Reflective Blog Post #6.5 - The Presentation/Goodbyes

Last post for this class. Sad day.

Here's my presentation. Sorry about the lateness and the sort of washed-out lookin' slideshow. This was my last chance to film in that classroom, though, so I doubt I'll be recreating it again.

The Beatles make an appearance, so be sure to check that out.

It was fun making this presentation, since it's about something I love and I like to entertain people. My heart was seriously pounding right before I went up to present, but it all worked out for the best.

Nearly all comments were positive, but since I'm an insecure jerk, I have to dwell on the two criticisms, even though they were both paired with compliments.

"could use more... structure?"

I have to admit, the last third of the presentation sort of lacks structure since I didn't know quite how to fill space, but it's never terribly irrelevant. I agree with this critique.

"try to memorize the slides"

I did. That's what I put all my time into, man. I knew each slide front and back, beginning to end, I just didn't know what subject matter could fill that last couple of slides before the closing.

Well, that's all for this semester. Happy Holidays everyone, and have a fun Winter Break!

Reflective Blog Post #6 - EVERYTHING (in the past three weeks)

WOO, buddy, here we go. Wrappin' up the course. Let's go over the past few weeks together.

In my last post, I talked about the editorial boards and their calls for papers and how I responded to them. Now, the boards have put forth all of their publications and everything's nice and done. My board's publication process was very simple: Three of us met - Christian couldn't make it - and I made the publication. As it turns out, there's not much need for three people when you're working with Weebly.com. I don't want to imply that the other board members were slackers, there's just no way for three guys huddled around the computer to work together on the website - for the sake of efficiency and consistency, only one person could work on it. And it was easy - just a cut-and-paste process (the pictures were a bit of a pain, had to use screenshots) followed by making everything uniform in font, typeface, and format. If only all of the names could have fit in the top bar, I'd call it a success.

I was pleased with the responses. The images were a delight to take in, and I was impressed more than once. The dissections of the nature of creativity, especially David Pann's bit of writing, were also great fun to read through.

What else is there, what else is there... right, I've talked about the publication, and... I've got no documentation to add. Nothing was really written down in regards to the actual publication. We just got together one night and did it. That's all. Okay, I guess I'm done there.

The learning process, though. Man, let's get into that. What have I learned so far? I've learned that... a lot of people... like to read about science... more than me. And that makes me feel bad. Alright, so we've got the guilt going on, that's good, that's good. I think it's fair to say that this whole English course has made me think more about how I come up with stuff. I'm not making this up or fudging the truth, a great portion of this class, from my first make (my writing process in Minecraft narrative form) to my board's publication, has been all about who we are as creators. And I've talked quite a bit about just that, and I've thought quite a bit about just that. Don't know if we're at the "breakthrough" stage just yet, but I know more now.

Reflective Blog Post #5 - Responding to Editorial Boards

Hello blog! Hello fellow classmates! It's been a long time since I've told y'all 'bout what's goin' on up in here, so let's get right into it.

First off, making the call for papers:

As most of you know, the third make cycle entails getting into groups known as "editorial boards" and writing calls for papers. Of the prepared topics, "creativity" interested me the most, so I elected to be on that board. I was put in a group with Sean, Christian, and John - all good men and true, I might add. We struggled with how to write our call for papers. We couldn't just say, "Write about creativity." It had to be personal and more specific. I can't remember which member exactly suggested the idea of drawing inside of squares - I think it was Christian, but don't quote me on that. The idea was that the responding writer would draw inside the squares whatever they wanted (using vague geometry provided inside each square) and explain how they came up with their drawings. Then they would try to articulate what it said about them as creative people. We originally were going to have nine squares, but we found it a bit unreasonable, so we brought it down to four.

This, I think, offered a challenge with great freedom in figuring out how to beat it. Still, it wasn't quite right - as open-ended as it was, some people may have found that the project required a bit too much from them. It was decided that the four-square idea was only a strong suggestion - the writer could reflect on their own creativity however they wanted. Even more open-ended, but still inviting insight.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Notes written while we made this call for papers:

The guys want to do a weird visual creativity art chart or something. Is that allowed for this assignment? What if that’s outside the format?

Nah, Lacy’s a free thinker. She’ll be cool wit it.

Now we think that the table might demotivate people.

Imagination Table - draw in these boxes and tell how the drawings/their structure defines you as a creator

The Imagination Table might be imposing, making people conform to a format that they’re not comfortable with. It could also be seen as real cool and hip. Most people know how to write an essay better than drawing stuff, though.

3 boxes instead of 9?

4.

Draw around the shapes in the four boxes and a brief description (a paragraph or so) of what you drew in the boxes and how it relates to your personality.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Writing my own responses:

I'm a lazy guy. I admit I saw a few calls for papers that turned me off immediately just because they required a modicum of work and dedication. I just found some stuff I had thought about and could share thoughts on - these being beauty and creativity, both very human subjects.

So, having chosen these two subjects to write about, I... wrote about them.

Not much to talk about here. I don't write with much preparation - at least, not for subjects I can talk about off the cuff. Not much documentation, either. There's a webcam video of me writing the paper on progressing technology - that was an hour that I edited down to 13 minutes or so. The Murray cards helped me a lot with the progressing technology paper. I was forced to come up with ideas when writing them - these ideas became several topics brought up in the actual paper.

So that was real cool.

The beauty one was a bit harder since I'm not personally affected by society's "beauty" as much as, say, a girl in college. I hope it doesn't show much. Perhaps I had something insightful to say, perhaps not. I tried my best, darn it all!

-----------------------------------------------------------
Notes in Daybook on deciding which call to respond to:

The call about human beauty intrigues me. I'm not sure I have much new to add, but I could contribute.

The technology advancements is another likely candidate to write for. Videos obviously [sentence unfinished]

The empathy one might be good too, although I don't know how much I could talk about my lack of empathy.

Murray Cards:

1. It's a more open-ended, personal call for papers - just write about a technology most important to you.
So, it'll be easy, methinks.
I've been using a computer almost daily for almost a decade now. Maybe I could bring that up.
Mom's old VHS camera.
The Cyber-Shot point-and-shoot (accurate term? meaningful in anyway)
CoolPix point-and-shoot, Sanyo Xacti, JVC
YouTube

2. I didn't think about bringing up YouTube until I wrote it on that card. YouTube certainly is a technological advancement of video. Sure, it's not the first and only such service, but it's come to epitomize the "everyone can make videos" ideal, even providing some with a livelihood. I didn't plan on limiting the advancements I discuss to video, but with so much innovation in that subject, maybe I will.

3. I could do a cool parallel development thing.
Describing general advancements in motion picture and simultaneously describing the progression of cameras I've had.
Tripods!
I can't believe this is working. I'm done now, there's nothing more to say.

4. What would a scientist or technician say? Probably something more general and insightful, offering a perspective on the wide history of human technology that I've never considered before.
But I'm more narrow-minded, so, I'm going with movies 'cause they're pretty, dur-hurr.
Alas, my interests are few and my contemplations therefore limited.

5. (a drawing of a camera from 1890s, a camera from the 1950s, and a modern camcorder)

6. The third card is me fave, mate. It provides a very solid, interesting idea for at least part of my paper. I almost chose the first card as the best, but there's nothing there I wouldn't have thought of anyway. The third card is innovative and useful for the assignment.
Jeez Louise, 7 minutes? [referring to the time suggested for writing this card]
-----------------------------------------------------------

More notes:

-----------------------------------------------------------
I'm writing about the technological progression of motion picture. The article I found is an interview with Chris Nolan about film versus digital. In my writing, I already brought up the switch from film to digital, although I didn't express certainty about how the switch is affecting the big-time moviemakers of the Western World. I should use the Nolan interview and probably another, contrasting interview with a moviemaker to give an accurate idea of how the big-budget element of the industry is changing instead of just saying, "I dunno."
-----------------------------------------------------------

Like I said, I don't prepare much before writing something lengthy as an essay. I gather knowledge about the topic beforehand if I must, and then I go on a ramble for an hour or so. I don't even proofread or edit myself - I rely on my good grade record with writing essays to hope I structured it well and wrote succinctly and insightfully. I talked about this a bit with others in the G+ community on the 1103 Writes page, but better yet, I made a video of myself doing it! It was an hour long video originally, but I only left in the important bits.

Reflective Blog Post #4 - Make 3

For our third make, we had to make toyhacks. The definition of a toyhack is evidently broad: take a toy or toys and alter them to be used in an interesting new way. This extends to turning a ball in a sock into dog toys, making your train set play the xylophone, and to stop-motion animation. Of course, I had to do stop-motion animation since videos be what I do.

We were instructed to use our toyhacks to address a "problem of science." From the start, I was confused as to what a "problem of science" was. Its definition fortunately seemed to be just as broad.

A couple of weeks ago, we were assigned to find science articles that related to us or interested us personally. I found one about "The Echo Nest," a program/tech startup that analyzes the listening patterns, ratings, and comments internet users make for songs. It uses this data to suggest songs to listeners. It is a service utilized by several music-streaming websites. It is more accurate and user-specific than, say, Grooveshark's suggestion service.

The problem I found is this: won't such a user-specific service keep listeners in their own "little spheres of preference"? I wrote a page on this problem in my daybook:
-----------------------------------------------------------
The writer of The Echo Nest article and the creator(s) of The Echo Nest seem to assume that we need technological assistance in finding music we like. Ain't that bad and wrong? I use GrooveShark often, and the songs/artists it suggests are based on the genres I frequently listen to. With this system, I've come across numerous new songs that I've quite enjoyed. But that suggestion system is based entirely on genre. The Echo Nest picks up every detail it can about what the listener likes or dislikes and make very tailored suggestions. Doesn't this constrain listeners, encouraging them to stay safe in their little spheres of preference? I think people should actively leave their comfort zones now and then anyway, suggestions aside. My question then is this: What do the brains behind The Echo Nest hope to achieve? What is the perceived good they are doing? I'm not trying to be accusatory; I really want to know why they think this is a necessary service. I will even accept that it was made for the maker's profit, as long as it's an answer.
------------------------------------------------------------

So I decided to use two "toys" I had laying around my dorm - a bouncy Spider-Man stress ball and my 3DS - to construct a stop-motion animation in which this problem is addressed. I came up with that specific idea while I was writing my memo to my writing group. As a matter of fact, if you read that memo, you can see the elements of the animation being detailed as the ideas come to me. The exact same thing happened during my second Make - while writing a memo about how I had no idea what I was going to do, I got a very good idea of exactly what to do.

And just like Make Cycle 2, the final product strayed very little from the initial idea. If one looks in my daybook and at my memo at the same time, they will find the entirety of the Spider-Man/Echo Nest dialogue.

Perhaps simply constructing a two-character dialogue about the problem I brought up isn't very clever. Creating an abstract physical representation of an issue undoubtedly takes a different, more involved approach. Still, I did my best, and I think the way I used my props is at least a little clever.

More notes from the daybook:
-----------------------------------------------------------
How could I have done anything but a stop-motion animation?  I make videos it's what I like to do. Also, I don't know how I would address a problem by working on a physical make. When I can just verbally engage the subject, the other methods seem excessively difficult. To me, anyway.
And you know, the process underwent very few changes Initial idea was directly realized on video.
-----------------------------------------------------------

META BLOG! (coincidentally the name of my new math rock band)

Well, here we are in the ripe old month of October! Not sure what I mean by that, but the point is we've come a long way from learning each other's names via miming. We've all done a fair bit of creative science-related writing in that time, and then we all blogged about it! Whether you're really into science, the concept of science, or neither, you've had to write your personal experiences and opinions about this topic. Lemme look through such writing I've done and reflect on my reflections.

REFLECTIVE BLOG POST 1

Didn't have much to go on at the time. No makes so far, so I probably should have commented on Gawandi some more. It seems I was a bit worried about having to write in journals "persistently," but due to the great liberty of what one can write in the morning "free writes" and the infrequency of blog posts, it hasn't been a problem.

REFLECTIVE BLOG POST 2

The most fun project of the class so far, I think. At least the most rewarding - I'm a little proud of the creativity I put in my Minecraft map. But that's beside the point- the point is to scrutinize my blog.

It's certainly better than the first - it addresses how I feel about the class's focus on science and my unfortunate inability to personally connect. Fortunately, science wasn't the focus of that particular make and I had a lot of fun with it. I'm not sure if I should have gone into more detail about how I went about making the video - I probably should have had more insight into the mental process culminating in its creation. For example, why I chose those specific highlights in my life. How did Stephen King "blow my mind"? In what way has early reading affected my writing? The answer to the former would take too much time. The answer to the latter is this: I used to read young fantasy novels often, Robin McKinley, Tamora Pierce, J.K. Rowling, so most of my exposition becomes a trite imitation. I really don't know how to write engaging exposition for a novel. I feel I should learn that some day.

I sort of meandered into nonsense territory at the end. It was late, and I apologize.

REFLECTIVE BLOG POST 3

I'm honestly disappointed with this one, especially when you compare the length of this post with other Make 2 reflections. As I've said before, here and in my other posts, I lack scientific initiative, so I had a hard time describing the process of the video - I just go over some scant logistical details. As mentioned in this post, though, the video was nearly entirely off the cuff, so there honestly wasn't much I could think to add.

OVERALL

It is recommended on the ENGL 1103 Wix website to address your daybook writings in your Reflective Blog posts. I should remember to do that from now on. Moreover, I will surely try to include more of my thought process for the make in each reflection - the problem is that can be difficult when I don't have much personal connection to science. That's the biggest hurdle, to be sure.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, my darlings. Be sure to check every blog post I make, because I'll be sure to use unusual words like "darlings" in each of them! See you all next Make!

Reflective Blog Post #3 - Make 2

For this assignment, I really had to think about what a "narrative of science" is. This make required me to sit and think long about hard about the true nature of rhetorical interpretations of science in everyday life and what a nebulous concept "science" can be when one tries to dissect their own understanding of it.

Then I gave up and took a gamble on this:


I got lucky - I made it to the Greenhouse within five minutes of it being locked. The gentleman managing the place was kind enough to let me wander around with my camera while he locked up (you may hear a door closing at the beginning of the video - that's him leaving).

The Greenhouse is a perfect location for a "learning walk," one of the suggested make formats, and ties right into one of the one-pagers I made before this. The experience of writing the one-pager was useful in that I knew the geometry/features of the greenhouse beforehand and knew a few things I could comment on. It's a darn good thing I got there when I did, especially since I went home for the weekend that evening.

The one-pager I wrote about the greenhouse (beforehand):

-----------------------------------------------------------

                I took a trip to the McMillan Greenhouse this afternoon. I’m not sure I was allowed to… but the door was open, so what the hey. Needless to say, the general effect of science was very visible in each room. Let’s talk all about it!

                A primary purpose of the facility seems to be education to the general public. There are plaques and factoids all around. Of course, all I got to see was the visitor’s section which is a linear path through different categories of plants, such as tropical, cactus, primitive, etc. There was no shortage of very interesting plants I’d never seen before – the intent being to inspire people to take an interest in botany or some subdivision.

                The proprietors of the greenhouse must have been scientists. Big shock. Science in this context can be two things: a proposal to the observer to look deeper into these plants and their biology or the science of maintaining a greenhouse, which must be very detail-heavy. It’s a very impressive institution when you think of all the questions its founders and its upkeep had to ask themselves to keep these plants in such good condition. “What plants can share soil? What plants must be potted?” When I was walking through, something beeped and water was sprayed from pipes onto certain plants hanging along the walls. “What is each plant’s need for watering and how should we automate this system?” Outside of the greenhouse is a smaller exhibit of many varied plants. “What plants can be left outside, unprotected from the elements?”

                The categorization of the plant rooms must have also been a scientific venture. “Which plants are similar in origin and biology? Which are aesthetically similar? What species would catch the most people’s eyes?” I’m sure that with as many plants as are contained in the greenhouse, large and small, the managers must be adding and removing exhibits at least every now and then – a form of experimentation.

                The greenhouse is a very useful representation of science and truth – an exhibition of botanical knowledge and a scientific institution unto itself.

-----------------------------------------------------------

For Make Cycle #2, we had to write memos to our fellow writing group members telling them what we planned to do. I came to the decision of the learning walk right smack dab in the middle of writing my memo, documented below for your pleasure:

-----------------------------------------------------------

I don’t know what I’m going to do for my make. The format is, as always, up to the maker’s interpretation, right? And the subject is “rhetorical readings of the science world”? For someone with little scientific interest, initiative, and intuition, I seem to have an almost insurmountable task before me. Then again, the format is, as I said, totally up to me. So I might have an exceptionally surmountable task on my hands.

                I could go with one of the example formats laid out on the class Wix site; that would be the easiest route. I could just try talking on the subject in front of a camera – the only somewhat more interesting option. But that would necessitate writing and critical thinking, which are both for suckers.

Just kidding.

Don’t know what I’m gonna do. Maybe I’ll do something with the camera involving maps and narratives – maybe a walk-through of the Greenhouse. I could describe all the different rooms as I walk through them. That might work. I just thought of that now, guys. Whaddaya thinka me now?

Here I should probably lay out a few things I have to figure out. For example, what is a “narrative of science”? I’d love to map them out, but frankly I’m not sure what they are.  How many questions from the blue sheet (the ones about science, ya-doi) should I answer? How the heck am I gonna fit such answers about science and my experience with the same in a single make? Also, am I way overthinking everything? I think I am. Yes, quite sure.

Wish I had more to add to this little memorandum here, but I’ve made plain my ideas and I’ve made plain my questions. I would like your feedback on both.

If you please.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I did almost zero preparation for this learning walk, and nothing I say is a prepared answer. Nonetheless, I tried my best to be engaging, brief, and insightful to my personal thoughts and opinions, so check out the video above today!

Reflective Blog Post #2 - Make 1

I'm really scared, guys.

I don't know anything about science.

I mean, I understand its basic function and goal, but compared to creative writing, it just doesn't click with me at all. I've got no drive, man, and what if my work suffers for it? Worse, what if it's hard? I don't wanna work hard. This next Make Cycle's gonna be a toughie.

And I'm still not sure how the Writing Groups thing is working. I gotta get widdit, man.

On a separate note, the first make cycle came and went. I'm pleased with the results:

Some real cool cats in the 1103 Writes group left some very positive comments, and they made me feel good. The final result isn't identical to the initial idea, but no creative undertaking ever is.

The classroom was by far the hardest room to make - using Minecraft to replicate a small, familiar setting filled with specific objects is very difficult. I had to settle on a few basic, recognizable visual cues like the chalkboard and the carpet by the bookcase to add flavor to what is otherwise essentially a bunch of little chairs in front of a big one. Throw some paintings around the walls, and Bam! From Bland to Grand! From Sham to Shazam! Pan Am got Slammed! Lonely Man eatin' Spam and Yam on the Tram, poor as Vietnam and scared as a Lamb!

Sorry, I'm playing Kanye West while writing this. He's getting in my head.

I think I'm all blogged out. Hopefully I'll have less yammering and more insight next time.