Friday, January 26, 2007

Am I Blue




Some of these exercises are frustrating. This is NOT how I want this to look.



Thursday, January 25, 2007

Week 3, #7, blog posting about anything technology related

The internet community is wonderful for friends and family that are far apart. Before there was email, I lost track of friends I cared about, because I was so bad about writing, and I hardly ever got to hear from my sister, who lives in England, because phone calls were so expensive. Now I not only can hop online whenever I feel like it, and toss off a note to her, but she and her children keep the American cousins up to date on what they're up to by sending us links to photos. I'm also a member of a group on Yahoo that consists of my brother and sister and myself and all three of our half-sisters, plus spouses, so that all six of us can keep each other up to date. Oh, and I can see what my English nephews are up to musically by logging on to MySpace. Look for FantasticMrFox, PaperTiger, and PeterandtheWolf, to find out for yourself, though be aware that there is more than one Fantastic Mr. Fox, and more that one Peter and the Wolf. My Fantastic Mr. Fox is Stephen Gomberg, and Paper Tiger and Peter and the Wolf are both Peter Gomberg. Another route would be through OrigamiMusic, the musicl label they share with their friends.

Does this count as talking about technology? If not, how's this: I REALLY want a digital camera, so that I can take photos and download them for my friends and family to see.

Week 3, #6, Flickr mashups and 3rd party sites

Well I have made my first trading card, and added that to my photos on flickr. Nothing fancy, just enough to get the practice. trading card

Week 3, #5, photos on Flickr

Check out my photos of my tattoo. The tag is "my lizard tattoo". This is great! Now I can show these photos to my friends and family without emailing them some mondo, gig gobbling file. lizard tattoo

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Yahoo! is being annoying

I don't know if anyone else is having trouble with Yahoo!, but I'm getting annoyed with them. I need to reactivate my account, but everytime I try, I get a screen saying they're having a problem. Feh!

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Weeks 1 & 2, things 1,2,3 & 4, Learning about the program, setting up my blog and registering it

Okay, now I understand what's being asked of us. I have completed things one through four, and I'll do thing five as soon as Yahoo reactivates the account I created to access a family group, but never remember to use.

Thoughts on life long learning

As I looked at the 7 1/2 habits of life long learning, I thought about what the process has been like for me, and I don't just mean the last two weeks. I come from an educated, artistic family, but as I was growing up, everytime my grandmother (who "helped" my mom raise us three kids) showed me how to do something she didn't give me permission to fail. If I didn't do it right the first time I attempted to do something new, she would take it away from me and do it herself, so that it would turn out right. I'm sure she thought she was doing me a favor, but what it taught me was that I was incompetent, that I couldn't do anything right. It also taught me to be afraid to try anything.

In my twenties I'm sure I was very frustrating to my boyfriend/husband, because I had so little confidence in my ability to do things, and was so reluctant to do something I had never done before. But he wasn't/isn't like my grandmother. He has always told me "You're an intelligent adult. You should be able to figure out how to do things.". At first I resented him for making me do things myself, instead of doing things for me, but as I tried things and they worked out, I became more comfortable with trying new things, and as I had more successes, I was more willing to try new things. I won't mention how long it has been since I met my husband, but it's been long enough that these days I'm seldom afraid of a challange. I have learned to embrace and enjoy them.

Never be afraid to try new things. I belong to a craft guild of individuals that work with polymer clay, and we have monthly meetings. At these meetings we have "show & tell", when members show pieces they have made, and talk about the process. Again and again people say "I was trying to achieve a particular goal, but failed, but you know what? I like what I came up with even better!". These "failures" are one of the ways the polymer clay community learns new techniques.

Another aspect of the guild is that we share with each other tools that we have discovered, and when you're working with polymer clay, ANYTHING is a potential tool. It really encourages us to be creative, and to be open minded.

Lastly, I'm so excited by polymer clay (and also by tie-dying) that I enjoy sharing that pleasure with others, so I occasionally hold workshops to introduce the skills I know to others. The attendees usually have fun, and I enjoy seeing what they create. We both win.

Learning contract

I went ahead and created my blog without first writing up my learning contract, so I will do that now. Does't everyone want to win the prize?

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Learning 2.0 begins for me (Things 1, 2, 3 and 4)

I have to say that I think it's pretty cool that SJPL and SJSU library are actively encouraging their staff to expand their knowledge of new technologies. It has given me a reason to explore things about which I have said "I would like to know about that at some point, I guess, but I just don't want to take the time (or money) to do that right now.".