All the single ladies! All the single ladies!

Well, it's a semi-ironic title for a blog posting, since most of the ladies in these photos are happily partnered or married. What "single" implies is that they're all free for work. Interior design work.

That's right, those are a few of my now-former classmates from FIDM: Jolene Lindner, Caroline Myers, Lauren Ranes, Adele Dalby, Samie Goodman, Michele Mathiesen, Kendra Nicholas, Lily Hanna, Alicia Cheung, Ericka Johnson, and Brooke Latham.

Take note of those names--they're going to be the interior designers of tomorrow.

We met up last night at Ottimista, an Italian wine bar on Union Street, to catch up one month after we all finished our studies at FIDM. It was great, hearing each other's holiday stories and seeing how various internships, jobs, and job hunts were going.

After spending so much time together in a compressed and extremely fast-paced program (learn AutoCAD in 10 weeks: GO!) it's been weird not seeing them every day, comparing notes, having lunch, and seeing their work. So a reunion was in order. As one of them put it, "after this kind of shared experience, it's like we all have the same post-traumatic stress disorder."

Personally, I thought our reunion was a lot of fun, not at all like The Deer Hunter. (Yeah, I guess you really can't compare interior design to the Vietnam War...or can you?) We all left at different times, and somewhat abruptly last month after our final class, so this was a nice way to transition between school and the real world.

Despite the crazy pace and close quarters of school, I think we're all looking forward to finding a similar atmosphere of collegiality and camraderie in whatever new jobs we land. At school, the diversity of our tastes and backgrounds somehow meshed well. We were all open to new ideas and welcomed the feedback and opinions of our classmates. We encouraged and challenged each other.

Aren't those ideal qualities in any workplace?

Let's meet again, ladies. Next month?