Nobody from the first week showed up the second week, for Animation Workshop, is the thing, which is just absolutely bizarre... nobody ever shows up anyway, but those who did show up, it was a totally different cast of characters... did I seriously scare off the first week's crop so badly, with the thought that maybe I would be teaching next time, that they all steered clear...? or...?
I attempted in a somewhat vague manner to track down the workshop lab during lunch hours, trudging along my laptop and everything there but finding nothing, so, I don't know what's up with that either.
A few days ago (last week by now) plushie artisan Channing Winget (an alumnus here, having her BFA art show final showcase only last semester,) had this to say on (one of) her tumblr(s)! To click through and to read, please! The tl;dr of that is... oh, for pete's sake, I'm not going to give it to you, I mean, the link's right there...!
Picking up from that, now that you've totally read it, right?...
"Not having time" just being code for, "it's not a priority," that's striking, not just from the perspective of a family historian where "I'm too busy!" is an excuse heard far too frequently for not tracking down any ancestors, but also from a perspective of, frig, I really am busy, practicing art, why would I have time for that when I've got so many other things I need more practice on, such as piano and sociality and writing? I can take comfort in the notion that not much practice is required to pick up skills, and sleeping on things is good for you and refreshes you and hones you in that skill in the meantime, and aw heck, I've been linking to TEDTalks lately, here's one here.
But I've got art homework, gosh darn it, and if that's not a good enough excuse for practice, I don't know what is. Sort of an, extrinsic motivator, to get it done in the first place, and though there's usually problems when extrinsic motivation is the only kind there, of course there's plenty of intrinsic motivation. It's just saying, gosh, I really want to right, but I'm undermotivated, and so setting a timer for yourself and forcing yourself to slog through the brunt work of writing. There's nothing wrong with that. You're motivating yourself, to be motivated. And, hey, if that's what works for you... it, works for you.
Brian Astle, the guy she mentions as an example of prime dedication and craftsmanship, is totally one of the co-teachers of the meatspace segments of my drawing course this semester, which I think to be not just radical, but totally so. I haven't been in class since reading that post for the first time, though, so this whole time all those four classes so far I had no idea of the history or anything of how he got to be where he currently is or how good he is at what he does. Sure makes you see folks in a different light, does it not?
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Friday, April 29, 2016
Neurological Stuff: Not That Great for Pop Culture References
June 7th. That's when Zootopia is coming out on DVD, Blu Ray, 3D Blu Ray, and Digital Download. Am I excited? Or do I have the sudden realization that it's just a movie?
Yes.
My Facebook posts never seem to attract the younger, hipper crowd that I'm always aiming for. I very well could be expecting too much of the kids... nobody friggin' understands any of my references... but, not even to contemporary popular culture? That was for you, kids! I'm hip and down with stuff! See!? See!? I'm making reference to that thing that some of you have potentially even heard of!! Well, it's, whatever, not like I care...
My latest foray into, questioning the motivation behind social media after not receiving anything sort of close to an expected response, seriously why do we share is it to truly benefit and enrich others' lives naah nobody's being fooled by that it's Facebook, you're only in it to rub your own victories or whatever into other people's faces, but, my latest foray into that was, about, neurology I guess?? I mean, it's picking up steam now, but, yeesh, it's a pretty heady topic for a share. Rolling on past that like there's no pun there, it is the kind of thing I'm interested in.
It's how much of myself I see in John Wayne Cleaver, or how deeply I was touched by the parents' struggle to come to terms with their son's schizophrenia in Calvin, how transcendent that book was (transcended of what, I cannot say... I guess it was just that transcendent.) The Speed of Dark, the cure from that is coming closer and closer in real life; the critics all remarked how alien Lou Arrendale was but of course he wasn't that, to me. Am I just that much better at connecting with non-neurotypicals in the fiction I read, do they speak to me that much more, even when they've got things I don't?
I posted yesterday, a few hours ago, the day before yesterday a few hours ago when you take into account the fact that though this blog's timestamp coding is in Western time I'm typing this currently from Mountain which makes it past midnight here, one of the latest TedTalks, published just on Tuesday filmed just in February, Adam Grant's "The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers," in case you missed the post I guess. This was maybe another idea I'd had for what yesterday's post would have been- a link, as here, to TEDTalks's Mental Health playlist. (Ted, Talks's? TedTalks'? It's plural, but as part of a name, so that would be external possessive apostrophe with a post-positional possessive s, right? I think is what that's called, but I know that's definitely how that works, usually. It's kind of tricky, here; thank goodness we're not talking about qualities possessed by more than one TedTalks.) Watch the videos! They're mostly about depression, but there's a few about schizophrenia and one or two about addiction. There's only 10 of them, each about 15-20 minutes, typical TEDTalk length.
This kind of stuff is great. I wouldn't call it bread and butter-- knife and fork, maybe, because, obvious reasons?
And my Jungle Book post is getting a few people to go see the movie! That's great! It's like when I got all that Zootopia stuff from Walmart which people saw and which reminded them that they still needed to go see it.
39 days... counting down the days, baby.
Yes.
My Facebook posts never seem to attract the younger, hipper crowd that I'm always aiming for. I very well could be expecting too much of the kids... nobody friggin' understands any of my references... but, not even to contemporary popular culture? That was for you, kids! I'm hip and down with stuff! See!? See!? I'm making reference to that thing that some of you have potentially even heard of!! Well, it's, whatever, not like I care...
My latest foray into, questioning the motivation behind social media after not receiving anything sort of close to an expected response, seriously why do we share is it to truly benefit and enrich others' lives naah nobody's being fooled by that it's Facebook, you're only in it to rub your own victories or whatever into other people's faces, but, my latest foray into that was, about, neurology I guess?? I mean, it's picking up steam now, but, yeesh, it's a pretty heady topic for a share. Rolling on past that like there's no pun there, it is the kind of thing I'm interested in.
It's how much of myself I see in John Wayne Cleaver, or how deeply I was touched by the parents' struggle to come to terms with their son's schizophrenia in Calvin, how transcendent that book was (transcended of what, I cannot say... I guess it was just that transcendent.) The Speed of Dark, the cure from that is coming closer and closer in real life; the critics all remarked how alien Lou Arrendale was but of course he wasn't that, to me. Am I just that much better at connecting with non-neurotypicals in the fiction I read, do they speak to me that much more, even when they've got things I don't?
I posted yesterday, a few hours ago, the day before yesterday a few hours ago when you take into account the fact that though this blog's timestamp coding is in Western time I'm typing this currently from Mountain which makes it past midnight here, one of the latest TedTalks, published just on Tuesday filmed just in February, Adam Grant's "The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers," in case you missed the post I guess. This was maybe another idea I'd had for what yesterday's post would have been- a link, as here, to TEDTalks's Mental Health playlist. (Ted, Talks's? TedTalks'? It's plural, but as part of a name, so that would be external possessive apostrophe with a post-positional possessive s, right? I think is what that's called, but I know that's definitely how that works, usually. It's kind of tricky, here; thank goodness we're not talking about qualities possessed by more than one TedTalks.) Watch the videos! They're mostly about depression, but there's a few about schizophrenia and one or two about addiction. There's only 10 of them, each about 15-20 minutes, typical TEDTalk length.
This kind of stuff is great. I wouldn't call it bread and butter-- knife and fork, maybe, because, obvious reasons?
And my Jungle Book post is getting a few people to go see the movie! That's great! It's like when I got all that Zootopia stuff from Walmart which people saw and which reminded them that they still needed to go see it.
39 days... counting down the days, baby.
Procrastination!
Stupid internet was down, and I was too tired to wait for it, so I just went without posting today! Except for this backdated post, which I'll get up around 6:20 tomorrow WST. Had the internet not been (overloaded I guess?) I'd been going to write about, man I don't know, I was super tired, I mean, I am super tired, because I'm speaking from the present instead of the future here, so whatever it was I'm about to have written had the internet not been down, it wouldn't have been much. Probably best I went without posting, I guess-- oh, typography, I think that might have been it, typography is radical! Arranging type on a page, just that simple act, there's sooo many possibilities to it!
But no, that's not what I'm writing about anymore?
I'd been holding out on posting all day tomorrow, until I found the perfect thing to post- probably a video, and I was totally going to post up something math-related, but I held out. And held out. And...
But no, that's not what I'm writing about anymore?
I'd been holding out on posting all day tomorrow, until I found the perfect thing to post- probably a video, and I was totally going to post up something math-related, but I held out. And held out. And...
See? I am a master strategist, and once again the backdated procrastinated nature of this post is integral to its theme. Boom!
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Alright, I *Did* Get Some of the Stuff Due Today Done Yesterday; I'm Just Saying that I Wish I'd Gotten More, Is All
Something I didn't even consider up till today: yesterday, after talking to my typography teacher/faculty mentor, how it's okay to be delaying of the BFA press, and I can take my time taking classes? I have realized that that means that my Family History course was alright, since I'm in no big push to finish my religion courses all up, and I didn't really need to drop it in favor of one of the religion "cornerstone" classes (not that Eternal Family class is bad or anything!) But what I realized today was, with my Family History class dropped, who played the piano there yesterday?
No one, I guess?
I wouldn't know. Anyway, yes, yesterday was nice, and swaggerly, and I had only one class and one thing due, and I could zip around on, like, adventures or whatever it was I would have gotten myself into, but today I had four classes, and something due in each of them, minus the early morning one of art history, which had at least due for it, waking up and getting ready by 7:45... That's not terribly early, but, when you know that you've got three classes' worth of things that need to be turned in actually is kind of-- oh! Wait never mind, I did have something due in that class as well, so. Yes. Busy day, I am pooped, and if I were writing I'd rather be writing about Finn Moone, because the juices are flowing once again A Real Thing-wise.
The two books I checked out yesterday, from the two separate libraries like I said: Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal, and The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. I guess I'm just heavy into Regency stuff, and I didn't even know it?
I also have checked out right now, though from last week: Mr Monster by Dan Wells, which I'd also had checked out even earlier but had to turn in before I could finish it... It's, really quite something. Simultaneously a page-turner, and, I keep on having to set the book down for like 15 minutes every couple of paragraphs, just to let everything sink in. I think this is the first fiction book to affect me this way; usually only C.S. Lewis non-fiction can do this to me. That Johnny Cleaver, I see myself a lot in him, and, well this is a conversation for another day, because I could really go into it...
And also, The Animator's Survival Kit, by Richard Williams. Though I'm not running the Animation Workshop, thank goodness, and- oh, I almost forgot, Comic Book Workshop, first day of the semester today. Looks like we're not doing the Workshop "lab hours" in the Crossroads on Saturdays this semester, which is good, because Animation Workshop has a lab on Saturdays this semester instead... see how things work out? No? Wel- well, okay.
No one, I guess?
I wouldn't know. Anyway, yes, yesterday was nice, and swaggerly, and I had only one class and one thing due, and I could zip around on, like, adventures or whatever it was I would have gotten myself into, but today I had four classes, and something due in each of them, minus the early morning one of art history, which had at least due for it, waking up and getting ready by 7:45... That's not terribly early, but, when you know that you've got three classes' worth of things that need to be turned in actually is kind of-- oh! Wait never mind, I did have something due in that class as well, so. Yes. Busy day, I am pooped, and if I were writing I'd rather be writing about Finn Moone, because the juices are flowing once again A Real Thing-wise.
The two books I checked out yesterday, from the two separate libraries like I said: Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal, and The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. I guess I'm just heavy into Regency stuff, and I didn't even know it?
I also have checked out right now, though from last week: Mr Monster by Dan Wells, which I'd also had checked out even earlier but had to turn in before I could finish it... It's, really quite something. Simultaneously a page-turner, and, I keep on having to set the book down for like 15 minutes every couple of paragraphs, just to let everything sink in. I think this is the first fiction book to affect me this way; usually only C.S. Lewis non-fiction can do this to me. That Johnny Cleaver, I see myself a lot in him, and, well this is a conversation for another day, because I could really go into it...
And also, The Animator's Survival Kit, by Richard Williams. Though I'm not running the Animation Workshop, thank goodness, and- oh, I almost forgot, Comic Book Workshop, first day of the semester today. Looks like we're not doing the Workshop "lab hours" in the Crossroads on Saturdays this semester, which is good, because Animation Workshop has a lab on Saturdays this semester instead... see how things work out? No? Wel- well, okay.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
I Feel Like I Can Relax a Bit
I feel like I can relax a bit. Though, well, it turns out that though there's nothing due on Tuesdays that needs to be done, that doesn't stop classes tomorrow from requiring me to read and write things, and with all the classes to attend tomorrow it'd be easiest to get that reading in sooner rather than later... which is probably totally why instead I checked out two new novels to read from the libraries, and spent a lot of time today reading those instead.
But like I said, besides that reading that needs done, I feel like I can relax a bit. Going up to the professor-who-is-also-my-faculty-mentor after Typography class with him this morning, approaching with the question of what to do and how to go about getting a degree when I can conceivably achieve it by the end of next semester (though that doesn't give me much time at all to prepare a portfolio to bump up my arts degree to a fine arts degree, and also doesn't allow me to take advanced typography like I'd like, and all that other stuff I told you about already) he told me to take classes and learn, and getting a BFA would take more credits, and require more schooling anyway.
And, the Advanced Typography course I want to take, with the prerequisite of the Graphic Design class that I'm taking Fall Semester (which itself has the typography course I'm taking this semester as a prereq for it (which, you know, explains why I'm only taking it the semester after this one))... the Graphic Design course runs Fall semester, but the Advanced Typography course is only Spring Semester, so I'd have to wait a whole semester after completing my Graphic Design course anyway before I'd be able to take the Advanced Typography class. And so I guess that that means that I can take my time graduating anyway, especially if I am aiming at a BFA, and my portfolio would be so much more prepared for that as well if I waited too... so I don't have to fret about getting my portfolio done this semester or even next.
And I can also relax a bit on whether I have to run Animation Workshop this semester... feeling kind of sick, and needing to work on work stuff, I spent today mostly generally not-preparing for the workshop (in making any slideshows or anything, at least; I'm totally watching a lynda.com tutorial series on how to work Autodesk Maya, the computer graphics animation software.) It's not really like I'm the official workshop head, is it; I'm not even sure how legal it is to run a workshop without havign completed the requisite paperwork, so I figured this week would be just a sort of unofficial getting-to-know-you? I went in about a half-hour early to the workshop classroom, figuring maybe I could work on the slideshow there, but this guy was there setting up, and he's running the workshop this semester! Thank goodness.
So that's, two things I don't have to worry about. Is that too much of a letdown? Gosh I hope not. I think it's nice.
But like I said, besides that reading that needs done, I feel like I can relax a bit. Going up to the professor-who-is-also-my-faculty-mentor after Typography class with him this morning, approaching with the question of what to do and how to go about getting a degree when I can conceivably achieve it by the end of next semester (though that doesn't give me much time at all to prepare a portfolio to bump up my arts degree to a fine arts degree, and also doesn't allow me to take advanced typography like I'd like, and all that other stuff I told you about already) he told me to take classes and learn, and getting a BFA would take more credits, and require more schooling anyway.
And, the Advanced Typography course I want to take, with the prerequisite of the Graphic Design class that I'm taking Fall Semester (which itself has the typography course I'm taking this semester as a prereq for it (which, you know, explains why I'm only taking it the semester after this one))... the Graphic Design course runs Fall semester, but the Advanced Typography course is only Spring Semester, so I'd have to wait a whole semester after completing my Graphic Design course anyway before I'd be able to take the Advanced Typography class. And so I guess that that means that I can take my time graduating anyway, especially if I am aiming at a BFA, and my portfolio would be so much more prepared for that as well if I waited too... so I don't have to fret about getting my portfolio done this semester or even next.
And I can also relax a bit on whether I have to run Animation Workshop this semester... feeling kind of sick, and needing to work on work stuff, I spent today mostly generally not-preparing for the workshop (in making any slideshows or anything, at least; I'm totally watching a lynda.com tutorial series on how to work Autodesk Maya, the computer graphics animation software.) It's not really like I'm the official workshop head, is it; I'm not even sure how legal it is to run a workshop without havign completed the requisite paperwork, so I figured this week would be just a sort of unofficial getting-to-know-you? I went in about a half-hour early to the workshop classroom, figuring maybe I could work on the slideshow there, but this guy was there setting up, and he's running the workshop this semester! Thank goodness.
So that's, two things I don't have to worry about. Is that too much of a letdown? Gosh I hope not. I think it's nice.
Monday, April 25, 2016
Hyperconcentrated Fresh Air: Splode (It's the Quenchiest!) of the Air World
I have one class in room 120 of one building, and another class in room 222 of a different building-- this other class is, my new class, and checking today right before heading out to it for the first time, my eye skipped to the room number for the class above it on the schedule, which means that when I found the room I was looking for for my first Eternal Family class, I gloriously opened the door into... the dark noisy boiler room. And so I had to go and check the actual room number again, discovered what must have happened, and got to class late, but it was okay, since it's my first day.
Today was busy. I had all of last week's work to make up for in that class, as well as the work from last time and this time in my other religion class (the class webpage was down when it came time to do the assignment last week) as well as the work for my wholly online color and design class to get started on and complete, and my typography module to complete. I doubt that Mondays will normally be this frantic/stressful. Tomorrow is Tuesday, with only one class and only one thing due, and I'll finally have opportunity to take up questions about portfolio review and all that up with my typography teacher, who is also my academic advisor, so, hey that's a fell swoop.
I hate to be writing about nothing but school stuff lately; I'm sorry. It's not the only thing I'm doing lately (though, mostly, basically, well yeah, yes it is.) Testing out my wings, I'm beginning to get on research again for the dark and shadowy Things That Don't Even Come Back Around (I'm writing a book! cliché is what other people do!), reading a bunch of Slavic and Northern European fairy tales and that kind of thing.
Fairy tales are nuts, because there are so many of them, but after not-long-at-all, they all exhibit the exact same plot patterns, which are not only similar (oh hey that firebird is stealing my golden apples again!) but are also unlike the storytelling modes we expect in modern western tradition (oh hey the golden apple macguffin really has absolutely nothing else to do with the rest of the story aside from some kind of tangential call-to-action, but now that you've already been on this adventure completing any one of a number of tropic patterns, youngest of three sons, you should totally decapitate this fox to reveal he's actually a handsome shapeshifting cursed prince!) And this kind of thing is something I'm absolutely in love with, some absolutely bizarre pattern with some pseudo-symbolic quasi-ritualistic significance that shows up and is never mentioned again (let's go talk to the east wind! nope, but let's go talk to the west wind! nope, but let's go talk to the south wind! nope, but let's go talk to the north wind!)
Moments of great significance like that, that ultimately get relegated to background material, those are delicious to me-- I mentioned a couple of days ago how random King Louie's appearance was in the Jungle Book, and how that film's got a lot of such moments, and this storytelling mode has a lot to do with that. It's a drought, the Peace Rock appears, some greater truer glimpse of the Law of the Jungle is revealed, and the ramifications featured by all animals possessing the ability of speech and an idea of morality is hinted at; Mowgli reveals his true nature, Sher Khan reveals his true nature, they're set against each other, and the drought ends with a decision to be made. Ultimately that serves some small advancement directly of the plot, and some deeper truth is revealed as well but never dwelled on. Mowgli is free to hop from random encounter to random encounter, but it's the encounter that feels like it had cosmic significance that kicks off everything else.
People have spent so long codifying what makes a story like all the others, that I think they've forgotten that what makes a story worth reading and telling is what makes it different. Not literally "forgotten," of course, and it's not like reliance on formula is a new thing, but, there's a lot of fantastic potential in these old storytelling modes, and it's still always a breath of, like, that hyperconcentrated fresh air that comes in a little canister, when they show up.
Today was busy. I had all of last week's work to make up for in that class, as well as the work from last time and this time in my other religion class (the class webpage was down when it came time to do the assignment last week) as well as the work for my wholly online color and design class to get started on and complete, and my typography module to complete. I doubt that Mondays will normally be this frantic/stressful. Tomorrow is Tuesday, with only one class and only one thing due, and I'll finally have opportunity to take up questions about portfolio review and all that up with my typography teacher, who is also my academic advisor, so, hey that's a fell swoop.
I hate to be writing about nothing but school stuff lately; I'm sorry. It's not the only thing I'm doing lately (though, mostly, basically, well yeah, yes it is.) Testing out my wings, I'm beginning to get on research again for the dark and shadowy Things That Don't Even Come Back Around (I'm writing a book! cliché is what other people do!), reading a bunch of Slavic and Northern European fairy tales and that kind of thing.
Fairy tales are nuts, because there are so many of them, but after not-long-at-all, they all exhibit the exact same plot patterns, which are not only similar (oh hey that firebird is stealing my golden apples again!) but are also unlike the storytelling modes we expect in modern western tradition (oh hey the golden apple macguffin really has absolutely nothing else to do with the rest of the story aside from some kind of tangential call-to-action, but now that you've already been on this adventure completing any one of a number of tropic patterns, youngest of three sons, you should totally decapitate this fox to reveal he's actually a handsome shapeshifting cursed prince!) And this kind of thing is something I'm absolutely in love with, some absolutely bizarre pattern with some pseudo-symbolic quasi-ritualistic significance that shows up and is never mentioned again (let's go talk to the east wind! nope, but let's go talk to the west wind! nope, but let's go talk to the south wind! nope, but let's go talk to the north wind!)
Moments of great significance like that, that ultimately get relegated to background material, those are delicious to me-- I mentioned a couple of days ago how random King Louie's appearance was in the Jungle Book, and how that film's got a lot of such moments, and this storytelling mode has a lot to do with that. It's a drought, the Peace Rock appears, some greater truer glimpse of the Law of the Jungle is revealed, and the ramifications featured by all animals possessing the ability of speech and an idea of morality is hinted at; Mowgli reveals his true nature, Sher Khan reveals his true nature, they're set against each other, and the drought ends with a decision to be made. Ultimately that serves some small advancement directly of the plot, and some deeper truth is revealed as well but never dwelled on. Mowgli is free to hop from random encounter to random encounter, but it's the encounter that feels like it had cosmic significance that kicks off everything else.
People have spent so long codifying what makes a story like all the others, that I think they've forgotten that what makes a story worth reading and telling is what makes it different. Not literally "forgotten," of course, and it's not like reliance on formula is a new thing, but, there's a lot of fantastic potential in these old storytelling modes, and it's still always a breath of, like, that hyperconcentrated fresh air that comes in a little canister, when they show up.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
It's One Week Into the Semester, and I Think I'll Tell You What I Know About It (the Semester) So Far
A week into the semester, and now I suppose we've got a feel on how the workflow's going to go... though maybe not, seeing as how now I've got just the typography class on Tuesday and Thursday, with my other Tues/Thurs classes now being Monday/Wednesday... and what that means is that I've got three classes on Monday and four on Wednesday...!
Last semester Wednesday was my most relaxed non-Friday weekday, with each day Monday-Thursday having an afternoon class starting at 3:15 and Wednesday having only one class in the morning. This semester, I've got Tuesday and Thursday...
But, yeah, that reworking of my class schedule really throws off the hope that I've got a feel this early for how to navigate my coursework during the week. Check back again in another week I suppose?
At least I know what kind of work's expected of me. A lot of reading. A lot of writing. And only one class that requires me to do graphic design projects.
Last semester Wednesday was my most relaxed non-Friday weekday, with each day Monday-Thursday having an afternoon class starting at 3:15 and Wednesday having only one class in the morning. This semester, I've got Tuesday and Thursday...
But, yeah, that reworking of my class schedule really throws off the hope that I've got a feel this early for how to navigate my coursework during the week. Check back again in another week I suppose?
At least I know what kind of work's expected of me. A lot of reading. A lot of writing. And only one class that requires me to do graphic design projects.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Making Course Course Corrections (Plus, How to Force Yourself into Commitment)
Today was the first day since this happened where I could be plasmapheresed again. You need to have a lot of protein in your blood if you want to be able to do that, of course, and that means eating something protein-y. Which I didn't get this morning, and so for a bit it was all, well I don't need this done right away. But I had time for it, and so I forced myself into it by buying protein bars when I was at the bookstore. Well, I've got these protein bars so I might as well eat them; well, my protein levels are up, so I might as well head into the Biomat.
That's how I operate, apparently? Have a vague idea of the future, force myself down that path, stick to it because at that point I might as well. It's a lot like the function of all the Zootopia merch I've bought, or the other stuff I purchased at the bookstore at the same time as the protein bars: the binder and reading materials for my new religion course, taking a core religion course now and dropping religion-credit-offering-only Family History. Investing heavily in the new course and course of action, not giving myself time to balk. I mentioned how my religion courses this semester were good for being credit hours, hours doing what it sounds like in taking up time, and were thus further tasks needing to be completed through the week. As if I'm not busy enough already, but
That's how I operate, apparently? Have a vague idea of the future, force myself down that path, stick to it because at that point I might as well. It's a lot like the function of all the Zootopia merch I've bought, or the other stuff I purchased at the bookstore at the same time as the protein bars: the binder and reading materials for my new religion course, taking a core religion course now and dropping religion-credit-offering-only Family History. Investing heavily in the new course and course of action, not giving myself time to balk. I mentioned how my religion courses this semester were good for being credit hours, hours doing what it sounds like in taking up time, and were thus further tasks needing to be completed through the week. As if I'm not busy enough already, but
- Eternal Family actually takes a lot more time to complete the work on than the other class, and
- I'm really not all that busy, I just vacillate between abject panic regarding coursework and totally ignoring doing the coursework. It's like procrastination, but spread out instead of all at the beginning. And that takes up a lot of time.
Regretting switching classes like that comes and goes; right now it's gone, though, and I don't think it's coming back. The professor's got a relaxed timetable for those of us who added the course late, in which we can make up the assignments that we missed this week, so it's nice to know that I'm not only not the only one in this boat, but also that the professor cares about us.
Dropping Family History was hard, and at first it was like, I don't care if I don't need these courses, having religion class in the middle of all this art stuff keeps me sane. But crunching the credits, I'd need a whole semester just for one course, for my degree, if I kept the workload as uneven as it would be without changing anything. The rest of the credits that semester would be just, puff, I guess. Or I could spread out the puff and the requirements between two semesters, which would at least give me an extra semester which I could use to prepare for the BFA thing, but that's hardly elegant.
Though, "hardly elegant" isn't really that strong of an argument against it; I mean it's my BFA application we're talking about here, which can only be submitted twice so make it good, and I'd hate to go in a semester premature because I was too proud to have a bunch of puff credits. I suppose going one semester more than the next is still on the table; I'd have to take up the idea with my faculty mentor.
Friday, April 22, 2016
Every Day a Sweeps Week
One of these days, I'd like a day unmemorable.
I'd been planning for years, no hyperbole, years, to have some sort of thing today about the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes, and, whose life will be commemorated the most here, and, who contributed to like world culture the most or whatever, but whatever, man. Cervantes died under the Gregorian calendar and Shakespeare died under the Julian calendar and everybody goes home very confused whether they did die within one day of each other or not. (It... it looks not?) But, alack, it looks like there's not room for such a discussion today.
I really seriously had been planning on the post for today's slot, ever since this blog began. This is serious. business.
I suppose I should begin with a discussion of what happened yesterday, to make that day so memorable. I've been getting in-depth with how crazy my days all were, all this week until yesterday, when (after such a long day, and with watching serigraphy tutorials on YouTube a priority over posting every detail of my day) I made the post kind of short, only reflecting one aspect of the day.
Thursdays, in my Family History class, aren't a class but a meeting with your group of fellow classmates. At least this week. The 80 students in class are divided into 8 groups of 10 each, meeting up wherever, and reporting the meeting later to prove that they did show up to class. My group (group 8/8) meets in the classroom, as well as group 1/8. This week we had a lesson plan, due right at the 11:30 start of class, turned in through Dropbox, and with a few students of the group randomly selected during the meeting to give their lesson they'd planned. This is all important information to have.
Typography class gets out around 10:45, which leaves about 45 minutes in between that and Family History. 45 minutes for me to finish off my lesson plan and turn it in. Thinking class began at 11:45, I thought I was turning in my lesson plan with plenty of time to spare when I turned it in at exactly 11:30... and so, when I think I notice a formatting error when uploading the file, I un-uploaded it, made sure that the error was corrected, and re-uploaded it. And clicked the turn-in button... only to receive a message saying that the Dropbox folder was now closed. I felt like the moose in Zootopia who got a parking ticket for being 30 seconds over. Only I was, what, 5 seconds over?
Frustrating! I suppose I should hurry to class to catch the professor (my group does after all meet in the classroom) and explain what had happened to him.*
The groups meet alone. The professor wasn't there. Class started at 11:30 of course instead of 11:45 like I'd thought. Though it was still only a few minutes after 11:30, my group had already left for somewhere else, instead of staying in and sharing the room with group 1. Group 1 told me how they'd just left. There was a group gathered outside of the room, who reported how my group had barely gone outside the building. Outside the building... I don't know which way my group had turned, whether to the left or right or what, only turning and going back in to ask the group, that group had just left as well. Five seconds late to everything again, I went back into the classroom, and just grouped with group 1 for this week.
I could explain what had happened to have my paper be late to the professor, and send him the file, over email. And group 1 is the group that the elder that had been my mission is in (Elder Goff; we went to the Pioneer Day concert together.) So things, though complicated, resolve themselves.
Which brings me to today.
I had a meeting with the Academic Advisor's office scheduled for 9:30 this morning, doing just what I did at the beginning of last semester, again, checking to see how I'm going to have to course correct the academic course of my courses, of course, and I will tell you about that hereafter, because its true import only set in really after Drawing class.
Meaning to go see Zootopia this weekend, the showing I could fit into my schedule was the 11:00 a.m.. There'd been a field trip, though, and something about having trouble loading the film?, so that showing had been cancelled... There was still an 11:00 Jungle Book showing though, which of course I've also been meaning to see (two words: Idris Elba one word playing two words Sher Khan) so I caught that. It made me cry at parts that aren't even that sad; I'd say that apparently I cry at all films lately but no, Batman v Superman produced no such lacrimal effect.
King Louie is a gigantopithecus! Played by Christopher Walken! And... he sings? It's very disconcerting, in a film that's not even a musical. I mean, Baloo sings, and explains what songs are, and the Law of the Jungle is like a song, so songs are propaganda, and also kind of like an expression of the soul, and so Christopher Walken singing means that King Louie's soul is corrupt and greedy, all about wanting the power of fire even though he's already the omnipotent king of the primates? Such advanced complexly symbolic characterization would make a lot more sense if King Louie didn't die a few minutes after being introduced with that entire plot tangent thing going nowhere (except for his revelation that Akela had been killed by Sher Khan? But I'm not sure if that had anything to do with his characterization. So, the entire thing's pointless? Oh, wait, wait, Baloo gets to climb... That's ultimately relevant to characterization, right??)
So yeah, Christopher Walken gigantopithecus King Louie, exactly as random as it sounds. (Actually, the more I think about it, the randomer and randomer this movie gets... I mean, just look at the opening Disney production logo, it's all, animated, for some reason.)
From my mission, stockings for the young elders at Christmas, I've had two McDonald's gift cards, each with $5 on them (one of the elders didn't ever look into his stockings he received, and when he shipped out just gave his holiday goodies to me; hence, one gift card from my stocking, and one gift card given me from his.) I decided to use those today, spending the $10 cume on a Big Mac meal and two cheeseburgers. It's McDonald's Monopoly promotion time again, the poor suckers, and the Big Mac of mine whispered a secret into my ear on how to receive, for free, either a double cheeseburger or a buttermilk chicken sandwich, for free. So I cashed that in as well. Total amount of food received: about $15's worth. Total cost to me: $0.
After that, Art 110 meeting. Art 110 is an online course, but with a classroom component? I guess that makes sense. The classroom component is split into three groups, represented by the columns of the tables you're assigned to sit at, depending on whom you've got for your online instructor; there's a pair of classroom instructors who co-teach, and they've got aides, and anyway. Art 110, columns, tables. There's a girl, who turned out to be in my Art 110 class... who turned out to be in my group... who turned out to sit at my table...
Hem.
Art 110 is the last class I've got in the week. After that it's free. I could (tangent to turn in a form I'd begun to fill out yesterday, tangent to help a guy chase down his papers blown away in the breeze, tangent to turn in a wallet to Lost and Found when it turned out that it wasn't something else he also dropped) go home back to the apartment, and get on looking into the things from the Advisor's meeting.
And this is where the day gets interesting.**
Okay, so, those religion classes I'm taking: unnecessary. Being a transfer student, not only do I have all my non-religion foundations already covered from my previous schooling, apparently also there's fewer religion courses required of you. There's the four core religion courses, and from there there's a certain number of credits required as well, right? Neither of my religion classes this semester are of the four core classes; both are of the additional credits classes. The religion classes I've already taken, however, have already covered my required number of credits, and all I need apparently are the core classes.
There's still time to add/drop courses, but... my temple/temple texts course is face-meltingly amazing, and I've already had that experience in Family History class, plus there's the former Elder Goff in there. I'm not not dropping the course for his sake, of course, but it all comes down to whether I do need to drop the course to add a core class.
If I had two more semesters in school, it wouldn't matter, and I could easily take two of the remaining three courses one semester, and the other the other. It comes down to, though, if I DO have two more semesters here...
I want to bump my BA into a BFA, which would of course require more schooling than one semester. I could get the rest of my normal BA credits in in one semester after this, if I do drop one of my religion courses and add one of the core, and take two more courses next semester both core. Beyond that there's the courses I'd already planned on taking next semester. Only...
BFAs require portfolios. My portfolio lacks typography (aka the single most important aspect of graphic design) as of yet, and is pretty bad regardless.
I have a typography course this semester, but also want to take an advanced typography course, which has as a prerequisite a course that has this typography course as a prerequisite. It's going to take two semesters to get to that, a course that counts only for three credits in a category requiring a number of credits from any number of classes, advanced typography or whatever. The advanced typography is not needed, and could be substituted for another course, just for the sake of the BA. Maybe they'll allow me to take it next semester anyway if I explain the situation, but I don't know that.
Speaking of that, I'm planning on taking a printmaking course next semester, am really interested in serigraphy, and feel like I could somehow have my graphic design portfolio be silkscreen-based, especially considering how it's been said my graphic design is strongly reminiscent of screenprints anyway. Only I don't have that printmaking course yet, of course, and that printmaking course probably covers intaglio and lithography and all that as well, with silkscreen printing being only one small slice of the emphasis.
You can only submit a portfolio for BFA twice. With two semesters left, that means I'll have to submit this semester. And, like I said, my portfolio is not strong, and also weak.
If I'm not accepted after this semester's submission, then I'll need to have taken the religion courses required, and have my classes next semester as though I'm going for a plain BA. If I am accepted after this semester's submission, though, then my plans for next semester don't matter anyway, because I'm now going for a BFA and have so many more courses from which to choose.
My religion classes this semester are superfluous, so I could drop them and replace them with something else. But the problem with them is that they exist at all, taking up schoolwork time for them, when I don't need them. I enjoy them to boot.
And I'm pretty sure that tomorrow's the last add/drop day?
So I don't know.
I'd been planning for years, no hyperbole, years, to have some sort of thing today about the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes, and, whose life will be commemorated the most here, and, who contributed to like world culture the most or whatever, but whatever, man. Cervantes died under the Gregorian calendar and Shakespeare died under the Julian calendar and everybody goes home very confused whether they did die within one day of each other or not. (It... it looks not?) But, alack, it looks like there's not room for such a discussion today.
I really seriously had been planning on the post for today's slot, ever since this blog began. This is serious. business.
I suppose I should begin with a discussion of what happened yesterday, to make that day so memorable. I've been getting in-depth with how crazy my days all were, all this week until yesterday, when (after such a long day, and with watching serigraphy tutorials on YouTube a priority over posting every detail of my day) I made the post kind of short, only reflecting one aspect of the day.
Thursdays, in my Family History class, aren't a class but a meeting with your group of fellow classmates. At least this week. The 80 students in class are divided into 8 groups of 10 each, meeting up wherever, and reporting the meeting later to prove that they did show up to class. My group (group 8/8) meets in the classroom, as well as group 1/8. This week we had a lesson plan, due right at the 11:30 start of class, turned in through Dropbox, and with a few students of the group randomly selected during the meeting to give their lesson they'd planned. This is all important information to have.
Typography class gets out around 10:45, which leaves about 45 minutes in between that and Family History. 45 minutes for me to finish off my lesson plan and turn it in. Thinking class began at 11:45, I thought I was turning in my lesson plan with plenty of time to spare when I turned it in at exactly 11:30... and so, when I think I notice a formatting error when uploading the file, I un-uploaded it, made sure that the error was corrected, and re-uploaded it. And clicked the turn-in button... only to receive a message saying that the Dropbox folder was now closed. I felt like the moose in Zootopia who got a parking ticket for being 30 seconds over. Only I was, what, 5 seconds over?
Frustrating! I suppose I should hurry to class to catch the professor (my group does after all meet in the classroom) and explain what had happened to him.*
The groups meet alone. The professor wasn't there. Class started at 11:30 of course instead of 11:45 like I'd thought. Though it was still only a few minutes after 11:30, my group had already left for somewhere else, instead of staying in and sharing the room with group 1. Group 1 told me how they'd just left. There was a group gathered outside of the room, who reported how my group had barely gone outside the building. Outside the building... I don't know which way my group had turned, whether to the left or right or what, only turning and going back in to ask the group, that group had just left as well. Five seconds late to everything again, I went back into the classroom, and just grouped with group 1 for this week.
I could explain what had happened to have my paper be late to the professor, and send him the file, over email. And group 1 is the group that the elder that had been my mission is in (Elder Goff; we went to the Pioneer Day concert together.) So things, though complicated, resolve themselves.
Which brings me to today.
I had a meeting with the Academic Advisor's office scheduled for 9:30 this morning, doing just what I did at the beginning of last semester, again, checking to see how I'm going to have to course correct the academic course of my courses, of course, and I will tell you about that hereafter, because its true import only set in really after Drawing class.
Meaning to go see Zootopia this weekend, the showing I could fit into my schedule was the 11:00 a.m.. There'd been a field trip, though, and something about having trouble loading the film?, so that showing had been cancelled... There was still an 11:00 Jungle Book showing though, which of course I've also been meaning to see (two words: Idris Elba one word playing two words Sher Khan) so I caught that. It made me cry at parts that aren't even that sad; I'd say that apparently I cry at all films lately but no, Batman v Superman produced no such lacrimal effect.
King Louie is a gigantopithecus! Played by Christopher Walken! And... he sings? It's very disconcerting, in a film that's not even a musical. I mean, Baloo sings, and explains what songs are, and the Law of the Jungle is like a song, so songs are propaganda, and also kind of like an expression of the soul, and so Christopher Walken singing means that King Louie's soul is corrupt and greedy, all about wanting the power of fire even though he's already the omnipotent king of the primates? Such advanced complexly symbolic characterization would make a lot more sense if King Louie didn't die a few minutes after being introduced with that entire plot tangent thing going nowhere (except for his revelation that Akela had been killed by Sher Khan? But I'm not sure if that had anything to do with his characterization. So, the entire thing's pointless? Oh, wait, wait, Baloo gets to climb... That's ultimately relevant to characterization, right??)
So yeah, Christopher Walken gigantopithecus King Louie, exactly as random as it sounds. (Actually, the more I think about it, the randomer and randomer this movie gets... I mean, just look at the opening Disney production logo, it's all, animated, for some reason.)
From my mission, stockings for the young elders at Christmas, I've had two McDonald's gift cards, each with $5 on them (one of the elders didn't ever look into his stockings he received, and when he shipped out just gave his holiday goodies to me; hence, one gift card from my stocking, and one gift card given me from his.) I decided to use those today, spending the $10 cume on a Big Mac meal and two cheeseburgers. It's McDonald's Monopoly promotion time again, the poor suckers, and the Big Mac of mine whispered a secret into my ear on how to receive, for free, either a double cheeseburger or a buttermilk chicken sandwich, for free. So I cashed that in as well. Total amount of food received: about $15's worth. Total cost to me: $0.
After that, Art 110 meeting. Art 110 is an online course, but with a classroom component? I guess that makes sense. The classroom component is split into three groups, represented by the columns of the tables you're assigned to sit at, depending on whom you've got for your online instructor; there's a pair of classroom instructors who co-teach, and they've got aides, and anyway. Art 110, columns, tables. There's a girl, who turned out to be in my Art 110 class... who turned out to be in my group... who turned out to sit at my table...
Hem.
Art 110 is the last class I've got in the week. After that it's free. I could (tangent to turn in a form I'd begun to fill out yesterday, tangent to help a guy chase down his papers blown away in the breeze, tangent to turn in a wallet to Lost and Found when it turned out that it wasn't something else he also dropped) go home back to the apartment, and get on looking into the things from the Advisor's meeting.
And this is where the day gets interesting.**
Okay, so, those religion classes I'm taking: unnecessary. Being a transfer student, not only do I have all my non-religion foundations already covered from my previous schooling, apparently also there's fewer religion courses required of you. There's the four core religion courses, and from there there's a certain number of credits required as well, right? Neither of my religion classes this semester are of the four core classes; both are of the additional credits classes. The religion classes I've already taken, however, have already covered my required number of credits, and all I need apparently are the core classes.
There's still time to add/drop courses, but... my temple/temple texts course is face-meltingly amazing, and I've already had that experience in Family History class, plus there's the former Elder Goff in there. I'm not not dropping the course for his sake, of course, but it all comes down to whether I do need to drop the course to add a core class.
If I had two more semesters in school, it wouldn't matter, and I could easily take two of the remaining three courses one semester, and the other the other. It comes down to, though, if I DO have two more semesters here...
I want to bump my BA into a BFA, which would of course require more schooling than one semester. I could get the rest of my normal BA credits in in one semester after this, if I do drop one of my religion courses and add one of the core, and take two more courses next semester both core. Beyond that there's the courses I'd already planned on taking next semester. Only...
BFAs require portfolios. My portfolio lacks typography (aka the single most important aspect of graphic design) as of yet, and is pretty bad regardless.
I have a typography course this semester, but also want to take an advanced typography course, which has as a prerequisite a course that has this typography course as a prerequisite. It's going to take two semesters to get to that, a course that counts only for three credits in a category requiring a number of credits from any number of classes, advanced typography or whatever. The advanced typography is not needed, and could be substituted for another course, just for the sake of the BA. Maybe they'll allow me to take it next semester anyway if I explain the situation, but I don't know that.
Speaking of that, I'm planning on taking a printmaking course next semester, am really interested in serigraphy, and feel like I could somehow have my graphic design portfolio be silkscreen-based, especially considering how it's been said my graphic design is strongly reminiscent of screenprints anyway. Only I don't have that printmaking course yet, of course, and that printmaking course probably covers intaglio and lithography and all that as well, with silkscreen printing being only one small slice of the emphasis.
You can only submit a portfolio for BFA twice. With two semesters left, that means I'll have to submit this semester. And, like I said, my portfolio is not strong, and also weak.
If I'm not accepted after this semester's submission, then I'll need to have taken the religion courses required, and have my classes next semester as though I'm going for a plain BA. If I am accepted after this semester's submission, though, then my plans for next semester don't matter anyway, because I'm now going for a BFA and have so many more courses from which to choose.
My religion classes this semester are superfluous, so I could drop them and replace them with something else. But the problem with them is that they exist at all, taking up schoolwork time for them, when I don't need them. I enjoy them to boot.
And I'm pretty sure that tomorrow's the last add/drop day?
So I don't know.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
(Things) Work (Out) Maybe
And, see, things have ways of resolving themselves and everything works out for the better. The roommate the most disturbed by the squirrel hide (or at least most concerned about the smell and sanitation thereof; I say "disturbed" but of course anyone would flinch back if you shoved into their face something that at first glance appeared living, after they asked you what you've been using up the bathroom for for the past three hours) he, has friends in, another apartment or something I think it was?, and there was something about how being into skinning things I could somehow get a job or something? Like, the kind that pays money?
Which sounds intriguing (that graphic design opening from earlier of course went to a more qualified designer), but I'm kind of right now still getting the feel for how the workflow of this semester's going to go, and, well we'll see what kind of time I'd have for it... Having more than 15 credits is apparently a lot to have, and I have this semester 1 more credit than 15.
That's about as much as I know about it at this point... So, ???. It's not like I really need that much of a job, or money or anything right now, but, I may need money in the future, so, huh. The search does continue, I suppose. We'll, see how much time I have for anything, once class gets into its proper swing.
Which sounds intriguing (that graphic design opening from earlier of course went to a more qualified designer), but I'm kind of right now still getting the feel for how the workflow of this semester's going to go, and, well we'll see what kind of time I'd have for it... Having more than 15 credits is apparently a lot to have, and I have this semester 1 more credit than 15.
That's about as much as I know about it at this point... So, ???. It's not like I really need that much of a job, or money or anything right now, but, I may need money in the future, so, huh. The search does continue, I suppose. We'll, see how much time I have for anything, once class gets into its proper swing.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
That Thing Calvin
It's 4/20 today-- date is somehow significant, isn't that that marijuana thing?, but I only saw it at first as being the date of one week after 4/13. But really, the really interesting thing about it being the 20th is that some of the most popular posts on this blog of all time were published on the 20ths of the last few months... The number one, Foot Selfies, was published on February 20th, and the fifth most, Bearbear Magic User, was published March 20th. And it being April 20th, I'd better have some good post for you, yes?
But no, I think I'll go to bed. I'm super tired, and busy juggling the consequences of having skinned a squirrel carcass in the bathroom today, and I've got homework due for Family History class right before that starts tomorrow morning that I need to get on. And I don't need your freakouts over the squirrel thing, though I suppose if there are, it'd be just one more that I'd need to deal with...
...they're always male, why are they always male, don't any female creatures ever die?, but no every animal corpse I stumble across always had belonged to a dude...
But if I really want to have a top-ten-hits, twentieth-worthy post, I suppose I should tell you about CALVIN, by Martine Leavitt. It's required reading in some course somewhere, apparently, because it was in the bookstore, among the collection of textbooks while I was textbook shopping Monday; I wasn't about to buy it from the bookstore when some kid who had that as required reading might need it instead of me but I saw it and knew I had to read it and I downloaded it to my Kindle ASAP when I got home (by this point the squirrel was already chilling safely in the freezer-- I'd used the bookstore's shopping bag to pick it up and transport it, beforehand transferring the textbooks from the shopping back to the art supply cases containing the required art kits for my design/color and drawing classes.)
Calvin by Martine Leavitt. It's a novel, about exactly what it sounds like. I can't say enough about this, so let me just spew for a bit.The idea of what Calvin would be like without Hobbes is brought up a few times, how incomplete he'd be. Transformative, is a word used to gauge fair use-- and it is, very transformative. It's just so instantly nostalgic, but it doesn't ride on those fumes even a little, standing on its own legs not just as a commentary on Calvin and Hobbes internally, within the fictional canon, but externally, the impact it had on the world, and why it was and why it came to an end.
Never so frequently before have I laughed and cried at the same time. Or had my mind and soul so thoroughly penetrated by a work of fiction. Every time I thought that I understood the significance of the story, the hidden underlying meaning, a few paragraphs later the book not only acknowledged that meaning in words, but also threw in a further twist I didn't see coming.
I'd get into specifics, but I'd hate to spoil anything for you-- I mean, it's not a very long book, by any means. I really want you to read it! I suppose having the plot revealed to you beforehand wouldn't spoil anything, the central concept, but it took my breath away how far the author was willing to go with it. I can't adequately explain what I mean without going super deep into it, though, and, I'm still tired, though the squirrel thing has resolved itself peacefully it seems, now that meanwhile my story has been explained.
But no, I think I'll go to bed. I'm super tired, and busy juggling the consequences of having skinned a squirrel carcass in the bathroom today, and I've got homework due for Family History class right before that starts tomorrow morning that I need to get on. And I don't need your freakouts over the squirrel thing, though I suppose if there are, it'd be just one more that I'd need to deal with...
...they're always male, why are they always male, don't any female creatures ever die?, but no every animal corpse I stumble across always had belonged to a dude...
But if I really want to have a top-ten-hits, twentieth-worthy post, I suppose I should tell you about CALVIN, by Martine Leavitt. It's required reading in some course somewhere, apparently, because it was in the bookstore, among the collection of textbooks while I was textbook shopping Monday; I wasn't about to buy it from the bookstore when some kid who had that as required reading might need it instead of me but I saw it and knew I had to read it and I downloaded it to my Kindle ASAP when I got home (by this point the squirrel was already chilling safely in the freezer-- I'd used the bookstore's shopping bag to pick it up and transport it, beforehand transferring the textbooks from the shopping back to the art supply cases containing the required art kits for my design/color and drawing classes.)
Calvin by Martine Leavitt. It's a novel, about exactly what it sounds like. I can't say enough about this, so let me just spew for a bit.The idea of what Calvin would be like without Hobbes is brought up a few times, how incomplete he'd be. Transformative, is a word used to gauge fair use-- and it is, very transformative. It's just so instantly nostalgic, but it doesn't ride on those fumes even a little, standing on its own legs not just as a commentary on Calvin and Hobbes internally, within the fictional canon, but externally, the impact it had on the world, and why it was and why it came to an end.
Never so frequently before have I laughed and cried at the same time. Or had my mind and soul so thoroughly penetrated by a work of fiction. Every time I thought that I understood the significance of the story, the hidden underlying meaning, a few paragraphs later the book not only acknowledged that meaning in words, but also threw in a further twist I didn't see coming.
 |
| Amazon.com |
I'd get into specifics, but I'd hate to spoil anything for you-- I mean, it's not a very long book, by any means. I really want you to read it! I suppose having the plot revealed to you beforehand wouldn't spoil anything, the central concept, but it took my breath away how far the author was willing to go with it. I can't adequately explain what I mean without going super deep into it, though, and, I'm still tired, though the squirrel thing has resolved itself peacefully it seems, now that meanwhile my story has been explained.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Well Hey What Else but the Second Day of Classes! ...A Lot Else? Alright.
I sat in the Burg for a few hours today, finishing off THAT THING I was telling you about yesterday that I said I'd get to. The Burg is this hamburger place, in this, what's the name of that kind of building... Hold on, I've got the power of Google Maps, here's a picture. And here's one of the Hogi Yogi in 2008, and Shake On in 2012, and I guess that's the way buildings work, that the Moxie building next door to it as well, used to be a Freedom building, and before that Craigo's Pizza, and, time travel using Street View is mind-bending stuff. Like that one car chase in Déjà Vu, only, sans car chase?
Jimmy had a public reading of his creative writing project back on the 5th, which I'd told him I'd make it to but happened to be exactly when my Art 130 project was due... gosh that project; I gave myself a two-hour cushion time to print everything out and mount it, which would surely be more than enough time, right?, but, see you get things done early in case things go wrong, and then things go wrong, and it's down to the wire, and at least you started early and could afford the blows...
So I couldn't make it there then, but I was there today. And had to grab my order as soon as it arrived and rush to Family History class*, making it barely in time for class. And I played the piano (terribly) for the class there**. And went back to the Burg once class was over.
The song "Stressed Out" by twenty one pilots came on the radio not one time but two, while I was there. During spring break at home when we had access to Hannah's twenty one pilots albums, we listened to them-- because, it's so weird having their songs on the radio, with only one song at a time (and only the popular ones,) when we're so used to listening to the songs in their albums in context.†
mm...
I really like the footnotes of yesterday's post. Thought I'd continue them here... I really do elaborately tangent, and fairly frequently. Heck, there's a lot in the body of this post that's a tangent... actually, what even IS the direct point of this post, I think it's ALL tangents... The direct point of this post had been going to be THAT THING, but I guess I didn't even talk about it at all, aside from, tangentially... Well, for extra-tangential tangents, read the footnotes too, I guess.‡
Jimmy had a public reading of his creative writing project back on the 5th, which I'd told him I'd make it to but happened to be exactly when my Art 130 project was due... gosh that project; I gave myself a two-hour cushion time to print everything out and mount it, which would surely be more than enough time, right?, but, see you get things done early in case things go wrong, and then things go wrong, and it's down to the wire, and at least you started early and could afford the blows...
So I couldn't make it there then, but I was there today. And had to grab my order as soon as it arrived and rush to Family History class*, making it barely in time for class. And I played the piano (terribly) for the class there**. And went back to the Burg once class was over.
The song "Stressed Out" by twenty one pilots came on the radio not one time but two, while I was there. During spring break at home when we had access to Hannah's twenty one pilots albums, we listened to them-- because, it's so weird having their songs on the radio, with only one song at a time (and only the popular ones,) when we're so used to listening to the songs in their albums in context.†
mm...
I really like the footnotes of yesterday's post. Thought I'd continue them here... I really do elaborately tangent, and fairly frequently. Heck, there's a lot in the body of this post that's a tangent... actually, what even IS the direct point of this post, I think it's ALL tangents... The direct point of this post had been going to be THAT THING, but I guess I didn't even talk about it at all, aside from, tangentially... Well, for extra-tangential tangents, read the footnotes too, I guess.‡
Monday, April 18, 2016
Well Hey What Else but the First Day of (Spring 2016 Semester) Classes
My night was spent in dreams of having to wake up at 7:00 to make it to class in time. Kept waking up with dreams that it was past 7:00, so check what time is it I'm totally awake and ready for the day, it's 3:30 in the morning, friiig, back to sleep then I guess, because there's nothing better to do. Happened a couple of times; I just stuck with it at 6:34ish and got on with it.
The dream was the latest Mistborn novel, which would be Bands of Mourning in real life but here set not in the old west timeframe but in the forthcoming second Mistborn trilogy, in the 1980s-equivalent era with the technology level advanced. Mistborn-tech internet, in the '80s already, for some reason; programming in HTML5, y'know, just like they had in the '80s!, and I guess starring Hacker Vin instead of Wax and/or Wayne.
It was also a crossover with We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story. (Which I caught on Netflix over Spring Break, and it turned out to be pretty terrible and nowhere near as horrifying as I remember* and, I'm glad I didn't spend the $5 just to have it on DVD...) And it wasn't just the first We're Back!, either, of course. It was the whole dang franchise, because as we all know, totally in real life and not just the dream, that film has almost as many sequels as The Land Before Time. The poster/cover to the book was this tableau with all the characters on it; you can tell when they came in on the franchise by the character design, the dinosaurs getting cooler as the franchise went on, with the dopey cartoony main characters in a bunch in the middle chillin'.
Technically that's the whole Cosmere, by extension, just, casually crossing over like that with the We're Back! franchise. Though it was a crossover with We're Back!, the plot here was more kinda Fern Gully, and the villain was this Smog-like entity ghost-in-the-machine, defeated ultimately kinda like the way Sandra Bullock takes down the Praetorians in The Net, with that bait-and-switch with the virus and having them crash themselves... only here, using that Allomancy-tech '80s era HTML5, of course.
And I remember thinking, huh, that's pretty enjoyable, I guess, but Brandon Sanderson's work to me just seems to get more and more watered-down...
But you want to hear about my first day of classes this semester! Though it was a long day, and there was so much more that went on besides the two classes I attended. Like, a whole bunch of stuff I'm glad I don't have room to get into (so maybe tomorrow,) or, checking into the apartment officially and having a key now, or figuring out the deal with handling leftover Pell grant funds**. First day of schooling, and classes are open to sign up for that had been restricted up to this point; I could sign up for a second religion class like how I'd done last semester.
Two classes today, and also the online courses checked out (supplies for them purchased from the bookstore as well (amount of money spent today: ridiculously much. Purchases that I regret making: not an one. Probability of that being the case had I no Pell grant funds: ???)) Four art classes this semester, and two religion classes, just how it was last semester. Today: one of each.
Art class: Art 201. Like Art 202 from last semester, but as the prequel. Think, The Hobbit to Art History Ren-Pres's Lord of the Rings. Exactly like that, too, meaning, split up into three chunks for some reason, one hour each MWF. Online art classes: one drawing class (only half-online, actually, with meetings on-campus also being held Wednesdays Fridays;) one color and design class (the art supply kit of which costing a little over twice as much as the kit for the drawing course.) Religion class: Ancient Temples and Temple Texts. Which, so far, though we've only had the introduction to the course not like even the introduction to the subject the course is teaching or anything, already seems... you ever had a professor that blew your mind? You ever had a professor that cracked you up? You ever had a professor that did both? Yeah, it's like that. Though, not at the same time, at least not yet... which brings me to...
I've laughed and cried at the same time today. This is one of the things that I said I was glad I didn't have time to get to today. I guess you'll say, what can make me feel this way? I'm leaving it as a cliffhanger for now, because I can't do any justice to it just down here...
The dream was the latest Mistborn novel, which would be Bands of Mourning in real life but here set not in the old west timeframe but in the forthcoming second Mistborn trilogy, in the 1980s-equivalent era with the technology level advanced. Mistborn-tech internet, in the '80s already, for some reason; programming in HTML5, y'know, just like they had in the '80s!, and I guess starring Hacker Vin instead of Wax and/or Wayne.
It was also a crossover with We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story. (Which I caught on Netflix over Spring Break, and it turned out to be pretty terrible and nowhere near as horrifying as I remember* and, I'm glad I didn't spend the $5 just to have it on DVD...) And it wasn't just the first We're Back!, either, of course. It was the whole dang franchise, because as we all know, totally in real life and not just the dream, that film has almost as many sequels as The Land Before Time. The poster/cover to the book was this tableau with all the characters on it; you can tell when they came in on the franchise by the character design, the dinosaurs getting cooler as the franchise went on, with the dopey cartoony main characters in a bunch in the middle chillin'.
Technically that's the whole Cosmere, by extension, just, casually crossing over like that with the We're Back! franchise. Though it was a crossover with We're Back!, the plot here was more kinda Fern Gully, and the villain was this Smog-like entity ghost-in-the-machine, defeated ultimately kinda like the way Sandra Bullock takes down the Praetorians in The Net, with that bait-and-switch with the virus and having them crash themselves... only here, using that Allomancy-tech '80s era HTML5, of course.
And I remember thinking, huh, that's pretty enjoyable, I guess, but Brandon Sanderson's work to me just seems to get more and more watered-down...
But you want to hear about my first day of classes this semester! Though it was a long day, and there was so much more that went on besides the two classes I attended. Like, a whole bunch of stuff I'm glad I don't have room to get into (so maybe tomorrow,) or, checking into the apartment officially and having a key now, or figuring out the deal with handling leftover Pell grant funds**. First day of schooling, and classes are open to sign up for that had been restricted up to this point; I could sign up for a second religion class like how I'd done last semester.
Two classes today, and also the online courses checked out (supplies for them purchased from the bookstore as well (amount of money spent today: ridiculously much. Purchases that I regret making: not an one. Probability of that being the case had I no Pell grant funds: ???)) Four art classes this semester, and two religion classes, just how it was last semester. Today: one of each.
Art class: Art 201. Like Art 202 from last semester, but as the prequel. Think, The Hobbit to Art History Ren-Pres's Lord of the Rings. Exactly like that, too, meaning, split up into three chunks for some reason, one hour each MWF. Online art classes: one drawing class (only half-online, actually, with meetings on-campus also being held Wednesdays Fridays;) one color and design class (the art supply kit of which costing a little over twice as much as the kit for the drawing course.) Religion class: Ancient Temples and Temple Texts. Which, so far, though we've only had the introduction to the course not like even the introduction to the subject the course is teaching or anything, already seems... you ever had a professor that blew your mind? You ever had a professor that cracked you up? You ever had a professor that did both? Yeah, it's like that. Though, not at the same time, at least not yet... which brings me to...
I've laughed and cried at the same time today. This is one of the things that I said I was glad I didn't have time to get to today. I guess you'll say, what can make me feel this way? I'm leaving it as a cliffhanger for now, because I can't do any justice to it just down here...
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Successful Trip
We made it up to Rexburg. And here we are in Rexburg. We traveled from a place, to this place, and, dang, as much as I try to pad this, I really don't have any news other than, we made it here safely. In our apartment, here we are. In this, apartment, which we've been staying in, same apartment from last semester. We're the only ones who've stayed in this particular apartment. Our roommates are all new.
So. Last semester started on a Wednesday; this one starts on Monday, which means that I've class at 7:45 tomorrow morning. That's all the news on that matter as well.
Ryan and Rianne are watching HiSHE and snoggin' on the couch right in front of me, and I'm sitting here hard pressed for anything to write, so I think I'll jus' hit the hay for the night. 7:45 in the morning, I mean, that's pretty early, right? Yeah. Yeah it is. As good an excuse as any to finish this post and get out of here.
...and, feeling kind of guilty for giving you so little today (cummon give me a break I already wrote one blogpost today, for yesterday's post-- but on the other hand, I usually do two posts on Sunday, don't I, whenever I'm actively working on TTDECBA that is) I humbly offer you this as well, the mission blog for my Art 101 teacher from last semester and his wife, who are awesome, and aren't teaching this semester because they're getting ready to serve in Paris France in a few months!
http://geddesmission.blogspot.com/
So yeah. You can look at that if you want.
So. Last semester started on a Wednesday; this one starts on Monday, which means that I've class at 7:45 tomorrow morning. That's all the news on that matter as well.
Ryan and Rianne are watching HiSHE and snoggin' on the couch right in front of me, and I'm sitting here hard pressed for anything to write, so I think I'll jus' hit the hay for the night. 7:45 in the morning, I mean, that's pretty early, right? Yeah. Yeah it is. As good an excuse as any to finish this post and get out of here.
...and, feeling kind of guilty for giving you so little today (cummon give me a break I already wrote one blogpost today, for yesterday's post-- but on the other hand, I usually do two posts on Sunday, don't I, whenever I'm actively working on TTDECBA that is) I humbly offer you this as well, the mission blog for my Art 101 teacher from last semester and his wife, who are awesome, and aren't teaching this semester because they're getting ready to serve in Paris France in a few months!
http://geddesmission.blogspot.com/
So yeah. You can look at that if you want.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
I Still Wasn't Around in the Seventies, Going to See Star Wars or Superman Multiple Times, But that Doesn't Mean I Can't Backdate Posts (To Whenever)
I'm going to pretend that this post's being backdated was deliberate, waiting till the definite end of Saturday (and thus Spring Break Week) to say what I've got to say below:
Now that the week's over, I can say this, that this was the first week since Zootopia came out on the fourth of last month that I did not go see it. It's like back in January, where I missed going to see The Force Awakens for the first week after that came out. Really similar circumstances, actually- first week of missing it, even though I don't go to the theater that often at all (maybe 2 or 3 times a year for all my life up until this point) and missing it because my living circumstances changed, the first week of college then and a week back from college now... Force Awakens is out on DVD now and I've already seen in on Blu-Ray 2 or 3 times that way; The Jungle Book is now the latest Disney movie in theaters; it's going to take more than a month from now for my average watchings of Zootopia to slip back to less than once-per-week since its premier date. Details of circumstance.
So, yeah, that's what I've got to say! Isn't it perfect, that I missed a second post in a week? And isn't it great, that the fact that this post is backlogged is an integral part of the post's purpose, like how half of the post from two (now three) days ago is EDITs? Clearly I am a genius mastermind, instead of just a man who sometimes takes late naps that transition into an actual full night of sleep somewhere in there. Clearly.
Now that the week's over, I can say this, that this was the first week since Zootopia came out on the fourth of last month that I did not go see it. It's like back in January, where I missed going to see The Force Awakens for the first week after that came out. Really similar circumstances, actually- first week of missing it, even though I don't go to the theater that often at all (maybe 2 or 3 times a year for all my life up until this point) and missing it because my living circumstances changed, the first week of college then and a week back from college now... Force Awakens is out on DVD now and I've already seen in on Blu-Ray 2 or 3 times that way; The Jungle Book is now the latest Disney movie in theaters; it's going to take more than a month from now for my average watchings of Zootopia to slip back to less than once-per-week since its premier date. Details of circumstance.
So, yeah, that's what I've got to say! Isn't it perfect, that I missed a second post in a week? And isn't it great, that the fact that this post is backlogged is an integral part of the post's purpose, like how half of the post from two (now three) days ago is EDITs? Clearly I am a genius mastermind, instead of just a man who sometimes takes late naps that transition into an actual full night of sleep somewhere in there. Clearly.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Heads Will Roll! Plus, Markiplier: Four Years of YouTube!
Posts lately: effort put into them- decreasing; pageviews- declining. Yesterday's post, putting time/effort into it, hits go back up, even though only a very few were received for that particular post. Either a coincidence, or a magic Fisher King type deal.
Not that hits matter really; it's not like I even want to make money off of doing this...
Downloaded Adobe Animate (The Animation Program Formerly Known as Flash) today, now that my Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) opens up when I tell it to (it hasn't been doing that lately for some reason, and so I could only open up Adobe programs I'd already downloaded, and even for those couldn't receive any updates.) I haven't actually touched Flash since high school, once for about five minutes, and being horribly confused by it and never touching it since. I've learned a lot about animation since then, viewed some tutorials, learned how to navigate and everything, and I'm already laying down some slick smooth motion picture. Watch this head roll (oh Pathos!):
Okay, getting along with it. Markiplier's video of a few days ago, reflecting on how YouTube has changed ever since he started his channel four years ago (holy crap, this blog has been around longer than Mark Fischbach has been on YouTube!), the change of focus from YouTube as a platform for content creators to make content, to a platform for content creators to make money off of content, the drama and inter-channel sniping caused thereby, has spun my wheels. About, a lot of things- including things that I'd meant to post about earlier in the week!
YouTube's evolution: There's a law, called the rule of first adopters, basically rule 34 applied to all media-- every new medium of communication is going to be used for pornography, as one of the very first uses of the medium. This thought doesn't have to do with pornography, or media; it does have to do with the way that media are pioneered, so it reminded me of that. The shift from YouTube as an intrinsic motivator to create quality content evolving to a motivator extrinsic, maybe that's how platforms work as well. A platform starts off free and adventurous and unprecedented, making up the rules as it goes along, until it discovers the way to operate. Children start out this way, creating art intuitively until they learn the "rules" of drawing. Captain Picard in the first seasons is different from Captain Picard of the later seasons, because the show was still grasping to find out what it meant to be Picard. Animation in television shows evolves quickly from its early days; the pilot episode of Friendship is Magic has a much looser style of animation than later episodes, because the horizon was wide open in the beginning.
Drama, and not being a jerk: I was going to bring this up as some tangent involving Doctor Strange, but didn't...: You don't lose much respect for someone when they profess a love of something you loathe, but you lose respect for them when they loathe something you love. Or, that's how I feel about it. You can't begrudge someone's fanship of anything, but someone disliking something that's clearly awesome, that person's an imbecile. Don't call things overrated, call other things underrated. We're all happy. Don't say Big Bang Theory is overrated. Say, you know what's underrated? Community. Fan of the Hunger Games series, eh? If you like that, you know what's underrated, Battle Royale.
YouTube as a platform: I'm not saying, from either of those above points, that YouTube is dead as a platform, of course, or even broken, from its drama to its economic model to whatever. It's fine. What I do say is this. Maybe we need to keep evolving, discovering and creating new platforms, where there are no rules yet, tropes so rigidly defined we don't think to question them. Science fiction always imagines the future, but can only extrapolate from the present. What if the science you're taking for granted is vastly off? That's a good thing. It means that you created something that could only have been produced at that point in time, something entirely unique.
YouTube YouTube YouTube?: I'd been meaning to bring this up recently as well, somewhere. If I do ever watch Zootopia 365 times in a row (that's, a lot of times) I think I'd vlog it instead of blog it. I mentioned above I'm not really planning on making money off of this blog, but I think it would be nice to receive some sort of monetary compensation for putting myself through such an insane task, and, hey, YouTubers make money. I could invite guests, celebrities YouTubers friends whatever, to watch with me, and we could have banter, and talk about what strikes us from this particular viewing. And it'd be an actual job, because I'd be making money off of it, so it wouldn't be just some crazy gauntlet to pass through for only nominal and arbitrary reasons.
But, turns out that even though Mom won't be paying for any of my tuition or rent or anything this next semester (seeing as how I blew all the money from home on more Zootopia tickets, WORTH IT,) I don't need any of that money, from home or YouTube or anything, right now, because my Pell Grant came through today, which means I'm monetarily solid, at least right now...
Not that hits matter really; it's not like I even want to make money off of doing this...
Downloaded Adobe Animate (The Animation Program Formerly Known as Flash) today, now that my Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) opens up when I tell it to (it hasn't been doing that lately for some reason, and so I could only open up Adobe programs I'd already downloaded, and even for those couldn't receive any updates.) I haven't actually touched Flash since high school, once for about five minutes, and being horribly confused by it and never touching it since. I've learned a lot about animation since then, viewed some tutorials, learned how to navigate and everything, and I'm already laying down some slick smooth motion picture. Watch this head roll (oh Pathos!):
Outta sight.
Okay, getting along with it. Markiplier's video of a few days ago, reflecting on how YouTube has changed ever since he started his channel four years ago (holy crap, this blog has been around longer than Mark Fischbach has been on YouTube!), the change of focus from YouTube as a platform for content creators to make content, to a platform for content creators to make money off of content, the drama and inter-channel sniping caused thereby, has spun my wheels. About, a lot of things- including things that I'd meant to post about earlier in the week!
YouTube's evolution: There's a law, called the rule of first adopters, basically rule 34 applied to all media-- every new medium of communication is going to be used for pornography, as one of the very first uses of the medium. This thought doesn't have to do with pornography, or media; it does have to do with the way that media are pioneered, so it reminded me of that. The shift from YouTube as an intrinsic motivator to create quality content evolving to a motivator extrinsic, maybe that's how platforms work as well. A platform starts off free and adventurous and unprecedented, making up the rules as it goes along, until it discovers the way to operate. Children start out this way, creating art intuitively until they learn the "rules" of drawing. Captain Picard in the first seasons is different from Captain Picard of the later seasons, because the show was still grasping to find out what it meant to be Picard. Animation in television shows evolves quickly from its early days; the pilot episode of Friendship is Magic has a much looser style of animation than later episodes, because the horizon was wide open in the beginning.
Drama, and not being a jerk: I was going to bring this up as some tangent involving Doctor Strange, but didn't...: You don't lose much respect for someone when they profess a love of something you loathe, but you lose respect for them when they loathe something you love. Or, that's how I feel about it. You can't begrudge someone's fanship of anything, but someone disliking something that's clearly awesome, that person's an imbecile. Don't call things overrated, call other things underrated. We're all happy. Don't say Big Bang Theory is overrated. Say, you know what's underrated? Community. Fan of the Hunger Games series, eh? If you like that, you know what's underrated, Battle Royale.
YouTube as a platform: I'm not saying, from either of those above points, that YouTube is dead as a platform, of course, or even broken, from its drama to its economic model to whatever. It's fine. What I do say is this. Maybe we need to keep evolving, discovering and creating new platforms, where there are no rules yet, tropes so rigidly defined we don't think to question them. Science fiction always imagines the future, but can only extrapolate from the present. What if the science you're taking for granted is vastly off? That's a good thing. It means that you created something that could only have been produced at that point in time, something entirely unique.
YouTube YouTube YouTube?: I'd been meaning to bring this up recently as well, somewhere. If I do ever watch Zootopia 365 times in a row (that's, a lot of times) I think I'd vlog it instead of blog it. I mentioned above I'm not really planning on making money off of this blog, but I think it would be nice to receive some sort of monetary compensation for putting myself through such an insane task, and, hey, YouTubers make money. I could invite guests, celebrities YouTubers friends whatever, to watch with me, and we could have banter, and talk about what strikes us from this particular viewing. And it'd be an actual job, because I'd be making money off of it, so it wouldn't be just some crazy gauntlet to pass through for only nominal and arbitrary reasons.
But, turns out that even though Mom won't be paying for any of my tuition or rent or anything this next semester (seeing as how I blew all the money from home on more Zootopia tickets, WORTH IT,) I don't need any of that money, from home or YouTube or anything, right now, because my Pell Grant came through today, which means I'm monetarily solid, at least right now...
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Garbage Ship Will Do
Missing the first post in more than a hundred days a few days ago, and being okay with that, has got me thinking... Well, this spring break, being at home, with family and things to do thereby, as well as, it being the week of 413 as well, (though that's declined not having made that mad Homestuck rush in time for the end (also because of the internet outage) and now being able to take it more leisurelyly,) not really having usual time for blogging, and just coming out with these little rabbit droppings to pad out the post-per-day format... I think I prefer quality of post, over reliability.
Meaning, I'm okay with having missed a day, and would rather miss more days in the future than continue with, a post comprised solely of a GIF of a budgie engaging in action-movie spectacle, which is awesome but I should be blogging in-depth about how rad it is to be in Ireland (not that that's too bad; I'm pretty sure that comes later, when I'm not hypothetically being in Ireland and have time for that sort of thing?) There's a chance for such quality there, as well as with what I've actually been doing this week and posting about, but not even striving for that quality, it's better not to post.
Not that runaway dogs aren't a quality post either, and I do place high regard for the reliability of posting as well, so yes I'd definitely work to make a post quality before just abandoning the prospect of posting for the day.
Argh, this post is a piece of garbage so far; if I do post it up, I wonder which way it'll prove toward.
"Garbage," there, I named the post, and it is now posted. Millennium Falcon reference (and I'd been scrambling for a GIF of it taking off from Jakku or something, before I realized there wasn't time and it was already midnight.) The "ship" part makes less sense, outside of the Star Wars thing... Who's being shipped, now? I'm thinking, Finnick x, Gideon... which I just came up with right just before starting this paragraph, but now can't get out of my head for obvious reasons...
That last paragraph, and this one, and the one below, these three whole last paragraphs, are something of an EDIT, if it weren't obvious, but written just a few minutes after the post went up right before midnight. My application of tagging post-posting material as being 'edit' is somewhat schizoid, but I use as a baseline whether the final post made holistic sense in its original form, slash, if I was satisfied with it. The post Interesting Times of a few weeks ago I rearranged like crazy several times for a while after it had already been posted, for example, without marking anything as EDIT, while the post the very next day I did mark with an EDIT; I started off unsatisfied with the former and tweaked it until it aligned with my original vision even after it had been made public, and the latter was complete but with one or two factual errors I discovered I needed to address after the fact.
In this case, the last three paragraphs being appended on as EDITs unmarked until surreptitiously in the second of the three, the integrity of the whole post depends on the EDITs being part of the body itself, but also separate from it at the same time-- an after-the-fact commentary of the post, an immediate acknowledgement of its publication that can't be made any other way except internally. It needs to be separate yet integrated, and well anyway, here it is. I think the post is much better for it, now, not to mention now more than twice as long. And I would've just let the rabbit droppings sit (garbage ship'll do,) if it weren't for coming up with seriously, Finnick x Gideon, I can't get that out of my head.
Meaning, I'm okay with having missed a day, and would rather miss more days in the future than continue with, a post comprised solely of a GIF of a budgie engaging in action-movie spectacle, which is awesome but I should be blogging in-depth about how rad it is to be in Ireland (not that that's too bad; I'm pretty sure that comes later, when I'm not hypothetically being in Ireland and have time for that sort of thing?) There's a chance for such quality there, as well as with what I've actually been doing this week and posting about, but not even striving for that quality, it's better not to post.
Not that runaway dogs aren't a quality post either, and I do place high regard for the reliability of posting as well, so yes I'd definitely work to make a post quality before just abandoning the prospect of posting for the day.
Argh, this post is a piece of garbage so far; if I do post it up, I wonder which way it'll prove toward.
"Garbage," there, I named the post, and it is now posted. Millennium Falcon reference (and I'd been scrambling for a GIF of it taking off from Jakku or something, before I realized there wasn't time and it was already midnight.) The "ship" part makes less sense, outside of the Star Wars thing... Who's being shipped, now? I'm thinking, Finnick x, Gideon... which I just came up with right just before starting this paragraph, but now can't get out of my head for obvious reasons...
That last paragraph, and this one, and the one below, these three whole last paragraphs, are something of an EDIT, if it weren't obvious, but written just a few minutes after the post went up right before midnight. My application of tagging post-posting material as being 'edit' is somewhat schizoid, but I use as a baseline whether the final post made holistic sense in its original form, slash, if I was satisfied with it. The post Interesting Times of a few weeks ago I rearranged like crazy several times for a while after it had already been posted, for example, without marking anything as EDIT, while the post the very next day I did mark with an EDIT; I started off unsatisfied with the former and tweaked it until it aligned with my original vision even after it had been made public, and the latter was complete but with one or two factual errors I discovered I needed to address after the fact.
In this case, the last three paragraphs being appended on as EDITs unmarked until surreptitiously in the second of the three, the integrity of the whole post depends on the EDITs being part of the body itself, but also separate from it at the same time-- an after-the-fact commentary of the post, an immediate acknowledgement of its publication that can't be made any other way except internally. It needs to be separate yet integrated, and well anyway, here it is. I think the post is much better for it, now, not to mention now more than twice as long. And I would've just let the rabbit droppings sit (garbage ship'll do,) if it weren't for coming up with seriously, Finnick x Gideon, I can't get that out of my head.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Benedict Cumberbatch's Hand is a Ghost: the Movie!
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| (source: disney.com) |
Okay so our dog appears to have escaped the yard and wandered off... It happens, but, usually she comes back, or we're able to track her down within a few minutes... It's been hours now. It's usually pretty easy, so we didn't really try all that hard to go looking for her at the start, and now it's too late for that...
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
You'll Believe a Wolf Can Fly, By Spinning His Tail Like a Propeller!
I was ready and willing to spend all of yesterday blasting through Homestuck, which I hadn't been following up until recently when it transpired that the webcomic would be coming to an end Wednesday April 13th 2016, and which I've been scrambling like mad to complete since then. There was an actual possibility that I'd be able to make it through the archives in time for Act 7's execution, if I spent all of the day and good chunks of the next days reading like crazy (it's a loooooooong webcomic.)
Only yesterday, the meshuggah internet was down.
So I'm taking a more relaxed pace from here on out. As of this writing, Homestuck is indeed completed, and don't nobody spoil the ending for me, a'ight?
So I didn't get a post up yesterday, the first time missing a post in more than 100 days. It's all written and everything, part of my original suite of my seeming turmoil over morality (nothing truly tumultuous, though; just my first time admitting any of that out loud.) I'll be sure to get that post up when I'm finished polishing it? Though if it weren't for the time constraints and the need to post things up by the end of the day, I doubt any of that so far would have made it to press (?), take that away and well...
Instead of reading or writing, I figured I could now at least spend my time on productive stuff, such as this silly thing!
Sunday, April 10, 2016
III, Tin Woodman
Ethics is situational; entirely situational.
Morality isn't.
Defining ethics from a viewpoint of human interaction and morality from a viewpoint of, good and evil-- or, not necessarily good and evil, but right and wrong, at least. The world is far from righteous, but is it evil? We can't say it's "evil" to, covet, can we? How about stealing? Murder? Is murder evil? Has the holocaust completely ruined us, that we think that "evil" has to be on a grand scale now? Evil can be smaller, true, but I'd still place all the crap (most of the crap, at least, there's still sickening levels of, human trafficking and everything, that I'd classify as evil) as just, wickedness?
This is downright cheery, sorry. Let's see, I believe I was talking about loving people like God says, but then finding them right-ish about whatever it is they do, and being torn about that? This, this isn't about that right now. I think it may be about the opposite this time.
People have, kneejerk reactions to things, yeah? You can divert a trolley, to hit a dude while saving those 5 other dudes, but you don't push a dude onto the tracks in front of the trolley, even if the same end would be reached. People have kneejerk reactions to morality, and then struggle to explain their reasoning-- we don't have moral reasoning, says Jonathan Haidt, but moral rationalization.
But when I hear the trolley problem my mind immediately goes to a rational ground: there's no way I'm gonna be able to push that guy off the platform onto the tracks below. Does a man steal medicine to save his dying wife? Not from the pharmaceutical company; that's too well guarded! The pharmacy has cameras everywhere. He'd need to steal it from somebody's bathroom cupboard, but how the heck would he even have known the medicine was there in the first place? There's no way he's gonna get that medicine. This isn't even a moral issue!
I suppose then that I reason instead of rationalize. Which is... is a good thing? It has to be, but it's not the way that *most people* deal with morality... and I think that makes them amoral. But my medicine logic morality has nothing to do with morality, so does that make moral reasoners amoral as well?
What even is morality, you guys, if either way to arrive at it, doesn't?
Rad tangent!: not being kneejerk, having reasons before instead of after action, the reason why I do anything haunts me, is it for myself or to bless others? Do I have reasons or justifications? As an artist, that's a problem I've thought about and discussed a lot previously. Pretend I link to some of those posts here!
Homework for this post. Read this article! The Moral Instinct! Probably should have required it at the end of some previous article already; that's okay. A lot of what I talk about here is covered there, plus so much more.
Morality isn't.
Defining ethics from a viewpoint of human interaction and morality from a viewpoint of, good and evil-- or, not necessarily good and evil, but right and wrong, at least. The world is far from righteous, but is it evil? We can't say it's "evil" to, covet, can we? How about stealing? Murder? Is murder evil? Has the holocaust completely ruined us, that we think that "evil" has to be on a grand scale now? Evil can be smaller, true, but I'd still place all the crap (most of the crap, at least, there's still sickening levels of, human trafficking and everything, that I'd classify as evil) as just, wickedness?
This is downright cheery, sorry. Let's see, I believe I was talking about loving people like God says, but then finding them right-ish about whatever it is they do, and being torn about that? This, this isn't about that right now. I think it may be about the opposite this time.
People have, kneejerk reactions to things, yeah? You can divert a trolley, to hit a dude while saving those 5 other dudes, but you don't push a dude onto the tracks in front of the trolley, even if the same end would be reached. People have kneejerk reactions to morality, and then struggle to explain their reasoning-- we don't have moral reasoning, says Jonathan Haidt, but moral rationalization.
But when I hear the trolley problem my mind immediately goes to a rational ground: there's no way I'm gonna be able to push that guy off the platform onto the tracks below. Does a man steal medicine to save his dying wife? Not from the pharmaceutical company; that's too well guarded! The pharmacy has cameras everywhere. He'd need to steal it from somebody's bathroom cupboard, but how the heck would he even have known the medicine was there in the first place? There's no way he's gonna get that medicine. This isn't even a moral issue!
I suppose then that I reason instead of rationalize. Which is... is a good thing? It has to be, but it's not the way that *most people* deal with morality... and I think that makes them amoral. But my medicine logic morality has nothing to do with morality, so does that make moral reasoners amoral as well?
What even is morality, you guys, if either way to arrive at it, doesn't?
Rad tangent!: not being kneejerk, having reasons before instead of after action, the reason why I do anything haunts me, is it for myself or to bless others? Do I have reasons or justifications? As an artist, that's a problem I've thought about and discussed a lot previously. Pretend I link to some of those posts here!
Homework for this post. Read this article! The Moral Instinct! Probably should have required it at the end of some previous article already; that's okay. A lot of what I talk about here is covered there, plus so much more.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Tame Collars! (I, Tin Woodman II?)
I... pfff.
I had this nice little follow-up to yesterday's post all planned out, continuing my, whatever the heck it was, about morality or whatever crap like that, not that it was crap, morality's not crap and I'm sure whatever it was I had to say was fairly dope, but I'm not even checking right now, because I know it's not the direction that I should really be spinning off on, and that's just some other post entirely now. I caught Imagining Zootopia today, and... and, well, dang,there's a lot in yesterday's post that was just set-up for my real original point, but I think it'd be alright to change focus for a bit to those initially incidental things.
A discussion of morality here, even in a different context from the original intent, leads to a tangent, with all my ideas three-quarters-baked at best, so I'll just say this: I mentioned General Conference, the LDS faith. Historically persecuted, persecuted in the present (though it comes and goes; lately there's been a rash of vandalism to churches it seems, alright just two incidents but both quite recently) because seen as persecutor (do those who call themselves tolerant, in shutting down those deemed intolerant, advancing the causes of tolerance?)which is it, God can say, -- now that same-sex marriage is legalized across the board, have we gone back to being harmless, I don't know, but-- Zootopia makes it clear that both predators and prey have their biases, and it's possible to be both, even as a divine institution, being led by imperfect people.
Preds in the original Zootopia drafts were given the "tame collars" ostensibly not to keep them subservient to prey, but to keep them in line for their own benefit, as a regulator for emotions to keep them from getting too, predatory, so that everyone can be happy and equal and nobody-lives-in-fear-hooray. You get angry, you get a zap. You get frustrated, you get a zap. You get excited, you get a zap.
It's really wild and sociologically lopsided and Harrison Bergeron-esque, how the attempt at homogenization of society only serves to exacerbate the differences; it's only the preds after all that get the collars, only preds who are expected by society to be incapable of autoregulation. We all live in paranoia! You of us, and us of, both you and ourselves! Politically (and this applies to the final draft as well, just highlighted here in these early drafts) it's like the race debate and the gun control debate had a kid, in which the minority race is born with guns for hands. Though I'm not sure how much sense that makes.
The idea of such a tame collar is hypothetically effective of course; in reality from what I've read about these kinds of practices studied in real life, the body and subconscious mind would quickly readjust itself to fit inside the parameters set for it, or in other words not only would the collar work but it would work too well.
Peeling back the layers away from that (and this is where we really dig into the themes brought up yesterday) with the emotionally numbing effect of the collar, it's this cultural assumption that emotion bad!! Like the introduction to yesterday's post, how people freak out when others show emotion, try to smother that like however. By saying I don't like your having negative emotions, you're in essence saying I don't like you having emotion at all, stop feeling things. It's not wrong to comfort others, but the way we go about it can reveal a cultural attitude (I think) not to regulate emotion, but to suppress it entirely.
And, though we're dealing with animals, which animals would be more human? Those who go through life unfeeling, lest they suffer the consequences of their displays of emotion? Or those who do feel, yet willingly perperate that system?
I had this nice little follow-up to yesterday's post all planned out, continuing my, whatever the heck it was, about morality or whatever crap like that, not that it was crap, morality's not crap and I'm sure whatever it was I had to say was fairly dope, but I'm not even checking right now, because I know it's not the direction that I should really be spinning off on, and that's just some other post entirely now. I caught Imagining Zootopia today, and... and, well, dang,there's a lot in yesterday's post that was just set-up for my real original point, but I think it'd be alright to change focus for a bit to those initially incidental things.
A discussion of morality here, even in a different context from the original intent, leads to a tangent, with all my ideas three-quarters-baked at best, so I'll just say this: I mentioned General Conference, the LDS faith. Historically persecuted, persecuted in the present (though it comes and goes; lately there's been a rash of vandalism to churches it seems, alright just two incidents but both quite recently) because seen as persecutor (do those who call themselves tolerant, in shutting down those deemed intolerant, advancing the causes of tolerance?)which is it, God can say, -- now that same-sex marriage is legalized across the board, have we gone back to being harmless, I don't know, but-- Zootopia makes it clear that both predators and prey have their biases, and it's possible to be both, even as a divine institution, being led by imperfect people.
Preds in the original Zootopia drafts were given the "tame collars" ostensibly not to keep them subservient to prey, but to keep them in line for their own benefit, as a regulator for emotions to keep them from getting too, predatory, so that everyone can be happy and equal and nobody-lives-in-fear-hooray. You get angry, you get a zap. You get frustrated, you get a zap. You get excited, you get a zap.
It's really wild and sociologically lopsided and Harrison Bergeron-esque, how the attempt at homogenization of society only serves to exacerbate the differences; it's only the preds after all that get the collars, only preds who are expected by society to be incapable of autoregulation. We all live in paranoia! You of us, and us of, both you and ourselves! Politically (and this applies to the final draft as well, just highlighted here in these early drafts) it's like the race debate and the gun control debate had a kid, in which the minority race is born with guns for hands. Though I'm not sure how much sense that makes.
The idea of such a tame collar is hypothetically effective of course; in reality from what I've read about these kinds of practices studied in real life, the body and subconscious mind would quickly readjust itself to fit inside the parameters set for it, or in other words not only would the collar work but it would work too well.
Peeling back the layers away from that (and this is where we really dig into the themes brought up yesterday) with the emotionally numbing effect of the collar, it's this cultural assumption that emotion bad!! Like the introduction to yesterday's post, how people freak out when others show emotion, try to smother that like however. By saying I don't like your having negative emotions, you're in essence saying I don't like you having emotion at all, stop feeling things. It's not wrong to comfort others, but the way we go about it can reveal a cultural attitude (I think) not to regulate emotion, but to suppress it entirely.
And, though we're dealing with animals, which animals would be more human? Those who go through life unfeeling, lest they suffer the consequences of their displays of emotion? Or those who do feel, yet willingly perperate that system?
Friday, April 8, 2016
I, Tin Woodman
The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.
"You people with hearts," he said, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn't mind so much."
-L Frank Baum, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"I'm splitting this big long honking thing up, and getting over my inhibitions about polishing it up and showing it to the world. It's late, and stuff, and Mom said how people freak out when she wonders about things, like, she's freaking out about those things when she's not, which is just exactly the thing that had been holding me back till now. But it can happen to my mom, so. Sometime's people's understandings is the last thing you want, because you know that they'll be misunderstandings.
We fight because we think we understand each other, though if we truly did, we wouldn't be fighting. We misunderstand, and attack our misunderstanding of the other's argument. Maybe we close our minds to understanding altogether, I don't know. That's certainly the case when we try to "win" an argument.
So we're not always honest all the time. We don't broach subjects, not because of any taboo of them, though it amounts to the same thing. Not being 100% honest is of course not the same as being at all dishonest, but it's stifling. Truth is freedom, and concern can be a restriction. So, cards on the table-- I struggle with this whole morality thing. Not immorality, don't struggle with that, but intellectually, morality, I wonder often about the definition of it; I haven't brought it up till now because, I'm afraid that someone might freak out.
So not being 100% honest is a moral issue; and I'm hesitant on posting this, so-- I've got morality! oh joyous. Because the thing I'm never as honest as I'd like to be, the topic I've been hesitant in broaching, is morality, and how I fear sometimes that I don't have it. In a traditional sense. Even as the world's ideas of morality continue to divorce from the Church's, it sometimes feels like wherever I'm at, it's closer to the world's ideas, but also still so very far away.
That's what I was listening for during Conference over last weekend. How our duty is when dealing with enemies of God's Kingdom, who don't even have to be "enemies," of course, but, more like, the world. Well-meaning people, but maybe misguided, I don't know. As for answers to that question, I caught a mention of tolerance of others in there somewhere-- could that be it? Obviously. It's what we've always preached, and tried to practice. But as the world's idea of tolerance includes shutting down the intolerant as though that would somehow advance tolerance's purposes, God's idea is to love someone but disallow all sin. But I can't love someone and have a different set of morality from their own.
As religionists, we think we have all the answers-- and that is, because that's true. We do have all the answers. But we think that we understand them.
We say, some of my best friends are X. Some of Jesus's best friends were hookers.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
That Short Film
The short film that was partially shot in our apartment, it's been up on YouTube, but (maybe because this is the last night we're spending in the apartment until Spring Semester?)(and also definitely because I need a post today and am still too self-conscious about posting up my other thing, though that's basically finished) I'm posting it here now.
That is not it, of course. For right now, it's the audio track of Coldplay's "Amsterdam," because I don't know the exact name of the video to search for it, and trying to speak up and ask it, my (still at this point hypothetical) selective mutism kicks in, and nobody dang signs around this joint, even if I could get someone to look at me. So I can't even be anything but, dead on the surface, though I am screaming underneath...
When I do know the name of the film it'll be in that slot above where the Coldplay thing is posted now.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
This Weird Puppet Sloth Thing
I'm done with the semester, save this thing due Friday at noon which is just an assembled file of all the modules from my Art 130 class compiled together, which I can do at basically any time so don't need to sweat. Yeah, so, all the work is done now. Didn't have time at all for working on that big essay whatever post, playing Smash Bros and watching Casablanca at Jimmy's this evening, so I don't have that. But I do have this video that I didn't have excuse to put up in yesterday's post?
I probably wouldn't have given this one much second thought to share out of all the Zootopia reviews/fan vids I've been watching, except for 1) yay for weird puppet things, and 2) it's especially funny, seeing as how I'd just watched this TEDx video a few videos beforehand in my "watch later" queue, where Adam Carroll talks about the abstractification of money into magic plastic cards, and pointing to the fact that nobody pays for groceries with checks...
So there's that.
I probably wouldn't have given this one much second thought to share out of all the Zootopia reviews/fan vids I've been watching, except for 1) yay for weird puppet things, and 2) it's especially funny, seeing as how I'd just watched this TEDx video a few videos beforehand in my "watch later" queue, where Adam Carroll talks about the abstractification of money into magic plastic cards, and pointing to the fact that nobody pays for groceries with checks...
So there's that.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Compromise, Finals Week, and Ratchetness's "Zootopia Movie Review: The Articulation of Fear, Optimism & Discrimination"
I've got this big epic old post written, been working on it since Friday-Saturday, pouring a solid post's worth of effort into it each day since then... and it's still never done yet, so I just crap out a post about how tough finals are, or whatever, each time. Compromise!
Finals-- are they tough? Not really? I got a 97% on my Art 101 final (congratulations son we're so proud of you); that's the only class that I've really got finals in... Art 101 is the only class that has tests in the testing center.I think there's something that needs to be done in Art 125, but it looked... fluffy, actually, and isn't due until tomorrow. Things is still busy (I'd meant to type are, but I'm rolling with it) but they're pretty easy from here on out. But still busy. I've got loads of things I want to post on my other blog, but am waiting until tomorrow to do so.
In the meantime, still too busy to have yet caught Imagining Zootopia, I can at least recommend one or two (or, one, for now) Zootopia reviews/analyses which friggin' make me wish for a YouTube "love" button.
Finals-- are they tough? Not really? I got a 97% on my Art 101 final (congratulations son we're so proud of you); that's the only class that I've really got finals in... Art 101 is the only class that has tests in the testing center.I think there's something that needs to be done in Art 125, but it looked... fluffy, actually, and isn't due until tomorrow. Things is still busy (I'd meant to type are, but I'm rolling with it) but they're pretty easy from here on out. But still busy. I've got loads of things I want to post on my other blog, but am waiting until tomorrow to do so.
In the meantime, still too busy to have yet caught Imagining Zootopia, I can at least recommend one or two (or, one, for now) Zootopia reviews/analyses which friggin' make me wish for a YouTube "love" button.
Ah, shipping humor...
Monday, April 4, 2016
Living in the Future (and the Future Sucks)
We're living in the future. That's what they said in my Pearl of Great Price class when they say my painted nails; that's what I've been thinking on a lot today. We live in the future and it sucks.
It's finals, and the line into the testing center, I saw as I was trying to make my way through, goes from the center, down the hall, up the stairs, loops around the cafeteria, down the stairs and back up again somehow, and extends almost all the way into the library where it ends, or begins, or however we describe our queuing terminology. I'd read an article on Bitcoins in WIRED just before passing through, and was thinking a lot about the future of this technology, and applications of "mining" and crowdsourcing, so even this line, with its people in it, seemed high-tech and futuristic. But long lines for finals isn't why the future sucks, of course.
From there, squirting through holes in the folding-back-in-on-itself line (there's a fancy word for that, but it's slipping from my grasp right now) I passed through the university bookstore. Looking at the GoPros, maybe I want to be a YouTuber or something, do YouTube reviews of YouTube reviews of Zootopia; this is the future; I look and I see behind that there's Samsung VR Oculus technology now on display, (didn't Google have this thing with Cardboard?) which I don't check out because this is the future and the future already sucks. I barely even know what Instagram is, and now you're throwing VR at me, world?
Of course, the only reason I read the news is for the interesting stories; 99% of time current events either pass into common knowledge soon enough, or wind up not mattering in the end.
Do I have more to say? Is 24 the new 60? I have no classes tomorrow morning, which means I can get on some serious final-ing (no actual finals here, anymore, though, just more homework. And finals, of course.)
IMAGINING ZOOTOPIA WATCH
The documentary Imagining Zootopia, 2 years in the making, premieres tomorrow night at 8 pm on Fusion! A Disney-owned network, so this is like 100% legit.
It's finals, and the line into the testing center, I saw as I was trying to make my way through, goes from the center, down the hall, up the stairs, loops around the cafeteria, down the stairs and back up again somehow, and extends almost all the way into the library where it ends, or begins, or however we describe our queuing terminology. I'd read an article on Bitcoins in WIRED just before passing through, and was thinking a lot about the future of this technology, and applications of "mining" and crowdsourcing, so even this line, with its people in it, seemed high-tech and futuristic. But long lines for finals isn't why the future sucks, of course.
From there, squirting through holes in the folding-back-in-on-itself line (there's a fancy word for that, but it's slipping from my grasp right now) I passed through the university bookstore. Looking at the GoPros, maybe I want to be a YouTuber or something, do YouTube reviews of YouTube reviews of Zootopia; this is the future; I look and I see behind that there's Samsung VR Oculus technology now on display, (didn't Google have this thing with Cardboard?) which I don't check out because this is the future and the future already sucks. I barely even know what Instagram is, and now you're throwing VR at me, world?
Of course, the only reason I read the news is for the interesting stories; 99% of time current events either pass into common knowledge soon enough, or wind up not mattering in the end.
Do I have more to say? Is 24 the new 60? I have no classes tomorrow morning, which means I can get on some serious final-ing (no actual finals here, anymore, though, just more homework. And finals, of course.)
IMAGINING ZOOTOPIA WATCH
The documentary Imagining Zootopia, 2 years in the making, premieres tomorrow night at 8 pm on Fusion! A Disney-owned network, so this is like 100% legit.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Polishes!
The morality of Conference weekend is so weird. Sunday conference, and though it's the sabbath it isn't structured like one, and doesn't feel like one, and though it's General Conference time which should be supernally spiritual, we abandon that sabbathy stuff just because there's no church today. Not that I don't also do this or anything. It's just, something. Really quite.
Painted nails, also. Another LDS General Conference tradition. I'm not sure why fingernail polish is seen as a lady-ing thing. I think it's crazy and random and arbitrary, that we take our demi-vestigial claws and decorate them, but I do find that awesome. Why the flying fuzzball would this practice be strictly effeminative? I can see wearing dresses, and all that, but, the more arbitrary the ornamentation the more arbitrary the cultural rules governing it. My fingernails look great. Really gorgeous solid black color, with a layer of gloss over that, and then a layer of glitter-gloss over that. It's like my fingers are dressed in sweet little tuxes or something.
Painted nails, also. Another LDS General Conference tradition. I'm not sure why fingernail polish is seen as a lady-ing thing. I think it's crazy and random and arbitrary, that we take our demi-vestigial claws and decorate them, but I do find that awesome. Why the flying fuzzball would this practice be strictly effeminative? I can see wearing dresses, and all that, but, the more arbitrary the ornamentation the more arbitrary the cultural rules governing it. My fingernails look great. Really gorgeous solid black color, with a layer of gloss over that, and then a layer of glitter-gloss over that. It's like my fingers are dressed in sweet little tuxes or something.
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Batman v Superman Fix
It's best to go into General Conference (still #ldsconf, still not sure about that, and, hashtags, that's how Tumblr labels blog posts; I think I know how I'm going to implement Jaques as a labeling function to this blog, but well I suppose I still need to finish the backlog of the post where I even announce the idea, first) best to go into General Conference with a question or two that you have about whatever life guidance topic or just whatever. They say that then your question will get answered!, which is fun. Fun feature. Have my questions been answered yet?
Man, I don't know; there's still 4 hours' worth of Conference left, I can talk about it tomorrow.
Three good scenes, no bad ones, that's what makes a good movie, right? Batman v Superman has more than three good scenes (let's see, there's Neil DeGrasse Tyson et al discussing the idea of Superman in a world where Superman's real; friggin' Batman fighting friggin' Superman; and basically all the scenes with Lex Luthor in them) but it also has, well I guess this is where the critical dissonance comes in, whether you viewed any of the other scenes as "bad." (Zack Snyder action sequence directing style = Zack Snyder never letting you forget for a moment whom the fight sequence you're watching was directed by.) Ninja Turtle at the end wasn't as shoehorned in as I thought it would be, but, geez, Zack, give us a breather between fight scenes, or something; the way it fit into the rest of the film just made it seem really shoehorned, when it didn't need to feel that way.
Maybe move the scene where Diana Prince is going through the files of the rest of the metahumans, to after the titular fight? She doesn't even appear as Wonder Woman (in the present at least of course) until she saves Batman's bat-neck from Doomsday, so that makes sense, and having the scene where it stands now, right before Bats and Supes fight, interrupts all forward momentum at a time when the audience is ready and totally jazzed to see the titular confrontation finally actually happen. I'm probably not the only one who thinks that this would be an improvement! I hope I'm not the only one who thinks that this would be an improvement! I don't care if it would make me some kind of crazy genius if I were the only one to see this; it's such an obvious fix you guys.
I'd, Google to see if anyone else has come up with this suggestion or more suggestions like this, but I don't have a clue what keywords I would use. The only thing I can think of is, "Batman v Superman fix," but that's bringing back to me either something parodius, like the idea that Bryan Cranston or Bruce Campbell singlehandedly inject some awesome; or it results in the wrong kind of "fix;" superhero junkies satisfying their joneses. So I don't know. There, I named today's post that; now we'll get an honest hit.
Naturally, this evening I went to see Zootopia again instead. I'm actually picking up more and more each time; I could totally do that "viewing a day" thing I'd originally conceived of with Lion King. There's a lot of notes I took; I'll dump those on my other blog, alongside notes from previous viewings. Haven't posted over there in a few weeks; apparently it was so I could make room for this.
Man, I don't know; there's still 4 hours' worth of Conference left, I can talk about it tomorrow.
Three good scenes, no bad ones, that's what makes a good movie, right? Batman v Superman has more than three good scenes (let's see, there's Neil DeGrasse Tyson et al discussing the idea of Superman in a world where Superman's real; friggin' Batman fighting friggin' Superman; and basically all the scenes with Lex Luthor in them) but it also has, well I guess this is where the critical dissonance comes in, whether you viewed any of the other scenes as "bad." (Zack Snyder action sequence directing style = Zack Snyder never letting you forget for a moment whom the fight sequence you're watching was directed by.) Ninja Turtle at the end wasn't as shoehorned in as I thought it would be, but, geez, Zack, give us a breather between fight scenes, or something; the way it fit into the rest of the film just made it seem really shoehorned, when it didn't need to feel that way.
Maybe move the scene where Diana Prince is going through the files of the rest of the metahumans, to after the titular fight? She doesn't even appear as Wonder Woman (in the present at least of course) until she saves Batman's bat-neck from Doomsday, so that makes sense, and having the scene where it stands now, right before Bats and Supes fight, interrupts all forward momentum at a time when the audience is ready and totally jazzed to see the titular confrontation finally actually happen. I'm probably not the only one who thinks that this would be an improvement! I hope I'm not the only one who thinks that this would be an improvement! I don't care if it would make me some kind of crazy genius if I were the only one to see this; it's such an obvious fix you guys.
I'd, Google to see if anyone else has come up with this suggestion or more suggestions like this, but I don't have a clue what keywords I would use. The only thing I can think of is, "Batman v Superman fix," but that's bringing back to me either something parodius, like the idea that Bryan Cranston or Bruce Campbell singlehandedly inject some awesome; or it results in the wrong kind of "fix;" superhero junkies satisfying their joneses. So I don't know. There, I named today's post that; now we'll get an honest hit.
Naturally, this evening I went to see Zootopia again instead. I'm actually picking up more and more each time; I could totally do that "viewing a day" thing I'd originally conceived of with Lion King. There's a lot of notes I took; I'll dump those on my other blog, alongside notes from previous viewings. Haven't posted over there in a few weeks; apparently it was so I could make room for this.
Friday, April 1, 2016
So You Think the Jolly Rancher is Your Ally... You Merely Adopted the Cherry Flavor; I Was Born Into It. Molded by It.
The end of the semester is here; does that feel real? We keep on expecting things to feel real; I think we should just stop.
General Conference starts tomorrow, #ldsconf I think is the hashtag.* You know what I think would be amazing, they get up at the pulpit, endorse CANDIDATE for president, maybe even MANCHURIAN candidate, and cause this huge controversy and big, divisive, division, yeah? And the purpose of that is, everyone still taking anything seriously goes home, prays about it, and receives a spiritual confirmation-- not that they were right, but that they were wrong. It was all part of a secret test of character to see whether we as a church take the sayings of the General Authorities at face value, or whether we take time to ponder and pray about them and confirm them.
...ohhhh my crappin' heck gooosssh that's a teeerrible idea...
It's a fascinating interplay, the horizon between personal and general revelation. General Authorities, prophets and apostles have the (right? responsibility?) to receive guidance for the whole church, and the whole world, but it's still our duty to confirm what they say is right. Anyone (worthy) can be a prophet for their family or congregation under them, but only the prophet can be the prophet for everyone.
But it's a strange thing. I had a dream last night, night before last, that I was fighting all these Superman soldiers, and there were alien demon things, and I got defeated and knocked out, and Superman crucified me (I mean, come on, there was a prisoner to his left as well as a prisoner to his right; could the pseudo-symbolism get any more obvious?) and, when I woke up, Flash was in a weird electric time distortion bubble, trying to warn me. Only it wasn't the Flash; it was Flash Flash Hundred-Yard Dash, and he wasn't warning me that Lois is the key and save Martha and all that jazz, he was warning me to see Zootopia again instead of giving into curiosity about Dawn of Justice. If I had listened... well, I wouldn't have known what the heck anything meant, but...
No. Didn't really happen. But that's sooo much better a story than what really did.
General Conference starts tomorrow, #ldsconf I think is the hashtag.* You know what I think would be amazing, they get up at the pulpit, endorse CANDIDATE for president, maybe even MANCHURIAN candidate, and cause this huge controversy and big, divisive, division, yeah? And the purpose of that is, everyone still taking anything seriously goes home, prays about it, and receives a spiritual confirmation-- not that they were right, but that they were wrong. It was all part of a secret test of character to see whether we as a church take the sayings of the General Authorities at face value, or whether we take time to ponder and pray about them and confirm them.
...ohhhh my crappin' heck gooosssh that's a teeerrible idea...
It's a fascinating interplay, the horizon between personal and general revelation. General Authorities, prophets and apostles have the (right? responsibility?) to receive guidance for the whole church, and the whole world, but it's still our duty to confirm what they say is right. Anyone (worthy) can be a prophet for their family or congregation under them, but only the prophet can be the prophet for everyone.
But it's a strange thing. I had a dream last night, night before last, that I was fighting all these Superman soldiers, and there were alien demon things, and I got defeated and knocked out, and Superman crucified me (I mean, come on, there was a prisoner to his left as well as a prisoner to his right; could the pseudo-symbolism get any more obvious?) and, when I woke up, Flash was in a weird electric time distortion bubble, trying to warn me. Only it wasn't the Flash; it was Flash Flash Hundred-Yard Dash, and he wasn't warning me that Lois is the key and save Martha and all that jazz, he was warning me to see Zootopia again instead of giving into curiosity about Dawn of Justice. If I had listened... well, I wouldn't have known what the heck anything meant, but...
No. Didn't really happen. But that's sooo much better a story than what really did.
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