Author: Bryan Bejarano

This week I was working on setting up my slides for the final presentation. At first, I was struggling with trying to find a common theme to tie in with all of the blog posts and throughout my experiences. I believe in most times that it is the hardest to start. After overcoming that obstacle the ball gets rolling. So I started to jot down my ideas on common themes that can be associated with my journey and experiences. The one note that stood out to me was the theme of change. There was a lot of change happening through out this semester. I dealt with a lot of change in how my internship was, adjusting to the CDC regulations and not having a lot of people in the art gallery at once. Going from hundreds of people walking in and out to just a few every hour. This has stopped a lot of traffic coming in but isn’t stopped 17 Frost from coming up with future ideas. Another change is the amount of power and say I have in the company now. Before I used to only talk to my boss about things I should do or future events. While now I am also talking to Javier which is the higher chairmen of the gallery. It has been always family with the crew, but now I feel like I have more say in what is going on. It feels great and a sense of accomplishment. Lastly, the last point is change within my family and adjusting throughout these hardships. I lost 5 of my family members this year alone and this is a rough time period in my family’s life. My grandfather was the first to go. A month later my grandfather’s brother. And all within the month of April, my aunt, her husband, and lastly my cousin. Dealing with the amount of work, school, family issues, and just personal issues and trying to find a balance was difficult. But the ball keeps on rolling, and life goes on. I am just grateful for everyone that I have right now along with me. I am grateful I still have both of my parents supporting me and a loving girlfriend. Graduating and I am excited about what the future holds.

Homework: Review 2 Applications; App #2

This was the second application that was still up and running in the app store. The name of the application did seem interesting and lured me into downloading it. At first glance, just by the name and the logo of the branding I already came up with the idea that this application is used to organize thoughts or ideas and making it come all together organized and to be read easily. When I first opened the application I was a bit confused about the overall layout of the screen. It isn’t like an ordinary phone application that opens up filling the whole screen. It has top and bottom toolbars, similar if you were to open an external link on Instagram or any other social media applications and appears to be a separate screen. You can zoom in and out to make the bubbles on the screen bigger or smaller. It is a mind map for someone to gather their ideas and help them locate or organize their ideas into a map. Normally when I create a mind map for my advertising classes I usually end up filling up the whole paper and it makes things harder to read or process what is trying to be said/connect. So I can see great use in having this application on my phone now. My only complaint is that some of the clickable icons appear to be too small on my phone and it doesn’t work at first click at times while trying to use the feature. Other than that, this application I am definitely going to use in the nearby future and in my professional field as well.

Homework: Review 2 Applications; App #1

The first application that I will be reviewing is Brainsparker. While most of the applications that were listed in the homework are no longer working, this was the one that has got my attention at first glance. I read the name of the application and immediately was intrigued by the name. I really like the name of this application because it gives away the purpose of this application before even running it. When I first opened the application it gave me what seems to be an unlimited selection of flashcards I can choose from. Selecting one would give you a task or something for you to think of, which can be really helpful in times students hit a roadblock or procrastination. The cards can range from saying different messages from “be audacious” to “what are you saying “can’t” to”. Sometimes the cards can just be an image of scenery or an object with no context behind it. Which can also be helpful for someone who has their mind on overdrive. You can customize the card packs to your own liking. I just began with the starter pack. But there are many different options for others like; kids pack, a vision pack, and a VIP pack for a more premium card pack which is only $2.99. Overall, this application can be useful when someone is doing homework or starting a project they are having a hard time starting. I will keep this application on my phone just in case I run into these issues during the rest of the semester and throughout finals.

In the whole show, I really liked this submission by my fellow internship classmate Magi Hossam Eldin. I was mainly only looking at the graphic design side of the show because that one was the one I was the most interested in. And wanted to see how my fellow classmates approach this show. I really like how this t-shirt is organized and gives me the impression of what Gordon Park’s work is all about. Before looking into this student show, I didn’t have any idea of who Gordon Parks was. But after viewing the artworks that were submitted I have learned a lot about what the artist is about. This one stood out the most compared to the rest in my opinion because of the color and the powerful quote about what Parks has said. The shirt coming with its own packaging makes it more impactful and brings this whole art piece together. If it was turned into a real t-shirt and it was available for purchase in the show, I would get one and wear it.

I have attended an event called “Alphabet City” by Adrian Wilson. On Thursday, April 8, 2021. It wasn’t that expensive, it was only $4.28 with the student discount. The name of this event is the main thing that interested me. Since I am a New Yorker I was interested in how Adrian Wilson exploits around New York City. Which he has been arrested before multiple times before,  for his artwork.

These examples shown above, showcase how he makes use of his surroundings. To make art out of something we see in our daily lives. He takes spray paint or creates a sticker to place on an object or surface to create more meaning to it. I really enjoy seeing these things because I love street art and have worked with multiple street artists before. But I was not familiar with this man’s work. Some people will just view this as vandalism but there is an art perspective in it. And it can make someone’s day if they come across it randomly in the street.

This one I enjoyed the most in his presentation. In these two photos, Mr.Wilson has made a stencil of a “Post No Bills” and sprayed it on a construction wood panel. I remember he has also pointed out a good point. We don’t call wheat pastes or advertisements “Bills” anymore but everyone understands what “Bills” mean. The artist created a dialogue between the sign and of a civilian that has spray-painted “says who?” as a response back the work replied “me”. The only thing that actually got covered up was the yellow “says who”.

This event just made me have more appreciation for the city around me. And there are some people risking getting arrested just so have their work in front of people is a wild thing. Not getting paid for any of it, and some even don’t want their identity revealed. Just adds a good amount of mystery which lets the artwork speak for itself, and adds an element of unknown.

Unfortunately, my family is going through an extremely tough time.  This year has been filled up with death. With the passing of my grandpa, aunt, my aunt’s husband, and now my cousin. I got the news of his passing through Facebook that my mom has told me about early in the morning. He has passed away on Saturday,  April 18. The amount of family members that have passed away this semester has been crazy. It seems like every week now someone in my family passes away.  In my school work, I am still trying to finish up everything so it is less stressful. I like to do this so I don’t feel so under pressure when it is time for finals. I still have to make the appointment with my intern advisor so he can set a meet-up so I can finally turn in my sign-in sheet for the hours. I also have attended my last networking event which I still have to create a blog post about. My birthday is coming up on May 6th and I hope everything goes well. I don’t really have that high of expectations since this year hasn’t really been good for me. But that doesn’t mean it can’t change. I am almost done with school, about to graduate, finishing up my work, about to get promoted, and my birthday is coming up. I can’t focus on the negative sides. I have to keep moving on, life never stops.

This week has been easier on my internship side because I have made all of my workplace hours for the semester. All I have to do is make a meeting to meet with my advisor from my internship to sign off the hours and I will have one less thing to worry about. 120 hours was a journey but in the end, it has all played out well. It was hard to juggle everything in between but it is possible. And now I have more free time to focus on my senior project since I had one meeting with my advisor that didn’t go that well. But it did spark up the fire and got me more motivated to get the senior project over with. It is also hard with also finding the motivation to drive yourself from achieving these objectives because life does throw obstacles at you. After my aunt’s husband has passed away, three days later she did as well. It was hard to process that and it did affect the mind in having a clear direction to continue going. But it all worked out. Hearing my dad cry is one of the hardest things to see or hear because I don’t really ever see my dad display that much emotion. But this year was a hard one with my dad’s side of the family. My grandfather from his side of the family passed away earlier this year as well. So having his sister just has passed away, affected the whole family.  I feel extremely bad for my cousins, they have lost both their mother and father due to COVID. May they rest in peace.

This week was one of my hardest throughout the whole semester. It was extremely difficult balancing out my time with dealing with some tasks. In my pharmacy job, we are currently going through our yearly inventory which was brought in earlier this year for an odd reason and I have promised my boss that I would help him out when the time did come. Last year it happened around July and it fell during the Summer so I did not have school to get in the way of it. So I have alerted my advisor from my internship that I would be busier in my other job because of inventory. He completely understood so there was no miscommunication at all. But in the end, I have ended up catching up with my internship hours since I had a lot of time to catch up with my work on both my homework and internship.  In the middle of the week, I have received news that my aunt’s husband has just died due to covid and two days later my aunt has passed away as well. The funeral was held via Zoom call and all of my family members attended it. On Saturday I took my last COVID shot, and I did not feel any severe symptoms other than my arm just being extremely sore and feeling a little lazier than usual. Next week I’ll pick back up from my regular job and work more in my internship to finish up the hours.

I’m trying my best to keep up to date with these blog posts about what has been going on in the internship. I am for the most part proud of the fact that I am actually keeping up to date with all of my work and projects that I am currently going through. I am still working on finalizing the icon for my internship gallery. I had a lot of ideas and rough sketches, but I am not finalizing the work digitally. I am still in defense of the idea of adding color to the final logo because I feel like if one does add color to a logo, it also becomes the identity of that brand. If I were to add as an example Blue, now I feel like tieing all the campaigns or posters together, the brand would have to include a blue in the mix so people can automatically connect the color to the brand. Next week is Spring Break, and do I really need a break. My plan is to have the weekend to myself. But the rest of the days I am normally in school is to just grind out the most work I can do, so I can have an easier rest of the semester. Now that mid-terms are all over, and I have received all of my grades so far. All four of the classes I am currently taking I am passes. I really tried my best during this semester and I am going to graduate with a 3.2 GPA. That was my goal throughout college because freshman year my mind wasn’t taking school as a priority. But that changed once I realized that school was actually important. I cannot wait to finally graduate and start my life. Thank you.

Balancing out school projects, work, and trying my best in my internship is a real challenge when it comes to time management. This is possibly the first time I actually had to write down and plan ahead of time what I had to get done throughout the day. I just got my COVID vaccine at York College and my arm felt really sore while I was trying to do more work on the computer. I am taking longer than usual during this time, but I am trying to fight and do my best during this hard time. I had one project that I had to give an update to my intern advisor, but I told him I had to give an update the next day and rescheduled the meeting.  My arm after the next day felt extremely sore and I could not move it properly. I took the vaccine on my right arm, but that is the arm I use to control the mouse on my computer. Which led my arm to get really tired and delayed the process of my work. My girlfriend just finished taking her last shot of the vaccine and she was extremely sick the next day and I had to take care of her. She had to leave work early, and come home. When she finally did get home, she had a fever and felt chills, with a headache. I gave her some medicine and later felt better. My second dose is scheduled for April 3rd. I hope I don’t get the same side effects as her, as I cannot afford to not be on top of all my class assignments or miss out on days at my actual job in a pharmacy. Please, wish me luck in my second dose.