Its that time again. The time when the New Year comes. This year I have some goals and plans that I want to achieve. Here they are…
Draw like crazy.
Do a bunch of graphic design.
Buy a record player and some records.
Learn to play guitar.
Make sweet videos and take awesome photos.
Read more about politics.
Buy some argyle socks.
Prepare my portfolio for college.
Thats about it. What are your goals and plans for this new year.
So it is being said that Wikipedia is making a search engine. I would use it over Google. Why? Because when I google something, most of the time I end up clicking the Wikipedia entry anyways. Wikipedia tells me what I want to know faster. I know how the page is layed out and can find the information quickly.
Wikipedia does cause a problem when conducting research for school papers and reports. This is because that it is not a 100% reliable source and teachers do not like seeing wikipedia in the biblliography or footnotes.
This is the title of a book that was on my Christmas list. And I am very happy to inform you, is no longer on that list because I received it from Santa Claus yesterday morning. This is a wonderful book that is all about “Giving Yourself Permission to be the Artist You Truly Are” (That is the secondary title). The book is written and illustrated by the talented Danny Gregory. Danny Gregory is the author of several book and has worked as the creative director on many “award-winning global advertising campaigns”.
The book starts with an introduction to creativity, teaches you about drawing and illustrated journaling and then moves on to talk about connecting with reality, creating your identity as a “creative” and what’s next for you in the creative world. I am moving rapidly through the book and I am having trouble deciding whether to keep reading the book or put it down and get by sketchbook. I have, of course, put it down in order to draw in my sketchbook. The book is written so well that you really feel like you know Danny Gregory quite well. This is a wonderful book and I recommend it to everyone.
You can buy the book on Amazon. And you can read his blog and see his website here. Also I would like to thank Dr. Keith Robinson for recomending the book to me through one of his blog posts.
(I was having trouble with the links, so if they dont work it’s www.dannygregory.com and www.dkeithrobinson.com)
Its been pretty busy around here, so I am going to be taking a break for the next couple days. When I come back I have some great posts that I have been working on and should be blogging alot due to my break off from school. Some of these posts include: my review of The Iraq Study Group Report, review of Borat, some web applications that could do good in Africa, what I would be doing if I didnt go to school everyday, and my goals and plans for the new year. So stay tuned. And have a great Christmas and Holiday!
There are two things that I love to do and that have this good feeling to them. One is coming up from under the deck of a sailboat and being in the middle of no where. And the other is coming up from the subway and being in the city. These two things are quite different, but they have this good feeling to them that I cant explain.
I want to get a record player and a typewritter. Why? I have yet to figure that out. But I think it has something to do with the idea of how people used to listen to music and write. Today, you and I alike, use our computers to listen to music and to write. What if I did my homework on a typewritter or decided to put a record on. Well see if I can find them, maybe eBay or a tagsale.
What if teachers were like museum curators? (See my post on Future of Museums) What if classrooms were like interactive exhibits that changed everyday or every period?
The classroom could be an interactive exhibit that would present all the information to the students. But it would also be more. It would cause conversations and disccusions to start and it would have many interactive features. And then, this “classroom exhibit” is accesible online after school. The classroom becomes a place where information can be given to students and where students can interact with that information in new ways.
Every weekend it become that time: Sunday afternoon. This is the worst time of the weekend. At this point, I have realized that the weekend is pretty much over. I most likely have left all my work until this time. There is no time to really do anything else. I know that I am eventually going to bed only to wake up to the alarm clock, informing me that it is time for school. Maybe I shouldn’t leave all my work to then. Maybe, a simple change of my mind set is needed. Yea, that’s it, I just have to change how I think about Sunday afternoon.
…and I am proud of it. I judge books by their cover because it is the first thing I see. If I see a nice book cover design then I pick up the book. Sometime I find out that its not about a subject that I am not interested in and sometimes it leads to finding a really great book. Where do I not judge books by their covers? Online. If I am shopping on Amazon, chance are that I am not judgeing a book by its cover as much as I would in a store. Instead I am reading reviews on the book and looking inside at the table of contents and other excerpts. If you want me to pick up our book, then you should design a sweet cover for it.
As you know I went to the Harvard Model United Nations conference and simulation recently. The whole conference was about debating and actually doing stuff to fix a problem. It was not a bunch of teachers lecturing us on how this problem could be fixed and us taking notes. We were actually doing stuff. I think this is extremely important part of education. People need not just to be talked to but they need to talk about the subject and engage in a discussion/conversation.
So here is how it all went done on the four days we were in Boston for the Harvard Model United Nations.
Thursday
-Arrive at Boston Park Plaza Hotel which was all decorated for Christmas
-Lawrence H. Summers was the keynote speaker. He is the ex-president of Harvard and has quite a background.
-Headed of to committee. Committee is the part of the conference when 200+ are in a big room discussing a certain topic and representing our countries views. I was on the Special Political and Decolonization committee and our topic was the Spratly Islands.
-Stayed up late and at pizza.
Friday
-Went to Harvard on the T (the subway)
-Shopped around Cambridge and ate at The Garage.
-Went to comittee on the Harvard campus.
-Back to the city.
-Met two sophmores at Tufts and one freshman from Harvard that we know from our school for dinner.
-Committee
-Played Wii, ate more pizza, stayed up late.
Saturday
-Committee.
-Went to the Copley Mall for shopping and lunch
-Committee.
-Walked around Boston.
-Checked out Emerson College.
-Saw Borat and the second half of Apocalypto (Movie reviews coming soon)
-Big dance for all 2000 kids at the conference.
-Stayed up late eating pizza and hanging out.
Sunday
-Committee.
-Pass resolution, finallly.
-Go home
-Decorate Christmas Tree.
Last week my schools Model United Nations group headed off to the real United Nations in NYC. See the earlier post. We checked into the United Nations and had a private group tour around the building. We were able to see all the large rooms were the big committees meet. In the hallways around the building we saw various exhibits and displays about issues around the world and how the UN works.
The best part by far was when we sat in the balcony overlooking the General Assembly room. The biggest room where all the countries come together. When I was there, I believe they were discussing Palestine. We were able to put on the white ear phone and listen to them talk. And it gets better. There was a dial on the arm rest where you could switch the languages and hear what they were saying in many different languauges.
Next we headed over a couple blocks to the Permant Mission to the United Nations of the country we were representing. We all sat down in the boardroom and had actual delegates to the United Nations answer our questions for around an hour. This was extremely valuable because it is the views of this nation that we were going to be representing at the Model United Nations simulation.
Next post: Hear about the actual trip to Boston for the Harvard Model United Nations.
This weekend I will be in Boston for the annual Harvard Model UN conference. Hopefully I will be able to blog from there. Stay tuned for some good stories.
Recently, I have become interested in buttons. During a recent trip to NYC there was a man around the market in Union Square who was selling buttons. He happened to be a friend of my art teacher who was on the trip with us. I got to buttons from him and am looking to get more. Some sites that I have found that have awesome buttons are….
Check those out.
Safari Feature Request
I never used a feed reader, until a couple months ago. I would just open up a bunch of tabs in Safari. Then I found the feature, where you can make a bookmark folder and then open all sites as tabs. What if it just opened up sites that had new blog posts. With the feed reader I fell that I have lost something. People spend time designing their sites and now I don’t see their design anymore.
Nobody’s Watching
This was a show that they were making for television. It was about two brothers who set out to make a television show. Well the actual TV show didn’t make it. So they released it on YouTube and it has been viewed many times. Maybe well see it some day soon on TV. Check out their website.
I went on to Threadless to purchase some shirts for Christmas and the three that I really wanted had just run out. So, I learnd my lesson that when they have a sale the shirts go fast. Anyways, if you have any ideas for my christmas list that would be great. I am looking for gifts for creative/design people (me) that are around 20 dollars and don’t need international shipping.
I was at Virgin Records in Union Square, NYC this past Thursday. Here I was able to play with the Zune. I have to say that I did like it. The interface was a little more flashly and had more graphics. The screen was bigger and I was able to turn it onits side when watching videos. It sounded good and the screen looked good as well.
However, I wasn’t able to feel its weight or experience the battery life. Several times I couldn’t understand why it was not working, as it turns out I was attempting to spin the wheel like an iPod when I was instead supposed to be pressing the buttons. The interface was a little too flashy for me, though it was a nice change from the simple interface of the iPod. I was not able to use the sharing and community features on the Zune, but from I have heard I didn’t miss out on much.
Overall, I like it and it was a pretty decent atempt from Microsoft. But the iPod will of course live on with all its glory and beat the Zune.
Yesterday, I Took a trip down to New York City and arrived in Grand Central Station. On the train ride down my friends and I discussed the Wii, which one of them had recently purchased. What we discussed was basically how PS3 was more for the person who had been gaming before. And the Wii was marketed to try to get new people in to video games. The Wii, as we all know as the new and innovative controller. My friend who got it said that it was pretty amazing, especially when playing boxing. A pretty important part of our conversation was how my friends parents were able to pick up on it pretty quickly and had been playing tennis when he was at school. If it was the PS3 would she have picked it up? Probably not. We also compared the Wii to Apple and the iPod. The Wii is white and allows for customization, along with many other innovative features.
While in the city we also checked out Virgin Records in Union Square, where I played with the Zune. Get my review on that next post along with my experience at the United Nations.
What you need, when you need it
Copyright 2008 Ethan Bodnar. All Rights Reserved.
Happily Creative. Since 1990. Have a nice day.
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