This post was originally posted on March 5, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I’ve attended a lot of graduations over the years and heard many bad commencement speeches. Most are forgettable. Some were memorably bad.* But few are great.
I was lucky enough to have Pat Conroy as my commencement speaker when I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1997. It was a perfect graduation speech. Powerful. Insightful. Heartfelt. Short.
I send you out into the world now, Class of 1997, with this admonition. You have graduated from a great university. Now make this university, this state, yourself and your family proud, and if you have a little luck — if you have any luck at all — if you do it right, there is a great possibility you can teach the whole world how to dance.
* George Will was my wife’s graduation speaker.
** Looks like the University of South Carolina may have a transcript in Pat Conroy’s papers. It just doesn’t appear to be online, yet.
Three years ago today, I came home to my alma mater to serve as creative director. I feel lucky to work with a great team and for a university I love. #uofsc
Team Wertz is exhausted after a tough Gamecock loss.
Stack of Silver Addys. Proud of my awesome team.
Is someone missing a pet… emu? He’s hanging out beside Koon Road.
This post was originally posted on January 12, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
2015 was a long year for me. Literally. My 2015 was three hours longer than 2014 because I rang in the new year on the West Coast. For me, 2015 was 365 days and 3 hours long.
But here’s the thing with stealing time. You don’t get extra time, you have to steal it from somewhere. My 2016 will be three hours shorter1 — unless I celebrate the new year in a different time zone again.
I have lots of projects on my plate at any given time. Add to that my family, my job, organizations, teaching and more. (And oh yeah, I start grad school this week.) I’m always stealing time from somewhere.
I’ve been bad about stealing time from sleep. I tend to stay up late and get a lot done after the kids go to bed. But I need to dial that back and get to bed a little earlier each night. I’m aiming for an extra hour of sleep a night, which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that’s 7 hours a week… roughly 15 days over the course of a year. So I’ve got to make some adjustments.
Right now, my plan is to be more efficient and make the most of the time I have. Maybe I’ll be more effective working with more sleep. But efficiency will only get me part of the way.
After that, it’s about prioritizing my projects and commitments. We’ll see what projects make the cut and which ones go on the back burner.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. His blogging journey started in 2008 with a Squarespace hosted blog.
Actually, 2016 will be longer than 2015 because it’s a leap year. ↩︎
Time to put away the Christmas decorations. Ruby NOT happy.
Weary travelers. #home
Working our way across the country.
Torches
Sand
Apparently my best nine from 2015.
Hollywood.
After a 15 hour Disneyland day, this was the perfect last stop as we worked our way out of the park.
