Before I go on, any picture I post here, you can click on to see a larger version.
So last time I posted I did a recap of my classes, I thought it was a good idea, and in fact a few people let me know that it was. Neat. I had intentions of writing a blog over break, but I was so busy doing hardly anything productive that in fact I just couldn't seem to get around to it. So lets see, what can I talk about in this blog?
How about I
• Tell you about my holidays • Talk to you about some music • Show you some pictures I've taken • Show you some pictures that will make you laugh • Talk to you about my upcoming semester
So my holidays hmmmm? I went home to New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. I finished exams on the 18th, and was initially supposed to go home on the 19th, but instead ended up going home on the 20th at night. Here's why, Amy was coming home with me to visit for a few days, but she and Rory were working on a project together and needed to present it prior to leaving, due to this delay, Rory offered to drive us back to New Glasgow (as my dad was supposed to get me on the 19th). The drive back was fun, as Mary came along with us (she works at the Owens art gallery) as she was going home to Pictou county as well. The ride home was fun, and the few days Amy and I spent together were filled with sleeping, watching The Office, playing Scrabble (only once though) and eating food. After Amy left, my sister Gaby arrived, and she was in New Glasgow for the duration of my time home. On January 1st I left home and came back to New Glasgow, then I caught a train to Caraquet (that's in Northern New Brunswick) and hung out with Sylvain and Tia for a few days. The main point to this trip to Caraquet was to get a bunch of work done on the Wub Tour DVD. You see this past summer 7 of us went on a road trip around Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to skateboard, although initially I had no intention of making a video out of it, my mind changed. That video is on Google video, and it's LONG so I won't post it here, because I doubt very many of you will want to watch a horrible compressed 40 minute skate video. Tangent aside Sylvain and I got a whole bunch done in those few days I was in Caraquet (1st to 5th). On the 5th we drove up to Riverview to skate at the indoor skatepark. After a long day of physical activity, I got back to Sackville and literally went to sleep as soon as I got in the door, 11:00, and got out of bed at 1PM on Sunday, I guess I was tired!
So music, hmmmm, while on the train, to Caraquet I decided to take up the daunting task of sorting through my music library and figuring out stuff I don't need to have in iTunes and on my iPod, the plan is, once I figure out what I want gone, I'll put it on my external hard drive, so if for some reason I need it, I can get at it, but essentially I will clear up a huge amount of space. In other music related news, I had my first radio show of the new year on Monday and it had an "electronica" influence. I use quotation marks because the music wasn't outright electronica, as it still had ties to the alternative/indie stuff I play on my show.
Show 10
OH YEAH!
Some time in the last two months I got the idea (from a webforum I frequent) to try to see if I could make a playlist out of 18 songs that I would feel happy listening to for the rest of my life. Although the task was daunting I managed, and I am really happy with the result, as I listen to that playlist a lot now.
On to photos!
Hart Hall on a wonderful sunny day after a heavy snowfall.
The post office
Hanna at the cafe
JJ's shoulder... the first in a series?
The standard way I look at and photograph trees
Snow angel
Here are a few funny internet pictures.
Contrary to the list I posted at the beginning of my blog, I will NOT talk about my upcoming semester, instead, I'll do that next week!
It's not even like I was too busy either, but I guess I just haven't felt I wanted to put the time into making a post.
My last couple weeks have been similar to other Mount Allison students, writing final papers and wrapping up each course. The last two weeks of class are pretty hard for me because I get tired of going to class, and just want to skip them all and work on my papers etc. I chalk this up to the fact that I don't miss many classes throughout the semester?
So I wanted to write a bit of a recap on my semester by writing a detailed "review" of each class I took (of course I won't be able to talk about the exams as I haven't written any yet). So I talked briefly in my last post about how this semester has been my best and least stressful semester of my entire university career. It has a lot to do with the courses I took, but the best part is that the last paper I had to pass in was due on November 26th. Now you know why I'm a bad person for not posting a blog here. I've had nothing due... for OVER A WEEK. So you might be saying to yourself well he has to start studying for exams. Well, yeah... sorta except my first exam is on the 12th, then 17th then 18th. So not only do I only have 3 exams, but they aren't for a while.
So what am I spending my time on these days? Thanks for asking! I'm working on my final photo portfolio, where I have to have 12 prints passed in sometime around the 13th. So I'm working towards having that done this weekend, leaving me time to study for my exams! Sweet. This past weekend, due to the fact that I didn't really have anything specific to do, I went home, and white I was home I dropped off all the rolls of colour film I shot this semester to get developed at SuperStore (that's where I get my film processed) and because they have the machines in house I had them back before I came back to school on Monday morning. Of course this means I have new stuff to post here, and am certainly going to do so:
After looking at those pictures, you might want to see a short list that sums up my semester in academics:
• 8 Papers written • 10688 words written for papers • 20 slides passed in • 7 prints passed in (so far, another 12 to pass in) • 40 rolls of black and white shot • 12 rolls of colour shot • 2 rolls of slide film shot • 5 pop quizzes written (read: failed) • 2 mid term tests written • 5 adventures to take photos • Hours upon hours wasted not doing school work
Once the semester is done, I will be able to add:
• 3 exams written • 12 prints passed in as a final portfolio for my photo class
My last two radio shows were fairly interesting, they both had "themes."
Two weeks ago, I really didn't feel like making a show, so I decided to go through all the playlists for my previous shows, and pick out the best Canadian songs and make a show of that, thus fulfilling the CRCT Canadian content requirement for my show. This past week we were asked by the station to emphasize femcon (female content) in honor of the Montreal Massacre so I decided to make a show entirely out of femcon. Now I was slightly lazy in making this show and didn't verify that each song I chose in fact qualified as femcon, but the idea was there, and the show certainly had a different feel.
So here are my last two shows:
and
So on to my detailed "review" of my classes:
History 1651: Native American Voices Dr. Naylor
This class is a survey course that spans the history of pre contact Native Americans through to 60s and 70s reform period. The material was interesting and enabled me to possess a greater opinion of Native American history. The course is comprised of two papers, weekly discussion groups, and an exam, and lectures of course. Each paper was designed as an exercise in learned to read a journal article closely and the discussion groups had the purpose of getting the students comfortable with reading primary sources. This was an excellent course (although it could be viewed as challenging for a first year course).
Religion 1661: Religion and Popular Culture Dr. Wilson
This class had the aim of analysing how Christianity and North American popular culture interplay. The entire course readings were provided online which means there was no expensive book (or coursepack in this case) and the readings were divided into subjects that each lecture (or serious of several lectures) would discuss. What I liked the most about this course was how clear the course outline was in relation to the topics. On the courses WebCT page each topic was listed (along with a nice picture) and within each section the appropriate readings or material were posted. The course had two papers, one short analysis paper, and one longer research based paper. I enjoyed writing these papers, especially the research paper, where the student is given the opportunity of finding an example of religion in a pop culture context, discussing it, and describing where this religious symbol fits into the religious context, as well as the contemporary society. Each lecture was supplemented with relevant media (videos, pictures, websites, songs), and made the long 1:30 Monday Wednesday lectures a little bit easier to sit through. The reason I say these classes were long has to do with how Mount Allison usually schedules classes; Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes are an hour long, and Tuesday, Thursday classes are an hour and a half long. For some reason (due to scheduling conflicts?) the university decided to add a 1:30 timeslot on Monday and Wednesday afternoons at 2:30. A class in this timeslot is really annoying for me because the time between 3:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon is when I am least attentive, and crave sleep the most. Of course the nice thing about this time slot was that I got Friday afternoons off!
English 3621: Reading Films Dr. Blagrave
This class and Photography share the spot of being my favourite classes of the semester. Due to my obvious (well I hope it's obvious after reading my blog) interest in video and film this class was quite fun to take. The course followed several topics; composition and cinematography, editing, sound, and more bookish subjects like: narrative, adaptation, cognitive film theory, semiotics and film, ideology and film, psychoanalytic theory, and feminist film. Every week on Tuesday afternoon the class met in the Wu Centre (one of Mount Allison's large auditoriums) and watched a film, each film was helpful as an example of the subject we were covering. Reading Films was one of my busier courses this semester, which 2 short papers, a mid term, a long paper and an exam. Even though I had to write more assignments, they were among the most enjoyable papers I've written since I came to school here. The two short papers were; a shot analysis, and an editing analysis of a scene. What was awesome is that we got to pick what film to use for each paper, and so generally people ended up picking a movie they liked a considerable amount.
Fine Arts 2501: Photography I Thaddeus Holownia
Along with Reading Films my favourite class of the semester, and overall, I'd say this has been my favourite class I've taken in university. This course is the first photography class offered here and so the basics of operating a 35mm film camera, developing film (yup we do it ourselves), and making prints is covered. The first assignment is to shoot 2 rolls of slide film (36 exposures each) and present 20 of them in the first week of October. In case you don't know what slide film is, it's a positive film (colour in this instance) so instead of having a negative with all the colours inverted, your 35mm piece of emulsion is exactly like the picture you took. At the end of October, 6 black and white prints were due, and then the final portfolio is due on the 13th of December. The most exciting part of this course (other than of course having to take photos for a university course) was being surrounded by other people interested in the same creative subject as me. With video, and editing, there are so few people around me, that asking questions is generally out of the question, so I fumble around and learn mostly on my own through trial and error. With this photo class, if I had a question, I asked it, and Karen (the technician for the class), Thaddeus, or anyone who was around always answered the question. Not only did they answer questions, but the number of stupid questions I asked, that I could have figured out had I sat and thought about it for a few minutes and received kind and non condescending answers to was heartwarming. It's really amazing how nice everyone is in that environment.
I should be reviewing 5 classes, but one of them is a full year course, so I'll opt to review it at the end of the year.... IF I decide to do this again.
Due to the length of this blog, I think I will choose to end here, and post photo and video stuff as well as a bit more about current events in my life next week.
This video is absolutely hilarious, enjoy:
Thanks for reading,
As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Alright. Lets do this.
Since my last post I have been taking it easy. The only super interesting thing I did was actually recently.
So how about we do a bit of list kinda thing, and then get on to my interesting weekend.
Honestly, I've lost track of how much film I've been shooting. But it's a lot. So far I have
• 22 rolls of black and white film developed • 7 rolls of colour waiting for me to go home to have them developed • 2 rolls of black and white waiting to be developed
In terms of the rest of my semester I have:
• 3 more papers to write • My final photo assignment to pass in • 3 exams • .... that's it?
I really lucked out this semester, as it has been by far the best one of my university career. At this time last year, I really wasn't excited about school, and in fact first semester last year was probably the worst semester I've had. It wasn't really about anything other than the fact that I didn't want to come back to school after the summer, so I wasn't motivated to do my school work, which backfired on me and ended up making my November really unpleasant. I had the final papers for 4 of my 5 classes due on either side of a weekend (Thursday, Friday, Monday). Thankfully, with the help of some extensions, I managed to get through that. SO. After that short little personal bit. How about some more list work.
Upcoming exciting events for me:
Near future:
• Final Fantasy (a band click the link to learn more about him) is playing in Sackville tomorrow night. At the Vogue Cinema. • My friend is coming to visit, and then we are going to Moncton the next day to skateboard
More distant future:
• I'm going home in two weeks. Freaking excited about that.
Right, so, this past weekend I was part of a 48 hour project, which I organised as well. This is part of the film festival I co-organise and what it is, if you aren't familiar with a 48 film is this (in the way we made it which isn't quite how they usually are when done as part of a competition): A group of people get together, come up with an idea for a short film, flesh it out, and script it, then shoot and edit it... all in 48 hours.
The entire process was really fun and the final project will be shown at the Film Festival in March. yay!
The rest of my week is going to be spent trying to get two papers which are due on Friday done, although I might have to pass one in on Monday as my time management skills are essentially nonexistent and so I manage to over waste time even when I don't have a lot of stuff to do.
Oops!
So because I'm going to see Final Fantasy tonight I figured you could watch a video of him playing a song live to get an idea of what he's like.
Thanks for reading, As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Hooray for breaks!
Due to my insane week, most of this blog was actually written on Monday the 29th. Keep that in mind.
So this past week and a few days (I didn't get around to writing my blog on Friday's as I usually do) has been both fun, long, and interesting (although not necessarily in that order). My weekend previous to this past one was composed of mostly studying for a mid term on Monday, but there was a degree of social activity as well, primarily focussed around Saturday night, when I attended both a barbeque, as well as a house party. Both were fun events, and I'd like to thank the members of both households for so generously hosting a good time.
As mentioned in my to do list for two weeks ago. I finally got around to making some prints for my photo class. I had to have 6 done by Thursday, when we displayed them in class and talked about them. The process of learning this was fun, although making a print takes me about an hour, so it's rather time consuming. Of course this class doesn't have essays or required readings, so the work you do for the class is all hands on, like taking photos, developing your film, and making prints. Due to the fact that I've been taking quite a few pictures, I had a lot of choice in what I wanted to print, and I was very happy with the 6 I ended up choosing.
Another event that happened this past week was the 12th annual Symposium of Art. As I mentioned last week I had to do some filming for the Art Gallery, and it was so they would have documentation of this week long event. The symposium celebrates performance art, and that was the bulk of what I had to film. On Monday, Jason Fitzpatrick perform "Bite and Burn" at the Struts Gallery, where he enclosed himself, and two other people (a tattoo artist, and printmaker) into a makeshift room that was only viewable through a small window. For the next three hours, he was subject to a tattoo that run the entire length of his spine, and had the printmaker transfer this we ink onto long sheets of paper, and posted on the wall of the room. It's hard to describe, but hopefully by the end of the week I can have some footage to show you.
Sym Corrigan was the next person I had to film to document her piece "in on, at, by", where, throughout the week she was mapping Sackville vocally over CHMA. She would go to various locations, and talk into a microphone. I filmed her at the intersection on Main Street and it was interesting to see her examine the intricacies of this space. On Friday I filmed the keynote address, given by Jayne Walk and then Saturday was a double header, I documented "Breathing Under Water" an opening and reception, as well as performance piece. The installation is really something you should check out if you can. In the high wall gallery (the gallery at the Owens with really high walls) there are giant spheres hanging from the ceiling. This installation works with resonance and sound, and is simply something that you need to check out. The performance piece consisted of a group of people bandaging the people attending the opening. This is again something that is better experienced than described so check out the little clip I threw together that highlights these three events (with some fireworks from the Cherrybomb cabaret thrown in for good measure).
As you can probably see, I was really busy this week, although I only had the photo assignment to present on Thursday (after writing my mid term on Monday) I really felt like I had gone through an entire week by Wednesday. In fact, I kind of made Thursday and Friday into a weekend, as I made an effort to catch up on sleep, and just generally relax a bit. On Saturday night, my good friend came to town to spend the night and hang out. Then on Sunday we drove to Moncton to skateboard the newly redesigned indoor skatepark in Riverview. Afterwards, he and his friends left for Northern New Brunswick, and I stayed the night with another friend who commutes to Sackville from Moncton for class. We hung out and played the new Guitar Hero, as well as play EA's skate, this is a game I was slightly skeptical about, but having played it, I am really impressed with it. So as you can see, my Sunday was spent entirely away from academics, or anything other than fun.
Now since my week has been so busy, I in fact wasn't able to post this blog on Monday as I had hoped. This is due largely to the fact that I wasn't able to get the Symposium footage uploaded!
My radio show this past week went really well, here's what I played:
So, in the last few weeks I have:
• Shot 12 rolls of film • Developed 6 rolls of film • Gone to an awesome pancake breakfast as part of a Parkinson's fundraiser • Had all too few naps • Bought groceries - this is worth noting as I really was running out of everything • Worked 12 hours for the Owens • Done absolutely no school work in the past week (except for photo, but that is fun, not work) • Been so busy that simple things like updating a blog or my website had to be put off by many, many days • Gone to see Bella at George's Roadhouse • Filmed (but also enjoyed) the most spectacular artist talk I've seen at the Owen's since I started working there
Of note for this week is my Wednesday Other than going to class, which was as normal as usual, I had to film an artist talk at the Owens and shoot some Halloween photos. June Leaf presented the talk, and it really was the most incredible talk I've seen, instead of showcasing her art, she showcased herself, she whizzed through the slides she brought of her work, and instead was much more interested in fielding questions and simply interacting with the audience. After that I went home, grabbed my camera and went to the Trick or Eat reception at the president's house to take some pictures of costumes. You see my photo teacher wants us to have a print from Halloween so I figured I would go there to take some pictures. I ended up hanging out with the people there (a fellow blogger was even present) and got a bunch of candy and cookies to take home. This is the ironic part of the night is that Trick or Eat was a door to door food drive to help collect food for the food bank, and yet food was wasted at the reception. Of course finger pointing could ensue but really, to discuss to wasted food fairly would require an entire post, and would likely belittle the fact that I did have a lot of fun talking to the people at the reception. So of course, I would love to thank Dr. Campbell and Dr. Verduyn for graciously hosting the event, and of course the students who participated in Trick or Eat.
Right, well I've got another video for you. I filmed some stuff while in Moncton/Riverview and threw it together in a short little montage. The filming isn't as good as I would have liked due to the fact that I haven't been filming much skateboarding lately, so I'm slightly out of practice.
Enjoy,
Thanks for reading,
As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca
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