So this past week I had some epic fun writing two assignments that were among the hardest I've had to do in a while. They were both completed on time though, so that's nice. Either way, I'm not behind on the reading for all of my classes and will have a fun time trying to catch up (and likely failing) for the rest of the semester (failing that is, in catching up on my readings, not school). A few weeks ago we had to present our self portraits for my photo class, and I was proud enough about them that I scanned them! Unreal isn't it!
I'll post those... um. But first! how about a list?
• Number of colour rolls shot since I last counted - 8 • Number of black and white rolls shot since I last counted - 22 • Number of black and whites rolls I developed on Saturday - 17 • Number of rolls I shot today (on an adventure with Pete to Amherst) - 6 • Number of assignments passed in this past month - 3 • Number of papers/take homes till I graduate - 7 • Number of assignments/final portfolios till I graduate - 6 • Number of months left in school 3 • Number of trips I am going on this summer - 4 major ones many small ones • Possibility of me having a full time job this summer - 0% • My feelings about that - SO STOKED.
So yeah - self portraits!
(click the images to view larger versions)
This one is taken with a 28 mm lens looking at another camera, the reflection appears in the filter at the front of the lens.
This one is taken looking into a mirror, the camera is positioned in such a fashion that the light from the window is caught as a reflection in the filter at the front of the lens.
Zero photoshop involved here, just good old reflections.
I'm kind of feeling a bit stuffed because I went to Amy's family's house for supper tonight and ate a ton, so I think I'm just going to lie down and leave you with what I've written (as well as the requisite closing video).
So yeah - here's the mantage (obviously not made by me):
As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca
So today all of the bloggers (except for 2.... or 3? it's all a blur) got together and ate supper at meal hall. I ate a lot, and was stuffed when I left, I then went to see "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" at film society, that movie, is really a downer, and it didn't help the food settle. So hence the name of my post.
Well I promised that I'd talk about my courses this semester this week, but I'm mad at all of them right now, even though only two are really causing me grief (read: grief in that something is due, and is not at all unreasonable for them to have things to pass in, I just simply don't want to do them). So maybe later I'll tell you about my classes. Maybe.
Instead, enjoy this story
Throughout last semester, me, Alicia and Mike (and sometimes others) would go on little photo adventures. Towards the end of November, we decided to go on "one more adventure." We met at the photo lab at 1:30 ish and then proceeded to walk towards my house, with the purpose of making our way towards the train station. We were immediately struck by the fact that it was really warm out. We we arrived to the end of campus by York Street, Mike and Alicia decided to climb a tree. I took pictures.
We then wandered down Landsdowne and eventually ended up at my house, where we elected to leave our winter coats, as it was much too warm for them. Instead of doing the normal act of using roads to make our way to the train station, following Mike's lead we walked across a field, and then ended up in this rather cool spot, where I had fun taking pictures of a sewer exit thingy. As I was changing film in my cameras and taking pictures, Mike and Alicia wandered off and ended up laying about in the tall grass. I took some pictures here, and once you see them I'm sure you'll wish you were laying about on a warm late November day in some tall grass in Sackville.
After that we went over to the train station, and sat in the grass yard of in the sketchy abandoned house next to George's Fabulous Roadhouse. Once we started to get cold (as it was about 4 or so) we walked back home.
It was indeed, a fabulous adventure,
Here is my radio show for the past week:
So while looking for a video to post on my blog I went to www.youtube.com and the top featured video was by Two Hours Traffic. My reaction went like this: "woah"
Here it is.
PS they are a maritime band and play in Sackville 2 or times a year.
Well that's all for this week, thanks for reading and see you next week! As always, if you have any questions, email me at: jzstrsf@mta.ca
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
