This year marks a decade since I stepped into a university classroom—not as a student, but as a professor.

I was 26. Fresh out of my second degree in Graphic Design, I was invited to teach Editorial Design and Print Production at UJMD, my alma mater and the place where I had just finished a beautiful double academic journey in Communications and Design.

Ugly on purpose, sad on the feed, and spiritually glittery: welcome to the new aesthetic order.

Let’s face it. A new wave of aesthetic standards has taken over, and it’s not here to please your mom, your design professor, or even your inner minimalist.

Sometimes ideas arrive in the quietest moments—on a random Tuesday when I’m calm enough to notice them. They don’t wait until I’m sitting at my desk, though that is where I prefer to be. My office is my refuge, a place where I can lay out the words like small offerings. But more often than I’d like to admit, I end up writing on my phone, collecting sentences before they slip away.

My first job was as a correspondent for a magazine from La Prensa Gráfica. Looking back, it seems writing has always been there for me. I did it for two years, until the format evolved and I started working with one of the most famous cooks in my country. That project didn’t last long, but it showed me how much I loved cooking.