Dream Land

I am not gonna lie, I used the three hour period of time to catch up on my sleep and score some z's. I have always enjoyed to sleep. I know it may sound lazy, but I love relaxing after a long hard day and nothing really can accomplish relaxation better than being in a nice air conditioned house and taking a nap. I also love to dream and over the course of time I have tried to accomplish the art of controlling my dreams. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't. I used this block of time to dream in my sleep and just explore my dream world. Everything felt so real that it was rediculous. I tried to remember as much as I could while I was in the dream so when I woke up, I could possibly start drawing it out on paint or something of the sort. As soon as I awoke however, that was not the case. I always wondered why that was. It is practically impossible for me to remember everything in a dream. I can always remember pieces or some areas but never the entire thing. I like to study my dreams and remember certain objects in them. Maybe the objects in the dreams are trying to tell me something. I wish that I could get paid to sleep. That way, I could get some research done about dreams themselves as well as enjoy some z's. The sandman is always welcome at my house whenever I have had a hard day.

Imagination...where did it go?

I am not gonna lie. I did not go onto Oncourse until yesterday to read and see what we had to do for the assignment, but since I was off, I took the day to observe my surroundings and notice things that perhaps others would not. I tried to remember when I was a child and how I viewed the world then. One thing that I definitely remember was that it seemed much bigger. When you are younger and shorter, things seem much larger to you. I remember once when I was at the supermarket with my mom, I wandered off and got lost.
The store seemed so huge to me and I could not find her. I started crying and a lady asked if I was lost and I said I was. She took me over to the checkout isle and they called my mother's name on it. After what seemed like an eternity, she returned with a mad look on her face because I had wandered off. From then on, I had to hold onto the cart when we went to the store. I also remember that when I was a child, I used to have this belief that my dad was the tallest man in the entire world. My dad is a big guy, at 6 foot 7. I used to go with him to places and watch as he towered over everyone everywhere we went. One of the biggest shocks of my childhood, other than finding out the truth about Santa Claus, was when I met someone taller than my dad for the first time. I remember we were at Six Flags Great America in line for one of the roller coasters. There was a guy a little ahead of my dad in line and he was tall. As we got closer to the ride we ended up in the same cart line. My dad stood right behind the man and he was a good head taller than him. My jaw dropped. I grabbed my dad's shirt tail and said that I thought no one was taller than him. He laughed and asked the guy how tall he was and he said he was 6 foot 11. My childhood world went crazy after that.
As I sat out yesterday and took a walk enjoying the nice weather, I noticed that I could no longer think as a child, but as an adult. I am no longer a 7 year old boy but a 23 year old man. All of my beliefs have changed since I was a child and  I thought about why that was. For one, I am further educated so I see things differently in a logical perspective. I am also bigger, so the world seems just a  bit smaller than it used to. I have other commitments now such as college, work and bills so the world is alot more complex than it used to be. Things are so simple when you are a child. The greatest gift a child has is imagination and I felt that I lost alot of it along the way of growing up. I know that I am still creative. But, I feel that looking around at everyday objects and trying to make something out of them is difficult. Why has it become so difficult? The answer is because we live in a society where we are not supposed to think or imagine. They have a certain standard for us and if we do not follow in that norm than we are looked as different or odd. I wish that I can be 7 again and all that I had to worry about was friends and play. Now, I am thinking about my future. That can be a scary thing. A great example about how this project felt for me can be easily illustrated in this video. It is from a television show that we all know and love. Can you figure out which character is the 7 year old me and which is the 23 year old me? It's sad how things change and it is so confusing to me as to why and how that happened. I really hope to find that kid like imagination in me again.

http://spongebob.nick.com/videos/clip/idiot-box-full-episode.html

Observations

I took what we were talking about in class on Monday and tried to see if I could make careful observations at my job. I am a server at a restaurant so all of my money depends on tips from the customers. What I tried to do at work the other day was to observe a customer right when they walked through the door and tried to  guess the tip they would give before they even were sat at the table. I did this in a variety of ways. I noticed what they were wearing, if they had a smile on their face and if they were polite. Other characteristics that I noticed just mere minutes after seating them included what they ordered to drink, what they ordered to eat, if they wanted to switch tables and if they had a complaint about the food or not. All of these factors helped me to determine what tip I would get from the table. By the end of the work day, it was as if I could see giant bubbles with dollar signs hovering over each customer. It sort of reminded me of the game Roller Coaster Tycoon when you would click on random people in the park and how each customer was different. I was correct on more than 50 percent of my tips for the day. I feel that this skill can be expanded upon and used outside of work as well. If I get good enough, maybe one day I can meet a person for the very first time and know exactly what they are thinking, like a psychic ha ha.

Class 2

The thing that stuck with me most from class yesterday was how unique we all really are. We all have very creative minds. As we sat around in the circle and discussed what we had actually done with our eggs, it truly was impressive to see all of the different things that my fellow classmates had done. I feel that we are a creative bunch of individuals and that we are really going to bond this semester as a whole. If I ever hit a roadblock in my exploration of creativity or in my capstone, I feel that one of these guys can help me overcome it. I feel that this is truly going to be a fun semester.

The Egg and Eye

When I first saw the title for this assignment, I did not know what to expect. Upon receiving the egg in class, I wondered what in the world I was going to do with it. All of my other assignments in New Media have always been computer based. I have never been given an assignment with an everyday object and told that I could basically do anything with it. At first, I had trouble grasping this concept. Over the course of the week however, I began to get attached to my homework assignment. Being home all alone for a week can take its toll on you. When you get tired of talking to yourself, you look for other things to amuse you. I decided to have a chat with my egg and see what it had to say. I know it sounds crazy but this is actually similar behavior to what people in solitary confinement can experience after being away from society for such a long period of time. Let's just say, I'm not even in prison and I felt a taste of their pain. INSANITY at its finest....

First Class

When I first entered the class, I did not know what to expect. I saw an IT room with no computers whatsoever. My first thought was how could I create anything without a computer? After sitting in on the first class session however, I feel more at ease. I think that this class will more than anything fuel or destroy my love for New Media by taking me to its basics, which is imagination. Do I still have imagination in my 23 year old mind? We shall see.