When we received an email a month ago from a high school student looking for an internship we weren't looking to add to the Schemata family. We didn't need anyone else to manage. We weren't sure what tasks that we could provide. The email was incredibly well written though, so on a whim the resume was opened.
The first part that grabbed attention was his about me: "Making things gets me excited; understanding things helps me relax. I'm a lover of human and computer languages and a devotee of all types of design. The natural and built environment fascinate me; I spend my spare time exploring the world. I like my bike trails bumpy and my coffee iced."
With an intro like that, it would've been a shame not to at least talk with such a talented and confident writer. And a few weeks later, Nathan Greenstein has joined the Schemata Team.
Nathan plans to be with us for two months before proceeding to Dartmouth College. In terms of what he's going to study, the answer is up in the air. "I don’t know what I want to study yet. The honest answer right now is “everything,” but I’m hoping something in particular will grab me in the next couple years. My guess is that it will involve people and involve language."
Ten things to know about him are:
1. I buy a new font each year to set all my schoolwork in, and I’ll talk about its character and nuance until you make me stop. (This year was Ashbury by Hoftype.)
2. I’ve recently enjoyed The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, and The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.
3. I spend a lot of energy working as efficiently as possible so I have more free time to do important things like sit at Green Lake and daydream.
4. I once wrote a 300-word ode to my favorite mechanical pencil. It quoted Romeo and Juliet. (The Pentel Techniclick G, if you’re curious.)
5. Calvin and Hobbes, my earliest exposure to magical realism, probably had a significant role in shaping my worldview. Draw from that what you will.
6. I drilled holes in the walls of my room to put up a hammock. My parents were not as pleased as I was.
7. I love cleaning. Vacuuming and ironing especially. Washing windows is good too. Do you need anything cleaned?
8. My phone is set to Spanish, 24-hour time, Celsius, and the metric system because it seems like good practice for traveling. People have stopped borrowing my phone.
9. I do not believe in sunglasses because I reject the premise that there is such a thing as too much sun.
10. I will give you an all-night walking tour of Seattle’s most strange, secret, ugly, and beautiful places. And then a totally different one the next day.
And the one thing he'd never tell us about himself otherwise is...There exists on YouTube a video of me and two other guys wearing short skirts and tight tank tops while singing and dancing to “Waka Waka” by Shakira. It was a project for Spanish class. We killed it.
If you find Nathan as interesting as we do and want to know more about him you can follow @ngreenstein on Twitter or Instagram.
We welcome Nathan to our team and look forward to the work he does here. Included in that will be creating graphic renderings of current and past projects, compiling precedent research, and blogging. Watch for more from Nathan in the near future!