Pickles

I have already said first and foremost in class that I was not revealing my project until class. If I did it would ruin everything I had worked on and the finale of my project so I will not say anymore. I will update this blog afterwards to show pictures and such and explain more in detail why I did what I did.

Hidden

It was a difficult class for me. For the e been past year I feel like I have been hiding in an invisible shell. A nonexistant shell. It's not easy for me to explain or show my weight loss. I am embarrassed when I look at those pictures. While I was larger I never saw my self as big, but now that I see the difference...it really bothers me. So much so that I have grown paranoid over the slightest fluctuation in my weight. True, it takes time psychologically to recover from the trauma of weight loss, and for those who don't understand, yes it is a trauma. My best friend Scott is a psychologist and even he says that he wishes he could really help me move past this, but because he has never been there, he is afraid to enter that world. He is right, all it would cause is chaos. People who have not been overweight, trying to lose weight, or the like, would not understand, and no amount of comparisons will suffice. It really hurt my feelings when the question, and it was innocent by all means, "why cant you just get over it". If I knew the answer to that, don't you think I would? I would love nothing more than to just 'get over it', but it does not work like that unfortunatley.

Understanding is key. I was never asked out in highschool. Friends were not really friends. I was only cool when they needed something. I was not athletic. I had a doctor's note for why I could not run the track. I overate strictly for the sake of eating. I had no real friends to get me out of the house so I sat on my computer all day or watched tv.

I chose to lose the weight because I wanted a life change. I wanted to have a relationship with someone. I wanted to be liked and asked to hang out. I wanted to me stared at not because I was overweight and made fun of, but because I was attractive and people wanted me. Whether that is for the wrong reason, who can say, but I wanted to experience something I never had before. Everyone wants to feel wanted.

When I wrote the blog for the last assignment I ended up getting slightly upset. I drove to school that morning and happened to hear the GOO GOO dolls playing on the radio and it emotionally overtook me. It spoke of exactly how I felt before I lost the weight. I called my boyfriend and told him I missed him. Even though we were not together until after the weight loss, he is my biggest supporter. I think it helps that he used to be a little piggy too and lost a lot of weight. The week before all this I had been depressed because I was fixing to start my cycle and was on it at some point and I gained 7 pounds. It happens every month, but it still effects me greatly. I have to have support, and I can say now that I do.

I hope I one day get over it and don't feel like the real me is still hidden. I hope one day I can stop stressing over the possibilities of gaining the weight back. I wanted to have a family and I dont want to be emotionally depressed because of pregnancy weight. Oh god the drama that will ensue. I am happy, really, I just have my moments.

Inspiration Round Robin

The person I was tagged with for this excerise was Kyle Steppe who found an inspirational banner type thing on the web which had to do with a penny. Yes, a penny. It spoke of the reasons why we flip a penny to get a heads or tails. Perhaps it might be easier if you see the banner yourself:

I really could not come up with any reasons why this would be inspiration to me at first. Mainly because I do not flip pennies. However, I began to contemplate the reasons why I would be hopeful, what gives me hope, what do I hope for. There are many things I hope for: graduating college, getting a great job, getting married to the love of my life, being the best I can be.

I mean Hope is what got me to lose 65 pounds. Looking at me now, no one ever believed I weighed over 200 pounds. Guess what people, I did. Beth should be able to attest to my weight loss considering how long she has known me. Hope is what pushed me to follow through after many failed attempts. I dropped the weight. That's right, I lost 65 pounds. Still cannot believe it? Well how much would you guess I weigh now?

Does this help you believe?

When a person decides to lose weight they HOPE that they will lose wieght right? Whether or not they actually do is a totally different subject. The point I am making is that there are a lot of things we make up our mind to hope for. When you decide on something you are usually expecting or hoping for a certain outcome. In my case I hoped on losing weight. I succeeded. Some don't. Againt that is a different subject.

Me Before:

Me Today:

Identity Recovery

Class was basically a recap of what we did for our last assignment, no real bells or whistles. Some of the projects were lame or missed the point such as the one of keanu reeves, or the chili. All I heard the entire time was people say what Identity was, not what was their identity. There is a distinct different I think a lot of people missed. Perhaps they just did not know what Identity was. They all assumed they only had one identity that encompassed everything about them, but that is far from the case. I think a lot of these students need to take an anthropology class and really understand what identity is and then go back and redo their projects.

Identity of Whom

To first be able to explain what my identity is, we first have to understand what identity is in general. Identity is the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or conditions. Identity is a series of instances or behaviors that shape us, define us. They are traits that distinguish us from the other. It is not something we can physically control for it is a subconcious state.

For this assignment we were asked to create something that shows our identity. Part of my identity, because I believe there are numerous things that make a person who they are, is creativity. I love making things, designing, looking at something and figuring out how it can look better or different. That is the point of this class right, to learn to look at something in a way you might not have? To inspire us to choose the normal, predictable route, or to find our own path.

For this assignment I made a short video of me drawing, coloring, being creative. This is what I do; this is who I am; this is WHAT I am. I am proud of it and while this is a 20 minute coloring job it shows how I work and my obvious enthusiasm for it. I knew exactly what I wanted. I am detirmined, perceviering, responsible as my boyfriend puts it. I have passion and I hope it comes through.


                                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94CHBrgquVQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94CHBrgquVQ

Class of Identities

I always think honesty is the best policy, hence why Brendon (my boyfriend) and I have always chosen to tell eachother everything no matter what it is or whether the person should or wants to hear it or not. So, following this route, let me begin this blog by saying that when we were initially told we would be going to Heron, I was not looking forward to it. I spent a semester there and most everyone knows my opinion on the school and the cirriculum.
I am not a fan.

However, after we entered the exibit and really got into a valuable discussion I began to enlighten myself on the topic and experience as a whole. Identity is something that was heavily discussed in my anthropology class and also something that I researched thoroughly for my Game Addiction paper.

It was also something I planned on incorporating into my final project. It was not much of agroup discussion as half the group was in  the tree house though.

Assigned Skip Day

Wow, we had an "assigned" skip day. I bet you never saw that coming. Of course, for someone who has been in three or four of Beth's classes and will be in another next semester, this really is not all that suprising. My boyfriend however thought it was bullshit because I had an assigned skip day and I refuse to let him skip a class unless he is ill or a family emergency. In my defence, he has slacked his last two years and insisted I push him. So I am.

Anyway, back on topic, if you call this a topic. I really do understand the purpose of this assignment and this weeks class. Beth knows me very well in the point that I take very little time to do something for myself. I rarely get the chance and for those of you who are only in your first or second years, just wait. I gaurantee if you are still running around having fun, it will slowly deminish. I did not actually start having a social life until last January and even then it consisted of sitting at my best friend Scott's house playing Ultimate Alliance for three hours and then going home and doing homework. Once I met my boyfriend and we started dating it was a constant struggle between us for me to find time to hang out with him and his friends. It was actually one of the subjects that he mentioned in our huge fight in July that almost caused us to break up (don't worry we are 100% fine. I have a promise necklace hanging around my throat now). He was concerned I never had time for myself, to go out and enjoy myself. I was always working (specifically on my capstone). I do manage to squeeze that time in now but it is still a push and pull. I had to quit my job because it was interfering with school. I'd be scheduled on call and for me to actually start homework while be on call was a bad idea. I get intranced in my work and lose track of time so I could never start on homework when on call. Or I would actually be schedule 8 hour shifts by myself all day and I couldn't do homework at work because it consists of drawing and my tablet is at home and I'd have no internet access.

It was a struggle to actually decide what to do for my three hours of class. I was very tempted to work on my A455 work. However when I read back through the assignment something stood out to me. "What makes you happiest?" My boyfriend, Brendon S.M. Steele. That is what and who makes me happiest. He is what I spent my time on. All my worries just go away and I can just be me and be happy and not worry about what I need to do. So for my three hours I went to lunch with my amazingly awesome boyfriend. Okay, so it isn't some amazing website design like last week or some grand adventure to a reknowned discover, but it is what makes me happiest and it is time for myself doing what I want.

I think when you love something or in this case someone so much that it is the only thing you think about, what you breath for and live for, you cannot ignore it. It was the best three hours and in my opinion very well spent.

My Life:



What is it?

Why are we doing this assignment? I'll be honest. I do not know. I do not know why we are going through someone's mail randomly or what the significance is. However, when I sent out my email trying to guess what it is, I did not in fact guess at all. I do not see the value or signifance in the items we observed. Why? It does not matter to me. The same way people might not see the value you my art, is the same way I do not see the the value or purpose in these items. That is not to say that these items do not hold worth to the owner. My art is important to me, the same as these items surely show significance the the owner.

I am not playing a guessing game with guessing should not be the objective. It should be a purpose of understading, a coming of knowing and comprehension so understand the wants and needs and desires of others above and beyond our own. So what does it matter if there is not purpose, no worth outside the realm of the owner's cognitive thinking. It is not ours to understand purpose, it is only ours to understand the desires of a person beyond our own.

Critique is not the same as labeling.

In class yesterday we basically went over our "You Call It" assignment. A few students legitamatley did something interesting or useful, while others obviously bullshitted their way through the assignments like usual. I thought the I-Lantern was unique. I will be honest and say I never would have thought of doing that. I definetly think it should be posted up on deviantart's pumpkin carving contest or some other technology halloween contest. One student actually tried to use their time wisely and learn something new, but I think he failed in his attempts to do something great. He learned how to make a vintage effect in photoshop, but I think when you are given total free reign over an assignment where you can do anything you want (and while I think it is a great choice to learn something new), it should definetly be taken to the next level. What he did was simple and nothing special, nothing that made me say "wow". He had a great oppurtunity to do just that and he didn't, nor could he answer questions posed to him besides "oh definetly". In the end I posed it to a half bullshitted assignment.

My assignment wasn't great even though I got applauds for it. No I did not bullshit my assignment. I worked diligentley on it. I actually finished the frontpage on Sunday, but Monday I decided to go ahead and push out the other pages and finished the site as a whole. Yes, I was tired. Yes, it was a lot of work. However, it does not deserve applauds. Everyone had the same oppurtunity to go a long distance with this assignment and simply because they chose not to does not make my assignment better than anyone elses. It is just the limit I chose to hold myself to.

Like I said, I am dissappointed that a lot of students just did not take the time to really put themselves out their in this assignment. I think what pissed me off the most was the girl who did not want to show her work. I called her on it, for sure. She deserved to be called on it. If that had been me not wanting to show my work, Beth would have sat their and reemed me a new one. You don't get away with that. You don't sit there and say "oh my work sucks so I won't show it" and not expect someone to demand to see it. If you think your work sucks then your opinion is biased and you are doing yourself more harm than good, but if you were in class you already heard my strong opinion over this situation.

You Call It

For this assignment we were told we could create anything we wanted. There were no restrictions as to what we could do so I wanted to do something I enjoyed doing: design. Beth had mentioned on several occassions that a few previous students wanted to create a "Seeing Sideways Club" and I think it is a geat idea, but I alos thought that the idea could benefit from its own class and club site. With the concept of Seeing Sideways in mind and how the class promotes colorful brainstorms and memorable elements, I designed a webpage and already have the index up and running. The subpages are not finished, but you can get a feel for the site.

http://www.cs.iupui.edu/~klthacke/seeingsideways/index.html

For the sake of a healthy debate:

Okay, so not much of a debate persay, but we did get into a deep conversation over religion and discuss a lot of historical and theoretical aspects of it. I think a lot of the conversation was great; people really kept an open mind. I think this is mainly because a few people did not show up for class and those people may have been the ones who would have been the die-hard fanatics over their beliefs. It took me awhile to really warm up to talking mainly because my views contradict a lot of sincere beliefs and as people talked there ended up being so much to respond to that I could not figure out what to address first.

I finally started responding and found that a few people agree with my beliefs which amazed me because for so long I could not find anyone who did besides my Best Friend. Heck, even my boyfriends views differ from mine because of how he was raised (I still love him lol). I did disagree with with some comments, but I cannot expect everyone to see things in the same way I do whetherthey be right or wrong. I did like what Kyle said about being an Inconclusive Theolist because now I have a category for myself when before I did not. I was just Christian.

When we got to the Westburrow Baptist Youtube video I was getting upset. I obviously do not agree with this church as many people don't. I cannot listen to these people. Do not get me wrong, I respect their beliefs. They have as much right to believe in what they choose as anyone elsel what I do not believe in is dictating and forcing your beliefs on another group of people. For a Christian to raise their voice and doom another group of people is not what Jesus taught, preached, or did. He never raised his voice, never casted fury, and forgave those who sinned and taught them with kindness and showed them a better way of living. He taught of God's Grace, yes, but he also taught about peace, and happiness, right and wrong, and it was because of how he taught, because of his overflowing love for humanity despite their mistakes, that brought people to faith. Westburrow goes against everything. God disciplined in the Old Testament before Jesus' time. When Jesus died it was God's promise to forgive sins. That was the deal he made with his son. It was a promise.

I did not stay for the video. I was burnt out on the discussion and needed time to recharge. Convesation on Religion and beliefs always leaves me drained with a sense of apprehension on what to think after hearing so many different views. I spent the rest of class time looking up different concepts people mentioned in class as a way to encourage myself to continue to be open minded and knowledgable so when I do discuss this topic with people, I do it informed and not with ignorance.

Really that important?

Ask the question "What is important to you" can be considered many different ways depending on the individual. In many cases people bring up religion and the impact that the structure their beliefs is encompassed around has made. I could easily delve into the structure of Christianity and what an impact it has made in my life, but the truth is, it is not just Christianity. All religions, all beliefs, anything that gives a human being's life purpose has grown to influence and shape me into who I am.

When I was growing up I had Christianity poured into me like a funnel. It was all I knew and I was taught that other religions were bad and Christianity was correct. I remember waking up every morning and going to church with my grandmother, sitting in the same pew, and listening to a monotone sermon every sunday. My mother and father and brothers never really attended church, nor did my grandfather. They did not believe they had to go to church to believe in what they did.

My grandmother died in 2003. I was in eighth grade at the time and her death impacted my family hard. She was the centerstone of our family, the rock. She kept the family together, and since her death it has fallen into dismay. I gradually stopped attending church over the years, mainly due to the fact that my aunts and uncles have become (or always were) hypocrits in their own rights. They ran me out of church by bad mouthing my mother which was unacceptable (and there is much more behind this story but for the sake of this blog post I am keeping it tightly knit). I could not fathom how someone who called themselves a Christian, who preached how they were right in their beliefs and justified their actions by the bible, could be how they were, a  hypocrit. However, they still preached how they were justified in God's eyes.

I slowly started believing in evolution over the years. Do not get me wrong, I am still a Christian, but I like to call myself a NEW AGE Christian. I define it as a person who believes in Christ, bases their actions on the concepts and idealogy of the Bible, but has embraced certain aspects that are unbeknownst to us in truth/fallacy. I can read the Bible, and I can shape my life to it, but in many senses I can not believe everything written. Mistranslation, missing information in time, and fallacy has all given me room to expand on what I focus on.

I have always been told, or tend to think of myself as a logical person. I believe that everything can be proven and yet not proven at the same time. While we claim something is true, we cannot logically state it as true. Anything can be proven false using logic.

After 911 everyone was very quick to jump on the bandwagon over racism and prejudice over the muslim community. History tends to repeat itself when our country does to muslim's what it did to the african american society. I knew this was wrong. I was alway taught to treat others how I want to be treated, that he who lives without sin shall cast the first stone kind of thing. Let me make this clear, practicing a different belief or religion may be a sin to certain other religions, but it is NOT anyone's place to cast judgement on them. I cannot recall how many times I have questioned my faith and what many Christians fail to realize is God says he wants us to question him. He wants to show us the answers that we do not comprehend. If we do not ask or question and just take everything as truth like a grain of salt, then how is that living?

I am one of the quickest people to defend a religion, belief, or community. I find it wrong to cast judgement on a group of people or persons just because they live life or view things differently than I/We do. In the end our beliefs all come down to a common goal and meaning.

Let me point this out real quick since I am on this subject of muslim and christianity. If we look at this from a geographical and anthropological standpoint we can find some interesting tidbits. First of all why do Christians for the most part always display Jesus as white? In no way could he have been white. Think about it. Jesus was from Jeruseleum, which is in the Middle East. The Middle Easts is a Arabic/Saudi ethnicity and always has been. Under no circumstanes could Jesus have been my skin color. I have come to accept that and no it as fact of our dimension (I say this because of the rules of logic/fallacy). Now in muslim beliefs their prophet was Muhammad. Both Jesus and Muhammad lived around the same time, and had the same intentions. Granted Jesus was for GOD and Muhammad was for ALLAH. Allah means God.

This is why I say things get mistranslated. What if muslim and christian beliefs were actually based off of the vey same start point, but somewhere got misconstrued. How can we say we are right and they are wrong? Do you want to die and find out? Is that how far this is going to go? I understand people are taught that we are to go out and preach the 'word' and convert, but it has gone to extremes. Jesus and St. Paul did not pressure or push people into conforming. They simple shared their stories. Jesus was a Jew afterall so he never pushed people into believing in him, he was there, he simple taught people how to live a better life and be better people, to not live out of anger, but to find peace. He was basically a hippy when you think about it.

So to wrap this up because I am getting long winded, when asked what is most important to me: it has to be my views. I have grown and shaped them over the years to what today is a very well rounded and logical standpoint. Everyone who has come into my life and left it has had a hand in molding what I believe in whether it be good or bad...

Fear Class 2

In continuation of last weeks class, we had a few more students who had to present their presentation. I think this weeks class was a bit better than last weeks. If you recall, I was not too fond of last weeks class because of the insincerity of the class itself. People spent more time laughing than actually experiencing the projects presented. I also kind of felt like studen'ts half-assed their assignments, for a lack of better words. What I mean is that some of the projects seemed more of an annoyance to people than an actual fear. For instance, my boyfriend says he is afraid of sand and pipe cleaners, but when I asked him why he just says he does not like the feeling of sand and pipe cleaners against his skin. It is not a fear, it is an annoyance.

One thing that got brought up in class today is whether we could take this seriously or not. My blog from last time that scrutinized one student's comments on how he thought fear could be controlled. When he was confronted with the comments this week, he change the way he had worded it last time. I might have actually given this student a chance to really speak on what he was saying had he actually put forth the effort on the assignment, and really inthralled himself in his research over controlling fear by looking at the psychoanalysis or case studies that have been done in the past on this subject. However, it was asked before the professor arrived by William if he just 'bullshitted' his assignment because he didn't have one done and the student laughed and was like "Yeah, pretty much". This is why I was so angry because he spoke about something he did not even put forth the effort to understand.

This goes hand in hand with next weeks class about what is important to us, and how many people are probabley going to say their religion. I am a christian, I will say it, but I have grown to understand and embrace other religions and beliefs as well. I feel most of the racism and prejudice comes from a lack of comprehension, and unwillingness to understand. If you do not, and cannot take the time and fully involved yourself in understand another person's views and fully research it, then you do not, by my opinion, have a justified right look down upon, or strike revelation upon another person, class, group, society, etc.

Fear Factor

So my project last week over fear was to intially put someone in a box and see how uncomfortable they would feel in such a small space. Now, while this concept was good, it did not have the desired effect I was aiming for. Thisw as mainly due to the fact that instead of being serious about the situation as it would be in real life, no one in the class seemed to be capable of this. Everyone was laughing and poking fun at the expirement more than actually trying to scare the person inside of the box. I think it would have helped if we hade a severe clausterphobic person in the box as well, but I think that person would have been me, and let's just say no way was I getting n the box.

The point of clausterphobia is that the person feels they have no way to escape, so with people constantly laughing and giggling, they know people are around, that the situation is not serious nor permanent. If I had a physical way to shut him in the box without it being so easy to escape, I think the onset of fear would have taken place, but because of my resources it was not possible.

Now some people did try to increase the experience, but to no avail. Beth tried to light the box on fire, someone tried to drop in a mouse, I squirted water in the box, and other people just banged on it. This part of the project was not my actual concept. I really wanted it to just be extremely quiet and watched the box squirm, however if I had said that directly I think it would have ruined the experience. I think clausterphobia is somethine that can not be experimented with because it is something that is situational. It depends on the space and atmosphere which differs in various people.

So to conclude I think my experiment really needs reworking. The atmosphere needs to be reworked to a non humorous one. It needs to be quiet and ominous. People need to be quiet and let the expirament playout instead of wanting to be so involved and be the center of experience. I also think using a different box would help. Not a cardboard box, of course. I mean like a wooden box with a padlock. I would poke holes for air. I think making it seem more inexcapable would make the person inside feel much more helpless. Clausterphobia is a fear I do not see to the extreme all to often. Most of the time I just see a very small uncomfortable nature. My idea really needs to step outside the realm of being just an expirement so something much more.

I know we have more expirements to go next week, but the one project so far that bothered me the most was William Wallace setting his hand on fire. Now, this irritated me because it wasn't based on fear in my opinion. It was based on stupidity. Fear is an emotional state, not a physical one. Causing physical harm to yourself was not. Not to mention it was right next to me. What would have happened if the actually burnt himself? If it misfired? The project should not have been allowed. He could have lit the room, himself, or someone else up in flames and I just find it completely stupid for him to have even considered doing that.

In my last post you saw me talk about the one kid who talked about how fear is controllable. I still disagree with that until this day. I think is opinion is not very open to the possibilities of what fear is and can be to someone. For a person to never have truly experienced fear, I think it is unjust to make a decision like that and to be so bold as to state that fear is controllable when to many it isn't, but you can read my last blog to understand why I say this.

I look forward to seeing the rest of the expirements play out this week. Hopefully they really play on fear instead of just coming up with some random test. I think to really know fear, it has to be a fear you actually have felt and known. This should be a personal expirement I think because in order to know what scares a person you need to know why and have it actually effect you, otherwise you are wasting your time trying to scare someone.

The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself:

I fear a lot of things. Why, I cannot exactly explain. From my last blog post you can see how deep my fears run; so deep in fact that I had to stop the post and go draw my attention to something else. I hesitate even now typing this blog because it once again has to do with the topic of fear. In yesterday's class we began our expirements with fear as our subject. The idea was to figure out what people fear, and to use it to make them as uncomfortable as possible. A lot of student's though did not come prepared.

One student stood out to me in yesterday's class. I say this because this student irritated me to the point where I really wanted to say something. However, I resisted in hesitiation of starting an ugly debate. This student thought that fear was controllable. Well, that is should be. He thought it was odd that it is the one emotion that no one seems to have control over even though he strongly thinks it is controllable. He thinks people have the concious ability to not go into a state of fear.

However, when asked what he feared he could not answer. This leads me to believe this student has never been in a true state of fear. Fear is not controllable.  Being uncomfortable is. When I am truly afraid my body temperature increases, I cannot concentrate, I feel very nauseated. The only way to get myself unafraid is to distract myself. However, I do not find this a means of 'controlling' fear. To control fear it must never start in the first place. Fear is a primal state of vulnerability and your bodytakes over your concious will and overpowers you to protect you and let you know it does not like its environment. This is not your willpower of control.

What they will feel:

UNCOMFORTABLE

The Subject of Fear

Today in class we played around with the idea of fear and how we draw ourselves out of the state of far itself. We had a ferret running around the room and holiday lights to try an detour us from the subject the class was discussing. It worked to say the least. Most people were too focus'ed on the ferret above all else. Let's face it, when you throw something cute in the middle of a bunch of immature young adults, no one really manages to pay attention.

Nonetheless, the subject of fear is something I do not neccessarily enjoy thinking about. This is mainly due to the fact that my fears are severe and go hand in hand with eachother. I am 1) terrified of enclosed spaces (in other words I am clausterphobic) and 2) death scares the living daylights out of me. Let's explore the idea of why I say these two things go hand in hand. The mere thought of being stuck in a box with very little moving room, let alone squirming move, with a significantly low supply of oxygen frightens me. Now, let's imagine me in a coffin. Despite the fact I am dead, the thought still resides in my living mind at the moment. My dead body would be in a very tight box, stuck 6 feet under the ground with no way to escape. Now the mere fact of me being dead and even if I could escape it is impossible because I am..well..dead. Now death has it's own scarity to me. When I actually focus on the thought I go into an instant state of panic. My face flushes white, my stomach turns and the only way to focus on something else is to get into an activity or do something productive. I do not like the idea of no longer being, well, a being. No being is being, yet by being they are. One of my favorite quotes. No person can be living without living, but by living they are alive. I don't want to not be alive. I don't want to just one day not wake up and not be...

I am actually stopping this blog now because thinking about this is getting my stomach flustered...

I sense a change in the wind.

Our capability to experience the world around us is highly resulted because of our senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. With these five senses we are able to interact with our environment whether that particular experience be good or bad. Now our assignment in Seeing Sideways was to somehow design a new sense. Not only do we need to come up with some kind of new ability, but to have an actual usage for it and describe what other senses it would appeal to.

I will admit I was lost on this assignment at first. I did not know how to make up another sense considering I already believe we have more than five. Everything our body is capable of doing is in someway a sense. However it is an assignment and I must complete it.

My mom and I had watched the movie Erin Brocovich the other day and we got into a discussion about the subject of the movie. For those who have not seen the movie it is based off a true story. Erin gets a job at a law firm as an assistant to a lawyer and along the way makes startling discoveries after speaking with various people about water contamination. A company called PG&E (which still exists today) had been dumping their waste into water pools which then was transferred into the public water systems. In so doing, people around the area were developing deadly and cancerous illnesses by drinking and absorbing the water. Of course no one knew this, but Erin found all of this out after she does mounds of research. She and the victims take the company to court and won their case and PG&E had to pay the victims millions of dollars. At the end of the movie we see Erin still doing research on this subject and even talking to people in other areas of the state, but if the movie ends here, why would they show this?

If you recall in recent news another state has published information on water contamination and people developing deadly illnesses. This water contamination was caused by PG&E. That’s right, the same company doing the same thing they were sewed for. PG&E has done this same act all across the United States and how they are still in business is beyond me.

Anyway, onto the assignment. My idea for a new sense would be Radiosensory. This new sense would allow people to be able to sense radioactive chemicals and fields in order to prevent such issues like PG&E. For instance, say you poor yourself a glass of water and begin to take a drink. A signal in your brain would send a sharp intense message alerting you of the danger. Now this can technically already appeal to the senses of smell and taste. Of course the point is to not internally absorb this chemical in the least bit so sniffing or tasting the radioactive chemical is not in the best of interest; nor is touch because skin can absorb radioactive material as well as cause harm to the exodermises.

This sense would definitely be beneficial to mankind seeing as how this problem with PG&E alone has been going on since the early 80’s.

Senseless Senses

So this week in the wonderful world of Beth, we began by discussing details on our experiences walking backwards. I am going to be honest when a lot of the students cross-mentioned to me that they did not really do the project, which I find a real shame in all honesty. The point of these exercises to allow you to see things in a way you have not before and if you allow yourself to be stuck in the 'norm' of things simple because you are lazy, uncomfortable, or just do not care, then it is a waste to even be in the class. The experiences help enlighten a person to a feeling of more than self-embodiment. By shedding a layer of skin that has been gritted a knarled on by this world and it's sense of normality, then we are truly able to experience something new and different. When you shed a layer of skin, the fresh layer beneath it is much more sensitive.

We then revisited the EGG assignment. I was actually pretty jealous of the other girl who used blood on her egg simply because her blood looked better than mine haha. It is a petty thing to be jealous over, but I loved how she did the splatters and cracked the egg, even the photo was well taken with really nice lighting. I did not really care for the eggs drawn on at all. Do nto get me wrong, it was my original intent, but I declined on it as it did not seem very creative. I think the first thing everyone thought was to draw on it. I think the next time I see someone DRAW on an egg, I better see the Mona Lisa on it. That would impress me.

We then moved on to talking bout our sense and how they enhance our life on this planet by protecting us. Our assignment is actually to come up with an imaginary sense, but I will be honest, I am lost. I can not imagine any other thing that could possible become a sense. I plan on sleeping on it for a few days and just keep my mind open to observation around campus. I am detirmined that if I pick something to become a sense, that I want it to truly be useful and something that could protect a person, rather than just be there to use in general.

AVL Inspiration

I went to the mall the other day just to do some meaningless shopping. You know, to buy things such as incense and makeup. In my opinion the mall is a little bland. It is the same thing every time I go with maybe a few stores moved around. I basically walk into the mall, go to the store, get what I need, and leave. I do not really pay attention to shops not on my list of to do’s. I also noticed that a lot of people had problems finding places and a lot of people talking about current sales. How could this be fixed?




Part of this assignment is to take a product we saw in the AVL and find a way it could be utilized in a common location of public use. The large panel screen, in my opinion, would be actually visually and actively appealing. Confused? Let me explain. Can you imaging walking through the mall and as you walk, have a large panel television along the wall. This wall could even be touch paneled where you mall goers can find a location, see advertisements, and other miscellaneous information. The interactivity is one thing malls need more of. They already have all of our favorite stores in one location, why not boost the excitement and get it more hands on. A high tech mall is a thing of the future.



The only drawback to this massive touch screen monitor is the maintenance. With so many people touching the monitor it could be a hassle to keep up with repairs. Money is also an issue. However, the revenue brought to the stores because of what the unit could do would help boost sales, I think. If customers had a more interactive way to find places that have moved or that are new ( a digital directory), or can see the sales ads as they are walking through the mall so they know there is more than one option, it would increase spending and the footprints through stores.



Obviously the pros and cons are there, but the main objective has its key functions. If it can be worked and developed it could become a key asset in marketing and not just for massive online computer chatting and screen sight as it is used for now. I think people never really know what they have truly created until others start finding more than the original usage for it to be utilized.

Backwards Sightseeing

Walking backwards is not neccessarily something we do on a regular basis, but if you ever have a chance to explore the idea, I would suggest it. I will give a brief warning however, please do not attempt this if you have vertigo or a chronic habit of losing balance as it could result in critical injury. Granted, we were told to use a buddy system to have someone guide you, but even then I do not recommend it.

When walking backwards there is a feeling of lightness, a free falling feeling that makes you see things in a different way. There are certain aspects of the world you do not normally pay attention to when walking forward, and while I hear people say to put the past behind you I will say this in return, "sometimes things that have been past are the most beautifull.

The world is a three dimensional living organism which numerous sides, angles and colors. It is impossible to see everything always looking infront of you. To me the purpose of walking backwards is to see things all around you even though you are headed in a generally directon. Get to whre you are going by all means, but next time you do, look around. There may be something new and exciting you have never noticed before even though you walk the same path every day,

Rules, What are they good for?

In today's class we visited the AVL in the IT Building. I have actually been over there several times in my last three years at IUPUI, but it seems professor's keep finding it important to drag us back over there. Everything that was shown I have basicaly seen before and I admit, I was rather bored. I know some students found it really exciting, which for them it is great, but there was nothing new that I had not seen or learned about in previous classes.

The CAVE was interesting though. That I did kind of like. I can see if being used for numerous games if someone can get it augmented correctly. The first thing that crossed my mind was play The Sims with it. I can imagine interacting with other sims and and walking through a sims world. It would be really neat. Even playing games like Halo would be a stretch from the games we have now, as good as they are.

I was not too impressed with the large screen as I have seen it done is numerous movies and advertisements. It seems kind of outdated to me. The Smell machine I saw in it's huge honking box form so I was not too overly excited. The 3D tv was not very exciting either. I really expected to see new stuff that was not really accessible and was right off he market when this stuff has been around the last 5 years in all honesty.

The Egg and Eye

Our first assignment in Seeing Sideways was to take an ordinary egg and do something with it. Well, not just something, I mean to say Anything. The idea was to take an egg and do whatever we wished with it. We had no rules or limitations, besides no soft or hard core pornography. Drats.

I used my own eggs strictly because I did not want bird poop wreaking havoc on my immune system. Gross. It took me awhile to figure out a concept. My original idea was to draw faces with a sharpie on several eggs and have them doing something funny, but then I thought about how rediculous it sounded and how many times it has been done before. Then I thought, what better way to come up with an idea than to pick a topic, a controversial topic. Abortion.

Why not, right? I mean it is a egg afterall and even humans produce eggs (even though they do not shoot out of our buttocks). I had to find a way to use the egg to suit this topic and make an impact. The first thing that came to mind was Blood. Everyone is impacted someway at the sight of blood.

I cracked the egg open and poured out the yoke, cleaned out the inside and then removed the sack so I just had the shell. I then took fake blood I got from the holloween store and squirted it everywhere and smeared it. I took the picture in wit the rule of thirds in mind so the most impact was made when viewed.

Here is the final result:

To view larger click the following link:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/regoness/EGGthacker_kathryn.png

See and Say and Do ad Talk and Laugh and what the BLEEP was that?

Oh boy, first day of class: Seeing Sideways. First off, let me explain why I am even taking this class. For the past three years of having Beth Lykins as a professor, I have been nagged into the deep end to take this course; and while I would love to give all the credit to this being the reason, it is not. This is hopefully my last year of college and I am in a 19 credit hour course load. I am also preparing for my Capstone in the Spring so I have that load as well which is a lot of work and intense mind melting. I felt like I really needed a course to draw my attention away, something that was not just work, but fun, to get me moving, to stimulate me outside my strict schedule.

I am quite pleased to say this may very well be it. Though, in all honesty, I did not expect a musical syllabi one bit, despite knowing what Beth is fully capable of. I think the assignments and the projects are really interesting and the act that no help is offered is a great thing to teach students. I already have great idea for the Final Project, something interactive, something to get peope outside the class involved in some creative. I won't dispell what it is though.

I'm looking forward to seeing the outcome of this class and the things I will produce outside my normal range of medium. I think if you cannot be creative in life, then you lose a part of yourself you were born with. It's not a priveledge to be created, it is a blessing.