TMP 3 Storytelling Website Ideas

So for my TMP 3 class, we are exploring the idea of storytelling through a website. 

Guidelines: Website must have 10 pages, must tell story, must involve thoughts about memory

Idea: To tell the story about Anygirl leaving the school restroom with toilet paper stuck to her shoe and the encounters she has with others along the way to class either directly or indirectly. The main idea is to tell the story from the perspectives of all parties involved, including the viewer. The ideal time span for this story is from the moment it happens, with numerous "short-term" recollections through a number of "long-term" recollections. Short term being anything from five minutes to two weeks later, and long term being a month later to 100 years later.

How to appropriately tell story: Through a viewer-guided sense of time. Present multiple options for the viewer to choose and tell the story. Choices/interfaces such as a timeline(picking certain events in or out of order), linear retelling (like flipping pages of a book), through a spatial designation (purely location and individually based where you can select a room/location and the individual within that location)...could there exist a possibility to organize the memories as thought-topic based as well? 

I want to explore the idea of how a single event impacts each observer/viewer/passerby and how each individual has a completely different way of retelling/recalling the event. Especially the fact that details just "disappear" and people "forget" or "block out" what really happened down the road. A single event cannot be perfectly retold simply from putting together people's perspectives-there are too many discrepancies, not only immediately when the event happens, but quite quickly, the story starts crumbling and distorting to the point where no one is absolutely sure of all the details. So the telling of both the short-term and long-term story lines is necessary to accurately explore my thoughts on memory and perception.

Questions to address: How does a single event affect all onlookers in a different way?

What are the short term effects (memories)?

What is remembered (not remembered) immediately? 5 min later? 1 hour later? next day? 2 weeks later?

What are the long term effects (memories)?

What is remembered (not remembered) after time passes? 1 month later? 1 year later? 10 years later (decade)? 100 years later?

What information is retold, what is ignored/blocked out?

How does each person choose what he/she remembers?

Does the specific chain of events get altered? How? By how much?

Is this based purely on who the individual is, or are there certain things remembered by the "group"?

Do a number of people jumble and retell the jumbled information similarly (unknowingly?)?

What details about the place, people, thing, event are highlighted/strongly remembered?

Like the color of shirt, flyer on bulletin board, etc...is there anything "notable" about this particular event/retelling?

Some interesting websites that will help me formulate my telling methods that I've found are Storytelling-Nicolosi , E-Ville Dialogues , In Spring it is the Dawn (this is a fascinating blog/series of blogs), and NY Times Magnolia Plantation . These three sites are all sites where interactive storytelling takes place. Also, I have to read this excerpt by Borges called Forking Path 

for class next week. 

Class is pretty much over. I'm out!

While My Eyes are Unaware

So I have been having a small problem lately.

My problem is that I feel too controlled by the external influences in my life. Particularly schoolwork. Assignments, projects.

I love being creative; I do. Very much so, in fact. But I feel that it is extremely difficult to complete tasks or projects that I know are necessary for the advancement of my portfolio. Learning and acquiring the necessary skills for this to occur is difficult due to the long hours I commit to completing projects and assignments that will not be beneficial to obtaining an internship in the long run. I am trying to do my best to gear my projects more towards portfolio-quality status, but some of my professors will not let that happen. A large number of my projects are very open-ended, so those I can absolutely gear towards the building of my portfolio and such. But other ones, the more "required" research projects that I have been spending so much time on this semester...these I am frustrated with right now.

I realize the importance of research in my education. I realize that I cannot (essentially) complete any large-scale project without doing a substantial amount of research, but it seems that that is all that I have done this semester. It is true. I do not yet have a single finished portfolio-ready piece that I am proud of yet. I focus so much of my time to research-based projects that I keep finding myself pushing off the most necessary of my assignments. The most important ones that will help me get closer to a job. This is no good.

And this is what I get for going to an Art & Design School at a major research university. I love Michigan, I really do. And I have so so many opportunities here that I would not have anywhere else. I love the diversity here and the groups I'm involved in and such. I love everything. I love that there is always something to do, some production to attend, a meal to attend with friends, a meeting for an organization...I love this all. But I find myself again struggling with my time. This time management is definitely different from last year. I now know what I have to do; what I need to be doing.

And yet, I am not finding enough time to do what I need to be doing. I love my friends so so much, and it makes me sad that I cannot spend as much time with them as I would like. There are so many times that I do not see them, skip football games, back out of plans, etc. because of my workload. Granted, going to football games is not what I "need" to be doing, but the fact that out of the 5 home football games we have had, I have been at 1. Only 1. The 1st 1. We have 2 games left, and I will only go to 1 of those too. Essentially, I spent $200 on 2 football games. This is sad. Technically, I sold one for $30, so I spent $170 on 2 games, but wow. That is not worth it. I really need to reevaluate the importance of buying football tickets next year. It is nice to be in a seating section with your friends, but I am not attached to the team in a way that I feel I "missed out" on anything by not going to the games. In fact, I get a lot of work done on Saturdays in general, but when the dorm is empty and my hall is quiet, I get even more work done.

That was quite a segue. Okay. Back to the time management thing. I have already stopped going to choir practices on Sunday nights. It is just too much for me. I need those two hours of extra time before Mass to complete work. I love singing, but as far as time commitments go, I just can't do it any more. Which makes me very sad. It is such a great group of people and a number of my friends are in it, but there is no way that I can do it. Maybe next semester. This semester for sure, though, I cannot commit. MUSKET takes up two hours on my Sundays now. Becoming the Assistant Marketing Director has taught me so much already about putting on a professional theatrical production. We have a hour (well...will, we haven't met with the Marketing group yet since our schedules are so ridiculously different...hopefully we will in the next couple of weeks) meeting with the Marketing team to discuss ways to market the show, target audiences, promotional events and such. Then there is an hour-long production meeting with the directors, stage managers, costume, set, and lighting designers, etc. The backbone of the show. I really like sitting in on these meetings. I am learning a lot of the "hidden" work and what goes on in order for a show of these proportions to take place.

AAF is now starting up as well. I am not looking to get a leadership role of any sort right now just because my time is so pressed and I know that MUSKET gets priority right now. I committed to MUSKET last winter and to AAF just a couple of weeks ago. I cannot even go to the AAF meetings, however. They are during times when I have class (sad and true) but since the President is in my W&I studio, I get to ask her questions and things when I need to. So that is really fantastic and great.

Whoa. Time flies. I now have to spend time working on a project that won't affect my portfolio. Bummer. Okay.

Im out.

Blog Action Day-October 15, 2008

Today is Blog Action Day 2008. The topic is poverty.

Every blogger across the world that is registered with Blog Action Day writes about a designated topic specific to that day in that year. Every blogger registered will write about poverty today.

These are my thoughts on poverty in support of this awesome outreach.

Poverty. At school I see poverty every day. Not with the students or those teaching them, but with many of the residents in Ann Arbor. The number of homeless people is only growing here with the economic downturn and the fact that costs are doing nothing but rising. I only wish that it weren't this way. I feel for the men that sit with their hat on the ground asking "please spare some change, ma'am" and all i can reply is "i'm sorry, i don't have any" which is the truth. In this consumer-driven world and my fear of misplacing things, all I carry on me is my drivers license and my credit card. I do not carry cash. In this town, I do not need it...cash you cannot get back if it is stolen, whereas I can quickly freeze my credit card if it is taken away from me. I used to carry my debit card but realized that it comes straight out of my account, so it would be like cash if it was stolen from me. Okay, enough about me. Back to poverty.

I feel badly that I never have any change to give, but is that going to make me start carrying around change just so I can give the homeless some...probably not. I don't know. I've never really thought of it like this before. The thought has never crossed my mind to begin carrying change so I would have some to give away. That a handful of dimes and nickels would help some individual get through his or her day. I never considered it like that.

Technically, I didn't quite finish my writing on the 15th. Oh well. I am glad that you enjoyed my short input on poverty. I think I will revisit this topic later.

Revelation!

One has occurred.

Please Click on Gabe and Max in the Right Hand Corner! :)

I am really excited/nervous about this project. If I can pull it off, that would be amazing!

And I will. Not a question of can/can not.

But when.

Shane and Shawn!!!

Oh my gosh.

I just met Shane and Shawn.

They are totally awesome and down to earth. These guys rock!

I didn't talk with Shawn as much as Shane, but Shane was helpful and enthusiastic as anything. 

Okay, for those of you who don't know, Shane and Shawn are two brothers from Detroit who run their own shoe company, ShaneandShawn. They started out with a line called DETNY (which is how I discovered them back in summer 2005 while perusing through racks of shoes at Nordstrom's Rack in Troy MI before I left for NSLC ...I was looking for some black dressy "business-esque" flats and fell in love with this urban black flat with a spongy blue insole. Sadly, I found a pair of Privo shoes that were a little narrower and fit better so I went with the Privos instead. But I have been an avid fan and follower of DETNY and ShaneAndShawn for years! My mom even knows about them from the articles I had posted up on my bedroom wall at home..when I lived there)

Anyways, my friend Tiffany who I was in IDSA with last year interned for them this summer (she is awesome and her designs for Chiwei's class were amazing. This girl is sweet!) and they were in town for this presentation of entrepreneurial awards at the engineering school this afternoon, so they were in touch and they arranged to come to A&D and give a presentation/talk about how they got to where they currently are and advice, knowledge, etc. They are fantastic guys. It is so awesome to know of successful students that graduated from A&D/UM and are working in a field that they love and is exciting...these guys work in the Fashion industry, for crying out loud! AMAZING!!!

So as of today, I am back to being interested in fashion. Don't get me wrong, I still am totally psyched about art direction, but I do realize that there has to be art direction in the fashion industry-someone who does the photo shoots and makes up the collection booklets. I know I have been developing some really strong photography skills lately and have been strongly using photography to tell stories, especially in my CFC class. I have been doing some video work as well, just some basic things, but it has been really fun to tinker around with photography in stop-motion animations lately. Anyways, they have me thinking again.

Okay, back to the amazing event that happened in my life that ended only 20 minutes ago. Shane and Shawn began their presentation at noon at the art school, ended it a little after one, answered questions, and I was one of four students to join them for lunch!!! OMG!!! AMAZING!

So Tiffany, Steph, I and another girl who is a senior joined them for lunch at the Commons Cafe (cafeteria in Pierpont Commons). We got to talk with them about so much. Shane is fantastic, and absolutely wants us to send him our portfolios online and he can give us tips and pointers on things to do and improve, maybe ordering of things and how to assemble our portfolios. Fantastic. This is awesome, even though I am exploring AD. I still like ID and he has motivated me to start sketching all the time again. 

I need to start with the basics again, I know that my drawing has regressed since I have been done with Chiwei's class. It has gotten a bit worse, but I know that I can fix some of this in my time, even on bus rides, gosh. It can happen. 

And I missed Oceanography lecture today. Who cares?!? I don't care. I know I can learn it online. And we are doing basic chemical composition of water and bonding...and I have the textbook. I think I might take care of this while on the train ride home tonight (2 hours of doing homework, yay xD)

I just spent almost three hours with Shane and Shawn Ward. Amazing men. I would love to continue my relationship with them. And now they know who I am! Because they lived in the Evans Scholar house!! They were surprised to hear that I caddied at Oakland Hills for 6 years. They, of course, caddied at Detroit Golf Club. But now, they know that I am a sophomore who caddied at Oakland Hills and am at A&D at UMich. I don't think that they will be able to forget that anytime soon. :)

Shane kept stressing the importance of internships, which makes me really happy since that's what I really decided that I need to be doing right now, is completing work that will be really strong in a portfolio. So when I start applying to internships in January, I will have an awesome thing to show from this first semester. Building on the sketching skills I learned last year in Chiwei's class, I know that I can improve even more and pump out work that is sweet. I also have a totally different view on unpaid internships as well. They can be so valuable to get you in a network of people. You will meet people and establish relationships with them, know about their company and how they work. You will do some work for them that can get manufactured/published/made!!! Tiffany worked for Shane and Shawn as an unpaid intern but she learned so much. She has 5 shoes that are going to be sent to pre-production, with models made and such...and Shane really thinks that at least one pair will actually be produced and fully sent into production. As a college student, Tiffany will have a design of hers actually produced and sent into the real world where real people will be buying it!!!

I am so jealous.

I want to be able to have a similar experience. And I have re-realized just how hard I need to be working this year. I have been working hard, but I need to push myself more. And probably rethink some of the things I'm doing. 

But okay, one of the things that Shane did is when he was here (with Chiwei...they had classes together and everything) is that a group of like-minded students got together, wrote a proposal for a class that they knew was really going to help them advance in their studies and get a job, presented it to a teacher, and began an independent study that got them two credits!

So you can do something like that here! This is going to be a really good idea down the road...I feel it!

Also, along that same like-minded thought, my group project with Lindsay, Alyssa, and Grace has progressed...we submitted our proposal on Wednesday! We will find out on the 10th if we are semifinalists, which would be fantastic! :)...I'm also pretty proud of writing a really professionally-sounding proposal. I think it is pretty badass! It is awesome and I wouldn't believe that a group of undergrads submitted it. But we did. Fantastic!

Wow. This has been such an awesome day. And I'm going home on the train to see my family and work all day at the library tomorrow! I am really excited to see everyone and eat some real food and have a lil vacation from here.

So I have to print my ticket and then catch the train @ 5:45. Psyched.

And I just met Shane and Shawn!!!!!! I will never in my life forget today. Ever.

I'm out! :)