Flavor of Creativity

I held a snake for the first time this past week. I have touched snakes before, and they are very nice and smooth, but I had never held a snake before. One of my roommates had acquired a snake for a pet recently, a three to four foot corn snake. Beautiful little snake. When I held the snake it was cold; snakes are cold blooded in case you did not know, and the scales underneath felt weird as the snake moved around my arm. The scales on the underside of the snake had what kind of felt like sharp edges, kind of like touching the edge of a piece of firm paper in the wrong way, which usually results in some kind of paper cut. The scales did not create any lesions on the skin or anything, but just felt... well, different when it moved. When it was not moving, the scales on its underside were smooth, kind of like the rest of the snake, but a bit more sleek. I was a little worried that the snake would tighten around my arm like a hungry boa constrictor, but it moved around as if it were slithering on a tree. I knew if I had shown any signs of fear it probably would have started to squeeze, so I stayed calm, which was pretty easy since I was more fascinated by the snake than afraid of it. There is still no chance I will ever hold a larger snake such as a boa constrictor or burmese python, but the experience of actually holding a snake was a fun one. The only part of the snake I was most worried about was the head, because that is where the teeth are.

Fear part3

There were quite a few fears that had a very close relation to some fears I have. There was Dana''s fear of loosing a loved one, Whitney's fear of failure, and Alex's fear of becoming elderly. Dana's fear left an impression on me because I had lost three loved ones who died two weeks apart of each other last year. My heart was so heavy that I had fallen back into depression. I had to remind myself that what they would want for me is to keep living on and keep them in my memory, and be happy for them as they continue on their new journey in the afterlife. Since I had moved out of my parent's house, I constantly think of my family and check in on them every week to see how they're doing. When I first moved out, I did not talk to anyone back home unless they messaged me or called me. Now I am the one who sends the messages. I am still not much for talking over the phone, because I do not like that moment of silence after a good conversation ends and you cannot come up with another conversation starter and you are wondering if the person on the other line is still on the phone, plus you cannot see the person's face. In short, I prefer face to face conversations or messaging or text to talking on the phone. Alex's fear of becoming old, or more the fear of not being able to take care of yourself and having to rely on others to take care of you, is something I have too. I always thought it was just a fear of getting old then dying, but it actually is a fear of losing the capability to care for myself when I am elderly. I would like to be able to move around like some of the people I have seen who are in their eighties moving like they are in their forties. My aunt used to drive and dance up until her last stroke; she had died two weeks after my other two loved ones last year. She was in her eighties pushing ninety, and was a good driver as well as a good dancer. Every time some one offered to help her with something she knew she could do on her own, she would tell them no and do it herself. Pardon me for sounding like today's young people, but my aunt was boss. Seeing how capable she was at her age gives me hope that I will not be handicapped by age. The volunteers who played the role of the elderly and the caretakers were awesome. Your show of the relation between a caretaker caring for and elderly person was quite entertaining. Whitney's fear of failure I responded to the most because I feel the same way about my art work. My art has to be perfect, and if it is not, then I have failed at it. I do try again and again until I get it right, and when I get it right, I never want to touch it again in fear that I will mess it up. Sometimes if it does not turn out the way I want it, I leave it and never touch it again because I do not like it. The drawing Whitney did was an old pencil portrait piece  that she did not want to mess up. For the Fear assignment, she scribbled and blotched over the it with color, which made the piece even more interesting to look at, amazing even. I have suffered quite a few failures that in the past did made me not want to continue, but pushed through anyway. Seeing Whitney's art piece inspired me to play around with different art mediums more, which I will be doing once I unpack all of my art supplies.

Fear part2

When I was explaining to the class my fear, I was expecting them to take it as joke as if it were a pointless fear. I saw some understanding of my fear as I was presenting it. After I finished talking about my fear, it reminded a lot of my classmates of seeing shadows at night moving through the rooms. When the instructor said what my underlining fear was, I had a better understanding of my fear, because the fear I was presenting was only the surface of what my real fear is. The fear I have is still present, and probably always will be because of things I have seen in the past, and some movies are still good at holding that fear today. I think I would have changed the way in which I presented because I feel like the way in which it was delivered to the class made it sound more like a joke than an actual fear. I am glad the class was able to look past the passive remarks I made about my fear, and saw what was really bothering me and had an understanding of it.

Fear, hypothesis of reaction

I expect the class to be slightly confused, maybe even shocked of such a fear. Some people already have an understanding of the fear I have, but others may wonder why I have this fear and that it is a ridiculous fear to have. I have addressed this fear before, but because of that feeling of discomfort of the unknown, this fear continues to be present. Of course this fear is one that is probably good have.

Class take away 10

What stood out to me most in class is when we were on the subject of the human body during us presenting our thoughts of what fear is and why we have fear. We talked of how as soon as one is born, they begin to decay. I thought everyone knew this because is it something that I learned a long time ago, how long ago, I do not remember, but I do remember being told that as the body ages minute by minute, second by second, our body decays. The expressions of shock from some of my fellow classmates in this class kind of made me chuckle. I chuckled because I was shocked they did not know about the body slowly decaying, but for the most part I chuckled because their expressions were priceless. This experience leads me to do things to get reactions. I enjoy most reactions, such as those who are kind of thrown aback on some of the silly little things I do. I find that funny. Reactions that I do not like, which I do not think anyone would like, are aggressive reactions to those silly little things I do, such as yelling at me. One of many reasons for me loving to draw is to see what reactions I get of my drawings, which is true for any artist. Seeing how people react to a piece of art is the most amusing.

What is Fear? Why do we have Fear?

Fear is an emotion that comes from having no understanding of something, which in some cases leads to hate.

It is very common for people to have a fear of the unknown. We do not understand the unknown, whatever it maybe, and because we do not understand the unknown and are unsure of how to get through it, we fear the unknown and try to avoid it.

Class take away 9

What stood out to me in class today was the instructor's outfit and how it tied into her personality. When I first had Beth as an instructor in photoshop, I thought she would be the same old instructor like all the other instructors I have had in the past. When I got to know her a bit more throughout the classes I have had her as an instructor, I began seeing a fun outgoing person. The purple and green outfit she was wearing Monday, expressed how outgoing, bold, and daring she is. She kind of looked like a witch to me. A witch whom's power comes from the earth. I could see her shooting vines out from under her sleeves, and growing other kinds of plants out of the ground to grab hold of an attacker and throw them cross-country. Thanks Beth, you have got my creative juices flowing with your awesome outfit ^.^ Why my instructor's outfit stood out to me the most in class Monday is because she reminded me of how I usually try to dress to my personality. I love wearing a lot of black, and I am most happy when I am wearing black with spikes and studs like the 80s/90s alternative goth style. I have not dressed like that since I graduated high school and was a freshman at IUPUI. I think I will be dressing like that again because it did make me very happy.

Who am I and Why am I here?

I am a creative, passionate, out going person who always has her head in the clouds. I am heavy into hobbies. My hobbies include drawing, painting, listening to music, and horses. I love horses. Brushing horses, riding horses, driving horses, showing horses, even the smell of horses; not what comes out of a horse. You put your nose to the neck of a horse, and you will know what I mean when I say horses smell good.

I believe my purpose is animals, and that has not changed since I was little. It is hard for me to explain, but I feel I have a connection with animals. I am not sure exactly what my purpose with animals is, but I feel I have duty to serve animals. It has been a dream of mine to help animals. I wanted to become a veterinarian, but things did not work out as planned. I still feel I am supposed to help animals, but I do not know for sure in what way I am supposed to accomplish that. I do not mean to sound like those psychic people or animal whisperers or anything like that, but I find myself most happy around animals, and when I help an animal, I feel even better. On occasion stray dogs would roam around my neighborhood. I felt terrible if I left them to fend for themselves because I always thought of the dog possibly never making it home due to all of the dangers; i.e. traffic, people stealing dogs for wrongful purposes, etc. I was usually able to catch the dogs because they would walk up to me looking for food, as sign they had an owner. I would then go door to door around the neighborhood looking for its owner or any information that could lead me to its owner. If I could not find the owner, I knew some one who would take care of the dog until the owner could be reached. There was a time a stray cat would come around our house. Granted being that it was a cat, I figured it had an owner, and was just let outside, like most cats, to roam the neighborhood then return home safe and sound, but the stray cat started hanging around our house, and she was pregnant. The first time I had seen her, I had tossed her a piece of my moon pie so I could pet her. A few months later I saw her I pet her. I did not have any food to give her, but she came right up to me. About a year later, I saw her again, and I took her door to door to try to find the owner. I got some information on where she lived, but I could not find the address, and had no way of contacting them by phone. When she started hanging around our house we decided to keep her. I found out later that year that a fellow student waiting on the bus stop with me owned the cat. He could not keep her because his mother was allergic to cat dander. I had him come over and visit the cat whom we called Princess, he called Precious, thus we called her Precious Princess, until he and his family moved. They were happy to know that their cat had found a good home. Princess passed away eleven years later, but she lived a good cat life. I feel my biggest accomplishment was working with Maverick, a horse I started training after I graduated high school and could not show in 4H horse and pony anymore. I used to show Vennie in the 4H horse and pony shows. His full name was Ventana Ojo (the "j" is has a "h" sound). Vennie taught me a lot about horses, and his owners taught me how to work with horses. Maverick was a mustang that was given to Vennie's owners because Maverick's owner could not give Maverick the attention he needed. I started working with Maverick about a year or two after I graduated. I could not work with him sooner because I was still showing Vennie in 4H horse shows. Maverick was a Bureau Land Management mustang, meaning he was caught in one of the BLM's round ups and put up for adoption. After being caught, Maverick was sent to a prison where inmates work with the wild horses before the horses are put up for adoption. I trained Maverick as though he had no training. I was not sure what all he knew and what he had yet to learn, so I worked with him one step at a time, teaching him the basics. I needed to build my confidence to ride him because I was very unsure of him. So we did ground work for about a year before I started putting a saddle on him. The following year, I started putting a saddle on him so he could get used to the noise and weight of something behind him and on his back. Three months later, I was sitting in the saddle and a week later, my sister would pony him around the barn lot as I sat in the saddle. Maverick never bucked once, and never tried to hurt me. I was given ownership to Maverick a year later. I was still building my confidence in riding Maverick without some one ponying him around, and before the end of the next year, I was riding Maverick at a walk and a trot with confidence. Maverick would follow me a lot, and when he was uncertain of something, he would hide behind me. I was his human shield and his confidence builder as he was my confidence builder. I was hoping to one day take him on a trail ride, but he had been having health problems on and off the two almost three years I owned him. His COPD had gotten worse and his white blood cell count was not at a normal level, which left the suspect of cancer. Maverick was a really great horse, and it was very hard to let him go. I could not bear to watch him suffer, and when he had shown signs that he was ready to go, I had to let him go. My best friend was laid to rest September last year. To this day I still cry when I think of him, but I know out there some where there is another Maverick waiting for me. My plan in the future is get another mustang and train it like I trained Maverick.

This is Maverick.

We had shown in an open horse show,

and received third place out of the nine 

contestants in that class. I love this picture of

him because he looks as proud as me.

Class take away 8

The pickers as individuals stood out me when we watched a film about pickers in a region of Brazil. I didn't know that there were people who would actually "pick" through the trash in a landfill to obtain recyclable materials. I found it very fascinating that there are people willing to risk their health to collect things that can be recycled from the trash. I also found it kind of disgusting because of all the disgusting things swimming around in the garbage. I like that one of the women had said that picking through the trash to retrieve recyclables and make money from it is better than getting involved in the drug trade or being a prostitute, and that it is very sad such beautiful girls around her age would fall into that kind of life when there are better things they can do. I like the older gentleman who sadly passed away from lung cancer after meeting the artist, Vik, because he was right. One can does mean a difference; the difference between how many of one can gets thrown away and left to pollute the earth, while the other however many ninety-nine cans get recycled. I recycle, but I also know that there is still a lot of material that is thrown away or littered and swept into our sewers eventually ending up where it shouldn't be. I always like searching out recycle trashcans before throwing my recyclable away, but since one recyclable can mean a difference, I'll just hold on to my water bottle, juice can, etc. until I get to place where I can recycle it.

Class take away 7

In class yesterday we had watched a video of a 71 year old guy doing stuff you don't see your average 71 year old man doing. He was playing. He made a playground in his backyard, and invented some interesting looking roller skates. The wheels faced forward like all roller skates, but instead of a shoe with wheels attached, it was set up like mini skateboards on top of two wheels. What really stood out to me from the video was his message to play, "be the child that you were, and look at life with positivity." I like to look at the little things in life a lot when I'm feeling down. The first thing I look at when I'm feeling down is the sky. Watching the clouds go by is one of the most amazing things ever! I could sit for hours watching the sky change, and I feel better by the end of the day. As Beth had said in class about being bored means you have failed to see the beauty of the day, and to see the beauty of the day is to appreciate the little things we take for granted, I agree with that. There is so much beauty in this world that is overlooked because we are so good at focusing on the negative without thinking about the positive. She went on about how we forget to play because society teaches us that play is, in a way, unethical. It's sad that adults see play as something for only children. Play is for everybody. I love to play, which is why people think I'm strange or that something is mentally wrong with me. I have noticed that the people who see me that way are extremely depressed, stressed, and miserable. I also noticed that those people try to bring me down so I can be as miserable as they are, and many times they have succeeded in bringing me down. Then I go into my own world and play. In my opinion, to play is to explore, which I think the 71 year old man had said in the video as well. The more you play, the less you think about your incapabilities, and everything you do and want to do becomes capable of doing. I'm going to remember to play more, and ignore those who say playing is for kids, and ignore those who try to bring me down. I had seen the 71 year old man as being high on life; i.e. enjoying every minute of life and taking nothing for granted. I would like to be as fit as he is when I get that old. I am high on life, and want to continue to be because being high on life is what helps me see life as one of the most beautiful things in the world. It helps me imagine, which helps me create, and awesomeness happens.

"Altared" book of the self

As I watched the TED talk of Lucy Mcrae and her combining technology with the human body, my first thought was she's trying to turn herself into a robot or cyborg. Watching the video I saw more of an art than a human transforming into a robot. Her exploration of technology became a beautiful art, and I found it quite fascinating. I really liked the photo of her in the safety pens and tack needles. It's not something that I would do to myself because I'm not into doing such things, but it was still fascinating. I wouldn't exactly know how to go about merging a new media science project with my body. It would depend on what that project is. If I were trying to create a 3D world and immerse myself into that world wearing virtual clothing from that world, then yeah I can do that; it's called cosplay. What would be really cool is if you had to put on some 3D glasses to see the effects of birds or butterflies flying around the costume. That would be interesting.

Looking at the "what ifs..." of my classmates, I found a lot of similarities to my "what ifs..." I found the top most common what if of many of us to be burning the book we did not like and turning the ashes of the book into something or using the ashes as fertilizer. I also found a lot of picking and choosing selections from the book to turn into something such as a story or a phrase, and painting sections of the book was popular too. I've been trying to decide for the longest which idea of mine I want to go with, and so far I'm down to two ideas, which is painting parts of the book or selecting a few story problems and turning them into a full story. Some of what stood out to me from two of the three "what ifs..." posts from my classmate's was that they did want to burn the book and use the ashes to make something positive such as jewelry or fertilizer. It put me in the mind of a negative being turned into new life, which I found interesting. The "what ifs..." post that stood out the most to me of all three was about self-confidence. I have been in that situation before, and am still trying to fight my way out of it. I could relate to mostly everything that was in that post because I'm still working on myself to get out of that darkened area of life. I do my best to think positive about myself, and it works so much better when you hear positive things said to you about you from other people. Surrounding yourself with positive people who are willing to do anything in their power to remind you of how awesome you are and what you need to do to achieve your goals is the best thing in the world because they know how to push you to success. Never forget the naysayers either because they help you too. The naysayers are one of many challenges that you will face throughout life. They're there to teach you how strong of a person you really are, and keep you on your toes so you don't stray from the strength within you. You don't have to be physically strong because you're spiritually strong. The hardest thing we do to ourselves is doubt ourselves, and let the naysayers hurtful words and actions get under our skin. It's hard to stop doubting and easy to be pushed around when we doubt ourselves, but once we remind ourselves that we're awesome, nothing from those who hurt us can stop us from being awesome. I hope  the person who posted about having an issue with their self-confidence read this, because you're awesome, and never forget it. I think the reason we were to read each other's "what ifs..." was to see how much our ideas relate to one another, and to help us with our own ideas and refurbish our ideas into better ones, kind of like getting help from a teacher, but your getting assistance from a fellow student.

I am going to paint the front cover and see what takes off from there. What I expect this project to do for me is to help me be more creative and use up some of the paints I have lying around the house so I can get more paint and other art supplies to draw and make more paintings.

Class take away 6

I found it interesting that we took a day from class to do whatever we enjoyed. To have three hours out of the day to ourselves for doing our most enjoyable activity gave me the opportunity to not stress, and just relax and breathe for once. Compared to most of the semesters I've had, this semester is supposed to be a time that I have a lot of time to recuperate from the rushing I've been doing in the past years I have been in college, and give me a chance to practice animating. I am taking two classes that I very much enjoy, and have a lot of free time to work on what I love doing the most, which is drawing. I need to get back into coloring and painting to fully accomplish what it is to love art, and I have been wanting to practice some more on animating since I am just starting out and learning how to animate. Taking time out of the day to do what I wanted really helped me relax, and in relaxing it helped me build a lot of ideas for what I want to draw, color, and paint next, and gave me the time to think about where I want to go with animating and what I want to do with my animations.

Class Take Away 5

I read the assignment for our altered book and bliss, and I have already begun thinking about what I want to do for both assignments. I have already thought of picking out a what if question to follow for the altered book. Then I saw that we are to look at some of the what ifs from our classmates blogs. I feel that looking at some of my classmates blogs will better help me with the ideas I came up with in my what ifs for the altered book assignment. I am looking forward to the bliss assignment just as much as the altered book because I am interested in having three hours to myself to do what ever I enjoy doing the most. Maybe in these two assignments to come, I will refine my creative spark and keep it going so that I never let another year or so pass without me doing what I love most, drawing and painting.

50 What if questions.

We chose a book that we did not like, and slept with the book under our pillow to later come up with fifty what if questions of what we could do to the book to make it positive. I chose my old algebra II/trigonometry book because I had struggled in that class for about five years until I decided to switch majors. Algebra II/Trigonometry was a prerequisite for a major I was interested in pursuing after high school, and even though I received help with the problems in the book, none of it was getting through to me. Since I could not understand it, I began to hate it (sadly, a natural human response), and this was the start to me not liking math. I used to love math previous to high school geometry and algebra II/trigonometry. I did not sleep with the book under my pillow because it was quite uncomfortable. I did sleep with the book at the end of my bed. I think the reason for us sleeping with the book nearby is to get a feel for the book. It made us think more about the book and why we feel intimidated by it, and it was easier for us to dream about the book. For me, the main thing on my mind when thinking of the book was the what ifs. I focused on what I could do to the book to help me like the book more. So here are the fifty what ifs that I have come up with over the week.

1. What if I burn the book?
2. What if I turn it into a flower?
3. What if I rip out the pages and shredded them?
4. What if I burn the book and saved its ashes the garden?
5. What if I shred the book and use it for fertilizer?
6. What if I color the front and back back of the book with markers?
7. What if I outline the picture on the cover of the book?
8. What if I outline each diagram in the book?
9. What if I select a few story problems from each chapter of the book, and turned them into one story?
10. What if I paint the entire book front to back?
11. What if I paint the cover of the book in purple?
12. What if I paint the cover blue?
13. What if I paint the cover blue and purple?
14. What if I paint the cover blue and purple with some other color I like?
15. What if I draw on the cover?
16. What if I draw something I like on the first page of each chapter?
17. What if I select a diagram ever three chapters and turn it into a drawing?
18. What if I paint all the five hundred fifty-three pages not counting the answer pages in the book?
19. What if I paint every page from front to back in the book?
20. What if I only paint the answer pages?
21. What if I paint the index pages?
22. What if I paint the table pages?
23. What if I take each table and turn it into some kind of drawing?
24. What if I leave the book alone and do nothing to it?
25. What if I stare at the book for thirty minutes for five days?
26. What if I throw the book into a wall?
27. What if I turn the book into a scrapbook?
28. What if I use the pages of the book to dry wet surfaces after cleaning?
29. What if I leave the book out in the back yard with all the snow?
30. What if I leave the book in the back yard when the snow melts?
31. What if I leave the book in the back yard and the dogs find it?
32. What if I set the book and leave it with one of the dogs?
33. What if I scribble all over the book and make a drawing from the scribbles?
34. What if I leave the book in the attic and forget about it?
35. What if I sell the book for the same price I paid for it?
36. What if I sell or give away the book?
37. What if I shred the pages and use them as kitty litter?
38. What if I used the pages to create a paper mache?
39. What if I write the answers from the back of the book under the problems they answer?
40. What if I answer each problem with a drawing of an animal?
41. What if I answer each problem with a drawing of a landscape?
42. What if I try to balance the book on my head?
43. What if I try to balance the book on my head while thinking about a difficult math problem?
44. What if I try to balance the book on my head to create a story about algebra II/trigonometry?
45. What if I create a story about how algebra II/trigonometry made me feel about math?
46. What if I throw the book in the trash?
47. What if I try to solve all of the problems in the book to the best of my ability?
48. What if I write next to the problem what I do not understand in solving it?
49. What if I write the book questions?
50. What if I write the authors questions of what I do not understand in the book?

Class Take Away 4

The book "This is not a Book" was passed around in class today. I found it interesting when looking through it. I liked the page that said "This is a Trap". I found it funny because when I'm on certain social networks, I always see these funny little posts, or memes, that have a so called "trap" in them, and in the comments there's a meme about the main post or meme being a trap. I have no idea how to really explain it, it's all computer stuff, so... yeah, but it is funny the first time you see those memes. When I looked through "This is not a Book" in class today, I wanted to take the book home and participate in the things that were in the book. The content in the book was intriguing because it tells you on different pages what to do on that page. I look forward to finding "This is not a Book" and acquiring it for myself, and playing the little games inside with some family and friends.

Bible Dipping

We picked out a word from a book, and that word was "opportunities". I created a short flash animation of what I think when I think of opportunities. It is a little cliche, but I see a door opening, and on the other side of that door there are many roads going each way. Each of those roads leads to many different opportunities. 

Class Take Away 3

I was intrigued by how many of my classmates had a similar struggle that I had with the doodling assignment. Our similar struggle was that we felt we needed structure, and in doodling, there is no set structure. What I mean by we felt we needed structure is that we meditated what we wanted our doodles to look like; we wanted to sketch them into drawings instead of making marks on paper or  digital marks on the computer. We had really cool drawings that came out of our doodles, which I saw as us creating something out of spontaneous marks that had little to no meaning. What I have learned from my peers yesterday is that we can create ideas from "scratches" on paper. After I had finished my doodle, I regained the want to draw everyday day, and I plan to start my day with a quick doodle to warm things up so I'll have ideas by the time I'm ready to draw.

Polly wolly doodle all the day.

Thirty minutes of doodling was a little harder than I expected because I wanted to draw more than I wanted to doodle, but I cleared my mind to let my pen move across the paper without thinking about what the pen was doing. The whole time I doodled I thought a little bit about the definitions of synchronicity, serendipity, and spontaneity. I could not focus on synchronicity and serendipity because I could not get a full understanding of their meanings. I mainly focused on spontaneity because in the doodle I kept making spontaneous line movements. Most of the time I was doodling, I was just out in a daze looking out of my window watching traffic go up and down the street.

Then when I looked back down at my doodle, I started thinking of spontaneous line movements. As the minutes passed by, I found myself getting a little bored because I was running out of space for my spontaneous line movements, and I wanted to start drawing from the doodle I had.

This is the end result of the doodle.

This is the finished piece that I saw coming to life from the doodle.

Even though the shapes in this drawing have no real meaning to me, I remember them being created from spontaneous line movements across paper. I thought I was making some sort of flower, but they didn't turn out looking like flowers. They are just pretty cool looking geometric shapes.

Seeing Sideways Take Away 2

Today in class, I have learned that there is a difference between doodling and sketching a drawing. I always thought that I doodled in class when I was bored, but actually, I was sketching. I also learned that doodling is good for the mind when learning. Kinetic learning I think is what they call it, when one learns best through doodling, or making spontaneous marks, as the teacher is teaching. I had only been in trouble once for doodling in class and the trouble was combined with daydreaming in class as well. This happened when I was in pre-kindergarden. I don't remember what I was drawing, but the teacher walked passed me as she was talking, and saw me drawing. She walked away, and I had stopped drawing to hear more of what she was teaching, which lead me into visualizing what she was talking about. Granted this was many years ago, so I don't remember now what she was talking about back then. I just remember the punishment. She came back to me and told me to hold out my hand. I held out my hand because I thought she was going to hand something to me. She smacked the palm of my hand with a ruler then walked on. To this day, I still do not understand why she did that, even though she told my mom that I was not paying attention in class. Anyway, after I had left pre-k, I continued to draw in class, and I was never questioned about it. Drawing in class kept me awake during class, and I would pay more attention if I was sketching or doodling. If I was not sketching or doodling, I was falling asleep; not because the lecture was boring, but because I was not focused on something active to keep me alert. Even the most interesting lectures I would doze off on if I wasn't sketching in my notes, and later I would wake up frustrated that I had missed something in the lecture. Watching one of TED talks, the girl, Sunni, talked of how people who doodle are 29% more likely to remember what they've learned to the ratio of people who don't doodle. That was very interesting, and inspires me to doodle, or in my case mindlessly sketch, more when in class. Maybe I'll be better at remembering some of the harder math problems.

The Egg and Eye

So, the first day of class we were all given eggs. We were to decide to do whatever we wanted with our egg, and my mind wandered along the many things I wanted to do with this little egg. First I had to figure out how I was going to carry this egg home without breaking it. I held it in my hand the whole time after class waiting for my ride to pick me up. I had too many ideas of what I wanted to do with this little egg. When I got home, I placed the egg in a desk drawer and forgot about it. I forgot about the egg on purpose because I had too many ideas going at once, and needed to take a breath from the chaos in my head. Throughout the week I did have miner thoughts of which idea I wanted to pursue for this little egg setting inside my desk drawer. I finally decided that I will go about using this little egg to describe how good I am at holding off on things, such as assignments with deadlines, until the last minute, thus procrastinating. My goal is to write "procrastination" on the egg then break the egg in class to signify that I will no longer procrastinate any future assignments or projects. Procrastination is one of those habits that are hard to break. Every time I look at this little egg, I keep seeing how cute it is because it's so little and fragile, which for me, makes it kind of hard to want to break the egg. Since I have written the word "procrastination" on the egg, the egg is not as cute as it once was, and I feel I have more control over the feeling of wanting to procrastinate. When I broke the egg in class, I felt like I was breaking the control that the urge to procrastinate had on me. It is stressful when one waits until the last minute to work on something on its deadline. The rush and strain and the "is this perfect" or "is this good enough" aspect really takes over and makes one's anxiety run high. After breaking the egg, I have a lot of relief, and have faith that procrastinating will be something of the past, so I will no longer go through the stresses of trying to get something, such as an assignment, started and finished on the day that it is due.

Signed up for an interesting class.

When I first heard of the Seeing Sideways class, was in my Team Building class from last spring term. My peers were talking about some of the projects done in Seeing Sideways, and then the instructor talked more about the class which brought about my interest. I can't remember in detail what all was said about the class because that was a while ago when they talked about Seeing Sideways. What I do remember is the talk of a fear project where you create something that expresses one of your fears. After hearing about Seeing Sideways, I felt I had to check the class out. I registered for it last fall. I heard that the class fills up fast, and you already know that when a class fills up fast, it's a good class, not to mention the instructor is a really cool instructor. I have had her before in my Team Building class, and in Photoshop. There were only nine openings when I registered, and I jumped in joy when I was registered, so I wouldn't have to be put on a waiting list. I look forward to the awesomeness I expect out of this class. Before class started, I checked out some of the assignments for Seeing Sideways, and saw one about an egg. I have already started planning what I'm going to do with the egg, but not sure which idea to go out on yet. The first day of class during the discussion of the criteria, I felt at ease and more relaxed because unlike all the other classes where grades are judged on what the instructor thinks we did good/poor in, we're not being judged on how good or bad our work is. I never knew such a class existed where you could create whatever you wanted and not be judged on it looks! Hopefully, having this break from the judgment world will help me kickstart drawing for myself again. I haven't drawn for myself in a long time, and I miss it. Drawing is a part of my identity. I would draw for the pleasure of drawing; it used to be one of my biggest passions. I don't know what happened, but whatever happened, I suddenly stopped and am only just getting back into the swing of things, but my drawings look very poor. I'm sure if I had continued, they would have gotten better over the many years lost of not drawing. I also think this class will help remind me of who I am. I used to be so carefree when I was younger. I'm hoping to return to that so I can shove out the negativity and continue to grow my wings for my journey to the goals I have set for my future.