My first day of school

So Thursday was my first day of school. I was really anxious to get to class and get started. We, as exchange students, had to bring our portfolio to present our work from our native country. There is me from the States/Canada and Mario who is from Germany. Class is supposed to start at ten so I arrived a bit early to setup my thirteen-slide presentation. I get there, and Mario is smoking a cigarette outside our classroom. This is something I have to get used to because at VSUP you can smoke cigarettes throughout the building and bring your dog. I walk into our “studio”; this smallish room has purple walls, no desks, a few swivel chairs and couches. I am thinking, where do you come in and work? So we are waiting, 10:10 comes along, no teacher; 10:15, 10:25... no teacher. I am starting to get nervous, because with presentations if I am left in anticipation and think about them too much, I get a little nauseous. 10:45 the teacher finally shows up, and the class fills up with about twelve of us. Everyone is talking, in Czech of course, and about 15 minutes later, we start with Mario’s presentation. I see he has hand made a magazine type presentation with about 50-60 pieces of work. This guy Is talented, he has basically designed a new type of website through Java scripting and he works for the magazine at his school so he has done loads of really good graphic work. He is just flipping through his work explaining one piece here and one piece there.

I am really nervous now.

It’s my turn. The teacher tries to say something in English to me, but I have no idea what he has said. Quickly, Mario and I figure out he doesn’t speak English. I go up and don’t even say my name. I just start presenting. “ This is my work. Canada works in a very different fashion than Germany. We haven’t don’t much programming…” (I also haven’t done much “design” compared to this guy either!). Anyways, I get the presentation over with and in retrospect I think I did all right.
So our presentations are finished, and the teacher tells one of the girls in the class to be our semi translator. So for the next hour and half we sit there and listen to the teacher shoot the shit with his students and tell them about their new projects in Czech. During him talking, people are rolling cigarettes in class, leaving the class to smoke in the hallway and playing with the two dogs.
Our translator was awesome, but the only things there were to translate were stories about the kids in the class. She said we were not doing that same project as they were. Mario and I were handed a piece of paper. It read:

1st project: Redesign our studio website
2) Make your own project ( much more important than the first project) inspired by your stay in Prague.
Emails of students in class.

So I’m thinking cool, these are our first 2 projects of the semester, a little excited about making a website, but nervous because maybe they expect me to know how to do it already, because we have no idea what the kids in the classes work is like. So Mario and I are handed 6 DVDs and Tereza, our translator says “ these are for you, they are work from students in the past five years”.
So finally after an hour and a half, people start taking their bags and leaving. Seeing as we have not understood anything that was said, we go up to the assistant teacher and ask him to tell us what is up.
“ you have questions? Really?” he asked us in all sincerity as if we had understood the whole Czech conversation they had just had. He told us exactly what was on the paper.
“When are these due?”
“At the end of the semester”
“Do we have to know how to design a website?”
“No, no, just concept”
“No other specifications for our other project?
“No. Do whatever you want.”
“Are there any other due dates, like to check on progress?”
“No, You just have to bring what you did within the week to class on Thursday”
“Thursday? Do we have class any other day?
“No, just Thursday.”
“Is it a long day in class?”
“No, same as today.”
“ Do we work in this studio?”
“You can, or work from home.”

And that was it. Class was over in 2 hours. We have all semester to go all out on these two projects. Class once a week. Our main teacher doesn’t speak English and our studio is basically a lounge. This is going to be an interesting semester.

I was so baffled when I got home. I was almost speechless. Was I excited? Was I upset that I didn’t have direction? MY TEACHER DOESN’T SPEAK ENGLISH! I watched some of their work on DVD... Its different work than Canada for sure.

As un-engaging as this may sound, today I figured out that I am excited not to have so many guidelines and restrictions. Its literally you make it your own project. I think I am going to try to learn how to make a website, as well as doing the concept. I am also going to try to self teach some typography.

All in all, get ready for independence!