the learning journal, post 2

in a couple of days, my complete learning journal is due for EDU260 (the same class that the goldilocks performance was for). it's a lot of hard work, but i enjoy doing it if i have some good music to listen to (www.myspace.com/goblindpilot). the learning journal has three parts; the lecture portion, the workshop portion, and the reading portion.



i have finally finished the workshop portion (applause)! it seemes to take forever, but i'm really proud of it. after i finished the workshop portion, i went straight to work on the lecture portion. i have to say i'm breezing right through it, which is good--i'm hoping to get to the reading portion as soon as possible. the reading portion will definately take the longest because all of my notes on the readings for some reason can't be found on my computer. it's a mystery.

update: the lecture portion is officially finished! i'm celebrating with an episode of lost (YAY!) and then onto the readings i go!

ugh.

honestly, i am getting sick of math.

in fact, i didn't realise enviromental biology had so much to do with math.

ew.

the learning journal, post 1

since my EDU260 class is officially over, i've dedicated my free time to working on it's final assignment (due 18 may). the final assignment is a 'learning journal'. The journal is "a record of reflection in and on learning through the arts during this unit including summaries and reflections on and intergrating lectures, readings and workshops". that description of the journal makes the project seem really lame and pretty boring. truthfully, it's been fun putting together a scrapbook of the class as a whole. i'm not going to say it's been easy, though.

the project is worth 30% of the grade and it's definately starting to get to me. i'm an artsy person and i like doing projects like this, but usually it's for fun--not for 30% of my grade.

and because time in australia is running short, i would much rather hang out with my friends then work on an assignment like this one.

no worries, though, i'm almost done with the workshops portion of this project. i've started the lecture portion, and the final portion (the readings) will be started on soon. this would be a whole lot easier if my reading journals weren't deleted mysteriously off my computer.

anyway, the pictures are of the learning journal so far. i'm not quite done with it, but the pictures are of the pages i take the most pride in. a lot of the pages are still lacking pictures of my class and my performance group, but i'm heading to the library today to print those out.

hope you enjoy :)

countdown to 20, day 7: one last tutorial.

'goldilocks' was a success :)

it was really fun and everyone did a great job!

that's my group: tegan, kaly, me, jamie, and carrie
it's definately weird, though--that was my last EDU260 tutorial ever.

onto other things...

tonight is the beginning of my birthday festivities :)

can't wait to celebrate in style!

a countdown to 20, day 3: banksia & eucalypts

banksia tree

show's how much i know about australian flora & fauna. i had no idea this is what a banksia tree looked like. does it even look like a tree to you?

i'm actually dying, i've been working on this bio lab for what seems like forever. i even went to the library twice. it took me approximately an hour to check out two books on australian trees. people must have thought i was nuts--i was looking at every single book on banksia and eucalypts and making photocopies.

that's right, i'm a freak.

but i totally got so much information, so hopefully i get an HD on this lab!

eucalypt tree

the only reason i know what these look like is because koala's eat eucalyptus leaves and get high off of them. that's right--koala's are stoned pretty much 24/7. that's why they don't move around a lot, they just get to sit there and look cute.

now, who wants to help me write this report?

goldilocks

on thursday during my ELED260 tutorial, you know, the education class where i got to make origami and colour with craypas?--well, this week we started working on our performance projects.



in groups of no more than five, we have to pick a fairytale and reset the story with a different plot. my tutorial picked 'prison' as the plot.



i suppose now would be a good time to tell you that my groups fairytale is goldilocks.


guess who get's to play goldilocks? me. you know why? because my group wanted goldilocks to have an accent. obviously, i'm the only american in my group, meaning i'm the only one who has an accent in my group. pronto, i'm goldilocks.


there is a little bit of a problem, though. the cover of the book shows goldilocks looking proper with, well..golden locks.


now let's look at a picture of me. i do not have golden locks. i do, however, have an accent, so i guess if goldilocks needs to have an accent, i'll be perfect for the role.


so, i'm pretty sure the whole goldilocks in prison thing kind of confused some people, so i'll give you the background to our new plot.



once upon a time, goldilocks is exploring in the woods and comes across a house. she's really really tired, so she goes into the unlocked house and falls asleep in a bed. while she's sleeping, a burgular comes in and breaks the chairs, eats and porridge, and breaks the bed (all while goldilocks is sleeping!!!) the bears come home, find goldilocks sleeping in the bed, and blame the whole ordeal on her. poor goldilocks is sent to jail, and wa-lah, you have the setting.

before you know it, i'll have this goldilocks thing set pat. my tutor came up to me and commented on how i should really play guitar and sing during the show--i had a HUGE project due for this class, and included was a powerpoint. the backup song to my powerpoint was a recording of me singing 'ain't no cover' by regina spektor. i guess my tutor was watching it and realised it was a recording of me singing. i haven't gotten my grade back, yet, but if she liked the song, hopefully she liked everything else.


tomorrow, i go to brisbane to visit ant. can't wait can't wait can't wait!

what education majors do in australia

flashback to mrs. campbells art class from elementary school--seriously. apparentally, australian education majors get to do cool things in their workshops.

this morning, i walk into my 'learning through the arts' workshop. jazz is playing in the background. amazing. the days already gone off to a great start because of that. this week's topic was about 'exploring improvisation & exploring transformation within one art form'. We studied different types of art:

-representational art & story telling
-representational art; the pinnacle

-impressionism
-optical mixing
-pointalism
-expressionism
-abstract
-modernism & pure abstraction

& we learned about Wassily Kandinsky.

Wassily Kandansky was an abstract expressionist artist. he believed that colours, lines, and shapes should be like music--vibrating through your body.

task one: pick out a Kandinsky painting and, as a group, talk about what you like about it. our group chose 'homage to will grohmann', which was painted in 1926.
what i liked

-the outside border looks like watercolours

-the square in the middle has miniature coloured squares in it

task two: pick out a Kandinsky painting and choose a square of it. tape around the square and copy that part of the painting onto a piece of paper. the image that we copied had to be 'positive', whatever that meant to you. to me, positive meant bright colours. (this would be a good time to tell you that i really am a terrible artist). i chose 'homage to will grohmann', and decided to tape around the square in the middle, with all of the miniature squares inside the bigger square. we totally got to use cray-pa's, which was awesome!

task three: tape a square of a 'negative' piece of the same painting. this time, don't copy it, but take inspiration from it; make it your own. like 'positive' meant bright colours, 'negative' meant dark colours. i chose an area of the painting with more black in it. since we had to change it up, i used blue, purple, and red to bring in more dark colours.

task four: as a group, take all of your picture squares and create a quilt.

this is a picture of my two pictures together. below it is a picture of our final product.