I'm not really sure what to say about class today. It was a bit overwhelming for me. I wasn't expecting everything that came out of sharing my last assignment. I just thought my social media experiment was interesting and wanted to share. I got a lot of interesting input, but some not quite so helpful. It's definitely something I'm going to think on, but I'm not real sure what's going to come out of it yet. Should be interesting to see where it goes from here. I have no clue where to even start with the breaking the rules assignment, so hopefully I'll have some ideas in the next day or so.
This assignment is all about how my brain works. It's usually why I can't make decisions and why nothing even gets done. I'm always considering all the "what if?" scenarios in my head, so maybe this will help me to focus a bit. Here goes...
What if I... 1. Colored in it? 2. Scribbled on every page? 3. Used it as a coaster? 4. Cut it in half? 5. Dropped it off a bridge? 6. Dipped it in paint? 7. Ripped out every page? 8. Poked it with a fork? 9. Took the time to actually read it cover to cover? 10. Took notes in the margins? 11. Lit it on fire? 12. Used the pages for origami? 13. Ran over it with my car? 14. Threw it in the garbage? 15. Mailed it to someone? 16. Used it as a journal? 17. Fixed a wobbly table with it? 18. Buried it in a hole? 19. Had a staring contest with it? 20. Made a paper mache sculpture? 21. Drilled a hole through the middle? 22. Chopped it with an ax? 23. Played tic-tac-toe in it? 24. Gave it to a friend? 25. Made spit balls out of the pages? 26. Jumped on it? 27. Stuck it in the freezer? 28. Threw it off a building? 29. Dipped it in dye? 30. Screamed at it? 31. Sell it back to Half Price Books? 32. Turned it into a flip book? 33. Made snowflakes with the pages? 34. Left it open on my counter? 35. Crumpled all the pages? 36. Used it as a plate for my dinner? 37. Slapped it? 38. Forgot it somewhere? 39. Used it as a cutting board? 40. Threw it in a corner? 41. Hit it with a baseball bat? 42. Ran over it with my lawn mower? 43. Sat it on a shelf? 44. Smeared it with glitter? 45. Drew a smiley face on the cover? 46. Filled it with stickers? 47. Tell it a story? 48. Wished for it to disappear? 49. Wrote down all my secrets inside it? 50. Turn it into a work of art? Unfortunately, I missed class today. I wish I had a legitimate reason for not being there, but I don't. My alarm just decided that it didn't want to go off, so I just kept right on sleeping. Usually my brain goes into ninja mode and wakes me up, but not today. Since I wasn't there, I can't really comment on anything that happened in class today. I have still been thinking a lot about the inside/outside self that we talked about last week. Since I did my assignment on it last week, I've been trying to pay more attention to what I let outsiders see when I'm talking to them. I'm working on trying to be more open, but it's a slow process. Next class I'll be setting several alarms to make sure that I'm there. Missing out on field trips is definitely not cool.
I was really struck by the idea that each one of us is a bunch of different people, so I hatched an idea. I was interested to see how different the person I think I am is from how other people perceive me, so I kind of turned it into a Facebook/social experiment that just kind of seemed to keep growing the longer I thought about it. First, I posted a status this afternoon after class and waited to see what people had to say. Here's the result of that: Unfortunately, I didn't get as many responses as I'd hoped for, but I ran with what I had. I thought it was interesting that they each said things along the same lines. These three are also people I haven't physically seen in person for several years, so it was interesting to see their thoughts about me based only on our interactions on Facebook. This led me to what Beth said about how the person you are on social media is completely different from the person you are in real life, so I also tried texting a few people that I actually see on a more regular basis. These were their responses: That last friend is a bit of a dork, so ignore his weirdness. He's special. Anyway, I was surprised that these answers were pretty similar to the others since those three know me a lot better than the three who responded on Facebook. I also thought it was interesting that I had two people, both a Facebook friend and an in-person friend, who wrote "in a good way" after telling me they thought I was a nerd. I guess I wasn't aware that being a nerd was a bad thing, but they apparently felt a need to specify that they weren't trying to insult me. Now, all this was really fun, but then I realized that I wasn't finished yet. I hadn't taken the time to stop and think about how I would describe myself, so I got a pen and made a list. These are some words I think of when I try to describe myself: My answers were quite a bit different from what other people were saying. A part of me wasn't really surprised by this. I talked a bit about my "shell" that I carry with me in class on Monday, so it kind of makes sense that what I show and what I see are completely different things. After everything, all that was left was figuring out a way to combine everything I'd learned. Here's what I came up with: I was pretty focused on the inside/outside idea of the "shell," so I thought that the best way to show this was with a circle. Everything inside the circle is what's internal for me, and everything outside is how I'm perceived by others. I'm thinking about putting this on either the last page of my book or the first, but I haven't decided yet. I'm not sure if I want people to "get to know me" in the beginning or at the end. We shall see. For now, I'm going to be thinking on this idea of my little bubble and see what I can do to maybe pop it somehow so people can see what I do. If people are actually able to see the real me, then who will I be...?
I didn't really absorb as much this class as all the others, but I really liked the video we watched. It was interesting to see how he had used his body in his art to try to help himself come to terms with his physical struggles and to confront his feelings about his body. I also really loved his works with the headless figures. I would definitely love to see his art in person someday.
The other thing that was fun in class was everyone's ideas about the last assignment. It's really interesting that everyone had a completely different reaction and idea about why we were asked to sleep on the book. It's pretty cool to hear all the differ So, since I went home and completely crashed yesterday, I totally forgot about the class takeaway. Not a good move on my part, but it happens. Just to touch on it a tiny bit, I was just really fascinated by what everyone came up with for their eggs and how insanely different they all turned out. It was really neat to see everyone's ideas and creations and what their ideas said about them.
Aaaanyways. Sleeping on our books. Sleeping on my book was awkward for me, and not just because there was literally a book underneath my pillow when I was trying to sleep. I've always been generally uncomfortable around pretty much anything associated with religion, so having a bible, something so symbolic of one of the most widespread religions in the world, under my pillow was a little intimidating for me. The fact that I usually sleep with my hand under my pillow wasn't helpful either, since I kept bumping it and being reminded that it was still there while I was trying to fall asleep. Maybe that was the take-away. Maybe being almost forced to realize that it really is just a physical object and it's not innately harmful or hateful was important. It's not the physical book that is a negative thing, but it's the feelings that are triggered when you see it and touch it. Once you realize that it's not really the book that's negative, you can focus on why you have negative feelings about it and how you can work on turning those feelings in a more positive way. So I had a crazy amount of fun doing this experiment, and, even though I had a few detours, I'm still pretty happy with my results. My first thoughts were about why we were assigned an egg of all things to experiment with. I was thinking about birth and growth a lot, but what really stuck out for me was the idea of the actual, physical shell around it. I couldn't stop thinking about the "shells" people can have around them. I have a pretty rigid "shell" around myself most of the time, so I just couldn't seem to stop focusing on it. This made me think about how I could use the shell to describe what I feel like most of the time. I like to think that I'm a relatively fun person, but it's hard for me to "crack" my shell and let it show when I'm around people. This launched me into a plan, and ,after poking holes to get all the goop out of the inside, I set to work.
Initially, I intended to cut out more of a window on one side so that you would be able to peek through it to see what's inside. Apparently, cutting eggshells is a lot more difficult than I expected, so it kind of evolved into a big crack to show what was happening instead. I had originally planned to try to write something on the inside of the shell, but the paper curlies seemed more fun after I actually sat down with it and started to play more. The lock was a last-minute thought and the only part that I'm not particularly happy about. Not only did it smear when I Mod-Podged over the shell to keep it from falling apart, but I think I would have gotten my point across a lot better if I'd just left the outside of the shell a clean white. Maybe I'll try again with another egg to see how it looks without the lock. The main idea behind what I created is what I'm hoping to accomplish with this class. I'm hoping that I'll be able to crack my "shell" at least a little bit more when I'm around people so they can see what's really going on behind the scenes. I'm a lot more interested when you make it through my tough shell. (= I'm still really hung up on the idea of technology. After the doodle exercise, I haven't really been able to stop thinking and noticing how much technology effects our lives and how we interact with other people. When I was little, every single night we always sat down as a family and had dinner while we talked about our days and just spent time together. We always had to wait for everyone to finish before we got up and put our plates away. I have really fantastic memories of spending time around the dinner family, both immediate and extended, but I notice a huge change in how we interact lately. We still sit down together when I'm home and eat dinner together, but it's a completely different experience. Now we have the TV on and all of us have our phones within reach. Even my grandparents, who just got iPhones a few weeks ago, are effected by it. My folks were up for a visit this past weekend, so we went out for dinner. After sitting down and ordering, I realized that even though we were sitting right across the table from each other like we always had, every single one of us was on our phones instead of talking to each other. It kinda made me sad to sit there and remember how much fun we used to have around the dinner table at night. It's even gotten to the point that my dad will text me things from across the living room so he won't have to get out of his chair to show me a funny picture he found on Facebook. It's hilarious, but at the same time I think it's really taken something from us.
Outside of family, I think technology has really taken something away from us as a people. We don't have to communicate with others anymore. I can sit in my house and watch movies, order food, chat with companies about issues I have with some service I'm paying for, and order a new book all from my computer. We don't have to actually talk to people anymore, and it's almost to the point that I think a lot of people get anxiety when they actually have to make a phone call and speak to someone. I know I have that feeling at times. It's taken my natural introversion and thrown it into an entirely different realm. I will intentionally ignore phone calls from friends and family now and immediately send a text asking what they want because I hate talking on the phone that much. I can't even remember the last time I actually spoke to my own mother on the phone instead of through a text message. It makes me want to attempt to force myself to start calling people instead of texting. Something as simple as calling to order a pizza instead of ordering online cou It's strange to think about when I was a kid and the only way we would be able to talk to a friend was to call their house and hope they would be the one to pick up the phone instead of their parents or siblings so you wouldn't have to ask for them. The time of the land line is virtually over now. I know almost no one who hasn't completely switched to cell phones. It's strange to think about how much communication has changed just since I was younger, and it almost scares me to think about where communication will be in the next 10-15 years. I have visions of Wall-e becoming reality... I feel like I over-thought this a bit at the beginning. I was thinking about spontaneity, serendipitous, synchronicity, and surrender but kept getting distracted by what I could make the random lines or scribbles into. My squiggles turned into a little rain cloud, which ended up being a little Winnie the Pooh doodle. And now I can't stop singing the "Little Black Rain Cloud" song in my head. I definitely think surrender will be the most difficult of the S's for me to jump into, but I plan to give it my best shot. I used to doodle all the time in classes or on road trips, but technology seems to have taken the place of my doodles. My notebooks were replaced with a laptop and a cell phone, and now my doodling has dwindled. My doodles that used to be really random and spontaneous have gotten a little too organized, so I'm not even really sure if it's actually still a doodle. They weren't intentionally taking a particular shape, but they kinda ended up that way in the end. I guess I'm seriously out of doodle practice. =/
My last first class got off to a great start. While there were several things that really stuck out to me in class today, the TED talk about choices was something I wasn't able to stop thinking about for the rest of the day. I'm an incredibly indecisive person. Deciding what to have for dinner, what shirt to wear, or sometimes even something as simple as what show to watch on TV is far to complicated a task for me to figure out. A part of me wonders if it really does have to do with the fact that we have SO MANY things to choose from. My over-thinking probably has a bit of an influence, but I'm sure that just the idea that there are hundreds of channels or ten different meals I could make or twenty t-shirts to choose from definitely doesn't help matters any. The idea of Fishbowling is incredibly intriguing to me. The thought that having boundaries or limits to choices would actually make life more satisfying is really interesting. I'll definitely be trying to put myself into my fishbowl when choices and decisions get a bit too overwhelming from now on. Maybe it will help me to focus more on the more important aspects of a decision instead of the anxiety of trying to actually make a decision.
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