Collage

My first big assignment, though not due until the end of the year, is to make a collage. Or, a Cornell Box. I've actually seen them before, I just never knew they had a proper name. Do go explore that link; it's interesting stuff.

A Cornell Box is a sort of 3D collage. The class it's for is Pattern Recognition, so it makes sense to do something like this for a class that deals with organizing matter in new ways. I'm still not entirely sure what the assignment actually is, if we choose a theme or what, but I think things will become clearer as the semester goes on.

He showed us a few he had made himself, which did help. One was made out of an old jewelry box; he had hung some bells where the necklaces would have been, and pulled out the box drawers to make shelves for some small trinkets. I'm one of those people that has lots of small knick-knacks like that lying around, so I know I have the potential to make an interesting piece.

The basic gist is that the human mind will see patterns where there are none - all you have to do is put random objects together and people will start trying to connect them. That's just how our brain works. This class promises to be interesting if nothing else.

Lack of Books

The lack of Independent Study in my life this week is really bumming me out. Luckily, getting Monday off helps the week go by a little faster.

Haven't gotten my books yet, but I'm hoping to take care of that tomorrow or Thursday. Maybe Friday. As my only homework right now consists pretty much solely of reading, it's making life a bit difficult. My other assignment is to work on a radio script. I was supposed to try out one of the African-American authors for Black History Month, but I couldn't find any books by either of them in my library. And Minnick was pushing me to read some William Maxwell, and I did manage to find him in my library, so I went with that one.

I don't know how he finds those little biographical stories that he does. I've been researching Maxwell for two days and haven't found any kind of lead I can latch on to. And I'm only three chapters into the book, so I can't really talk about that at all yet either. I'm not sure what to make of this project yet :/

The First Week

I put off writing a new entry until I'd had at least a taste of all my classes. It would have had it sooner if not for the snow day on the first freaking week of classes. Tuesday was cancelled before my first class even started. So, first impressions then?

Advanced World Literature actually should have been called Post-colonial Literature because that's all it is. Not sure why it was named the way it was. I have it three days a week at noon. Thus far, I'm pretty underwhelmed. It sounds like it's going to be one of those "Europeans were like soooo mean to their colonies and stuff" types of classes. Filtered through literature.

Don't get me wrong, colonialism wasn't exactly a proud moment of human history, but that message gets lost or at least watered down when you hear it over and over. It's the same reason I've never been able to get into African-American literature; the Civil Rights movement and evils of racism was shoved in my face every year for so long that it lost any potency or ability to move me. I never needed anyone to go through the baby steps of why it was wrong and infantilizing a subject that complicated completely turned me off of it.

Anyway, getting back on tangent, I'm not really looking forward to this class. Next;

Fiction II. I have to write an 8 page short story. Not looking forward to that, but I've got a few months. The professor is hit-and-miss with me - sometimes I like her, sometimes I wonder why she's teaching. We'll see how this one goes.

American Literature II. Or Romanticism. I've heard good things about this professor (namely, he's funny and his classes are easy), so that's a plus. On the other hand, the book list doesn't seem all that riveting. Same thing for American Dream, which is with the same professor, and will be focused on a single theme instead of a genre or time period. I've never had a class like that, so it might be neat.

Pattern Recognition intrigues me. I'm still not quite sure what the class is about quite yet. Obviously it has to do with patterns, but I'm not really sure how to explain it. The interested can find the syllabus here if so inclined.

And of course I'm going to love my Independent Study. I thought I was just going to be helping Minnick refine his radio scripts, but it turns out that I'll be writing a few of them as well. At the same time, I'll keep working on my postcards and try to get 2-3 done every week. Right now, he has me researching some authors and I'd like to get at least one draft done by this weekend. We'll need as much time to edit as we can get.

Nearly Refreshed

If anyone reads this, I need to be reminded to update this thing on occasion D=

No change in my status since the last post except that I am growing increasingly excited as school draws near. And I'm working on some poetry. Even though I really do need to be writing more stuff for my independent study.

I scribbled unicorns for my mother

and colored in mandala patterns

for my father,

but rarely got an extra glance

for my artistic endeavors.

I put them on my bedroom walls

instead of our blank white refrigerator,

where I could be proud of myself

(since no one would be so for me).

I rather like where this one is going.

New Year, Same Old

I traded in my old DS XL for a 3DS XL. Awesome.

Right now I'm working my way through Pokemon Black 2 and I don't have any 3DS games yet, so I can't say much about how I like it. It's pretty much the same as the old DS with some new features. But eventually new games are all going to be for this system, and some of the ones I really want are already on it, so I may as well upgrade. The new Professor Layton is on the 3DS, and so is the latest Kingdom Hearts installment and the 999 sequel Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward.

Anyway, Black 2 has been a lot of fun thus far. Just looking at the town map, you can tell they've added a LOT of content - at least two completely new sections for one thing, and it's really neat to see how things have changed in the two years since the last game. I'm finding it a little harder to level up than normal, but I'm catching Pokemon a lot easier so I guess that's a fair trade.

In other things, I'm taking on the Glory-Be project this year - that is, writing something every day. I bought myself three notebook while out today. One for the actual project, one for a weekly color poem, and the third I'm not sure what I want to do with quite yet. And at the end of the year, participants will exchange notebooks <3 Since I give mine away all the time, it will be neat to finally be able to read from someone else.


Resolutions? No. Projects? Yes. =D