Inspiration Round Robin Part 2

Beth sent me an inspiration source to work with for the Round Robin, and that source was rain. She said that rain inspired her because a warm, summer rain makes her happy but a cool, fall-winter rain makes her sad. She takes inspiration from the fact that one thing can inspire two completely different feelings given different circumstances.

Personally, I think everyone thinks of the rain a little differently. Some people enjoy it; for others, it ruins their day. But, me? Rain makes me lethargic. Whenever it rains it effects me in a way that I really don't want to do anything productive; I just want to sit by my window, watching tv/playing video games while listening to/watching   it fall. That said, thinking of what the rain makes me feel inspired me to draw this simple (yet hopefully funny) drawing of a person sleeping through a ferocious rainstorm, in which the rain just happens to be sheep.

Get it? Raining sheep? Counting sheep puts people to sleep (does that actually work? I have no idea)? Yeah.

Inspiration Round Robin

So when I think of what inspires me, I think the biggest thing would be my parents. We've not by any stretch been wealthy, but my parents have always worked hard to make sure we had everything we needed and some of what we wanted. Watching them over the years, and wanting to live up to their expectations of me, has inspired me to work hard in college. Looking back at what they've done makes me think that if I try hard enough there's no way I won't be successful when I get out of school.

Class 11-15-10

So today we did a large discussion of our "Who the hell do you think you are?!" assignments. I ended up getting a lot of good questions during mine that I need to sit and think about.

I feel this post is suffering from my inability to permanently affix peoples' names to their faces. If I actually knew who everyone was I'd have more to say.

Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?

So when we went to see the "Notes to Noself" exhibit at Heron the first thing that struck me as we walked in was the atmosphere of the dense part of the forest. It was very gloomy and all the trees were covered in skulls and such. It really made me think of a game I've been playing recently called LIMBO. LIMBO is characterized by its grayscale artwork and very dark nature. After thinking about that for a little while I think one aspect of who I am that I'd like to touch on for this assignment is the fact that I like darker stories. I like stories where bad guys are protagonists. I like zombie stories and such. This assignment has me wondering why that is.

I think part of it is escapism. For any ordinary person the subjects of these stories do and experience very liberating things that a normal person just couldn't do. I think experiencing that indirectly through movies and video games helps keep you grounded in the real world. I think it helps serve as a release for your troubles.

So, that said here's what I made. I was just feeling like making something a little dark. Maybe I'll think of some poetic, better rationale by the time class rolls around.

Class 11-1-10

So, today we have no traditional class meeting. My first reaction, very first reaction, for reasons I will not go into, was "Thank God, I can rush home now!"

However, once that faded out I sorta realized I was a little disappointed. I have to say this is one of the few classes I've found myself looking forward to on a weekly basis.

What Is It???

So for this assignment we had to examine a package that Beth brought in and basically guess at what its contents were. My guess is it was basically a creative works catalogue that helps aspiring artists spread the word about their creations and helps culturally-minded people find out about new creative geniuses.

Now, the real question for this blog post is why I think we're doing this exercise. I think that on the surface, this is about analytical thinking. Looking at something and figuring out what it is is a skill, and this is helping us develop it.

However, at its core, this is also helping us think outside the box about our answers, and I have no doubt that 2 things will happen during lecture: 1, we will find that a lot of people have different opinions about the subject; and 2, we will talk about how this shows that everyone has a different view on everything and how we formulate those views.

So yeah, seeing as the class is called "Seeing Sideways," I assume that this assignment is helping us realize that we all see everything sideways; we all look at everything from a completely different angle than everyone else, and combining those different viewpoints can help to form a much clearer, unbiased picture of any given subject.