Nothing is impossible to a willing heart...

So, for the past few years, since I graduated from Auburn University, I have been struggling to find my "place in the world" I know that sounds so cliche' but people would not say it if it weren't true. I am constantly surrounded by people who have life all figured out and I sometimes wonder if I ever will. Some days I enjoy the fact that I am still somewhat free to explore my options and figure out what I want to do with my life. When I think about my future and what I want it to be like, I always come to the same simple conclusion: I want to be HAPPY. When I have told this to people before they have laughed and said, "Doesn't everybody want to be happy?" Well, of course everybody wants to be happy, but my question is: "What are you willing to do to be happy?"
Happiness is defined by every person different. Not one person can agree with another on what happiness is. Some people gain happiness through fame, fortune, success, helping others etc. I have asked myself so many times what would define true happiness for me. Each time I think to myself, "I am already happy." Which is a true statement but I am not yet fulfilled. Since the day I was born I have been constantly searching for new adventures and trying everything I can to experience everything Life has to offer. I live everyday knowing it is a gift and I do not take it for granted. I do not know the secret to happiness but I do know that if you are not happy within yourself, nothing else can make you happy.
It has taken more time than I thought to figure out what direction I want my life to take. I am already blessed with the best family and friends anyone could ask for. I have had more opportunities to explore life and times to fail than I think is fair for one person. For a long time I could tell you what I didn't want to do with my life and where I didn't want to end up or which career path I didn't want to take, but I couldn't tell you what I did want out of life. After so many years of being confused and indecisive, I have decided what will help fulfill my dreams is to start my own clothing line. After doing hours of research and finding an awesome, creative person that balances me out to be my business partner, I have found what I know will be an adventure of a lifetime. I know it will be A Lot of hard work and determination but I also know it will be everything I have been looking for. I know it will be the greatest learning experience of my life and can't wait to get started. I have already started with the research and figured a few things out but there is so much more to do. I am already enjoying the business and it is not officially started yet. I will keep you posted on the start of mine and Stevie's clothing line. Can't wait to see the results!

"Ni Hao"

OK, so now that you are aware of how I usually make decisions in my life, let me explain the best decision I have ever made impulsively. While I was in the studio one day, I saw one of my best guy friends, Ryan, walking down the hall. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was on his way to Tinmans studio for the Taiwan meeting. Always curious, I asked him what it was about and he explained that Tinman takes students to Taiwan every summer for a product design studio and that I should come because it would be fun. So I found my best friend/roommate Laura and told her that we were going to a meeting about Taiwan and explained that we would be going to Hong Kong for a week also. We went to the meeting and signed up and I didn't think twice about what I was getting into. Over the next few months I was so involved in my recent studio projects that I didn't think about Taiwan. Every so often I would have to sign a piece a paper, get a shot or take a photo for my passport, but it still didn't register that I would be spending 2 months in another country half way around the world. Until that spring I had only flown once, which was an hour and a half flight to Cancun, Mexico for my senior trip. Two weeks before I flew to Taiwan I had to fly with my studio to Wisconsin to present our designs to the president of Broan-Nutone. At the time I was thankful for a flight to prepare me for the flight for Taiwan. Hahaha, yeah right. A 2 hour flight vs. 28 hours in the air? Tinman held monthly and then weekly meetings to discuss things for our trip and he sometimes showed us videos of what to expect. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience.

When I was preparing for Taiwan, the only thing I could think about was the 13 hour flight from California to Taipei, Tw. I never anticipated the events, emotions or the friendships that would come. Three days after spring semester ended, Tinman (our professor), his family, and 13 students from ID from Auburn met at the Atlanta airport to board our plane. 2 Days, 3 plane rides =22 hours, 2 beers, one book and 3 prescription sleeping pills later, we landed in Kaoshiung, Tw. The one thing I will never forget about stepping outside of the airport in Taiwan for the first time, was the distinct smell that the country has. At first I thought it was just that part of the city, or the pollution from the planes, but later realized it was a smell I would never forget. To this day I can remember how Taiwan smells. It is not an awful smell, just a very distinctive smell that made me realize I was no longer in America. I am not going to explain everything I did, everybody I met or everywhere I visited while I was in Taiwan because I could write a blog for each day. I will say that my experience in Taiwan is the most valuable memories I have. Although I am a very easy going person and I accept change, adjusting to a new country and culture is really hard. I never realized all of the daily habits and the things I took for granted living in America. The first one: Air Conditioning!! The only places that have air conditioning in Taiwan are the hotels and the large shopping malls. Forget about 20 oz and 48 oz drinks. The largest cups in restaurants were about 4 oz unless we found a McDonald's. Each day spent in Taiwan was a blessing and I remember watching everyone around me and thinking I would never forget this time in my life. The people in Taiwan are the most hospitable people I have ever met.

We studied product design at Shu Te University outside of Kaoushiung, Tw. The students in the program were overzealous to meet us and stayed by our side until we left 2 months later. Over the course of the two months spent in Taiwan, I visited about 10 factories, 23 museums, 2 beaches, 5 Universities, 8 shopping malls, 6 product design companies, 9 bars, and 28 night markets. I traveled by every means of transportation available, airplane, taxi, car, mopad, boat, train, and subway. Everyday we had something to do and somewhere to go. I ate more noodles in two months than most americans eat in their lifetime. I also saw one of the Taiwan students eat a fish eye... yeah it was gross.

The day we left I stood in the Kaoushiung, TW airport and cried for two hours with my classmates from Auburn and Shu Te. I had spent two months with some of the best people I had ever met and made some of the best memories of my life. Knowing I will never see any of them again still hurts me to this day. I never knew the day I signed up for the trip that I would be signing up for litterally a Trip Of A Lifetime. It has been 4 summers since I returned from Taiwan and I still think about that time in my life constantly. I know nothing else will ever come close to the things I experienced, the people I met, the lessons I learned and the memories I made.

When I returned home from Taiwan, everybody wanted to hear all about my trip and see my picutres. I was excited to show them and tell them my stories but to this day, nobody but the people who experienced it with me will ever understand the impact it had on me and the rest of my life. It is hard to put into words the peacefulness that I still have after that trip. It was easy to explain to people about the food I ate, the statues I saw, the Taiwan Beer I drank, the room I slept in and the night markets I shopped at, but to this day I can't explain the full extent of the experience of that trip.

The sighseeing, drinking and shopping were of course fun, but the everyday activities with the Shu Te students is what I miss the most. Although we are from two opposite sides of the world, speak a different language, & eat different cuisines , we learned how to communicate on a simple level, like trading mp3 players and relating to music or sneaking out to the Irish Pub and staying out past curfew. We were just as amazed by them as they were by us. I went halfway around the world to study design and ended up learning more about myself, life, the hungriness of college students, and what it really means to grow up in a "Free Country" than I ever thought possible.

"Ugliness Does Not Sell" - Raymond Loewy

I have said before that everything I have done, everywhere I have been and everyone I have ever known has molded me into the person I am today. One of the biggest impacts on my life were the four years I spent at Auburn University. I moved to Auburn in the Fall of 2003 and left in May of 2007. Like most 20 year olds, I was confused about what I wanted to do with my life. How do you make a decision that will affect your future when you don't even know who you are? I chose my major the way I have made most decisions in my life, impulsively. I had decided to attend Auburn and major in Interior Architecture because I knew I wanted to design something. In my speech 101 class my first semester in Auburn, we were instructed to write a 200 word speech on our major and why we had decided to choose it. I didn't know too much about interior architecture, so I went to Dudley Hall to get more information on the profession. While I was there I picked up a brochure that said Industrial Design. I started reading it and had decided to change my major after 3 paragraphs. I didn't exactly know what I was getting myself into or what type of job I would look for after college. The only thing I did know was that I would be doing what I have always wanted to do and that is Design. Making decisions impulsively has it's pros and cons. I never really weighed the pros and cons of Industrial Design or asked many questions about the curriculum or the price. I decided that is what I wanted to do and of course my mother said, ok. My first summer in Auburn I had to attend a 9 week Summer Opp program for Industrial Design. This program is designed to 'weed' out the slackers and people who are not serious about the Industrial Design Program. I signed up for summer opp & went to the bookstore and bought the $200 packet of tools that I would need for the classes. A lot of times in my life I make decisions and wonder later, what was I thinking? When I was handed my bag of tools and I realized I had no idea what half of them were called, much less used for, was one of those times.

So like I have said, I didn't know what to expect and I couldn't even draw when I first started the program. Although Summer Opp was like boot camp from hell, I met some of my best friends there and realized I could do more than I thought if I just tried. I remember the first day the instructor told us to get out our T-Square and I had to look at my neighbor to see what they pulled out. That summer I spent hours drafting, drawing in perspective and learning how to render 3d spheres, boxes and cones. I learned how to use an xacto knife to cut through 1" foam core, what a jump drive was and how to save info on it, how to use a band saw and built my own toolbox. Looking back I am sometimes amazed at how many times I wanted to leave Wallace Center and never turn back. I am so thankful I didn't give up, although I failed a hundred times. By the way, later I found out Industrial Design is the Design of Products, like the I Pod.

Over the next three years I designed logos, packaging, ceiling fans, medicine cabinets, robots, electronics and furniture. I learned how to build my own prototypes using a wood shop, metal shop, laser cutter, 3d printer, cnc milling machine and design my products in 3d programs. While most of my friends and neighbors were worried about what bar they would go to or who they would get to write there next paper, my college career was spent in Wallace sketching, painting, sanding, photographing products, waiting on the plotter to print my assignment, defending my ideas and looking for my shop glasses or spray mount. I absolutely fell in love and found my real passion for design at Auburn. Wallace Center (or the Studio as we called it) was my home and designing was my first real love. I struggled everyday to produce a product that I was proud of and prove to my professors and colleagues that it was a valuable concept. I spent hours talking to my friends and my professors about the methods of good design and learning everything I could from them.

The pros about impulse decision making and not thinking them through is that I have done a lot more in my life that I never would have done had I thought about the hard work ahead. There were many days that my best friend Laura and I would leave the studio upset about what someone had said about our concepts or the fact that we put too much bondo on our foam and it collapsed. We would go home and workout or drink wine and complain about how hard the workload was and how we would never make it to graduation. The next morning we would get up and go back to Studio and start all over. Some days I wondered if I would ever sleep again. Looking back I realized that was one of the happiest times in my life and one of the best decisions I ever made Impulsively.

If The World Had a Front Porch...

This year I have encountered a few life altering moments that has made me step back and reflect on my life: the past, the present and sometimes the future. I used to think I had my whole life planned out but now I realize God has his own plan for me.

This summer I hung out with the Porch Crew in my home town, Childersburg, Al. This was by far one of the best summers of my life. I reconnected with old friends and made some new ones. I wanted to go somewhere to get away from drama and for the most part, the porch was drama free! There was always someone around to talk to, make late night taco bell runs, or drink a beer with. Most days were spent sitting on the porch and talking, facebooking, and arguing over who stole Liz's lighter. Although people think we were permanent statues on the porch, we did occasionally venture out and when we did, we made sure it was an adventure we would never forget. The Porch Crew consist of the most random people and personality types which kept things interesting all summer long. You would think sitting on a porch for 4 months would be boring and uneventful but with this crew, there was always a story to tell the next day. I miss these people everyday and will forever remember the summer that I sat on the Porch.

Welcome to the life of me...

This if my first time at the blogging thing, so I will try to keep you updated on the events of my everyday life. I thoroughly enjoy the randomness of the unpredictable things that happen to me on a daily basis. I try to find humor in the things that I cannot control and believe everything happens for a reason. I don't have it all figured out yet and probably never will, but I have come to the realization that life is more interesting that way.