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.