I got a tattoo.
I’ve been thinking about making this design the tattoo I would get since college, and finally I can cross this off my 30 at 30 list.
And to be honest, getting a tattoo made me more nervous than jumping out of a plane.
There’s something very permanent, other than the obvious, about getting a tattoo. It’s a commitment to carry that design with you for the rest of your life. And if you’re like me, you want that design to mean something and represent who you are as a person.
These two Japanese characters, pronounced “key-eh-toe” and meaning “ten blessings,” signify to me the idea that I’m blessed and that there are more blessings to come. Reminding myself of blessings past, present and future has a fluid and positive connotation. “Keito” also is the way you pronounce my name in Japanese. Although the characters used are different, the connection is powerful and compelling to me.
As for placement, I wanted to be able to see my tattoo every day. If this was going to be a part of me, I wanted to be able to look at it. So I chose the underside of my left wrist and forearm. This way I will be able to see it. And it’s also a part of the body that hopefully will not become stretched with age.
I chose to get my tattoo done at Insight Studios on Milwaukee Avenue because two of my friends, including La Petite Tricoteuse, got their tattoos there. When I was looking at the available artists, I really liked the work of Chicago tattoo artist James Eastwood, who happened to be the same artist who recently worked on Kelsey Grammer.
I was really impressed with how quick and easy the whole process ended up being. I was in and out in less than an hour, and under-the-needle time only lasted 20 minutes. Truth be told, the middle part of the area hurt the most, stinging the most out of everything. But seeing as I am training for a marathon and just ran 20 miles yesterday (10 of which on a sore knee) which took me four hours, I figured this should be a breeze.
James was courteous enough to take a picture with me at the end, which was really nice of the Logan Square resident.
Be inspired.
Kate is a wealth of knowledge who served as a tremendous mentor for all of our team members while constantly improving processes and workflows. She’s a tremendous project manager, pays great attention to detail, and is able to demand results from her team with respect. At LoganSquarist she has built and led a team of dozens of volunteer contributors committed to her vision of a community resource. I would happily work with Kate again anytime!
I met Kate through the Association of Women Journalists (AWJ) and immediately was impressed (and inspired) by her creativity, drive, work ethic and use of social media. Her passion for journalism, digital media and communications overall is evident in the projects she takes on, including LoganSquarist, an online news outlet that she founded that uses social media to socialize the neighborhood. What I admire about Kate is her vitality as well as her desire to keep learning and growing personally and professionally. Kate is a modern-day renaissance woman who is multitalented (ask about her travel, knitting and marathon exploits!) and who brings instant value to any team or organization.
Kate has an incredible amount of drive when it comes to LoganSquarist. In the six months that I’ve been involved, I’ve watched the site grow from a pet project to a respected community publication. This success can be attributed to Kate’s technical and leadership skills. From building out the site to off-hours community management and a consistent flow of content, the site improves by leaps and bounds on a weekly basis. When it comes to team management, Kate delegates tasks in an organized and efficient manner, making her an all around great and inspiring person to work with.
I worked with Kate during my time as a community manager at Lightspan Digital while Kate was my direct manager. Kate’s communication practices really taught me how to navigate the sometimes complicated agency world. As an account manger, Kate smoothly orchestrated 10+ accounts at one time as well as help me manage and prioritize tasks in my role. Kate was a role model during my first few years in the professional world and continues to be so to this day.
Kate did and excellent job with our website. We have received several compliments on how nice it looks and how easy it is to navigate. She also went above and beyond to make sure that we were able to update and the website ourselves through Wordpress. I cannot gush about how awesome she is and how happy we are with the site and her dedication to the project.
One of the best things I've ever done in my career is work with Kate Hamilton. Her enthusiasm for all things editorial, not to mention her energy and passion for any project she's involved with, is contagious. In addition to being a natural born leader, she's also a creative type, a thinker, a stickler for details, and someone with incredible vision and the drive to get things done. I always marvel at how she is constantly teaching herself new things. She always seems to be ahead of the curve on anything related to social media, and she also has an eye for design. This lady rocks! And she continues to be a mentor to me and others in journalism and communications.
Kate has been a fantastic resource for all things digital, whether redesigning my website on Wordpress, fine tuning my social media profiles, or understanding Google Analytics. She's an excellent communicator, and I will absolutely hire her again in the future.
Kate is a real professional and a pleasure to work with. She is a great communicator and always put her client's (my company) interest first. She is tremendously personal and had a great understanding of our business and how she could help it. She is great and is a tremendous asset to any company.