Why am I writing about this?

Hmm…

Good question.

I believe birth and death are dependent on the title of this blog - the root of all problems. God is a woman, didn’t you know? If she was a man, then she couldn’t give birth to Eve. Doesn’t life have to be born? How else can it last?

Marriage, religion, porn, prostitution, power, violence … why not put them all in one bar and call it chocolate because it tastes so sweet.

Who are you, brother? Who are you, sister?

Why are we growing in the gay and lesbian population? We all want to be like God, do we not? God, god, gOd, goD - which letter should I capitalize? Or should I spell it backwards and see if there’s a trick to wiggle my tail to? Maybe I’ll add another “o” and it’ll all be good.

Woman, why do you want to be a man of history? If you want to be a man of history, you’re no good sister. Woman, be a man of nature; a man of love. Woman, depending on where you are in the world right now, you have the title. I don’t blame you for thinking you’ve got to be the man because the man did you wrong, but I think you’re way too good for that - you are GOD: Good Old Daemon by virtue of love.

Woman I believe in you. Woman you are the mother of your son. Woman, let the fire of nature light your eyes, warm your heart and steam the curves on your body. Woman, save life, save your children, save your soul tonight.

June 2008 - Convocation Ceremony

I turn 22 tomorrow. I usually don’t tell people my age, but it’s revealed at some point and there’s nothing I can really do about it. Age speaks for the time your body has physically existed but age and time in my eyes can only be measured through experience.

The experience of living the last two years of my life, has been deep, eventful, empowering and more specifically out of my control. Everything that has happened to me and I have done has taken on its own life. My maturity as a designer and an ambitious student has expanded my level of confidence to heights beyond limits, a life of its own.

I feel like I’ve been incubating for these 2 years with the desire to give birth to a creation of accumulated knowledge from sifting through information, running up and down hills and flying over the oceans and deserts. I feel like I’ve been waiting for so long to get to somewhere where I can stop and show where I am.

The reason I know this, is because I can finally let go. Without letting go, there is always worry, defense, pressure and a sense of failure always embedded in my head. This has caused me stress to the degree where my body has forgotten how to operate to fulfill itself and manage its own actions, without letting the actions control my body. I never let go. I kept wanting more and I always will.

My thesis became me. I wanted to make a revolution as a designer and so determined to do it. I didn’t really know what it looked like but I knew what it was supposed to feel like and finally I can say that I’m done. I’m done incubating because I can firmly say that I have lived it, revealed it and put it to the test for people to interact with. Its working and I know it will last. I’ve achieved my goal of reaching the destination I was heading for. It’s time for me to enjoy it and let it move forward - the intense work is done. My thesis grew to a shared vision of people around me, and together we have made it an interactive design. Success is when others see potential in what you are doing and want to help you get there. Collective power is the only way ideas come to life.

more to come…

That’s always been a motto I’ve wanted to go by but it seems like when you’re encouraged to take time and explore, especially in school, you can get lost in your travels and not know how to focus on one thing. Why focus on one thing when…actually I do focus on one thing and it’s called drive. I focus on the drive I have and not the location, or the weather but how to keep driving and viewing the sights I’ve never seen.

If I couldn’t focus, how could I know that I am finally here? I focused on what I knew and now I focus on what I know and the only thing I know is that what I know is what others don’t know and my priority right now is to communicate what I know so others know too. And then it’s in the hands of time.

Active I became.

I was concerned about everything! Everything started to matter to me. I got on the Student Union as the GD rep, and with that role I decided to do something. In a school with many communication and integration issues, I wanted to gather students together and run a workshop to address these issues and come up with ideas for improvement of the school. So I did it. I planned it, promoted it, gave speeches about it, organized it, structured it, and documented everything. I ran 5 sessions to gather enough content from students in all departments. I then took it to the Board of Governors and Sara Diamond, spoke up about it, and had it added as an appendix to the Strategic Plan of 2006-2012 that was at the stage of approval before my forums. I met a lot of people I had never met before through this process and learning took on a different meaning for me. Activism became a passion. Small things, planned out and structured and presented well with a purpose became my mission. Step by step, moving towards a vision.

OCAD offers a Mobility/Exchange in third year. There is a list of participating schools that you can choose from. I invested a lot of time into research and investigation of all my options. I then applied to 3 schools: RISD, Ringling and OTIS, and got accepted into Ringling (in Sarasota, Florida) for the Spring 2007 semester. My work at the 2006 AIDS Conference and my web design abilities enhanced my application. I was a perfect candidate to bring depth to a technical school.

The only class before my trip to Florida that stands out in my mind was with Gary Blakeley. Awesome British man. Great teacher, great projects. Very intelligent and supportive. I enjoyed all of his projects and his blunt, bold and upfront attitude with student work. I always had something to say. Ghazaleh always has something to say! War of Words, E-Life and Toronto Transit were all meaningful and practical projects for me. Graphic Design with depth, meaning and purpose - he always gave interesting and well prepared lectures that had me fall in love with Typography and become very sensitive to it. His daughter is going to be brilliant - I know it.

I flew down to Sarasota and stayed with the loving Sarah who I found on Craigslist for sharing a house, 3 minute bike-ride away from Ringling. I got my bike cheap, from a non-profit bike alliance. I biked everywhere. Ringling disciplined me. I produced a lot of work for my portfolio. I stood out - no doubt. The narrow mind-frame of “design” doesn’t cut it for me. I need meaning. I need leadership and I need open-minded thinking. Ringling was great because I needed to show my abilities as a designer and produce graphic design work that could differentiate me from others. Every project I did, I spent excessive hours in its making. I cannot produce work I am unsatisfied with. I got in touch with myself, nature, and obsessed with reaching for more.

Dave Mason came to Ringling to present the new identity of the school that SamataMason redesigned. He was from Canada too and he liked my work. So one thing led to the next and I ended up in Chicago as an intern for the summer after Ringling.

More biking, more photography, more blog writing. I went through a lot of stress at the internship with my fellow interns. It was hard to go through but again, I learnt a lot about teamwork and my strengths and weaknesses.

I was ready to take on 4th year with a thesis in mind a year in advance.

It was Ghazaleh time.

I saw even more with Lewis’s GD1 class first semester second year. I realized that I could have fun in this field and learn a shit ton of things. I didn’t know that - never thought I would be given the “alphabet” as my brief; never thought I had to design a drink, or find 100 images for one word or make a book of time with one piece of paper. I cried, yes I did! Because I was learning! I was being exposed to so much so fast. Think Tank came: had me scavenging for survival in a park; recording my consumption in a week and writing a design manifesto. My voice got louder. I began to rise up. Classrooms had it. If I was in the class, you got my opinion, no doubt about it. The art of articulation became my specialty. Ghazaleh’s got something to say - that became who I am today.

I stopped the retail of 3 years in 3 different malls with Athlete’s World and Footlocker. I left my sport years behind with the consumerist, material indulgences of the cultural landscape. History of Typography made me understand what language means. Visual Culture made me rethink everything I saw. I became connected, aware and prepared for something new to explore.

TakingITGlobal took me when I chose them. AIDS Conference in the summer of 2006 employed at TIG elevated my level of thinking prepared for the next phase of design: activism.