Senior Projects

This week I got to start a pallet for the Oscars. I picked out some finishes we already had in the interiors library and also got to order some samples from material bank. I also had my first in person product update. This was cool because it was out side in the trunk of the reps car. I worked on some projects such as commerce bank, SCAD, project sunshine, Saint Louis County Public Library Head Quarters, and wildhorse village. I learned how to use Revit.  Revit is a building information modelling software for architects, landscape architects, structural engineers, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineers, designers and contractors.

This week I’ve been at Underdown Trenching. They do directional boring along with many project involving utilities. Since everybody plans out the day before the suns comes out I have to get up at 4:45 which is something I haven’t really done before. Once you get to the office, everybody gets to work figuring out which crews are going where and when. A lot of what I’ve been doing has been with David and we drive out to sites. David goes to jobs before the crews do and makes sure that everything is listed at the job site exactly how it is on the map. Then he marks down where he needs locates which is to protect against hitting anything under ground. Locates are the 1-800 call before you dig commercials if you’ve ever seen them. Here is what a job looks like after David marks everything for the crews.

I have been doing a lot of office jobs this week. I made binders and printed window stickers today. I am always cleaning a car or taking photos/videos when I am not doing office jobs. I cleaned another Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Bentley, and a Maserati today. One new concept to me is doing your job independently. For a lot of the office jobs, I just got sent a passcode and username and was told to figure it out. As long as you do your job, you’re fine. You don’t have to ask to do anything, you just do it.

For the real estate internship, I sat in on a few phone calls. Even though I sell shoes, I did not translate the process to real estate. We were talking to a person about potentially selling his rental unit; however he was concern about what he was going to net. Some of it was going to fees, then it was going to be taxed. We briefly discussed a 1031 exchange option. Then we showed a Rosebury Ave apartment (for the 5th time this week). Thursday I will go to an inspection on a trailer park. I have done very little on the management side so I look forward to it. Yesterday, I sat in on 3 hours of phone calls and listed an apartment on 5 or 6 different websites.

The people were super busy today because they were off Saturday and Sunday. I basically just did some house keeping and took some photos. I cleaned a Ferrari 458 Spyder that I believe is going to auction. I moved some cars around the shop. I took some photos. I made some videos. I am supposed to be getting content for their media pages. I made a Tik Tok. Tomorrow they said will be a better ‘intro day”. This is also a personal interest project. That means, I am getting video content to post on my personal YouTube. Everybody benefits because the media overlaps between both accounts.

The real estate agent has a walkthrough scheduled later today. I cannot make that; it just means that the agent will walkthrough the house inspecting it. Its not an official inspection, but these clients are buying the property without seeing it. Obviously, when you buy anything that expensive you want to know most (if not everything) is working.

Today I spent 6 hours on showing apartments and town houses. I always admired and aspired to have the busy “non-stop grind” type of life and today I witnessed that first hand. The person I am shadowing is a real estate agent on the side. It is a very fast pace of life. Today this morning at 10 am, we had no showings to do. 1 hour later I get a text saying thats a lie. I learned a lot. There is a lot more than heres a house and a price. As a buyer, you have to think how do you want to purchase/finance this place, are you willing to financially compete for this house, and what other expenses will you have? I never even thought about those before. As an agent, you are on the go at all times (especially if this is a side job). He had people calling him about listings, he was calling other agents about listings, he was calling carpenters about his property that he plans to flip, he negotiated deals, he filled out an amendment while waiting for clients. It was a “on go mode’ type of day. The last showing was impromptu. As we were leaving the apartment these people called us asking us to show them the property. The clients looked pretty sold on the places that they looked at, so today was more likely a success than not.

Monday I start with RP Exotics. Ill be creating the Instagram content for them as well as making walkaround videos for potential clients. They got a lot of new inventory over the weekend. They got a Mclaren 720s and 12c, Lamborghini Gallardo Performante Spyder, Porsche GT3, Ferrari 458, and more all this weekend so I have that to look forward to on Monday.

I spent this week doing mostly the same things I did last week, which were wrapping up the interview process with my neighbor Arlys and finishing my comic stencil in Makerspace. Next week I will have a different schedule, where I will spend more time doing live sketches and drafting the Arlys stories, of which there are a lot.

I have nine recorded sessions with Arlys, and each is about an hour and a half long. Last week we talked about her childhood, her time in college, and her time teaching abroad; this week we talked about her other international trips, how she met her husband, and started her family. Even if we’ve talked about a particular time before, she always has a new aspect of it to share, so it’s not redundant in the slightest. I combed through most of the transcriptions this week (I only have one to go), and I made a list of stories from each recording that I’d like to touch on. I marked about 20, so I’m going to pare down my list and combine a story or two. Even though the stories are separate events, my goal is to make them fit together into one coherent narrative for the graphic adaptation.

One of the things I was most excited about this week was finishing my comic stencil! (I’m also looking for ideas of other ways to call it— “comic stencil” doesn’t seem to fit right.) I decided to only make it out of wood, as acrylic is expensive and difficult to glue. Even though I would have liked the transparency, it would have been too challenging to be worth it. I also liked the weight of the wood much better than the acrylic; it helped steady both my hand and the paper. I made a copy for myself, and I also made a copy for the school that now lives in Dr. Hurwitz’s room for future students who do graphic adaptations for English class. I attached photos of the one for the school down below.

I didn’t have as much time in the mornings for poetry this week because I was working on the transcriptions, but I still managed to enjoy some. I went deeper into the Mary Oliver book and started on Elephant Rocks by Kay Ryan. I’ve kept writing down poems I like, and I’ve actually found a couple that I might want to make into graphic adaptations. Overall, my process hasn’t changed much since last week. Next week I’m going to start the Shakespeare book, which will definitely take me a fair amount of time. I’ve been reading free verse poetry so far, which is harder to memorize than poems written in verse, and I wanted to try to memorize a Shakespeare sonnet or two.

I’ve also been having a Zoom call with Mrs. Hassan on Saturdays to practice Arabic. Right now we’re studying verb conjugation, which is challenging, but I just need to stick with it.

Today I finished my internship at Carrollton Bank. I started off the day at the driving range because a key thing that my site advisor emphasizes on is learning to play golf. Golf is a business sport, so if you want to go into business learn to play golf. Golf was not part of my internship but I felt it should be included in my write up. This internship has taught me a lot about business. Good customer care is the backbone to any company. The business portion of it was super useful because I know I want to go into business, whatever it is I will do. Banking was also useful because I learned how loans work and taxes. Hopefully, this knowledge will benefit me when I am in my twenties trying to buy a house or a Mustang. Obviously, this knowledge can be applied when you’re any age; however it is tough trying to get home and auto loans in your twenties because lack of credit.

Friday morning we walked through three different houses. In the afternoon, we ran CMA’s (comparative market analysis) on the properties. Through this analysis, we look at properties within 0.25 miles of the possible house that have been sold in the past year. This shows us what ready to move in houses are being sold for in the area. After you get the list of houses sold in the past year you will find the most similar ones. This includes the closest square footage, bed and bath count, and livable space. After finding the one or two that are most similar you will look at pictures of the house and pick the one which has the closest architecture. After picking the final house you can see what the house sold for which gives you a good idea of what your house could sell for after renovations. This lets you plug numbers into a spreadsheet to see after you buy, renovate, and sell the house if you will be able to make a profit.

This week was a very busy week in the office. Lots of meetings with clients and reps. Monday I was able to sit on the “Day 1 at Clayco” orientation meeting for new hires. At the orientation, we talked about the company history and the major factors that play into being such a successful company. CRG, LJC and Clayco all work together to work efficient and successfully. Tuesday I sat in on a confidential project meeting known as “project sunshine” This project is currently in the construction phase but is planned to be finished by June 2021. This meeting was just a check up with the different teams that are involved in the construction of this project. Each team shared what they were currently doing and what there next steps were. The next meeting was a design meeting with SCAD (Savanah College of Art and Design). We are currently building 2 new buildings next too the current building that we built a couple years ago. The Landscape architect and interiors team were catching the rep of SCAD up with current plans and drawings of the new buildings. Such as the light placement outside the building, what kind of trees and plants go where, and if the students work desks should have multiple or one drawer. Wednesday morning we had another rep update this time with growing green. The rest of the day was just organizing the interior library and shipping back samples to reps. I started a project binder and plan to finish it by next Monday. Thursday was probably my favorite day during my time here so far. I got a lesson on how to use some adobe software applications such as photo shop and InDesign. I then had a meeting with reps from lighting associates. Friday I had a meeting with Luke from the CDC discussing what products to get for project sunshine’s bathroom. Such as the hand dryers, the soap dispensers, the sinks, and the waste bins.

Wednesday and Thursday we were quite busy at the shop. I did a lot of odd jobs along with stuff that the other people there were working on. I took inventory of all of our shoes and and then wrote up and order list on what we needed to order. I then did a similar thing but it was with things that the owner said are quick moving items. I learned that the longest you ever want to keep something as inventory is. Six months. If something is taking longer then that to sell, you are using utilities and space and are essentially paying for it be in the shop since you could use that space for an item that would sell faster. I also checked in a lot of bikes for repair, built a few bike racks, and built some bikes.