What I've been up to lately

I'm learning how to layout ads right now with OpenOffice Draw. It's free software, so it doesn't have all of the bell's and whistles of InDesign or anything like that. But it does the job for me for right now. I really hope that this class goes well for me. As soon as I figure out how to post a pdf to this crazy blog, I'll show some of my work.

Humility

OH, how the mighty have fallen.

My continuing education class at SVA has proven to be quite the challenge for my relationship with higher learning. The entire pedagogical premise for this course is rooted in self-discovery, personal reflection and responsibility. Let's just say that I am poorly equipped to fully engage these practices in my current state of being. I just want to be shown a proven formula that I can emulate and re-tool for my own purposes like most other professional students. This class is not allowing me to do that. So, in exchange, I'm being forced to learn how me, myself and I work best to create new ideas and put them on display for others.

Humility. Will they understand my work? Am I just trapped in my own head with no hope of connecting with any audience, regardless of size or similarity of experience? We will see.

Britney Spears and Taser Guns

Well, I saw the Britney tragedy today. I'm not usually interested at all in this kind of thing, but curiosity got the best of me. So I watched it on Youtube. I was flabbergasted. She looked more bored than the concerned celebrities in the audience. You could almost see Fifty Cent saying a little prayer inside his head for her. People did everything but purse their lips, close their eyes and shake their heads in pity.
This woman was (and most likely still is) an amazing performer. Her life has been riddled with problems, pressure, mis-perceptions and downright vicious attacks. I'm not a Britney fan, but give her a break, it was a bad decision for her to perform without being on her A-game, but it's time for us to realize our own culpability in this fiasco. I'm so tired of American's creating these young stars just so they can tear them down at the first sign of a wobble or falter. It's ridiculous.

We all have our own favorite diva or performer. (It's Brandy Norwood for me) And nothing anyone can say will change that. Opinions are formed and changed overnight, so lets keep things in perspective. Art is just Art. You don't have to like it or ascribe meaning or anything to it. It's what people do with their "Art" that makes all the difference.

Now. I just want to say that the tasing incident that happened a little while ago on a college campus here in the states was an obvious intrusion on the student's civil and human rights. He was freaking shocked with electricity for being a little forceful in his questioning at a public forum. I can't tell you how many times I've been a complete ass in public and nothing has happened to me. America, for shame. This is the beginning of the end folks. If kids in college can get tased for just mentioning the skull and bones society, what hope do we all have for a genuine revolution of public policy and effective leadership in this country. NONE. I'll tell you again. NONE WHATSOEVER. I sense that this incident will be the measuring stick by which we, as citizens of the United States, can measure the degree of corruption and malice which fuels the mental processes of those currently in control of our nation. PERIOD.

I, for one, am concerned.

Lightbulb

Hello...duh...I just figured it out.

This stomach thing is whats causing my diet and exercise routine to be such a bust.
Hopefully, once I get my gastronomic problems solved, all the rest of it will fall in line more easily.

Thats REAL!

So. I've been pretending that my strange eating habits, infrequent to stressful working out, completely insane sleeping cycle, and ridiculous work hours haven't been harming my body. That game is now over. The jig is up. For the past few days, every time I eat something, I've been getting these sharp pains in the exact same place in my stomach.

That's right... I think it's an ulcer too. Not cute. So now, not only do I have to rethink the way I've been abusing my slowly aging body, but I have to go to the doctor to get myself checked out and on antibiotics ASAP.

I'm not being pessimistic, but my stupid, vain, human fears keep telling me to be on the lookout for other problems as well.

Harder than it looks

I have to get back into the gym. I've been doing the simple exercises and stretches at home, but the results have been lackluster at best. Since I left my non-profit job where my monthly fee was taken care of as part of my benefit's package, I haven't taken the initiative to go to a New York Sports Club office and set up a new membership. I have the money, I just can't seem to fit it in.

On that note, I have Netflix that need to be located and returned, checks that need to be put into the mail, a dvr recorder that needs to go back to the cable company and a host of other errands that I've very simply neglected. What is wrong with me? There is little worse than knowing exactly what you need to do and not doing it for now reason other than you don't feel like doing it. Sometimes, I tell myself that I need house staff. A personal assistant that just takes care of all the stuff that I'm too bored with to execute. Then, I come to my senses and realize that I'm just being lazy and uppity.

I'm going to do better. I can't let boredom be the excuse for failure. Too many other, would be geniuses and savants have already used that one.

Nerd Alert

You know, I never considered myself by any stretch of the imagination a techi (technology geek), but something happened today that made me feel really odd about my relationship to digital media.

I just moved to a new apt. and my roommate has a very interesting set up on his widescreen, surround sounded tv in the living room. Try as I might, I could not get the sound on today. It just wouldn't come through. He's got it routed through DVD players and speakers and a record player and a dvr machine and even a laserdisk situation. It was like tracking a mouse that you can't see through a maze that doesn't exist. So eventually I gave up totally and just watched my tv.

Now, that's not the end of the story. Although my pride was mildly damaged by that little defeat with the surround sound, I found myself battling with technology again when, later in the day, I tried to burn a DVD from my computer, only to find that my computer does not even have that capability. How could I have missed that nugget of information in the year or so I've been tinkering with this thing?

So now, it's painfully obvious to me... Myself and other generation Y pseudo-nerds have been adopting and buying into an understanding of the digital age that is dreadfully shallow and ignorant. We know how to push the buttons, but we have no idea what they actually do. I'm comfortable with using things that I can't make from scratch myself, but there should be some rudimentary understanding of what's going on to keep things simple for the user and the tool being used. From now on, I'm going to be much more attentive to instructions and explanations around digital media. I don't want to be the tank driver who was trained on a video game. I want to be the tank driver that built the tank.