-4.2-

All right. Time to talk about "From Bauhaus to Our House". I meant to say something during the discussion, but all of my points were said already...and I didn't think of anything to add on before I had to go to music.
I'll jot down the main points:
-I've never, seriously, read a book about architecture before. Last year, I had this pocket guide to architecture last year (which I lost....twice... >:( It has my name in it, though) but I mostly used that for reference on buildings around the world.
-I liked the book, and how it was written, but I disagreed with some things Wolfe said. Architecture is constantly evolving, and the "International Style" is just a phase architecture is going through....
-Related to the previous bullet, I wondered if Wolfe would be complaining if architecture hadn't changed. If he'd say that architects were being 'yellow-bellied and....bourgeoise'
-The "International Style" reminds me of suits. Most people think they're uncomfortable, and they still wear them. And the style is spreading everywhere. And it looks the same. (Don't get me wrong, I like suits. But that's how they can be compared to the glass boxes.)
-Wolfe used the phrase "take it like a man" a lot. (He was being sarcastic, right?)
-He thinks that this new style got rid of all the 'real' talent. The less-talented/lazy/smart-alec people got to shine in the "International Style"
-Most modern cities look similar now days....
-(Ellen pointed this out to me when I asked her during lunch...and this was brought up in the discussion) Wolfe uses a lot of religious terms to describe the architects.
-(From the discussion) I never noticed that you see more detail the closer you get to classical architecture, and vice versa. I thought that was an interesting detail.
-(From the discussion) I also liked how Danny (I think?) pointed out that the folded paper showed how functional it was. The paper airplanes couldn't actually fly and the paper cathedrals couldn't be entered....and that's how the architects applied this way of thinking to buildings and the "International Style" was the result.
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I wanted to talk a bit about acting class 2, but I don't have the time...so I'll quickly write down these two bullets:
-....Wait. Aw, man. I forgot what I wanted to say
-(I think this was it) The main point of the class was that your body can affect your mood, and your mood can affect your body. I think I remember reading something like that in this book about body language that I have. For example, if you cross your arms, you tend to feel angry/defensive feelings.
- When Luke mentioned that "we did this during our childhood". I agree. I find it harder to 'pretend' now days, especially with other people, since people don't do it as freely. And I miss that. A lot. It's funny, since I was thinking that a lot last year, and this year.
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Some quotes I found from the STAC blog on Dada, that makes sense to me, and how to approach Dada:
And it doesn't have to make sense, because we're at a time where we make our own sense - our own personal sense - of the world. 
My ideas these days on the process of creation center around the decision making involved

-3.2-

Lots of things this week. Exploring Dada and acting classes...!

I'm in the group for Dada art....and we've been Dada-ish about the project.....(I'm not sure if that's great for organization). I think we're going for individual projects. I have some ideas, but it's more from the historical standpoint of Dada (after WWI). The problem is, every time I think of an idea, it doesn't seem "out there" enough. It has a clear meaning behind it, when (I think) it's supposed to have the meaning of "just confusion".

Acting class! I had meant to blog about this last week, but better late than never!

Here's some thoughts:

-Haha when Luke said to get your shoes ready when Danny went up, I saw Sarah's bare sock poking out behind a rack of props....what a great mental image!

-It seems that there's layers of acting. So far I've seen 4: What's going on, what's supposed to be going on, what the audience thinks is going on, and what you think is going on.

-You can use a situation that you're familiar with in order to react correctly in a situation you're not familiar with.

-I felt nervous when we were trying to pick up the hat, and it only increased as it came closer to my turn....however, I felt ok afterwards (and almost wanted to do it again).

-While waiting for my turn to go, I kept on imagining myself in appropriate situations...but when it was my turn, those situations seemed to have disappeared. (I also felt that if I tried to use those situations, they wouldn't come off as 'real').

I will talk a little about "Bauhaus to Our House", but I'm getting kicked off, so I have to do that tomorrow....or when I get a chance.

On a final note: I'm excited for the trip on Friday! I've been to PS1 a few times, but I haven't gone in a while....the last time I went, they had chickens there, haha.

9/13----
random dream I had on Tuesday:
-There was this mushroom sculpture
-Son(?) of the artist made a simpler mushroom sculpture to remind everyone of what the bigger mushroom symbolized (which was something about someone dying and something about falling off a building)

-2.12- Blog Quotes

"In a sense, I am a newbie every year because I have to learn how to work with the new community."-megan

"Rules are made and only meant to be broke within reason. Rules aren't made to be broken only for individuality, there should be something more. "-megan

"I've been thinking though. Thinking about thinking. Since human beings have the power of intelligence, we have a tendency to over think everything. We believe that we are creatures greater than anything created in the universe. At the same time though, we still do everything all the "lower" forms of life do. We still eat, digest, take a crap, and reproduce. What's so profound about that?"-Ellen


"In a weird way, it makes me think about if my brain was a museum and I was taking a tour. I don't know, it was just one of those activities."-Ashley


"You can be the best candidate in the world but the best candidate doesn't always win, the most popular with the most money will be the one to win. "-Mike H.


"Now thinking about it , it makes me laugh because the web is about me so i have no one to impress besides myself ! "-Gigi

-2.1-

Working on the wall reminded me of some sort of interface I saw once...like the wall, it had little "webs" of  ideas(?). There was a big idea everything connected to, and then littler ones branching out.


Before we started the project, I thought everyone would follow the rules, and we would all write the same way, but it turns out that some people purposefully (?) bent the guidelines, and we all had our own different style of capital block letters. This resulted in everyone's wall coming out a little differently not only in interests, but the shape of the web, the handwriting, or even how people drew their lines connecting to their likes!

While working on the wall, it was a little crowded, which wasn't that fun, and my arms got sore from holding them up for a long time...however, I liked that a lot of people were chattering, and there didn't seem to be any problems with space and such.

I think this was a great 1st group project for the year! It's a good way to find out about people...we can walk up to the wall and look at everyone's interests....I didn't get that much of a chance to look at the wall, but just from the few webs that I looked at, I found some interests I had in common with other people!
If you were looking at the wall in a metaphorical point of view, this could be considered a "class picture".

-Will edit later into a proper paragraph-


Thoughts about the wall:
-It reminded me of something...an interface or something else....
-I think it turned out to be an good introduction piece for STAC. We can just walk up to it and see the person's name and what they like....
-I expected everyone to follow the rules, but some people didn't. However, I found it funny how some people purposefully(?) bent the rules, while other people stuck to them.
-Everyone's "web" came out a little differently...whether it was the shape, or the handwriting...the way the thoughts branched out....
-It was a little crowded on the wall, which wasn't that fun. Also, holding your arms up for a long time made them sore.
-We did the wall sort-of spontaneously, so I was wondering if it would look better if we planned it a little more
-We were all on the same wall, but we all had our own little corners...(SYMBOLISM of how we're all in STAC, but we all have our own interests~?)
-I wish we had more time to look at it before writing a journal about it.

STAC 2011 -1.1-

 A new STAC year!
I...don't know many of the newbies, but I hope that will change as the year goes on! I'm looking forward to what sorts of trips and activities we'll be doing this year.

About today in class, I got excited when Luke mentioned animating, perhaps. I finished an animation over the summer (Link to youtube), and I started another one also (I put a WIP video of it on my Facebook). I mostly have been doing ideas based off of songs, and not using original characters, though...

I'm waiting for the book to come in the mail, but I heard that it contains advanced vocabulary. Ellen told me that she had to look up a lot of words when she was reading it.

Misc. comments on the Star Trek episode yesterday:
-They chose a woman to play the  androgynous alien so ppl could relate to the relationship between the alien and the man more than just if it was a man and another man actor. They'd be able to understand the frustration, not just gay rights supporters
-'Could see it as transgender people, also, since the alien felt like they weren't the right gender (?)
-blogging thought will edit later

-51-

'Been up to quite a lot this summer, art wise and movie wise!

In late June, Mom and I went to see the Dia Beacon. I enjoyed it! It was all modern art (as in, mostly shapes and giant instillations). They even had an interactive exhibit (it was by Franz Erhard Walther: link)!
It would be neat to visit there with STAC sometime.
I liked Richard Serra's sculptures. There was this one that looked like a giant bronze(?) boat. If you walked on one side, it felt like it was going to fall on you, it was a bit scary, but on the other side you got a completely different feel from it!

Interesting thought:
My Mom and I also learned from a gallery attendant that Richard Serra is sort-of bad tempered, while this other artist we were going to see, Louise Bourgeois, is very nice...However, when we saw her sculptures, we weren't that impressed (but she did have a giant spider sculpture, which I thought was impressive!)...
Does personality have a lot or a little to do with the art the people create? (I suppose it depends...)

(Here's a quick video I took of one of Richard Serra's sculptures...video and cameras weren't allowed, but sssh, I couldn't resist it, the view was fascinating!)

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Below is slightly copied from another site I blog on:


I've been seeing a lot of movies recently...but they've all been good in their own way:
-Super 8: Saw this with a friend. I liked the kids filming their movie, but it got less suspenseful after seeing what the monster actually was.
Summarized in 3 words: A Violent ET

-Buck: Saw this on Tuesday with my mom~ What a great movie. It's a documentary, but you were given a new perspective on horses, and this amazing "horsewhisper", Buck. It was interesting to see how he lived. He traveled around the country all year (except one or two weeks, I think) and didn't see his family a lot.
He kept on saying that the horses show what kind of person the owner is. At one point in the movie, he came across this horse who was so wild, it had to be put down. The owner seemed normal, but it made me wonder what kind of person she was...
Summarized in 3 words: Horses Equal Lifestyle

-Transformers 3: I went to see it yesterday with my friends purely for the special effects (the most I knew about transformers was from my little cousin XD). However, I ended up liking the red guy (because he had awesome scythe-like weapons) and Bumblebee (I thought it was interesting that he was mute except if he used audio from the radio)
Summarized in 3 words: CGI Machines Attack

-HP7 (pt2): It was enjoyed seeing the book in movie format, with the characters moving and breathing in real life, but they had to cram so much plot into two hours that it felt rushed...I cried when my favorite characters died when I was reading the book, but the movie didn't feel the same way.

Summarized in 3 words: Book was better
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I've been working with this music program, UTAU, and it's very interesting....
UTAU It's a free program that's based on the principle of Vocaloids (started in England and made popular in Japan). You record your voice (or use other people's) to make a "voice bank". Then you can use your voice in the program to make yourself sing songs! You can also change your voice by making it lower and higher, which can create different results (it's fun to see how you'd sound as a guy, or with a higher voice...).


However, you must have the background music to the song you want to sing. UTAU only does the singing part. You have to combine music with voice on an editing program (I'm using garage band).


You can create your own songs, and have your UTAUloid (your voice) sing them, or have your UTAUloid sing other songs created by other people. I haven't created a song yet, but I hope to in the future!


Anyways, here's a song I did a cover of, as an example of what a finished product may be. It's the first song I did, but it provides a good example of the different voices and such you can create (all of the singing is from the voicebank I recorded).

I know, I know, it's anime/manga. But it doesn't need to be. Japan just made it popular by giving the singers mascot(?) characters that were drawn in the anime style, and it just caught on that way.
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Going on with other news:
I'm happy to say that I've been keeping up with my daily practice!
I do most of them on an oekaki (a drawing site) and someone suggested that I try coloring them. Well, I did, and here's the result:

Mitchell from Modern Family

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Speaking of Modern Family, I've been doing a little marathon of the first two seasons...I've grown to love the show! With all of the characters, who on their own are funny, interacting with each other, it just makes the show better! Great actors and great writers!


Well, that's all for now!

-50- edited

Editing this a tad bit. I saw the movie "The Social Network" yesterday. We finished watching it at 12 (almost exactly), so I didn't get a chance to write a little about it.
I thought the movie was well done. The acting was convincing, and I thought the last scene was powerful: The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is sitting in a chair constantly refreshing the page to see if his ex-girlfriend will be his friend [on Facebook]. Then it shows a close-up of his face and text pops up reading: "Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionare today" (I think those are the exact words).
This scene shows that money does not = happiness.
-'Thought that almost everyone in the movie were being really nasty to each other...even though some parts were most likely dramatized, I hope college isn't like that.
-Most of the women (except maybe Mark's ex-girlfriend) were portrayed as...groupies. I didn't really like that, but I suppose that's showing that most of the girls that Mark knew were like that (?)
-I found it interesting that his parents were never there, or (almost) never talked about.

I'm going to get a Facebook when I turn 15, but it's interesting to know the backstory behind the site.

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I've been meaning to announce this, but I was very surprised to see this on youtube one day...an ad for cafepress, but the STAC t-shirt was on it! I saw it a couple more times on some different sites, so I took a picture of the ads, and voila!:

Isn't that odd?

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This is from yesterday:
I just saw the green lantern. Just jotting things down:
good:
-costume
-airplane scenes
-scenes where he's using his ring
-?
eh:
-character development (not much)
-female lead (but that's ok because most superhero movies don't have that)
-plot (fast paced)
-originality to the comic (but that's ok I guess? Iron man I heard wasn't that true either)
-not enough "broship"
-tone (the whole movie had dark colors, but they also had some funny moments which didn't.... flow)
-they forgot an important thing: the rings don't work against yellow (which seemed to be pretty important when I wikipedia'd the comic)

random:
-I also saw John there. I said hi.