Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
(Amy Loveless)
Having not actually been in class on the day of this awesome experience because of sickness and fatigue, I was surprised and excited to receive news of an unexpected and artistic assignment. I told my roommate- I told my boyfriend- I told everyone! I LOVE to express myself artistically. It is freedom to me, and the TED video was the most amazing one yet for me! Having not been there, I engaged on an exciting adventure, however, to get the list of words from a classmate and get to work.
Though I thoroughly enjoy art and almost all forms of creativity, I have been struggling lately to draw or write anything that felt beautiful. But in the excitement of the video and the movement in the words, I felt excited and anything but stressed. In fact, the stress I had felt at the looming homework load I had before me after missing two days of classes and because of the dying flu symptoms I still had, floated away happily. And I simply drew. What immediately came to mind as I read the words was a dancer... and I was at first intimidated a bit at putting all the action and movement I felt in the words into a tangible drawing. But as I drew (and observed a bit of dancers on Google images, I found that it was the most wonderfully liberating experience I've had in a long, long time. Here is the outcome, though the school scanners served it badly:
Live. Laugh. Learn. Joy. Freedom. Expression. Belief. Smiles. Life. Become. Hope.
This is all.
Having not actually been in class on the day of this awesome experience because of sickness and fatigue, I was surprised and excited to receive news of an unexpected and artistic assignment. I told my roommate- I told my boyfriend- I told everyone! I LOVE to express myself artistically. It is freedom to me, and the TED video was the most amazing one yet for me! Having not been there, I engaged on an exciting adventure, however, to get the list of words from a classmate and get to work.
Though I thoroughly enjoy art and almost all forms of creativity, I have been struggling lately to draw or write anything that felt beautiful. But in the excitement of the video and the movement in the words, I felt excited and anything but stressed. In fact, the stress I had felt at the looming homework load I had before me after missing two days of classes and because of the dying flu symptoms I still had, floated away happily. And I simply drew. What immediately came to mind as I read the words was a dancer... and I was at first intimidated a bit at putting all the action and movement I felt in the words into a tangible drawing. But as I drew (and observed a bit of dancers on Google images, I found that it was the most wonderfully liberating experience I've had in a long, long time. Here is the outcome, though the school scanners served it badly:
Live. Laugh. Learn. Joy. Freedom. Expression. Belief. Smiles. Life. Become. Hope.This is all.
A Perfect Person for One Day
(Allen Butt)
First off, I didn’t understand the “instructions,” so I scrapped it. It seemed to me that the whole idea of the presentation was to go out and make my own experience, as opposed to living my daily routine and accepting what gets thrown my way. There were actually a few events this weekend that I thought would qualify as an “experience,” but they were pre-planned, so it somewhat defeated the purpose (I spent Saturday with my fiancé in St. George, and I got baptized on Sunday).
After some brainstorming, I thought back to my freshman days in college. With the mindset of “this is the time and place to define what kind of person I want to be” in my head, I wrote up a list items that I should do every day. Though I’ve managed to lose the list since then, I was able to remember enough of them to re-create it somewhat:
1. Get up at 5:00
2. Daily devotional
3. Eat three healthy meals
4. Shower
5. Clean room
6. Practice instrument
7. Read
8. Finish all homework due the next day
9. Exercise
10. Drink lots of water
11. Make all appointments on time
12. Make coffee
They are generally pretty mundane and simple, but I felt the perfect human being would accomplish each and every one each and every day. So, I kept track of which ones I completed, and set goals for myself, but I actually never managed to finish the list on any one given day.
Well, I thought this might be the opportunity I was waiting for. I decided to make Monday the day where I would finally complete the list. It started at 6:00 in the morning (5:00 is unrealistic for me nowadays), and the first thing I did was read the Bible and pray. Then I set out to do all the chores on the list, most of them cleaning-related. As opposed to the tiny cell-room sized box I lived in my freshman year, I now live in a good-sized house with my brother, so the basic chores were much larger in scale. However, they were accomplished within a reasonable amount of time. What was incredible, though, was how early I finished. Getting up early just gives a person so much more time—it’d been over a year since I gave up on being a morning person, and I had already forgotten this basic sensation.
After eating breakfast and cleaning the dishes, I left for my first class at 9:00—programming. After the class, I decided, since this was a “take the initiative” sort of day, to converse with the professor about the subject material. I’ve noticed it is always a rewarding experience to do so.
After class, I met with my fiancé and we studied our respective material together. I worked on my accounting homework first, and I actually tried hard to get the questions right this time (I find it difficult to put forth 100% effort when the homework is not graded for accuracy). It went well, but what I noticed was that actually working for hours straight without getting distracted, searching the web, or losing focus, was a calming experience. It made me think to the stereotypical nine-to-fivers, or my own father who works practically all day. Before, I used to think that performing a mundane task for the majority of each day would drive me crazy, but now I can’t help but feel the opposite.
Before my next class started, I made some coffee, but was shocked to find that my brother had already devoured the rest of our milk. I decided to take a gamble and attempted to drink my coffee black, and was not surprised in the least when it tasted like liquefied charcoal *shudder*. I managed to conquer about half of it before I decided to throw in the towel.
After the next round of classes, I thought about the goal, or the significance of the day. I was trying, by following this old list, to be the perfect person; to be a hard-worker, an ambitious and a caring person throughout an entire day without stopping for whatever reason. And it was going well, but I couldn’t help but think that simply following the list wasn’t enough. I should do something a little more special than chores, right? So, I stopped by the florist on my way back to my house and bought a flower for my fiancé. After all, shouldn’t the perfect guy do something sweet for his girlfriend?
It was actually quite fun—I felt the same nervousness and excitement that I used to when we first started seeing each other. And she was very receptive to the flower, of course (what girl doesn’t love getting a rose?).
As the evening came, I wrapped up the rest of the items on the list like practicing my instrument and having a good dinner. Strangely enough, though, my reward for my constant concentration was mostly just a headache. No feeling of euphoria, or even any sense of real accomplishment. Maybe because in the end, everything I did was everything I should have done. Though it wasn’t by any means an adventure, it was definitely an experience to attempt to be a perfect person for one day. Now, I’m exhausted.
First off, I didn’t understand the “instructions,” so I scrapped it. It seemed to me that the whole idea of the presentation was to go out and make my own experience, as opposed to living my daily routine and accepting what gets thrown my way. There were actually a few events this weekend that I thought would qualify as an “experience,” but they were pre-planned, so it somewhat defeated the purpose (I spent Saturday with my fiancé in St. George, and I got baptized on Sunday).
After some brainstorming, I thought back to my freshman days in college. With the mindset of “this is the time and place to define what kind of person I want to be” in my head, I wrote up a list items that I should do every day. Though I’ve managed to lose the list since then, I was able to remember enough of them to re-create it somewhat:
1. Get up at 5:00
2. Daily devotional
3. Eat three healthy meals
4. Shower
5. Clean room
6. Practice instrument
7. Read
8. Finish all homework due the next day
9. Exercise
10. Drink lots of water
11. Make all appointments on time
12. Make coffee
They are generally pretty mundane and simple, but I felt the perfect human being would accomplish each and every one each and every day. So, I kept track of which ones I completed, and set goals for myself, but I actually never managed to finish the list on any one given day.
Well, I thought this might be the opportunity I was waiting for. I decided to make Monday the day where I would finally complete the list. It started at 6:00 in the morning (5:00 is unrealistic for me nowadays), and the first thing I did was read the Bible and pray. Then I set out to do all the chores on the list, most of them cleaning-related. As opposed to the tiny cell-room sized box I lived in my freshman year, I now live in a good-sized house with my brother, so the basic chores were much larger in scale. However, they were accomplished within a reasonable amount of time. What was incredible, though, was how early I finished. Getting up early just gives a person so much more time—it’d been over a year since I gave up on being a morning person, and I had already forgotten this basic sensation.
After eating breakfast and cleaning the dishes, I left for my first class at 9:00—programming. After the class, I decided, since this was a “take the initiative” sort of day, to converse with the professor about the subject material. I’ve noticed it is always a rewarding experience to do so.
After class, I met with my fiancé and we studied our respective material together. I worked on my accounting homework first, and I actually tried hard to get the questions right this time (I find it difficult to put forth 100% effort when the homework is not graded for accuracy). It went well, but what I noticed was that actually working for hours straight without getting distracted, searching the web, or losing focus, was a calming experience. It made me think to the stereotypical nine-to-fivers, or my own father who works practically all day. Before, I used to think that performing a mundane task for the majority of each day would drive me crazy, but now I can’t help but feel the opposite.
Before my next class started, I made some coffee, but was shocked to find that my brother had already devoured the rest of our milk. I decided to take a gamble and attempted to drink my coffee black, and was not surprised in the least when it tasted like liquefied charcoal *shudder*. I managed to conquer about half of it before I decided to throw in the towel.
After the next round of classes, I thought about the goal, or the significance of the day. I was trying, by following this old list, to be the perfect person; to be a hard-worker, an ambitious and a caring person throughout an entire day without stopping for whatever reason. And it was going well, but I couldn’t help but think that simply following the list wasn’t enough. I should do something a little more special than chores, right? So, I stopped by the florist on my way back to my house and bought a flower for my fiancé. After all, shouldn’t the perfect guy do something sweet for his girlfriend?
It was actually quite fun—I felt the same nervousness and excitement that I used to when we first started seeing each other. And she was very receptive to the flower, of course (what girl doesn’t love getting a rose?).
As the evening came, I wrapped up the rest of the items on the list like practicing my instrument and having a good dinner. Strangely enough, though, my reward for my constant concentration was mostly just a headache. No feeling of euphoria, or even any sense of real accomplishment. Maybe because in the end, everything I did was everything I should have done. Though it wasn’t by any means an adventure, it was definitely an experience to attempt to be a perfect person for one day. Now, I’m exhausted.
Every word on the list is in this story, it's just hard to see the motions in cups....
My life is full of patterns and connections and imagination. Not too many people seem to appreciate what I've done with these cups, but it's a long story, one I find quite entertaining. So this may look like it's pretty lame, but I didn't want the obvious pictures of me doing every action on the list. It was open to my interpretation, and that interpretation is story time! I could tell you guys the whole story if you really wanted to know. Anyway, have a good day.
Monday, February 7, 2011
47 Manifestations of Interpretation
To find these images and put this together, I image searched on Google each of the words on our list. I found it interesting how diverse the images were. I enjoyed putting them in a certain juxtaposition and finding what they mean to me. I thought it would be cool for everyone to interpret the images without the words they represent and see what you can find. Enjoy.
Engage in Experience
For my blog experience, I put together a photo album depicting the shots of each verb. My friends helped me and together, we had a lot of fun ideas and lots of different interpretations. I'm glad that some words were repeated twice because we got to use more ideas. I think the shots were very creative and that we were able to capture some of the talents of my friends in the images. I think that overall theme of my pictures was interaction, between people and the things around us. I also think that it helped inspire us to think and open our minds to different ways of conveying or illustrating the words. It was quite a fun experience.
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