnted to be like my father. All American athlete. He was the track star, so I became the track star. He was a starting pitcher, so I had to be a pitcher in softball. It wasn't my dream. But I didn't really know what was my dream!

I recall, my aunt had attended the Design Academy here in Tampa and had gone to school for interior design to I figured, hey why not? I rearranged my room around pretty much once a month, had new visons for the living room and was excellent at picking paint colors and furniture for the house. But I had no idea where I was to go for a school like that? My dream was to go to Florida State University because I originally wanted to play softball there, but because sports were no longer my passion, I saw that they had Interior Design as a major so I figured hey why not?! I sent for information about the school and I was all about attending the college, til I realized, Florida was the size of Texas and Tallhassee was FAAARRRR from South Florida. I did not want to be that far from family. So here I was back at square one. No clue where I was going or even if Interior Design was to be my final career choice. Oh yeah, and SENIOR year was approaching fast!!!!!

So my Senior Year, I was signing up for classes. There was a class called Commercial Art that focused the first half on Fashion Design and the second half on Interior Design. Couldn't hurt, so yep I took the class. Funny story, my teacher had attended the Art Institute of Chicago and gradauted with a BFA in Interior Design. Ahhaaa! I found my answers! I bugged her everyday to let me skip Fashion and go straight into Interior Design. She agreed and gave me mini projects to work on. Mostly research and floorplan reading as well as perspective drawings. But I realized that I liked it! In fact I loved it! At that moment, I figured I wanted to be an Interior Designer! So then she gave me information about schools that offered interior design including Art Institutes. I took the information and put it along with the rest of the information I had gathered.

At home, my parents wanted me to take on a side project since I had "taken classes in Interior Design". (PS i only took one class my senior year..that didn't qualify me to be taking on any project but I agreed!) They wanted to extend the back of the house to incorporate all members of my family. 2 parents, 5 children, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms doesnt quite make for a fully functional house. So I took some grid paper, a ball point pen, I grabbed the existing plan and started sketching. Eh it was okay. Nothing fancy, after all, ballpoint pen, blue ink reallllyyy doesn't mix so yeah. My mom took it to the contractor and the contractor LOVES MY BLUE PEN GRID PAPER DRAWING! Really!?!? Yepp! He said for some one who had not attended higher education, I had a knack for design. (well thanks :] ) So that was conformation that I was ya know, maybe supposed to be headed in that direction? Yeahhh!

So after my head had gotten HUGE from all the compliments that this guy was throwing my way and after all the cheek hurting smiles I sat at the computer and applied to Miami International University of Art and Design. I wanted to make my college experience fun and why not go to Miami?!?! Well after a few months we drove to check out the college. ROAD TRIP! Yeah, road trip cut short! Beautiful building, great facility but stuck in a run down part of town. My dad asked the rep what happened if I didn't have a car and had to go to school? The man answered oh walk! As if it was as easy as smiling! Whoo that smile quickly dropped from my parents face. The Caribbean in him came out! He said oh No, I don't have the money for a bulletproof vest && Mace! hahahahaha great moment dad! Thanks! But he was being protective and I was really thankful for that! The ADA for MIUAD recommended that we were closer to the Art Institute of Tampa. So we smiled, thanked the man and left.

A month went by, it was April, I had just turned 17 and STILL had no idea where I was going to school. So we drove to Tampa and checked out the school. I received a mini tour and instantly liked it. It seemed fun. A small college with excellent staff. I wanted to go soo bad. Plus the stadium was right there..HELLO famous people...(im kidding but really). That day, I filled out the application, wrote my essay, and was a proud new student of AiTa! I was really excited to be finally aware of my college decision. August couldn't come any faster!

First day of school, basic classes, didn't really see the need to take beginning drawing at 8 AM! Where were the colors and the fabrics? Apparently not in that classroom! It wasn't until the next quarter, Fall 2008 quarter. I had my first Interior Design class. Introduction to Interior Design with Alex Moore. Her dry humour made me laugh and I instantly loved class! But I looked around at everyone else in the class and felt out of place. I was 17. Everyone else was at least 20. they had already gone to college before me. This was not new to them. To me it was. I was the newbie; they took me under their wings. I became part of the community. I finally understood was design was. Real design, not this fake stuff on TV. Quarter after quarter past and finally a year then 2 years. I wasn't in my groove. But I finally became in my groove! I understood the importance of schooling and education. Not that I didn't appreciate it before, but there wasn't a real connection. Hey, I was young. I got my Aha moment after classes with Bill. I sat through critique after critique, and I was learning! I loved it. I got involved in ASID student chapters. Yeah, my design career had blossomed and I really wanted it to last for awhile.

Which brings me to now. I have 2 quarters after this and I will have completed my deisgn career here at the Art Institute of Tampa. I have learned soo much in this journey. My teachers have become my mentors. The classmates that attend here have become like my sisters. We are a community-truly. I couldn't ask for a better experience. I will always miss the days that I have spent 16 hours at school in classes and in the ID lab slaving over a project. I thrived with other people who had the same projects and we laughed and cried together. I cannot believe that this journey is almost over. But it's not over, its just a bridge to the next chapter of life! I am excited to see what is next. I cannot wait and I cannot thank everyone enough for being there to support whether or not you knew it!

This is my journey..I'm not traveling it alone..who wants to join??

[db]