Remembrance of semester past

This semester will be one to never be forgotten. It is mostly because I had this Seeing Sideways class. Never in my years of going to college have I encountered a class that has challenged my creativity, and has been fun along the way. Upon first entering the classroom in early August, nobody really knew how to describe this class. I don't see why they couldn't. I guess they weren't creatively thinking! I can sum up this class as being a course in inner creativity. It lets you be yourself and challenges you to think creatively as you do assignments along the way.  The best part is you can express your creativity through your assignments and let others see as well, which will spark up a conversation among the class describing what they just saw or heard you say.

The first take away from this class is be yourself. Upon entering the class at first, it was really quiet and nobody really wanted to talk because it was the first day, and those can be tough on introverts. Halfway through the class, the teacher challenged us to leave the room without leaving our chairs, which had wheels on them. Hilarity ensued when everyone struggled to get out of the class in their chair, rolling it over a hump in the door entrance. I, on the other hand, was the only one who though outside the box and, without leaving my chair, managed to walk out of the classroom. Yeah I looked like an idiot probably, but this was the first creative challenge that managed to separate me from the others.

The second take away from this class is don't be afraid to show your work. Since high school, the only people i have shown my work to are close friends, for fear of judgement or being told my work was shitty quality (and back then it was). But now, as I enter my second semester, I have still been nervous about showing my work, until this class came along. I am unfortunately horrible with speaking and my choice of words is always weird and strange, but I feel like I wanted to express my thoughts in other ways. Making videos was a good solution for me because I could create a video that would express my thoughts for me, without me making a fool of myself. After making some videos and showing them, people actually like them, and that came as a surprise to me because I didn't think people would understand them or even like them. I felt shaky once after showing my video and getting such good feedback. That feeling made me feel really proud of what I was doing, and will never forget that.

The last thing I took away from this class was don't be afraid to be the creative person you really are. I have enjoyed expressing my creativity through my work in this class because not many other classes allow you to do that. Most other classes are made for you perfecting your skill and making sure it is up to par with certain standards, but this class is more flexible. She give us an assignment and allows us to do whatever we want with it as long as we put some creative thought behind it. I had no problem with this because my creativity has always been running wild with nowhere to be expressed, and after showing my work in this class, people really seemed to enjoy my style. I think my creative style is somewhat rare because nobody really shows what people don't want to see, but some people need to know that just because they don't see it doesn't mean its not there. I want my work to open peoples eyes and to stop ignoring certain subjects because the real world is not as the media portrays it, and its about time someone started showing it as it really is.

Judgement Day

A person who's project of fear i resonated with happiness to be this girl who I will call Olive. She had a fear which I can really understand, the fear of judgement. People nowadays are really judgmental. You can't walk down the street without at least someone giving you some kind of look or just knowing when you speak that you are secretly being judged by others. I hate that. I can't ever shake the feeling that someone is always watching and judging, so I try my best to be the best I can be. Most of the time when in class or a public setting, I will not say much because I fear that what I say will be bad or not worth saying, so I say nothing. I need to learn to let this fear go. I am 23 years old and I have had a lot of life experience, and the best I have had has been when I didn't care what people thought about me. I was just having fun not giving a care or thinking about what other people thought. I feel if I can overcome this, then I will be able to show myself to the world and find people who will like me for me. I feel I am close to that point, but i need to start getting out of my comfort zone more so I can get used to it. Let the weirdness begin!

Altered Book of the Self

After watching the video of the woman who combined technology to her body, I was astounded. This lady managed to break the rules of art and began using herself as the piece. I am astounded by what comes from when people break the rules. I thought it was amazing, so well thought out and innovative, it just made me look around my life and see everything as a potential piece of art just waiting to be made. Combining a media arts and science project with my own body would be amazing. If it could be something that could be used by anyone, then I would have done it right. If I do something, I want it to be able to be used by all because art to me is something that has many interpretations, not just one sided.  Like the identity of the self in the digital world, people only see what you are on there by what you display about yourself. I try to only do positive things on my digital profile because people who haven't even met you may judge you only by what you have displayed, so why let it be negative about you? Positivity will bring good things your way. Creative endeavors will catch their attention, so make sure to do things that come from within. There are many interpretations to anything you create.

For my book, I chose to do it on this history class I had a while back.  Its not that I didn't like the book but the teacher that taught the class was really old and boring, so that is why I chose this book. I saw it as an old boring this I wanted nothing to do with. After careful consideration, I decided to start making changes to it. I didn't really think much about it, just went for it. The finished product is a perfect interpretation of myself. I am innovative with my creativity, meaning I can use whatever is around me to create something out of nothing. I started with something from a past assignment, a broken videotape, and bound the front and back cover of the book. After doing that, I decided to cut the some holes in the book so i could place the video reels in it, to represent my life. The left reel has less because it indicates that my life has just started, the right right has more because that is the rest of the adventures life has waiting for me. I used sand and glue to write the words on the front because for a doodling assignment we had, I used a giant poster board, sand and glue to doodle, and i thought it would be a good idea.

The inside cover is about me and that I am dedicating this book to my teacher, who taught me to see sideways and to stay creative throughout this lifetime.

This is just the intro page along with the table of contents

These pages were for the Egg and the eye assignment.

The Bliss Assignment

The Flavor of Creativity, which I used the sound of taste instead, including a musical card that plays a song when you open the page.

The 50 What ifs....

Rules were made to be broken

The Doodling Assignment

The Fear assignment

And the last one, Who am I and Why am I here?

I managed to change this book from an old boring history book to a fun book about my experience through the creative endeavors i have encountered. I have cut this book up, glued pages, and inserted objects to make it more interesting. After spending a couple of months working on it, it has changed my perspective on my own creativity. I used to think my creativity was slowly dwindling away because of all the mandatory classes I had to take to finally get to the classes i wanted to take. I am finally there and this book proves that my creativity is still alive and well. I am glad to see it survived after years of math, psychology, english, and other basic classes that can suck the life right out of you if you let it. This book inspired me to be my weird creative self, and I will never forget that. :)

I, Me , My-self Control

Something that really stood out to me this last class was this girl who I can't stand's presentation. She is this bitch that will just drone on about her life after everyone presents and most of the time just uses that time to talk about herself. Her presentation was that she is afraid of not having control over her life. What a control freak. You have some control of your life, but sometimes, things happen that will take that control out of your hands, and it's ok. This girl was just sitting up there rambling about I don't really care, but I managed to tally every time she used the words "I, Me, Myself" , I was gonna count "we" because it includes her, but I gave her a break. After her entire presentation, I tallied the marks and the B*tch had said those words over 100 times, 120 to be precise. I was astounded, never in my life have i seen such a self absorbed person, and to make matters worse, she can't even see how much of an annoying person she is! To make matters worse, she said she hated hanging out with people because she isn't in control of the situations they get into, WELCOME TO LIFE. I hate people too, but how are you going to find any friends in this world if you won't even make the effort?

Boundaries of freedom

The only thing I can remember from class tonight, as I hurry to write this before it is due in less than an hour, is when we talked about exploring the boundaries of video games. I was one of those people that would love to explore the video game world and see what kind of hidden treats the creators left to find. Video games encourage people to explore around their world, but in our world, there are consequences. A couple of months ago, me and a friend were wandering around outside because the weather was amazing. We lived near an abandoned building that didn't have any signs around it and it was in a somewhat open spot. We wanted to watch the sunset but couldn't because there were so many trees in the way, so I thought we could go on top of the building just until the sun set. We managed to get on top of the building and watched as the sun set. Clouds were starting to gather and were going to rain on us so we started to head back, that is when we saw police officers surrounding us. They ordered us to come down and asked what we were doing up there. They automatically suspected that we were trying to deface the building or vandalize it. We had no such intentions, but they kept insisting that no person would go up there to look at the sunset because of the shitty weather. Of course i wouldn't expect a cop to understand because the academy beat all the creativity out of them, but i was just appalled by such accusations. I ended up getting arrested even though after the trial, my lawyer told me that since the building had no signs or anything that the cop didn't have the right to arrest me. I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong, but apparently there are boundaries set by authority, which i will not allow to disrupt my free thinking mind.

I'm not the only one

Something I took away from this class was a Classmate's fear assignment presentation. She drew a picture using pen that was really astounding and said exactly how I felt. It was a picture of a person with a black hole coming in the middle. She described it so well that I was captivated. It was the feeling I get when I have to present to a large group or am put on the spot. I don't know why It happens either. I spend so much time trying to get rid of the feeling beforehand, but I can't stop it from randomly returning. I have her in my video class and she sat two computers over. I remember in the beginning of the semester, I was put in a group with her and some other and went to shoot outside b-roll for a video class. She barely said much, but she had this aura of friendliness when she did, she she didn't she seemed really introverted, which was kind of like holding up a mirror to myself. I know exactly how she felt. I have this weird introvertism that only goes away when I talk to people mostly one on one, but when it's more people, I just loose my shit and word vomit. I don't know if I will ever overcome it, but I'm doing my best to get put in situations where I have to. I hope she can too because I see a lot of potential in that girl. I'm just glad I'm not the only one that feels this way.

The inevitable

For this assignment, we had to choose something that makes us fearful, and classify it as either a fear, phobia, anxiety, or worry. After thinking long and hard, I came up with death. It is the inevitable that no one really thinks about but is always there and can happen to anyone at any time. I decided to classify my fear as a worry because i have taken mental attempts to avoid any anticipating threat, and its weird that I am starting to realize that i have been doing it inconspicuously for a while now. It is not a phobia because i do not go to extremes to avoid it, because most of the time, you cannot see it. It is not an anxiety because whenever I think about death, i am not accompanied by nervous behavior. It is not a fear because fear is caused by living entities, and my life hasn't ever really been threatened by someone or something living.

I never really knew how much Death surrounds me every day. If you really pay attention, you can start to scare yourself. Most of the time when I get up to go to school, I'm the only one in the house. I usually shower every day, and sometimes, the shower floor is really slippery, If i don't take precautions, i could slip and something unfortunate could happen, hit my head on the corner on the way down, fall the wrong way, anything. The Drive to school is the worst because apparently, any idiot can get a license nowadays. i can't count how many times some asshole has almost gotten into an accident with me because their dumb ass doesn't know how to use a turn signal. Since I drive for my job, I always take the extra precautions to make sure I am at least being the safe one. I always drive by Crown Hill Cemetery on my way to school, which means I am passing thousands of bodies which death has claimed, and he claims more each day that passes.

The fear of death keeps me from experiencing some really exiting moments in life. I used to not really care about living when I was younger and would do alot of destructive stuff to my body. Im pretty sure taking all those "triple c's" in high school is what caused me to have a weird speech problem. I remember taking them almost everyday during my sophomore year , and that is fucking crazy considering this one person took them only once and died because every body is different, so how was I not worried that the first time it took them would probably be my last? I also used to drink and drive alot, some times, I would just wake up in bed the next day and not even remember driving home, which is scary, considering my drunk ass could have injured not only myself but others during those periods of binge drinking. Nowadays, I have thought about it more and am more cautious about doing all of that. I no longer take drugs because I don't even know what will happen to me or how much more my body can take. I sometimes won't even leave the house to enjoy social gatherings because I don't want to drink and drive even if it is just a little bit. I guess you could say, the worry death keeps me from experiencing life.

The worry of death is useful in my life. It has kept me alive and has changed my life. After getting into an accident while intoxicated, I have not been the same. It feels like a part of my brain has woken up and has taken over trying to keep me safe. I no longer get blackout drunk anymore, no matter how drunk I get, a little part of my brain is always conscious of what is going on around me and will not let me black out no more. I have also changed my lifestyle completely. I used to not have anything worth living for, or so I thought. Now that I am getting my life together, I have so much to live for, that I can't just let it end. I have overcome so many deadly obstacles that life has thrown at me and I have managed to survive all of them, If death has a plan for us all, then he wants me alive until the time is right for him to come and reap my soul.

Death has really affected my creativity. After experiencing close encounters to it, my mind has really opened up to thinking about the afterlife and what is to come after the end. It helps me be more creative and to think way outside the box because you never know who else could be thinking of these ideas. If you are the only one who is thinking of a certain idea then you die, that idea dies with you, for no one else to know. I feel like since I came close to death, my mind has changed in the way I think. I feel like I am not a normal person, which I am happy with because I don't think many people would ever be able to think of all the thoughts i have thought in my lifetime, which has changed me and the way I view the world. I would love to be a videographer who is known to be brave because of the lengths he will go to obtain rare footage that most wouldn't even dare to obtain. In risky places or situations, death can motivate me to be alert and on my feet.

Death takes form for me as corpses. When you die, you leave behind a shell of yourself. It is really weird to see someone who you used to know become lifeless and not moving. You say goodbye to them and then they get buried in a hole in the ground. They remain there until they begin to rot, that is when decomposition takes place. It is so frighting to imagine how someone rots in the ground, maggots eating their flesh and leaving behind a pile of bones.We don't get to see many people decomposing because we bury them, but just seeing anything decomposing is freaking scary.

Fear of Death from Osvaldo Ayala on Vimeo.

After doing this project, I feel like I can use death as a motivation. Since this lifetime could be taken away in an instant, then why not do whatever you can to enjoy it? You only get one life and spending it afraid to do anything because you are afraid of death is no way to live. I wanna take some risk, I wanna have fun, I want to enjoy my life because if what follows is eternal darkness, then I hope I still have the memories to relive. Once we die, we rot and go into the ground, but we go back into the earth to make way for new life. I want to enjoy my life up here doing what I love, and knowing that it can all be taken away so suddenly is motivation enough to live for today.