Steve Jobs offered a new lifestyle. He gave us gifts that will change our lives. His products are beautifully designed, shiny and elegant, unique and powerful, pleasant to touch and pleasant to the eye. Each of his imaginative products become an adventurous journey through its unique features, offering us to employ unlimited creativity that he so artfully stimulates within us. When asked if he ever conducts a market research, he replies: “No, because customers don’t know what they want until you show them.  Alexander Bell did not ask people if they want telephone, did he?”

We want our students to be a part of  our revolutionary times! It was decided by our intuitive graphic design team it is time for Platt graphic design students to design for print AND for the interactive environment. Our students are excited!  Everyone wants to take THAT class. And with excellent and funny teachers as is Terry Warner (the main drafter of the new features in the class), and Ed Boretz – it became nothing but rewarding joyous road.

Just imagine the excitement to be able to design a cookbook or a guide through our solar system in InDesign for print publication and then take the same content  and design it for an interactive device as an application! And the students surpassed our expectation.

The students present to the class a print version of their cook book or Balboa Park guide.  Then a handsome ipad is hooked to the overhead and students show their creativity how to make a solar system guide or a map of Mission Trails customer friendly as an app you carry in your packet on any tablet  of your choice. The leap of imagination of our students has no limit. You touch the screen on many places and pictures appear and disappear, text scrolls up and down, shiny buttons entice you to touch them to find out more about a Museum of Man or a hike to Cowles Mountain. You all know how apps work, so perhaps I go to too many details…but my point is – our students can build such apps in their Digital Publishing class, a class that strides right next to our ever evolving technology.

I have been pleasantly surprised how much creativity and unique ideas our students can show. And the environment in the classroom was charged with so much joy and  energy!  Well, to create something anew, to stand on the edge of technology and to have limitless creativity ahead of you is empowering. I am glad we can offer such opportunity to our capable students.

P.S. Yes, I know, I am biased when it comes to Apple products! I love them!

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The accolades belong to a teacher who is effective in the classroom where he operates with bravado of his knowledge, charisma, dynamism and uniques teaching style. He  challenges, inspires and  ignites an interest in his students who love him and want to make him proud.
He  always wears a smile, is always optimistic, always in good mood and has an incredible sense of humor. You hear his laughter through the school and it always brings a smile to your face even if you only hear an echo of his laugh.  You can have a wonderful conversation with him about anything – books, computers, music, politics, sports, hiking, jogging, theater….He is simply a happy, pleasant, sophisticated and unique person and we and our students are lucky to have him!

Congratulation to Terry Warner!

If you say slowly aloud the number two thousand and twelve it  sounds poetic!  It seems to offer a numeric beauty and elegance!  I wonder how many times in the future we will repeat two thousand and twelve.  Let us all try to make this year as memorable as we can for us and, let us be immodest, significant  for posterity!

So – to two thousands and twelve! May we all have a wonderful, adventurous, happy, healthy, joyful, lovely, peaceful and harmonious year.

 Let us bring in as much honesty and diligence, compassion and  kindness.

Let us keep  John Lennon’s dream alive with possibility of coming true…

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world

You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

Here are pictures taken by Joanna Rippee, one of our students. Enjoy!

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It is a first Friday in December 2011 at Platt College campus. People move quicker than usual. Everyone runs around with something in hands: Christmas tree and ornaments, platters of food, red napkins, baskets of oranges and pretzels, musical instruments, microphones, red poinsettias….Other people transform our general education classes into enticing galleries. Shelves display the diverse talent of our students and teachers, easels carry large canvases with fine art, a visual journal of Platt College rich life takes up the entire gallery wall… Ornaments hang from the ceiling along with large Winter Art Festivities logos, custom made crystal balls with the party logo inside is everywhere around the campus, Christmas music is on…The mood is festive already! Everyone is smiling in spite of worry – will we really manage to have everything ready at 6.30PM? And we do.

It is 6.30 PM. Our two large trees and all of the courtyard is lit up with thousands of lights, green and red balloon slowly sway in the evening breeze. Spanish live music by Cantua, a companion for the entire evening, takes you right into the party mood and makes you move into the rhythm. You can sip hot apple cider or coffee, nimble from neatly arranged trays with food, try your luck to win a prize from our impressive raffle by finding anyone in a red hat with a colorful tin full of tickets, you can have your portrait taken by our talented students, you can pick up a chocolate ornaments wishing “happy holiday” from a basket carried by one of the Platt child in a red dress and a red bow in the hair, you can even shake hands with a real Santa Claus!

Mainly then, you can enjoy Platt talent shining not only in the galleries but also on the stage – just imagine a first class piano performance of Chopin, perfectly sung soul songs, rock and roll performances, Hawaiian dance, Renaissance cannon, a touching poem performed by one of our teachers or a medley of beautifully performed Christmas carols for good night.

It was an evening of celebration: Celebration of each other’s talent, each other’s company, and goodwill to create out of one Friday evening a collection a specials moments by a smile, a kind word, a song or a poem.

I believe we successfully ushered the season of festivities and our celebration contributed to the joy in the world.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays and – JOY TO THE WORLD!

Thank you all who helped to transform one evening into joyous Platt celebration!

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Our trip to China was incredible. Especially for learning about the rich history so remote to us, for admiring Chinese delicate art, for tasting real Chinese food, for listening to the Chinese people views about life, for a kick out of staring at thousands of fancy cars behaving totally disorganized on the highway, for visiting temples offering moments of peace, for strolling through exciting modern and ancient cities…
I will never look at a tag “Made in China” with the same eyes. I understand better what is China about-

Here are some of my thoughts.

Wherever I go, I love to visit city parks. China was no exception. Whether it was in Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong I was welcomed with the same scene: A park filled with older people happily enjoying in a big number a variety of sports: Tai Chi, Kung Fu, dances with fans, sword fencing….No one is dressed in sport clothes. Everyone is deeply concentrating on precise moves. It felt good to watch. There was no pretense, you sensed no obligation of ‘what one should do”. It was simply enjoyable passage of time. We sat there for the longest time and felt that all we saw made a perfect sense.

All of China, on the other hand, is quite a complicated matter. It does not always feel to locals like a walk in a beautiful park! China is beautiful and romantic; chaotic and unpredictable; incredibly advanced as well as incredibly behind; China has unprecedented moments in its rich history along with sad times with suffering beyond any country imagination.

“My snippets”:

When you walk through Shanghai you feel you are in the most developed city in the world. The creative shapes of super-modern buildings have no limit, hundreds of colorful neon billboards entice you to visit sound brand stores, the fast speed tram will whisk you anywhere in the city at the incredible speed of 274 miles per hour…The colonial charming left bank of Huangpu River tells story of 19.century wealth and European presence, the right bank is China’s pride of the tallest and flashiest buildings in the world. The city pounds with a happy life, Apple, Zara, Max Mara, Coach, Rolex stores are packed and vendors with knock offs of anything in the world are ever-present in the streets. But how many of the 1.3 billion Chinese can enjoy this desirable scene of happy city dwellers is a nagging question.

The Great Wall of China was a highlight – it had no other function than to protect, millions 0f people died while the wall was constructed over centuries yet once you are walking it, jogging it, strolling it – you are moved: Moved by the incredible human achievement to build a 3,000 mile long wall undulating up an down through forest, deserts, plains… We see it in the fall with the most beautifully colored leaves around and it is romantic as if medieval time was just happening…We are posing for many local tourists who love to snap photos of anyone blonde…teenage girls giggle when asking permission to take a picture of us and then run away only to scream of joy to capture exotic us…
The wall is beautiful, smooth, comfortably wide, reassuring that if we decide to achieve something we can do anything. We walk and walk far away from crowds – just us, the wall and beautiful forest around. I wish we could hiked for days…it felt so special, it felt as if we accomplished something. How silly to think that. Yet we all shared the same touching feeling: To walk on the Great Wall of China feels to be a part of human race that goes together hand in hand through joys and sorrows.

Beijing Forbidden City with its nine palaces, nine courtyards and a Summer Palace are a testimony to the rich past of both sensible and cruel governors who had vision for common good or only for their own good. The city behind the walls is full of beautiful vistas of endless buildings with red roofs, colorfully painted columns, enormous statues of turtles,(longevity), endless number of lions (symbol of emperor’s power) and romantic hideaways. We visited the Forbidden city after a thirty hour plane ride and so some of its part are in haze…

Olympic Village from 2008 Olympics charmed us: the Bird’s Nest stadium is quite a spectacle with its pleasant organic shape created from inorganic steel that is weaved as a true nest. Your eyes cannot leave its pleasant curves. The entire village feels welcoming with its wide avenues, beautiful flower sculptures everywhere and imaginative super-modern buildings around.

In Xi’an, an ancient capital of China, we bike all the way up on intact ten mile long city walls built in AD 700. We love the ride in a fresh automn air, pedalling away on the cobble stones 1300 years old, happily talking, admiring beautiful colorful historical buildings with roof line going up at the end to ward off evil…

The Terracotta army – the biggest archeological jewel discovered in 1974 – is incredible. An emperor Qin, who united China in 200 BC, built for himself the tomb with 8.000 life-size soldiers each with his unique features and a real weapon. Just imagine that. You stand there in disbelief with your eyes fixed on the never ending rows of soldiers…

Hong Kong just swallows you in. Before you know it you are n the midst of a wild wonderful sophisticated dance. The island, belonging till 1997 to England, has buildings seemingly one on a top of the other. What a spectacular view from Victoria Peak – as if someone carefully built a city from a logo blocks with number of gardens and pools on the highrises! People fill the streets, eateries, restaurants, bars, galleries, temples, stores, markets in incredible numbers but it feels good as the crowd is very happy and welcoming… You have a choice of walking the city blocks or hop on the longest escalator in the world elevated above the sidewalks. You have a choice to get off the escalator at each city block to have a dumpling soup and oolong tea. Hong Kong is fascinating, a city that never sleeps, a city with milions things to do, admire, enjoy, learn, create…like the swap meet that start at 10 PM and was crowded the entire night!!

And all of this we did too: a visit to a middle school (incredible!), a trip to a silk factory, a cloisonne factory, we had Tai Chi lesson in the park (it was fascinating – we generated quite an audience!!), caligraphy lesson in the museum, rickshaw ride through old Beijing, daily dinners with endless variety of exotic food appearing in front of us, tea pavillion visit with a lesson how to drink which tea, theater performance with blooming talents of Chinese artists hard to match anywhere in the world. We admired incredible museums. We sought out temples and pagodas to find some peace…

If you did not know and did not see revealing signs not belonging to the picture of perfect developed ultramodern cities, you may forget that China is a Communist country. You may forget that the people enjoying the advent of modernity may be in a small number, they may not know that you cannot freely travel, open a Facebook account, are forced to live in incredibly polluted cities. Yet…you visit a fascinating country with people who in general do not smile much and it is fair to say they may be quite assertive, but they are real, hardworking, unpretentious people going through quite a massive society transformation that must be overwhelming to say the least. I wish them the best, and from all they may wish for I hope they will achieve to live in freedom.

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I did not grow up with Thanksgiving but embraced that holiday with vigor as it is one holiday that is equally calling everyone to join in; it does not matter what nationality you are, what religion you are, what political opinions you have, what status in society you hold. All it calls for is to forget for several days your “worries” and ordinary days and allow yourself to transmit into a state of happy reflection of your life. You get together with anyone that makes you feel happy and takes you “as is” and you count your blessings. And that is what we did today. We took half an hour of our time, got together and counted our endless thanks and gratitude. Just to be able to do that, to belong to or to work with a crowd of creative talented people is one incredible blessing.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

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This is what we do at Platt: We try to balance our serious, uncompromising affairs in the classroom with fun, creativity and socializing outside of the classroom. Halloween celebration offers an opportunity to enjoy each others company, to have some cookies, cupcakes, hot cider but mainly to admire the leap of imagination! There are no limits when it comes to our students’ creativity. There were so many clever, unique, funny, silly costumes! It was hard to choose the best ones.

I love to be surrounded by our students’, teachers’ and employees’ creativity at its best. It makes my day to see how many were contributing to make us laugh and how many are willing to add to the nice atmosphere. It is a scene inviting students to have a conversation with someone they have not met yet, a chat with a teacher or just to enjoy, relax and have fun.

We had to choose the best costume and it was difficult! The criterium was creativity and the amount of devoted labor toward the costume.
Just imagine how would you portray Tornado! Our winner of the morning session, Krystiana Brzuza, used her imagination, fabric and sowing skills. Cars, cows, pigs, fences,trees, debris were hanging from her as she swirled (rather sweetly than in menace) through the courtyard. Janie Johnson, the winner of afternoon session, made sure she found everything she needed to represent a perfect Gothic Doll! And she did look like one!
Finally, Halloween without Zombies is not the traditional Halloween. Our twin Zombies, Marlene Sanchez and Jeanette Ortiz personified ones with such graphic details that it was painful to watch! A screw was going through the head from temple to a cheek…terrible to look at!

Our most creative pumpkins were created by Melissa Conrad, Kealani Vanderleest and Chelsey Moter. Congratuation and thank you for participating – what you were able to do in 30 minutes is beautiful!

Thus ended one out-of-ordinary school day at Platt. It was fun! Our students are as ready to play as they are to learn! Happy Halloween!

There were many costumes and pumpkins that would deserve mentioning! Please, see for yourself at the photo gallery.

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Dear travelers,

Before long  you will land in the faraway exotic country called China.  You will visit the magical  five hundred year old Forbidden City in the middle of Peking, you will stroll through  The Bund, Shanghai charming river promenade, you will enjoy a walk on the Great Wall of China,  you will get dizzy by looking up  at the pagodas, statues of Buddhas, skyscrapers of Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, you will be dazzled by the endless life size terracotta army counting 7, 000 soldiers, waiting for you since 200 BC to admire them in the historical city Xi’an.

You will enjoy touching poetry of Li Po and Tu Fu, you may be inspired by beautiful wood block prints and refined water color paintings of peony blossoms, we will together admire the wisdom of Taoism advising us to live in harmony with nature, we will learn about the beauty of yin and yang, we will be fascinated by learning  Confucius philosophy of practicing respect to each other and respect for learning.

We will taste the best Chinese noodles, spring roll, salted fish and mock duck, we will touch the most refined silk dresses, admire the most delicate stationery, and mainly admire the humble, modest respectful Chinese, politely waiting for our smile and recognition of their magnificent imperial past  that we came to explore.

To travel is a privilege. I admire your decision to exercise discipline and effort into earning such privilege.

To explore makes us complete. It reveals who we are and inspires us beyond imagination. To explore by traveling helps us become the citizens of the world and embrace lovingly our magical universe.

Welcome to the cosmopolitan family of happy travelers. I promise you an extraordinary ride.

Your fellow traveler,

Marketa