Planning Writing

I was asked to plan ahead, now that we are heading into a thanksgiving break. So, I figured I would make a quick list of the things I have left to write in the weeks following the break.

Utopia and Dystopia in Film and Literature

-Second Long Essay (8 pages)

- Final Response paper

Civil War Literature

-Final Research Essay on George Moses Horton (analyzing his poetry in context to Slave Literacy)

-Final Exam (takehome exam centered around writing)

Devised Theatre

-Multimedia scripts over break

-Multimedia shooting

Film Theory

-Response paper 2, 5, 12 and final

-Final essay

-film clip and questions

Mindful Writing

For this course I have some things to catch up with. I have a lot of reading to get done with responses.

-Boice Readings

-Boice Responses

-Final Portfolio

-Final Project scripting

-Final Project shooting

BDS

I started my research paper today for my civil war literature course and have a clear idea about how I will approach integrating the ideas of slave literacy and education with the poems I have selected by George Moses Horton. The next few days are going to be supremely stressful because of papers and assignments, so I will need to practice mindfulness at all times in order to maintain my sanity.

BDS

This morning I finished up my film theory paper about a film called "My Beautiful Laundrette" which featured a very young Daniel Day-Lewis. I was happy that this weeks readings were a little shorter but I decided I should probably take a little more into account than the plot. As I read and reread our essays this week, I couldn't help but wonder if the reason these writers were so ambiguous and vague was because they needed to be in order to get across the abstract ideas they were exploring. It reminds me a lot of the readings I have had on meditation, which is hard because I have to read those very mindfully to completely understand the concepts put out there. Then I realized that I have been reading my film theory book the same way. Fancy that!

BDS

Today, I finished my response paper on the film the Planet of the Apes for my Utopia in Film class. It wasn't very hard to find something to write about, but it was a bit hard to figure out how to relate it to the fourth part of gulliver's travels. The extra free time I have this week is helpful as I now am working a different job. I was able to think about the idea for my paper before writing it. It helped to have time to do some prep work and I think it showed in the questions I posed.

bds

 Tonight, at work i was in a meeting and decided to take meeting notes mindfully. I was trying to completely follow what everyone was talking about, but the problem is that they were using so many technical terms that i wasn't sure what they were talking about. Instead of sitting in the dark i wrote down what they were saying then went and looked up what programs they brought up. It was a slight moment of brilliance on my part that I wouldn't have come to without mindfulness.

Tonight, i started to do research and reading for my 10 page research paper in Civil Lit. I don't think the paper is due until the 18th, but i needed to be doing research a long time ago. Anyway, i  usually distract myself when it comes to research, so i made notes of every little break i took during my scheduled homework hours. I didn't necessarily try to stop myself, but i was able to keep track of my productiveness (or non-productiveness as the case may be).

BDS

I needed to find a scene from a film that exemplifies the ideas that we are delving into with this weeks reading/film viewing for my Film Theory course. This week seemed to focus on the status and analysis of third world cinema including its contributions towards the developments of an alternative movie industry as well as a cultural medium of communication. My response paper centered around my assertion that in third world cinema there are many ideas about the perspectives of the audience that go unnoticed. So I should probably pick a film from another culture and point out different perspectives that are missed. I think I can show examples from the film to show that any cultural barrier contributes to misunderstandings about the ideas being conveyed. The relationship between audience and creator (in this case filmmakers) is and always will be essential.

3 minute breathing space

Today we did an awesome mindful meditation and compassion exercise in class. It got me going, so that when I went home I continued in this same spirit. I did a three minute breathing exercise through the MBSR website. It helped me gain some focus and peace. I was pretty surprised at how well it connected, as breathing exercises sometimes throw me off. I usually get a bit too forceful with my breath and it normally has a "negative" effect on my mood and behaviors. I was happy to report that this exercise helped me to get myself ready for homework (which I will reference in my BDS).

BDS

This morning I worked, which meant a lot of learning. I am still in training and they consider this job to be perpetual training as it is a technical job. They are teaching me about designing and building websites using a program called adobe dreamweaver. I am learning a lot of code language and I actually built my first page today. It was a lot of fun. The main issue I ran into when writing code was note getting ahead of myself as it is very easy to jump over a line of closed code and onto the next line. This screws up your entire page. So, you must be very mindful of everything you type.

Tonight, we had another meeting for my devised theatre course, in which we created scenes from ethnographic interviews. I had to downsize an interview and cut out so from what my source said. We were trying to get to the heart of their conversation so when cutting, we had to be very conscious of what they were really trying to say. The point they were trying to get across. It was fun and took a long time as we analyzed every line.

BDS

I wrote two short papers this morning for my Utopia and Dystopia class and my civil war lit class. The civil war lit class was interesting because it was just an update on the 8-10 page research paper due in a couple of weeks. She wants to recieve updates about how our research is going and how our topic may be evolving. I personally just changed my topic to a brilliant poet who just happened to be a slave who escaped to become a Freedman. His name was Joseph Moses Horton and I think I could do enough resarech on him and other freedmen to write a paper that would be suitable for this course.

My other short paper for Utopia was to respond to this weeks film "Metropolis". Frickin' amazing film because it was Fritz Lang's masterpiece and one hell of an undertaking from a production standpoint.

BDS

This afternoon I was feeling a little tense, so I did a little breathing exercise called the 3 minute breathing space. It helped me get into a state of awareness about my physical self and the tension I was feeling. I did some writing for MU Film Production Club immediately following this. I started to write our weekly newsletter and saved a format for doing this. Before I knew it I was starting my homework for tomorrow. My homework was writing a personal narrative that we can turn into a scene for our play in my devised theatre course. The idea had to do with self-image, so I wrote about a situation I had been in while taking family portraits before. I actually think it turned out great.

Bds

Today I worked on devising theatrical scenes with a group of students who also don't have much experience at doing this kind of activity. I contributed a few ideas but I thought that the situation I was in was perfectly leading to a BDS. I was very very aware of the conversation we were having as a group of creators all trying to get our ideas out there and expressed. It was interesting that I sometimes felt the urge to interrupt some of my fellow contributors. I felt as if what I had to say was much more important than what they had to say. I took notice of the is urge and focused on being a solid listener and analyzer of their ideas without imposing my own until a time more proper.
Interestingly enough that led to my becoming the transcriber/writer of the group. In the end my understanding and willingness to allow people their moments to speak and share ideas helped me to become the individual who has the most power over the end product of our proposal. When I went home I looked over the groups ideas and tried to organize it a bit more. During this time I was sure to keep in mind that some people may feel differently about how to organize this scene, so not get attached to my interpretation. Mindfulness helped me understand interactions on a professional creative level.