It's been 10 weeks on since my first advance to Europe. The air was colder, drier than I remember. The first time I put on a sweater without a struggle, without worrying about eczema. My beloved chappals cautioned away giving way to a socks' warmth.
It's surreal to step into a world where the power of the spoken word finds new meaning. Where twenty years of habit now needs repeated thought before release. Where this habit seldom finds audience. It's a stark reality and it puts you at unease when only one language puts your thought into word and suddenly, that's of little use.
School
One reason alone finds me out of my bed every morning here. A place where I've encountered brilliant minds, sporadic brainchildren, and the, now irreplaceable, brain-fart.
Miami Ad School was so different from anything I'd seen or experienced. Like a tiny train station where people roll through from places abroad, only to return later, slightly altered. There are days when you can almost visualize the transfer of thought from one to another.
I've come to the end of a quarter here, crawling through hours at lab or slaving through craft. But the challenges lie not in renewing perspectives toward design and advertising but in working endlessly, with the absorption of ideas and opinions from lives far from your own. It's probably the novelty of a school such as this but it's no fault of yours if someone doesn't follow the intricacies of a good game of cricket.
The hope is all this absorption snowballs into something magnificent.
People
The possibility that my harshest opinions on the people I've met may curb progress is known.
Diplomacy was a chosen path when things began. I'm grateful that I've found people, teachers and colleagues alike, who shake off the niceties and save me time with some constructive criticism. But that's often a minority. The silver lining - I've worked the past weeks with some of the best around.
Of the locals, my sentiments are strong and I can only hope, premature. I study in a multinational school and for that, at this juncture, I'm greatly obliged to the administrators.
Work
At a school like this, the work is not so much over-bearing as it is constant. The quality is sometimes questionable but it escalates. And you churn out better work as the nights draw shorter and the sun sleeps at half past 9. Your eyes stay open longer than you'd hope for and your mind struggles with ideas, often, even as you feign sleep.
EU Lab. I think it's probably some of the better work I pulled off this term. While the class itself had its ups and downs, I think the projects made for some great practice. These include covers for Crichton's Prey and CSNY's Daylight, Again, a campaign for Adidas celebrating their 15 years in India and a tour poster for Wilco.
Photography. Topic: Jump. Courtesy an allusion to a T.S. Satyan photo at the start of the term, I ended up with the keyword "Jump" through the quarter. These are some of the photos I captured as the weeks went by.
My model refused to sign a release on my final photos. Woman always gets her way.
Concepting. Practice. That's what this class was all about. The ability to think like a factory. I think therein lies the hardest part about Ad School. To think when you're told to. No exceptions.
Design and Layout. A personal favourite. Vibrant, inspirational and a real education. The first time I went through an actual process in ideation. Some of these are still in production.
Soccer Poster. An exercise in some strange in-house humour. It's fun for a quarter, I suppose. Gives you something to throw the sink at. Paired with a steadfast Hungarian and we managed to pull some winning ideas out.
All in all, it's been a fair start to the new world. The sun is finally out battling endlessly against rain clouds. The city is green and alive. The beer flows in high tide. Now if only they'd stop eating so much fucken bread.
