Our Spoiled Sweet 16er is now a 20 year old college sophomore majoring in global studies. Ava says she loves to travel and experience new cultures. She’s even been to Third World countries … but always travels first class and stays in high-end hotels.

Ava is ‘exiled’ to the remote jungles of Thailand. Her mom hopes this field trip will teach Ava to be self-sufficient and understand what life is like outside of Beverly Hills. Ava is confident that she can handle anything Thailand has to offer.

Wrong!

Ava was not prepared for this trip. She behaved very badly in my opinion. She was rude, disrespectful and made little effort to learn about these people who embraced her. She did not have a ‘change of heart’ until the very end of the trip when she learned that she didn’t have to do any manual labor and got to have some fun. Suddenly she was all smiles.

Favorite moment:

Right around this point Ladee, Ava’s host sister, had enough of her complaining and told her to ’shut up’. The look on Ava’s face was priceless. I think that may have been the first time in her life that someone had said that to her.

Am I the only one that finds it odd that in many of these third world countries, there is no electricity or running water but the people have cell phones? Who are they talking to?

Based on what was shown on TV, I do not feel that Ava learned much from this trip. Oh wait! I forgot, she was inspired to donate some of her clothes to charity. She also had a moment of honesty when she said that while Global Studies is what she wants to pursue, she does not want to roll up her sleeves and work directly with helping people. She wants to do something easy like donate money or educate others on the world’s plights.

When I read about how desperate the people are in the area that Ava visited and then think about how much time was devoted to Ava acting like a small child, I am left with a bad taste in my mouth.

This is my third season of watching Design Star and I have to say I am totally confused with what the judges are looking for this season. Maybe if they had a clear idea of how they are going to judge and informed us, we’d all be on the same page.

Let’s take this weeks challenge. Seven designers were each given a white room to show their design savvy. The catch, it had to have a worldly theme. Six of the designers were assigned one of the following countries: Italy, Thailand or Mexico. One designer had the option of picking any country. Sounds like a fun project, doesn’t it? Not so fast.

Since this is a show for entertainment purposes, the designers had more challenges thrown into the mix.

1. They had exactly twelve hours to design, shop and create their space from the moment they were told ‘time starts now’. No prep time to look over the space and really think about it. They had to go with the first thing that popped into their heads.

2. They were each given $500 and allowed to shop at one store. Now if it had been a pier1 store, one of my favorite stores, this would not seem like a negative. But the store they were limited to was an arts and crafts store with a limited selection of international themed items.
Michaels

3. They had to use furniture provided which was very contemporary. With more time and access to things like a sewing machine these pieces could have added something to the overall theme, but that was not the case.
Featured Furniture

As you can imagine, none of the rooms had the wow factor. Most were minimalistic, playing it safe.

You can see the results here: Design Star

Here’s where the confusion starts. Do the judges want functional rooms viewers can replicate at home, rooms that will photograph well, or rooms that show amazing artistic vision? No one knows, not even the judges. I think it’s a case of, we’ll know when we see it.

Again the discussion among the judges before elimination had them referring to someone’s style as ‘grandma’ and tacky. Only one room really captured a worldly flavor and even that room was not authentic to the country intended.

The bottom three…

Michael Stribling designed a modern Spanish club theme. If you google you will find that he was right on the money with his design. However, it did not capture the Spanish culture which was the task. Michael has not had a failed space until this week.

Matt Locke designed an abstract vision of Thailand that was a high concept idea that didn’t work out. That’s the problem with the judges comment ‘Go big or go home’. Sometimes going big can be a disaster and could send you home anyway. Matt has been highly praised until this week. Many believe he is the designer to beat.

Tracee Dore designed a romantic Italian space that was heavy on the theatrical. One judge said it was very cartoonish and another said he really hated it. Tracee has been in the bottom three the last two weeks of this competition.

Sooo, who goes home. Surprise! It’s not the worst designer on the show. This week Michael’s show was cancelled.