Pickels

I know I haven't written a blog in a while, but for this project, I really believe that I've come upon a big discovery, something that will change the way I look at and handle classes from now on. I want to be make sure I word this correctly so I can say what's going through my head in just the right way.

For this last project I'm doing nothing. Please don't be quick to judge and say that I'm BSing, I really have a good reason. I'm really not trying to be lazy.

As I was getting ready to do the project I intended to do, the one I mentioned last week, I was feeling stressed about it. I thought to myself you can't be stressed about this one. The point was to do something you liked doing. You need to enjoy this one. Then I asked myself, shouldn't all projects I do be this way? Why am I doing any of these if all I'm doing them for is to turn in an assignment?

I realized that that was exactly what I was doing. I thought, before this class, that I was already doing stuff because I enjoyed it. But not until about an hour ago did I realize that this wasn't the case. I've been doing all these things, mostly, to satisfy something other than myself.

This semester has been really rough on me for some reason. I think it all started when I went to see Beth Haggenjos about internships. I realized that I had nothing for my portfolio to even get started. I then thought that everything I do from now on has to be perfect, awesome stuff. The difference between perfect and where I am now is staggering and I think that's what led it to be a bad semester. It caused me to not enjoy what I was doing because I was doing it to present to someone else in the future, not to improve myself.

So what does this have to do with the pickles assignment? Well, I was about to get started, but then I thought to myself, if I'm going to do this now, am I going to enjoy it like I said I was going to do? Or am I just doing a project to fill a space, to have something to show? I came to the conclusion that I was about to commit the sin of all Seeing Sideways sins: busy work.

So, I'm not going to do it. I will come in only with the knowledge of what I have learned this whole semester:
From now on, I'm going to make it a point that before every assignment, I will ask myself, how can I do this assignment in a way that I will enjoy it. I will also make it a point to do things with plenty of time so that I don't get to the point where it stresses me out so much that I won't get enjoyment out of it.

As one last note, I would just like to say that I'm willing to defend this decision. Am I afraid that people will think that I'm full of s*** and that I was just too lazy to do a project? Am I afraid that the instructor will say, "you don't have anything, F FOR YOU!" Yes. I'm terrified of it. I sat in my bed for 45 minutes going back and forth on which way I should go.  But last week, I asked Beth how she thought I was doing. She said that she thought I was still afraid of being right. I thought that when I asked that question, no matter what her answer was, I probably couldn't change my ways so late in the game. So here is a way of trying to change. I'm terrified of being wrong on this one, but I believe in what I'm doing and I'm going to do it anyways. I guess you could say that I'm also bouncing thoughts off the fear project too. I'm very afraid of being wrong. That's why I didn't speak up very much during our religious debate, or ever in religious debates. I'm afraid that I'll say the wrong thing and look stupid. So no matter what the consequences of this "project", I'm going  to do it the way I want and face being wrong.

So that's all I got. I'll stop talking now. But I'm still going to bring something in for class. It won't have anything to do with the last project. I'm going to bring something I WANT TO BRING IN, DAMN IT!

Round Robin

For this new assignment, we were told to find inspiration in something someone else finds inspiring. Dylan was the person who sent his inspiration to me. He showed a picture of a growing beard and said it inspired him because it was done well and showed a passage of time. So for my project, I deiced to work in Spore to show an evolution of a creature and give a short summary of it's story. So here it goes:

These creatures come from a cold, snowy world. (Image 1)First, they start out in the arctic cold water as these tiny, zippy little things. They have some protection from enemies, but mostly, they like to have flair! The little phalanges on the top of their heads serve little purpose except for attracting mates. They have large eyes to better see enemies and are quite quick to escape them. Their color is made to blend in to the water.  A couple hundred thousand years later (image 2), they have been doing well and moving up the evolutionary chain. They grew bigger and found out how much they loved to eat and became fat. They grew flipper to help those bulbous bodies to move through the water more. They still haven't lost their sense of flair because they have those hair like phalanges on the top of their heads still. Even more time passes (image 3) and they become even bigger and grow legs to walk on land. They still have flippers to move through the water. However, as they keep eating, their senses and structure become only for eating. They lose eyesight and gain nose power and hearing. But they are starting to become more of the hunted. They are slow and lazy and they stick out in the snowy, rocky terrain. As these creatures almost become extinct, they evolve again (image 4). They now know what's more important and instead of flair, they go for senses. The hairs on their backs are their super senses. They lost some of those pounds and got some arms help them defend against enemies. They become more whitish so they blend into the environment more. They finally grow in numbers again and want to be on top again (image 5). So now, they have even more ways of defending and fighting. They claw and bite their way to the top of the food chain once more. Since they are now on the top, they can have some more of that flair they loved so much!

So that's what I came up with. A history of a single creature through the good times and the bad! As I was doing this assingment, it made me think about our evolutionary paths. Not necissarily the human race and millions of years of change, but just in our own life times. As we grow up and time passes, what things do we lose? What things do we gain? Do either of those make us better or worse? Just a thought

What lights up the light bulb above my head

So in this blog, we are supposed to write about what inspires us. I'm a cartoon artist hoping to one day be involved in the cartoon making process one day. So what inspires me when I draw are a couple things. First, obviously, I get inspiration from other cartoons. A couple of my favs are Invader Zim, Danny Phantom, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I like to take those characters and styles and make my own characters and stories in those realms. Then sometimes, I'll take those characters I made and break them off from that show and make my own shows. I'll try my very best to get as far away from the inspiration source. I recently have done that with Invader Zim and it's really taken on a life of its own. In the beginning, I made my own alien by literally giving ideas and personality traits that are the exact opposite of that show. Some of those ideas remained, but like I said, it's really becoming something that I think is fun and exciting.

Sorry, that went a little long. One more place I get inspiration is from music. I get inspiration from music that is energetic and deep. I'll imagine story lines I made up going along with the music. My current music obsession is My Chemical Romance's new album Danger Days: The Life and Times of the Fabulous Killjoys. They have their full album on their website, so naturally I was uber excited!

Who are you...who-who, who-who?

For this next project, we were told to make something that had to do with our identity, who we thought we were. When I thought about it, I couldn't help but think about the secrets I keep. I thought about the mistakes that I've made along my life's journey that have shaped who I am today, the ones that taught me what's right and what's wrong, the ones that I hope stay dead and locked away from public view. I thought about that one thing that drives how I try to act, how it has effected me and how, in turn, I try to treat other people and how I make my way through the world.
I know none of this really makes sense because I'm not telling you what these secrets are, but in a sense, aren't those secrets what makes us who we really are? The ones that we only show the the people that we REALLY trust. Aren't the things that we will only admit to ourselves or those really close to us the very essence of who we are? When we take off all the flashy jewelry and lose all the complex perfumes, Axe body sprays, and sometimes bloated personalities we use to make a show for those we don't really know. When all that is gone and all we have is us in our underwear, isn't THAT who we REALLY are?

I know this is going to sound kind of nerdy, but it's like the debate surrounding the most recent Batman movies about who is the real Bruce Wayne and what are his masks. Is him as Batman? Is it him as the scummy bachelor? Or is it the person he can be with those who know his secrets? I personally think it's the last one.

So for this class, I'm going to make a box with a lock on it (I'm just gonna draw one on) with all the words I would use to describe myself, but on the inside, I'll put all the things I hide.

Reaction to the class in the forest.

I really enjoyed be able to get out of the routine and going to the latest instilation at Herron. I used to go to Herron, so it really felt good to be back there. It also really felt weird. When I switched from Herron to Media Arts and Science, I kind of felt like an outsider when I was in the IT building. But the more I establish myself in my new field, I felt more like an outsider in Herron. But I still enjoyed it.

Also, when I was in the gallary looking at all the notejes other people wrote, one really stuck out to me. One of them said "I love all the things you hate about yourself." I really liked that message. :)

Final project idea (still in the oven)

When we "had class" last week and I came into class to discover everone missing, I was a little peeved and went to my car to sleep. That's when I had the idea to do something that involved dreams, since I have lots of interesting dreams. I'm still not quite sure exactly what I'm going to do with this idea. I've been writing down all the dreams I've had this past week (and there are some really interesting ones!) but I don't really know where to go from here yet.

Reaction to "Skip Day".

So, today for class we were assigned a "skip day". The problem was, I had a class at noon and by the time the skip day was assigned I was on my way to class and never read the message. So I got to class to find no one there.

Here's my honest reaction: I was pissed.  I'm not anymore though, it was a temporary feeling. I had "too much fun" over the weekend and was still "remembering the memories". I was already considering skipping class and the main reason I went to the class before never happened, so I was already like, "why did I come to today at all?" I also had another class after this one that I was considering skipping to go home and sleep, especially because of the Colts game. In my frustration, I went to my car and slept for the three hours.

It probably wasn't what our teacher wanted us to do, but I did it anyways. Then I thought about doing a project on dreams. I love having dreams and I have some really cool ones. I have some recurring dreams that I really don't understand and maybe would want to investigate. It was just kind of a passing thought, so I'm not really sure if I want to go with the first thing that pops into my head. I'm going to think about it, see if anything can really come out of a dream project.

Whatsoever could it beeeeeeeeah!

So, we were told to look at a package with a crap-ton of material in it and try to figure out what it was. I think the point of this project was to look at seeming ordinary and make something creative out of it and that we should look at things in life the same way. We shouldn't always take things so seriously.

I'm making the call....an awesome one.

For our next project, we were told that we could do anything we wanted. I had an idea that was inspired by two things. First, our discussion about religion. I heard quite a few people tell stored about how they were mistreated in church. That made me wonder how things might be different if they were treated better. Also, I've been taking a comic class with Matt Powers. In our book The Art of Making Comics there is a section about choice of frame. It showed how taking out a single frame in a sequence of frames telling a story could change the meaning of the story.

 Also, in comics, the authors choice in size of the frame and of course what is in the frame can have an impact on how the story is seen. Sometimes, it can make the story move fast or slow. Sometimes, it can let the reader get a sense of where they are in the story. Sometimes, it can have an emotional effect. And other times, it can be wordy and crowded. You could remove a big frame and change a big part of the comic or a small frame and just change a small meaning.

I got to wondering, what would happen if I took a key event in my life and removed it? How would it change the story of my life? What would the story of my life look like? Would it be slow and calm, or fast and confused?

So as I thought about one part of my life, a very huge one, that I could remove that would have a big impact on my life. An event that changed the shape of my life was my mother's death. I then wondered, how would that change the next "frames" of my life. I would feel a lot more secure. I might still be "skinny" ( I was much smaller, but while my mother was sick, people were always giving us food and I was home alone a lot. So I ate.) I would not have any tattoos and I would have never had a pet rat (a pet that I loved quite a bit). However, I would have not learned what I learned from her death. I have to be a lot more independent now, so I learned how to do that over that last three and a half years. I would not be as close to my dad as I am now. My mom was the person I usually went to when I had problems, but I go to my dad a lot now.

As for the look of my life, I would probably have a lot of emotion evoking frames, since my life has been touched by a couple of tragic deaths as well as depression. It would probably have a lot of cool, dark colors.

Reaction to class

So, I'm gonna do this before I go to sleep and sleep through the deadline. So in our class today, we were discussing what was important to us. We got on the subject of religion. This subject is hard for me to discuss because, as a Christian believer, it's hard to convey to people about my faith because it's just that. It's something you'd have to experience to believe.

It also makes me very upset to hear stories from people who were mistreated in churches. I've been in a situation like that and I know how it feels. I don't blame people for straying away from religion because of it. I'm glad that it didn't tarnish my feelings and faith. I just wish that I could convey to people that not all religious people and churches are like that. It makes me wonder how those people would feel and where they would be today if they were never mistreated (which that concept may spur my next project).

Another thought I had was when we were watching the movie at the end. They talked a lot about evolution. Something I always thought was interesting is how men (as in the male species) have an obsession with monkeys. I was at the zoo with my brother and my dad a couple years ago and we spent more time at the monkey display than at any other. Men freakin' love monkeys. It's no wonder that a man saw monkeys and claimed that they are our ancestors. I could just see Darwin watching a bunch of monkeys and being like "hey, those monkeys are cool...we must have evolved from them." It's probably not at all like it happened, but it's a funny thought.

Another random thought I had was after someone said "you're not crazy if you talk to God, but you might be if God talks to you." It's a really random thought, but I was reminded of a quote I once heard. "When we were small, we were told not to talk to strangers. Then when were were in school, we were told not to talk to our neighbor. When we're adults, we're told not to talk to ourselves. In the end, who do we have to talk to?" Kind of random, but I'm in that kind of mood.

What is important to MEEEE YOZ!

For this assignment, we were asked to examine what is truly important to us. Well I don't really want to be monotonous in what I describe. I am a religious person. I've had a couple tragic deaths in my family and family is important. I could go into all that, but I feel like it's been talked about a million times before, so I won't. Maybe the concept I will be discussing will justify why I want to do something different.

I decided to discuss a concept that I have really just recently come to peace with and has changed the shape of my soul and helped me mature a little (or maybe it was really the other way around?) A few months ago, I discovered the values of being who I truly am on the inside and not being someone else. It's something that many people tell you your whole life, but it's over done so much it doesn't always sink in. At leas for me it didn't. So here's the story:

I was always different growing up. I liked to do what I wanted to do despite what anyone else thought. After a while though, I started feeling ashamed of that side of me. Some people treated me like a freak (my boss at work even told me I was kind of freaky). I got weird looks from people all the time and look down on by others. I didn't want that to happen anymore. So, I tired to conform. I was always thinking to myself would a normal girl do that?, and I would act according to that. It worked. I was more "accepted" and people quit looking at me weird and treating my like a freak. I was more respected by those who looked down on me. All seemed well. It wasn't for a while that I realized that in reality, I was dying on the inside. I hid away what made me unique.

I was watching a TV show with a character who was spontaneous, lively, funny, very energetic, loved to meet new people and a little bit odd. I fell in love with this character and couldn't stop watching. I didn't know why at first, but after a while, it hit me. That character's personality was close to my own before I changed. If I loved this character so much for who he was, why was I hiding those same qualities? It was that moment, that I decided that I was going be who I am and not care what others think. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. I freed myself that day and that's why I hold the concept of being who you are no matter what anyone else thinks in high regard.

For the "make something" part of the project, I went out and bought one of those girly magazines, the ones that have the airbrushed models and tell you what to wear and how to look and act. In my opinion, those magazines are one of the worst things a girl can read. I believe they make girls into shallow flat people because they put looks and sex on a pedestal. I never buy them, but for this project, I bought one, cut lots of little pieces out and made a mosaic type picture of myself out of it. It will remind me that when the world bombards me with the images and ideas of what it believe I should be, I take what it gives me shape my own personality. I will do what makes ME happy.

THE FEEEEEEEEEAR PROJECT

Curiosity-Surprise-Fear-Anticipation-Ignore

1. What is fear?
Fear to me is a reaction to something that is life threatening or something that reminds you of something that has scared you in the past.

2, Formulate an experiment.
What I did for this experiment is playing with a fear of my own. I have a weird deep seeded childhood fear of balloons. I've always been afraid of balloons since I was little. My brother liked to tease me about it and get really close to popping balloons in front of me. (Don't worry, I don't hold any grudges against him :) ). What I decided to do is try to get people to feel what it felt like to me when someone has a balloon. I feel okay when I hold a balloon, but when other people have one, I get scared that they will pop it. What I did is I bought some balloons and decided to pop it at random times. I wanted to first make the class curious as to why I was blowing up balloons, make the surprised when I popped it, and make them scared when I blew up another one.

3. Expected outcome.
Curiosity-Surprise-Fear-Anticipation-Ignore

4. Reaction
When I first started doing this experiment, I thought no one was reacting to it like I expected. Of course, the first time I popped the balloon, I startled some people. The next times after that, they kind of expected it and weren't as afraid (as anticipated).

5. Analysis
Like I said, I thought that it didn't have the expected outcome. But when we talked about my experiment, some people admitted to being afraid. One person had the exact outcome of what I was expecting (I think they had the same kind of fear of balloons I had). Most people, however, did not get to that state of fearing the balloons. But all the other steps happened like expected. They had curiosity of the balloon, they were surprised by the balloon, and then they anticipated what I was going to do and then they kind of ignored it.

6. Changes.
If I were to do this project again, I would work on timing. There were a lot of distractions going on in the class, and the experiment seemed to be diminished a little by all the other distractions going on. I think next time, I will try to perform the experiment with better timing.

The experiment I especially liked and had an effect on me was, I think his name was Kyle? He did the one where everyone had earplugs, looked into the lights and then closed their eyes. It was especially effective for me because I'm kind of weird about people touching my face and while this experiment was going on, I didn't know what was going to happen and I was really hoping not to be touched. I know that kind of sounds weird, but that's just what I was thinking. It impacted how I view my project in the simplicity of this experiment. Maybe you don't need to be especially over the top to get an effect.

Response to our class about fear

Yesterday, we talked about fear. I thought the discussion about the difference between fear and being uncomfortable to be interesting. I made me realize that there's not a lot I really fear, but mostly, things make me uncomforable.

I guess the two things I really fear are death and germs. They could be related. The fear of death is really death through sickness. There has been situations though where I don't fear the object, but it makes me fearful because it's dangerouts. For example, when I was a freshman in highschool, our area got hit by a tornado. Before it came, the fire alarms in our school went off and we were outside when the tordano sirens went off. Then they put us all in the gym. I was pretty scared then. If ever I'm alone and the tornado sirens go off, I do get scared. I really wish we had a basement.

I thought up a sense!!!

So, for our assignment this week, we were supposed to make up a new sense. I would like to put in a little background information first. It will make sense (ha ha) in the end:

I had a "friend" once who had a real issue with lying. She did it all the time. She would lie about the weather if she thought she could get away with it. Now, when someone I know says something to me, it is just in my personality that I will usually believe what they have to say. It's just my nature, I don't really think "oh, could this person be lying to me" or "what is this person really saying". I think this way because I don't do those things generally. When I say something, I don't usually lie and I mean what I say. I'm just a genuine person. I'm not trying to be boastful or anything, it's who I am.

So, I already kind of knew this friend lied a lot, and I could sometimes catch her lies. But she was my friend. I trusted her and would believe what she had to say. But one day, she told a lie that really hurt me. I thought back at all the things she said to me and felt really stupid, embarrassed and used for believing her. Needless to say, we aren't friends anymore. But I don't believe that there is something wrong with me. With the right people, being trusting is a good thing because people will trust me and feel comfortable with me

Lying really hurts me personally because I'm such a trusting person. That being said,  this is what I came up with:

TRUTH SENSE
It's simple, people will have the sense to not lie to others. 

But Juila, you ask, we already have the ability to do that, what's the point? Sure, we all have the ability, but we don't always use it. A sense is something that is automatic. When you touch something, you feel it and you can't un-feel it. When something is aromatic, you smell it and, sometimes regrettably, you can't un-smell it. I believe that telling the truth should work the same way. People should just always do it automatically.

Of course, like how you can plug your nose when you don't want to smell something, there should be some wiggle room with the truth sense. Like, it's okay to tell your grandma, who worked on a turkey for hours but turned up a little dry, that her cooking is delicious. Life would be a little too harsh if no one could lie EVER.

For the object I was supposed to make, I made a dripping heart. It applies to the truth sense because whenever someone lies, they hold in their hands the heart of the other person. If they lie, it could corrupt the other person's heart as well as their own.

TODAY, in SEEING SIDEWAYS

So, we are supposed to write a response to today's lecture. I have to admit,  I was really tired today, so my attention span was lacking. I don't know what my problem was, I was fine in the class before, but when I sat down in my seat for today's class, I just immediately became exhausted....I'm not saying in any way, shape or form that the class is boring, I just didn't have the energy today for some odd reason.

However, I did find the conversation about how we see things when we are walking forward to be intriguing. When we are going somewhere, we really don't always pay attention to what's happening in front of us, just where we are going or what is on our minds at the time. It's true for life as well, as we learned today. We are so stuck on the destination, we don't always pay attention to the journey. Paying attention to the journey is something I do plan on trying to get better at in the future. I'm not quite sure how to do that though. I've heard the expression before and I've never really thought about it until now and I sure haven't thought of how you do that. There are a lot of expressions out there that are said all the time, but sometimes I wish there were instructions for them too...

On one last note, I have to say something. I enjoy driving on highways. I'm sorry, but I feel the need to defend highway driving. Reason number ONE: I like driving fast. Reason number TWO: I like driving fast while listening to some rockin' music. Today's pick was Motley Crue and Poison. It pumps me up in the mornings and after a long hard day, it helps me blow off steam. I know that wasn't the point, but like I said, I felt the need to defend why I enjoy highway driving :P

Walking backwards and Zoo idea!!!

Over the past couple of weeks, I walked backwards. I felt very strange doing this and I observed a few things. First, who I was with effected how other people saw me. When I was with a couple friends, people seemed less intrigued by what I was doing, as long as my friends weren’t acting any different. I guess they thought it was just some silly thing I was doing with a couple of friends. However, if I was walking by myself, more people seemed to stare.


While I was walking backwards, I felt really silly. What I thought was really weird was how I saw the setting. I never really saw what was going on behind me (now in front of me). I had to imagine what was front of me so I wouldn’t trip or anything. What was going on behind me was still kind of insignificant. One of my friends asked me what it was like walking backwards and I said, “it’s like going back in time…because everything is behind me.”

For my location for a new technology, I choose the zoo. While I was there, I noticed that, like everything else, they try to make everything as interactive as possible. People don’t want to just see things anymore, they want to be in it completely. They want to touch, see, hear, and even smell (not that hard at the zoo) everything that is going on. You can pet sharks, feed giraffes and race cheetahs. People want the full experience. I think the texture pen would be interesting at the zoo. They could have places by the exhibits where feeling a certain animal would be interesting (and too dangerous to feel otherwise). Like you could feel what a rhino’s skin would feel like, or an elephant. I think it would be cool to have a model of the animal with the texture pen set inside it, so it would really be like zoo patrons would really be touching the animal. It could be on the inside of the model. You could use all of your senses while watching these animals.

So here is a crappy picture I made of what the exhibit would look like! Enjoy :)

The Egg and Eye

So, for our first assignment, we were given an egg and told to do whatever we wanted with it. When I was first brainstorming, I thought of all the common things to do with an egg. I thought of egg buddy, eating it, throwing it on something...stuff like that. Then I thought, well, what if I poured candle wax on the egg. Then I thought, no, lets put the egg IN the candle wax. So I got a jar candle, melted the whole thing down, put it in, and let it harden. I was kind of wondering if the egg would eventually rot out the candle. I guess only time will tell.

New Bloggy Blog!

     So this is my first blog for my new class, Seeing Sideways!!! BE AMAZED!

     Anyways, I'm supposed to make a blog about my reaction to our first class and I have to say that I'm pretty excited. I'm also a little bit intimidated. Our first assignment is to take an egg and do whatever we want with it. Having such an unspecific task is kind of intimidating because it's like, there are thousands of things to do with that, but I'm reaching for them in the dark while a lot of the solutions seem lame or unoriginal. I guess I have to keep reaching untill I find a golden nugget...