Control Freak

Sylvain has had to do powerpoint presentations in two of his classes in the last two days the latest one was on a French company called Publicis - they do phenomenal adverts and marketing campaigns. With his laptop power adapter going to an early grave he has had to use my laptop- it being a Mac he has needed some help adjusting from a PC. Me being a creative type, I have largely taken over his powerpoint projects, they're in Spanish so I haven't added any material but believe me the teacher in me is coming out "well have you added a page about their philosophy/approach- what about the awards they've won? What about their team, who are they recruiting, from what fields!" I'm gently, sometimes not so gently pulling my laptop away from his so I can do the research myself, adding hyperlinks, graphics and trying to figure out how to insert a video. What is my problem? I totally want to be making these powerpoints. I'm taking over. It's a scary side of me, I'd rather not explore. I hope his professors start giving him assignments with less creativity involved. Sylvain told me about Publicis a while ago, when I was asking him about his upcoming internship and what he wanted to do. I have since become a huge fan of their work, they are super creative and I have always been gigantically jealous of the creative minds/teams that create work like theirs, I'm starting to think advertising and graphic design would have been really interesting fields to have studied; but then I could say that about a lot of things from the gauntlet of creative fields I've taken classes in. As with design, and interior design, I've always found it exciting to have a sort of math equation- you need to come up with a certain product that works on an aesthetic level but it also has a certain amount of parameters to it; the final product being functional. Its why I've always found design so much more exciting and accessible than when I was a painter- when I was painting I didn't know where the hell to start, or what to do. With advertising, interior or graphic design you have a client, and they give you your assignment. Relief. 

In keeping with the control freak theme of today's post, I might mention that Sylvain's upcoming internship is giving me an ulcer. I mean not really, but he keeps talking about China, and I don't want to go to China anymore than I want to go back to NYC. Realistically he won't end up in China, France maybe, but right now the focus is on Spanish speaking countries- Mexico, Peru, Buenos Aires and Spain too. I want to stay in South America, live cheap, teach, explore, hike and continue to learn Spanish. Generally to get into an MBA program in the states you need to have several years of work experience under your belt, in France you don't need anything but money (it's the only schooling in France that costs money, and frankly Sylvain doesn't have any, so he has taken on significant loans), and in France, working before you finish school is a social stigma. So Sylvain has no work experience and I have no idea how he would manage to snag an internship in the states, in these economic times, unless there were a business looking for someone who has been around the world and could speak a few languages. Sylvain and I agree he would be the perfect expat restaurant owner like his friend Phillipe at the Filou de Montpellier. It would suit him to a T. He loves being an expat, he has no "real" aspirations for swimming in pools of money, like me he is happy with the equivalent of a teachers salary and like me, the perks are ideal- for me its my summers off, for him having the month of the slow season to go home or travel, being able to be your own boss and the various social aspects of restaurant life (not to mention the food). I'm really struggling to imagine him really doing anything but this, and so as he looks for his internship I'm worried he'll be unhappy, let's face it, interns brew coffee, run errands and make copies, 6 months of doing unpaid grunt work is no fun for anyone.

In this photo: Welcome to McDonalds may I take your order?