Abu Dhabi Film Festival, TEDxDubai and Kcymaerxthaere

So this month of October has been wonderfully busy, filled with events that I made sure I made time for. It's very hard as a full-time student to get away from work and classes, but it's really important that you do. I tried to socialize more, network a little, and just get more into the scene here.

I went to Abu Dhabi Film Festival with Naima. This was actually the first time that we've EVER been out together for something that wasn't class related. Pretty lame considering we've been close friends for maybe two years now, but with classes and all, it was hard to co-ordinate anything. Plus, we don't drive and we're usually broke, so there you go.

We crawled into the back of a van that had no seats. Quite dodgey.

At the restaurant after all the film-watching

We watched a lot of student films in the festival. We're very proud of them because a large number of them got into the festival, and they won awards so that's great. We saw 'The Source' in the evening. It's such a great drama/comedy film about these women in a village in Morocco, directed by a Romanian. Naima should be able to elaborate for us, giving a proper film review since she's part Moroccan.

Then the next weekend, on the 22nd of October was TEDxDubai. I had applied way too late, about 20 minutes before the deadline for registration, and I didn't get in. And then I applied for the free photography position, but I didn't get it either. Naima told me that Jumeirah Hotel was hosting this competition about making up a fake future hotel in 140 characters on Twitter, so I made something up and tweeted it. I sincerely lost all hope that I would get intoTEDxDubai this year. I mean, I wrote about how passionate I was, I sent my photos in, and if my passion and photography couldn't get me in, then how could my writing? And my writing is one of my biggest insecurities.

Well, somehow, I was selected as one of the winners and I got to go to TEDxDubai.

And because I was one of the sponsors, I got to sit in the front row with the speakers

Unfortunately, Naima couldn't make it, so I ended up going alone. I was excited to be independent and all, but I think the experience would've been boosted if she could have come too.

Christian Boer, typeface designer of 'Dyslexie'

I got to meet Christian Boer, who's a Dutch typeface designer that designed Dyslexie, which is a typeface that dyslexics can read. It's really interesting stuff, and if you know about typeface design, it's even more interesting because he manipulated his typeface and broke the rules of type design to make this typeface that actually works for dyslexics . It's really impressive stuff.

Check it out, and if you have any dyslexic friends, then spread the word:

http://www.studiostudio.nl/

And I got to meet Chris Colwell,

(http://www.google.ae/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=chris+colwell).

Please google him, it'll help him get more hits and increase his chances of being found and inspiring more people. He's such an admirable soul, so positive and really truly inspiring.

I had to get his signature to put on my wall

It was a very busy week trying to juggle organizing my time and submissions and allow myself to do things in the outside world. I collected a lot of business cards at TEDx, and I think it's so important to put yourself out there and be assertive enough to get noticed. I found that leaving my group of friends at TEDx was actually beneficial, because I got to walk around and talk to strangers and meet new people. I'm thinking of making my own business card so that I can hand it out randomly and get a bit of attention.

And then on Tuesday night, I got to go out with Naima again. This time we were headed for the XVA Art Hotel in Bastakiya, Dubai. We were on our way to meet Eames Demetrios and unveil a plaque he had installed there.

Eames Demetrios giving a talk about Kcymaerxthaere

Plaque unveiled in linear Dubai!

Bilingual plaque (click on it for closer view)

"Kcymaerxthaere is a parallel universe that intersects with much of our linear Earth. The name comes from the cognate words kcymaara (meaning "the true physicality of the planet") and xthaere (which is a shape with almost an infinity of edges or dimensions--infinity minus 29 to be precise). We explore and tell stories of these other realms through many media, but most famously by installing bronze plaques and historic sites that honor events from the parallel world in our linear world. "

http://www.kcymaerxthaere.com/ (Taken from the website, which will be updated soon).

The stories are really quite lovely and dynamic, and I encourage you to read them and get involved. It meant a lot to me that Naima and I could make time for this and go to the special event because it was really worth it. Plus, we got his business card, so that was another highlight of the evening.

Being awesome in purple

And yea, that's been October for me. It was also two of my bestfriends' birthdays; Lex and Megan. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to them and I wish them the best this year!

I'm tired 'cause this post took forever to make, but I had to immortalize this month.

Lessons learned: make time for yourself, go out with your closest friends, meet new people, network a little, and balance it all. It takes a while to get a handle on, I'm still working on it, but I know it's worth it. I actually asked if Eames Demetrios if he ever sleeps, because he gets so much done, and he said that it's really all about balance. Which made me laugh inside, considering I started this blog and I design the way I do because I can't balance in the design world and my professors tell me I have a serious issue with this whole 'balance' thing. I'll try my best to balance my schedule though.

And that's it,

-Deena