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This might sound silly, but I’m so IN LOVE WITH the colorful POST-ITs!!!
The reason I emphasize it so much is that it is so wonderful and convenient. I can juggle down whatever I have at the moment in my head, (just about starting to count how many and often thoughts comes out of my head…). Just doing my morning shower, there was nearly 10 pages of post-it that was ripped out of the stuck.
I write my though down, I peel it off, and I paste it with same thoughts category in order of bottom to top. The process helps me to organize my undiscovered notions since my brain tend to go all over the place in a very short amount of time.
It also is fun to see the color and immediately you know what category of things you are looking at. I use different colors for personal, school, and work. It only has been 3 days, and I am already addicted to it.
I have to say… 3M—one great invention!
credit: to my friend James. H. His wall full of small post-it written new English words he wants to learn everyday was my inspiration.
I cannot stress this enough: this is the reason why, I LOVE my friends and people who are around me. You never know what you can learn from them every day.
I find myself unaware. Had been having opportunities to be in three different countries and cultures for almost equally long period of time, you would think that I would be very well informed and wildly knowledgeable. However, the reality is not.
There are things one recognize as information and one don’t. I guess you could say that because the hierarchy of which the information priority changes.
When I was in China, during the first nine years of my life, I was a bookworm. I read, read and read. Simply because Chinese was my first language and I loved to read. I absorbed information as I was being given anyway possible. Couch and a book was my weekend ritual. It was natural.
After I moved to Japan with my parents until I finished high school I still read, just not as much or often as I used to. Japanese was my second language but I didn’t have problem communicating. I had perfect Japanese. However then, academic and social activities became more important. Blending into the society which you ‘belongs to’ was an important part of Japanese culture. Had have experienced bully in 3rd and 4th grades, I wasn’t going to let myself fail off of the ‘normal’ category for the second time. I paid more attention in fashion, trend, and current entertainment to be able to keep up the conversation at school. Occasionally I read at home for hours, however, the 15 minutes one way train commute to school was my majority of time for the books and homework sometimes.
In college, the readings I did were 95% text books, or articles used in the class. Spending hours starring back and forth at sentences and dictionary just to understand the content in the text books was exhausting. English as third language didn’t inspired me enough to keep reading. Reading in English was exhausting and boring. It was more fun using English to converse with friends or watch movies. Reading on my own was no longer something I was interested in. On the other hand, designing was a lot more interesting and fun. Creating non-literal communication was fun.
Then I realized; I wasn’t reading any more.
Now being at DMI, I have been forced to read since the last semester. I have to confess, that I hadn’t been reading in a very long time. Because of the heavy load of readings, I found myself eased while reading. My English improved tremendously and reading is not timely torture any more. Though if I want to read something thoroughly and understand it completely, I still need occasional dictionary help. Well, I’m not perfect trilingual after all.
I am though, very grateful for my situation despite there are more than enough publications for me to read from three different languages. It was extremely time and energy consuming to perfect each language. Especially in English where I couldn’t separate grammar that I learned in Japan from sentences I hear naturally. I was overly annoyed that I couldn’t just “memorize” it in my head and repeat and use it simply by the sounds I hear from native English speakers. I guess that is the result of getting older; one gets duller to the natural instinct every time the brain learns something technical. It’s just my observation.
So far, I am happy with who and what I am. And I am certainly glad to recognize this problem I had, and by that I am going to fix it by start read more. I am forever refuse to be an English-book-phobia.
Yesterday A mentioned that my work needs more emotion because I tend to be very logical and rational. After a night of sleep and some harsh reality check from bf, I realized that my work and my inner self is the total opposite.
I have a lot of emotions going on inside of myself. I can’t keep them. I have to let it out. Somtimes it’s too much for the boys to take. Though, I become much more practical and rational when it comes to creating artwork from my inner emotions; like my love map project. And it lacks of emotions.
So now I’m thinking… how do I bring more of outter rationality in my inner self and bring the emotional inside to my outside?
Bf also mentioned to not have makeup on myself and wants to see the ‘real me’. Quite honestly, I haven’t gone out of house without even a bit of eye brow attach since middle school. I’m totally serious. I went out with NONE makeup last couple of days and I feel completely naked. Self insecurity perhaps? I always tend to think I should look good and present myself in a good manner. I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing or how I was raised by the Japanese pop media. How to carry myself… I don’t know.
I was so inspired by a book Spilling Open by Sabrina He and Harrison that I borrowed from G last week. I love the ink and the free-style writing. I think I need a ink pen and some ink and start doing analog drawing/writing… I placed the collage I created yesterday with magazine cutouts on my wall above the mirror this morning. It’ll be a start point for me.
I was really sad and hurt about the reality check last night. But maybe it’s not so bad after all since I’m trying to face the really hard part of my inner self and trying to understand more of myself.
The song A gave me: I LOVE YOU by Joana Wang, composed by David Tao
Yes. I have been reluctant to update my DMI blogs. So now I have to make up the time I haven’t been updating.
Studio 1: Mapping “I love you”. I decided to map my own relationship since the data I was trying to gather wasn’t going to help me very much on short term. Now I have a lot of data and the problem is to design a good interface for it. You will see it on mid review. Hopefully I can pull it off… (>_<;)
Seminar1: I’m researching Social Networking on analog to digital. I found numbers of articles in many different aspect of it, but not so much on the identity side of the story which is what I’m interested in. So I think I will focus on the pros and cons of the online social networking on its progression and the new kind of problems that we need to be aware of on its future development.
Design as Experience: First its Pie. Now it’s Rope. We have been given this rope to work on for 15 min everyday for 16 days and to record it. It’s a continuous work. So far, I think it’s going alright. We’ll see where the rope will bring me in a few more days. I have to mention that we took a field trip to Mass MOCA last Monday and it was AWESOME!!! So many great projects and I have especially blown away by Jenny Holzer’s Projections. I will update the photos later but you will have to be there to experience it to believe it. It was AWESOME. I also liked the exhibition “Western artists in CHINA”. It opened up my eyes a lot since I was born in Shanghai. A lot for me to learn and re-learn so to speak.
Elements of Design: We are learning hard core Actionscript3 programming. It is so overwhleming and a lot to dygest in 3 hours of class but I am happy that I’m learning so much of the new things I never knew how to do. It opens up so many doors for future possible projects. But first and far most, I need to understand how it works and want to be able to write these code by my own. I think the second half of the semester will help me a lot on hands on working classes so that I will learn as we work on a real project.
Mid Review: Since I have updated the recent projects now I shall focus on my mid reviews. Work work work time…
Our project 2. Mapping.
I want to map “I love you.” I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and wonder, how the hell am I gonna do this?? I talked to Kent and Dennis for a little yesterday and found out that I might be able to do something regarding to the length of the relationship and how men express themselves.
I have been in couple of relationships where my partner has very hard time express his feelings verbally. Is this a common thing among boys in general? Or does it get better through time and relationships?
Some people like to express themselves verbally, some give gifts, some write, some are affectionate and some don’t do anything. Is there a pattern between age and gender? Is there a progressive behavior change through time?
The first step through this research is to gather information and data. I think a survey would work for now. I could send email to people randomly, single, in a relationship, married and divorced. Or do I just want to stick with people that are currently in a relationship? Married, unmarried? Narrow it down might be a good idea.
Mapping “I love you.”… There are certainly more to come.
It is my very first blog I am writing at 2:43am in the morning. It sounds a little insane, but this is when I feel like writing about me and art.
I consider myself as a designer more than anything else, though at times I would like to call myself an artist too. When I feel like an artist than a designer, I wish I was better at certain skills so that I could express myself better on paper. Or in the exact way I picture it to be.
I love Kurt Halsey’s work. His work speaks to your inner thoughts, emotions, and dearest part of you. With illustrations and precious words, his art work communicates with your heart and that’s what I love about his art. I wish I can do that with my art too. I hope with more time and practice, I can express myself freely and my art can communicate to my viewers in their deepest part.
I can’t wait to start my grad school this September. There are so much to learn, and so much to improve. I am expecting myself to be inspired, meeting many artists, share and exchange thoughts and ideas and try to bring the best out of each and every one of us. That would be really awesome. I really can’t wait.
Powerkat strive to be the best.
