If you are anything like me, you probably suffer from Student Syndrome every so often. I didn't know that Student Syndrome was real, nor that it is slightly different from procrastination. Yet, it is, at least according to Wikipedia: the phenomenon where people will only start to complete a task at the last possible moment leading up to a deadline. Says Wikipedia, "The student syndrome is a form of procrastination, but with more of a plan with good intention. "

Throughout most of my life as student, class participation was very highly valued.  From middle school through college, the comments at grading times were always something like this: 

"Emily is a very intelligent student and always completes her assignments with competence and insight. She should trust herself more to speak up regularly in class, because when she does, she always has great points to make.  She would benefit from more frequent contribution, as would her classmates."

My partner and I have an ongoing debate about identity, and the possibility of being aware enough of how we’ve constructed our own identity to be able to change it. This gets particularly messy when we talk (oh so calmly) about “types” and what it means to be a member of a group or to identify as certain sort of person. He thinks it’s as impossible for us to stop being a “type” as it is for a table to stop being a table, or something like that.

It is surprising to find myself as a graphic designer in the seemingly irreconcilable position of having more interest in discussing socially and politically relevant work than the relevancy of design itself. Perhaps that it is because to me, talking about the potential of design is like talking about the potential of language. Talking about design is like talking about the diction and eloquence of a speaker before considering the content of his address.