the fear in the making

i am an artist.
i love writing poetry, visual arts, and music. but at the same time, i'm afraid of my art. i'm afraid when i sit down to draw, that i'll end up with nothing worth my time when i'm done. i'm about to start a new painting, and i know even now that when i sit down to start, i'll have almost no idea what i'm going to do. it's something i fear as much as i love.
i have trouble with this. even when i do something that looks good, if only i don't think it's good, then it's garbage to me. it doesn't matter what kinds of compliments i receive. even when i am proud of my work, i still seem to have a problem taking compliments. it's hard for me; i feel like my art only looks/sounds good to me. sometimes, it's just easier when people don't comment on my work unless it's critiquing. i guess that sounds weird, but i feel like it's not sincere if it doesn't have a 'catch', if you will.
i have problems, even with what i love.

memories

rewind: I was about ten years old, maybe less, and my mom sent me downstairs for a jar of sauce or salsa or something. Going back up the stairs, I tripped and the glass shattered, sauce spattering all over the stairs. I heard thundering footsteps and looked up to see my dad looking down on the mess.
"I tripped--"
"Are you okay??"
"I just fell- it was an accident--"
"Are you okay??"
"...yeah."
Sometimes, it feels like parents don't care and just want you out. These moments make me remember otherwise.

rewind: When I was about 5 or so, my family would eat breakfast together before school every day. I remember one time my brother was mad at me, and my mom noticed.
"Why are you mad, Luisi?"
"Anni can keep all her cereal in the bowl, in the milk. I can't do it."
It was true. My cereal was swimming happily in the milk, and I was stopping it from climbing up the walls of the bowl. His, on the other hand, was scrambling over the edges of the bowl without restraint. I think my mom helped him work on reining them in more.
I felt superior in that moment.

rewind: I was somewhere around 6 years old. My family was watching ET downstairs, on our ragged blue couch. I loved that couch. My younger brother and I were fighting about something; I no longer recall what it was. What I do know, is that I was so mad, I kicked my brother who ended up cutting his chin open on the corner of a table in the room. Several stitches later, we still don't get along.

more will come as i remember them.

BLA. a response.

For my BLA project, my group read the book 'Eating Animals' by Jonathan Foer (a very informative book, I do indeed recommend it), and watched the short documentary 'Meet Your Meat.'

'Eating Animals' was a shockingly eye-opening book. There was a great amount of information as well as personal anecdotes given by the author all about factory farms and the food industry. Foer balanced both of these out, giving enough information to fill the reader in on the subject he was mentioning while bringing in his experiences to also keep the reader interested. He also did an interesting thing in having extra perspectives written in the book. This definitely encouraged his ethos, seeing as he was including other opinions into his writing, making him not appear biased if he'd been so. He did do his best not to sound biased most of the time, but when he came through with his opinion in the end, it was already clear what position he would take on it. Certainly almost all the information he brought to the table was negative toward the factory farms, but he demonstrated that it's hard to make this a two-sided issue.

'Meet Your Meat' was a very explicit video by PETA to strongly encourage people to take up vegetarianism. It mainly focused on the treatment of the animals and some health hazards that come with the bad treatment of the creatures. The video was a stream of different undercover clips taken in areas where animals are kept until they are slaughtered; they were only ones of bad occurrences, not to say that there are only ever bad things happening, but to imprint the terrible images into the viewer's mind. Piglets smashed against the floor, cows chained in a stall, and chickens beaten with rods were some of the shocking videos shown. There was a narrator giving out facts and describing the conditions in more detail, slightly monotone but strong. This makes it a little bit more boring, but the clips that show make up for it. It was likely done that way to not overwhelm the viewer.

They both maintained about the same argument: factory farms are poopy and evil, but the documentary goes a step further in proposing a change in diet (vegetarianism) to help eliminate the cruelties and health hazards. The video was definitely more biased, but that is very understandable because it is by an organization whose whole purpose is to improve animal rights while the author of the book was just trying to find out where his food came from for his son. Reading Foer's book alone gave me reason enough to act and lo and behold, I am now a vegetarian and have been for almost a month. After being exposed to the wealth of information as well as images portrayed in the video, it's clear to me that there needs to be change among the factory farm food industry. This is all a mix of the horrendous treatment of the animals, a personal discomfort I feel when eating an animal, the health hazards and disgusting conditions everything is put under, and the troubles it is causing for the country (health, land, CO2 emissions, etc.). People should not be forced to live under my ideals, but their own, and I doubt most anyone would agree that what has been described and seen to happen in the factory farms is acceptable to their standards.

another bloggage update. huzzah!

I looked through a couple blog posts that are about the same topic. In the first one, she is talking about how she is running out of ADHD medication and needs more, but is too lazy/doesn't know how to get more.
I've noticed that the titles of her blogs are really important. The first one that I mentioned is called 'Don't Stand in Front of My Flamethrower, it is Very Powerful.' I mean, come on. Don't say that doesn't interest you at all. Well, it certainly did me. The post following this one up was called 'Hi. I'm energetic today!!!!' Those exclamation points say something.
As someone who does not have ADHD, I can't know if she's being totally literal when she says things like:
"I will take my last pill and, upon observing the empty bottle before me, I will panic and try to figure out what I have to do to get more medication but alas, the process is too complicated and there are lots of phone calls involved and I will give up half-way through because I have ADf***ingHD and it is getting worse by the second since I procrastinated on my responsibilities and was thus forced to go straight from being massively medicated to being completely unmedicated within the span of a few hours and that is not ever a good idea and I will probably die.  

The worst part?  All that stuff up until the part where I die?  That is me WHILE I AM TAKING MY ADHD MEDICATION.  Yes, I am that dysfunctional even while heavily medicated."

Except the part with the death, I'm not sure what to believe. Yes, I'm very gullible, but still. Anyway, since she's usually very not-literal and joking, it's hard to be able to tell what is true or not.

On a different blog post, the most recent one was titled 'The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas'. Like I said about titles previously, don't tell me that isn't funny even though you have no idea what she's talking about yet. This blog post was particularly hilarious, I think, because of perspective. Here, she's writing about a childhood experience she had on a Christmas. She is writing about when she was six years old, now 25 or so. This is emphasized due to her seriousness then and, if you read the post (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/12/year-kenny-loggins-ruined-christmas.html), you'll see what I mean when I say that it's maturing humor. Like you wouldn't understand it as a kid. Or, at least I wouldn't, and Ms. Brosch clearly didn't.

Lately, I've been reading this book called 'How We Decide' which was lent to me by a good friend of mine who is just as interested in psychology and probably twice as knowledgeable about it. It's all about-- guess what-- making decisions and how and why we decide the things we do.
I just got past a section which summarized a study done on over 400 fifth graders, I believe in the land of New York. This study was essentially very simple- the students were divided into two groups. They were tested with puzzles and such equally, but were simply given different praise: one group, after working, was told  "You must be so smart for this!" while the other group was told "You must've worked really hard on this!". It shouldn't seem too great a difference, but the statistics that followed were unmistakable. After being initially tested, these students were given the option of taking a set of puzzles that would challenge them, or taking a test on material they already knew. Virtually all the students in the group with the 'smart' praise chose the easy test while the students in the 'hard work' praise group chose the challenging test. They were willing to fail at first to learn how to gain; to learn how to learn. Also, when given the option for comparing their test results with people who scored higher or lower than theirs, 'smart' students chose to compare with those who did poorly to emphasize what they did well on. However, the 'hardworking' students chose to compare with the tests that scored higher than them to find out what they did wrong and to seek to improve and learn from their mistakes. In the end of the study, the students were given a test at the same difficulty as in the beginning. The students in the 'hard work' group scored 30% higher, and the 'smart' group scored almost 20% lower!!
Basically, the students in the 'hard working' group were being taught how to learn. We can only learn by failing, examining those failures, and applying that to future work. Essentially, we need to push ourselves further so we can recoup and gather more from it.
I'm sure that whoever reads this and goes to Wayzata knows what I'm talking about when I say that we're, for the most part, in the 'smart' group. We place such a high value on A's and the grading system, and I know I'm not alone when I say I am put under enormous pressure to poop out fantastic grades and high scores (SAT, ACT, or otherwise). When I was reading this section of the book, I tried and failed to remember the last time a teacher (or parent) had praised me based on the work I had done. I remember being scolded based on lower scores I produced and praised on how smart I was for having higher scores, but I have never been told it's okay to fail so long as I was milking learning opportunities out of it. I really don't know where this problem started or where to fix it, but now that I can acknowledge it, I think it should be addressed to everyone, from students to parents to teachers. Sure, not everyone will understand, but everyone should be given the opportunity to learn how to learn.

another update on 'hyperbole and a half'

I am loving this blog more and more each time I check it. There haven't been any new posts since I checked it last, but the deeper I delve into the archives, the more I feel like I will die of laughter.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Enjoy this post.
I've always detested bad grammar, and saying alot is just one of the many things that bugs me. Here, this wonderful blogger describes several of the mistakes or chat lingo she sees used. The one she focuses on is the Alot. Yes, he is a monster, but he's very cute. Her drawings of him are fabulous.
Now, because I'm supposed to be doing a rhetorical analysis of these blogs instead of just laughing myself to pieces about it, I did my best to determine exactly what it is that makes this blog so funny.
In this specific post about the Alot, firstly, there is her idea of what one looks like. She's making a creature for something that doesn't exist, even in normal English. The idea is, of course, outlandish, and as people we tend to think that outlandish things are funnier than non-outlandish things. The part that personally gave me a kick most was the section where she says "When people say 'I'm lonely alot' or 'I'm angry alot'..." which strikes me as funny because she attributes this to someone talking to the Alot with an emo haircut and the Alot is basically thinking "get away from me..." Funny enough. Why? Again, she's taking the strange creature and putting it with an almost childish idea. Yes, she's an adult, and in a way, making a fool of herself. But she's speaking in such diction that gives her a stable amount of credibility, even if what she's saying is ridiculous. She knows she sounds silly, though, which is what makes her sound not-stupid. She's doing what just about every comedian does- putting absurd ideas out on the table and expanding on them into detail, even though they're clearly wrong. Huzzah.

RE: the inner ring.

When I started reading this speech, I really had no idea what was going on or what he was talking about in the first few paragraphs. This may be attributed to the late hour that I was reading it, but so be it. I finally started to understand it at the paragraph that starts with "And of course everyone knows..." I thought this a creative way of  discussing the big evils, if you will, of the world. When he says that he will only really talk about the World, I'm surprised, perhaps, and happy enough that he won't talk about the other subjects, worn as they are now. Also, I personally find the World to be the most interesting of them all.
When the rings and inner rings and such are introduced, it's weird to me because I've never thought about this in the terms he puts it. Certainly, there are rings of importance all around us, some which we desire to get into and others that we care less about. All people search for acceptance- it's a natural human instinct. We can hardly go through a day without interaction with other people. Or, at least, I don't think I could.
Even in high school and college, the years that are supposed to be the greatest in our lives, we go through the chain of fighting to fit in and getting in somewhere new, over and over. One could argue that it's what makes those years great- we have the great opportunities to get into clubs and activities we've never tried before and get new experiences with new friend groups (legal or not, that's up to you). Once we figure out the process he makes mention of, though, it loses its magic. It's like you're walking around a neighborhood in the rain at midnight and you look at a house and it's all lit up and there's a party in there with everyone invited but you. Then, once you get into the party, it's nothing but a big pile of stupid and you just want out because rain and darkness is preferable to the stupid people being stupid in there, and you find that someone stole your coat and heaven knows what else. Maybe not the best analogy, but you get it, right?