I felt pretty good about the work I did this week. I definitely did better with the procrastination issue. I am taking 17 credits, which gets pretty overwhelming pretty fast. To counterbalance this, I made sure to spread out the work for this class instead of having to do it all Friday night. Of course, I am here Friday night, so the process isn’t perfect. I think sometimes I feel like if I do an assignment before the last minute, then I will realize that there was something I need to fix, and doing it last minute puts just the right amount of pressure on me to do it well and in a good amount of time. In reality, when I do something early, I am completely relieved and don’t feel so stressed.
This week I leaned in to the design aspect of this course with my assignments, these turned out pretty cool and I was pretty proud of myself. I showed my girlfriend my guess the song photo, and she got it immediately.
I was relieved to only have 3 daily creates this week, as keeping track of them every day last week was pretty tiring and I would get stressed when would accidentally leave them to the end of the day.
Edit: I tried to embed these, but WordPress did not like the link. Maybe next week I’ll have the hang of it.
Day 3 was definitely my favorite. I got to combine my two favorite things!
Overall, this week was pretty fun and I’m glad I’m doing this class. I’m excited to continue learning and trying new things. I can’t believe next week will have been a full month of classes.
White background: Controversial opinion: I’ve always hated red and white. I understand from a marketing perspective why you would want a poster that immediately grabs people’s eyes, but there are so many other ways to do it that would be visually appealing for me personally. I also don’t really care for raunchy humor, which may explain my distaste for this style of poster.
Groan Ups, 2019
White (in general): I find these to be cleaner and classier than their red cousin, which I appreciate. It also stands out in a similar way which is good for marketing. I thought it was interesting that he said it portrays what to expect from the movie. I can appreciate honest advertising.
Forrest Gump, 1994
Blue: I enjoy a sleek blue that provides a mysterious vibe to the movie poster. They are often used in action/thriller posters and have the (main) character running in the middle. To me, this poster specifically was a great example of this color scheme and I really liked how it looked. And, he says it, “has its roots in film noir”, very cool!
Paycheck, 2003
Film noir: Definitely my favorite so far. I love old time-y movie posters. It reminds me of Archie comics.
This Gun For Hire, 1942
Yellow: Apparently this is used to represent low-budget indie movies, which I wouldn’t have been able to guess, but it does make sense. I like yellow so I definitely appreciate this one,
Capitalism, A Love Story, 2009
XeroxQuality: I know I said film noir was my favorite, but this definitely takes the cake. I imagine that maybe one is based off of the other? I love these kinds of posters. This is the kind of movie poster I would put up on my wall. I know technology is all about getting better, more impressive, and more modern, but you just can’t beat perfection.
Wake in Fright, 1971
Black, white, & orange: I don’t know if it’s me and my lack of interest in action movies, but I don’t care for this at all. I find it to be too severe and has too much going on. Can’t say I like it, unfortunately.
Transporter 3, 2007
Blue and Orange: I knew I loved it as soon as I saw it, but them, when he said that the orange is used to “lead the eye to the key focus of the narrative”? Too good. I loved Star Wars: A New Hope as a kid, if it could be made even better. No notes.
When I watched Stranger Things, I didn’t really watch the title sequence because it creeped me out too much. I liked seeing the other typographics they looked at before choosing theirs. ITC Bengat is very recognizable so I thought it was a great choice. Using the kodaliths to look even more 80’s was very impressive to me. It’s cool to recognize the work that goes into something that I wouldn’t even notice, like a title sequence.
In order to create this I had to dust off my Canva skills. I googled “Beach” and found the on this website. I used a website to invert the photo and put some transparent images onto it. It’s one of my favorite songs!
DON’T SCROLL PAST THE PHOTO IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO GUESS. I will put the answer well below it, there is a hint as well.
I am going to put the answer well below this; if you would like to know the answer, continue scrolling.
Want a hint? “Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes.”
When I was 17, I knew I would get a tattoo. When I was 18, I was like, “I’m 18, I can’t make a choice for something to be on my body longer than I will be in it”. When I was 19, I knew I would get a tattoo if I felt really committed to it and had wanted it for a while (like, at least a year). Now, I’m 20. I don’t have a tattoo, and I probably won’t get one anytime soon. If I did, it would be something for my siblings or my pets or something, but that’s not a super fun idea for an assignment. Gun to my head, right now, if I had to get a tattoo, I think I would get one on my ankle or arm of the Japanese maple tree growing outside the front of my childhood home. The beauty of Japanese maples is how colorful they are, and getting a tattoo with color ink and not the regular black has a higher risk of allergies, so I don’t know that I would ever risk it.
The Japanese maple in question, in all its glory.
In a perfect world; however, I could get whatever tattoo of whatever color, it would have no negative repercussions, and I could remove it with a snap of my fingers if I ever didn’t care for it anymore. If this were the case, of course I would get the gorgeous tree of my childhood home tattooed on me. I would get something like this! It’s obviously not perfect or exactly what I would want, but I’m happy with how it looks.
It was lots of fun getting to design something meaningful that I would put on my body forever (maybe).
The assignment takes you to a website that allows you to make your own trading card! I thought this would be a good assignment for something fun and simple. I knew I needed an assignment incorporating my character so it worked out really well.
An important preface is that I never played with trading cards as a child (not even Pokémon), so I didn’t have a great idea of what I should or shouldn’t be doing. This is the trading card I made (I should probably make a new drawing that I find to be less embarrassing, and that has a nose). I decided to give her a high attack number (I’m guessing the scale is out of 100?) because in my story, the government is probably creating this pet-army because they would be strong. For softness, I gave her a 50 because she’s half cat, half robot. For flexibility, I gave her a 100 because most cats are very flexible and I felt like that should be represented. I gave her an 88 for adaptability, because I wanted to represent the robot part, maybe her robot half has a paw that can turn into different tools or something like that. I found this to be super cute and super fun!
I did the 20 minute Photoblitz last night, here were my prompts:
Find a grid pattern somewhere: I struggled to find something interesting, so here are the tiles on the ground of the common area in my dorm.
Make a photograph of a smile, either literal or symbolic: I hoped to get a photo of my cat that looked like she was smiling, but it didn’t work out. Make your reflection on the screen will show you the smile I was looking for?
Make an artistic photo that involves one of your toes: I like to call it “Reflecting on one’s atoenement” It doesn’t really mean anything, but the play on words was too good for me to not use.
Giraffes are brilliant. Show us what it would be like if they lived in human society: I didn’t have a good way to demonstrate this, so I drew it, it was probably the thing that took the most time, maybe 7-8 minutes.
No ocean, surely you can find some water around you to take a photo of: This is my cat’s water filter, she stays well hydrated thanks to it so I am very grateful for it.
How do ants see the world? Change your viewpoint: Cute, right?
Doors can have a lot of character, be it in the hinges, knob, or style: This is a door in my dorm building, it’s been painted over a few times and this building is long overdue for a renovation, but I like it better than my door to my dorm.
I can’t say that this was my favorite activity, but I did really enjoy the creative exercise, I felt like I gained from it!
I am usually a little bad about procrastination in my schoolwork. I always think it won’t be so bad, I can deal with it the evening of and make it out just fine. I would be lying to say that I didn’t feel a little pressed for evening this time around. Every time I looked at the Week 2 to do list it seemed to get longer somehow? I’ve definitely learned my lesson as I rapidly type out the assignments I’ve simmered on this week and the ones I discovered more recently.
Using Dr. Oblivion was definitely my main savior this week. As an honor council member and someone that is generally concerned about the environment, I have weird and more negative feelings about using AI, but it was very helpful to receive feedback so quickly that I could immediately implement into my work.
Creating two assignments was really fun. In retrospect, I did not really connect the second one to tech noir or cyberpunk. But you live and you learn and you fix those mistakes next time. I feel like I’ve really gotten a better idea of what this class will look like and how I can benefit from it. I think in college most people go through a constant circle of learning curves, I can only hope that I will grow from them.
For time’s sake (a mistake I will fix in the future), I regrettably cannot go into good detail about every assignment I worked on, but I will list the ones I did and share about one or two sentences.
Day 1: Show us your secret spy weapon. I didn’t think taking a picture of my prescription of Zoloft would be something to post on the internet, so you can use your imagination here.
Day 2: Make some kind of art about unexpected coincidences. I drew two people connected by a red line with a bow in the middle.
Day 3: Make bad art. This was difficult. I drew a photo of a house on a hill. As the prompt assigns, it wasn’t very good.
Day 4: Your Longest / Tallest Shadow Selfie. My longest shadow was on Thursday, around 5pm, pretty soon before the sun set, taken as I walked to the UC for dinner.
Day 5: Emoji Poem
Here is the poem:
I really feel that needs no explanation.
In retrospect, I ought to have posted my replies on the Mastodon page, but I got nervous and distracted and did not.
I have loved you since the moment I saw you. I don’t really believe in love at first sight, but what I experienced the first time I saw you says otherwise. I spent months convincing Mom and Dad to get a dog, I would beg them to take the family to the local SPCA and look at potential pets, but what I really wanted was a puppy.
You were 2 months old, and I was 14 years old. Your mom had birthed a pretty big litter of puppies, but there was one left on that fateful evening, the little runt. At that time the SPCA let you put a hold on an animal you were interested in adopting but needed time to consider. It broke my little heart to see you on hold.
After realizing this, Mom and Dad had gone over to the cat section to see other options, but they didn’t understand, I just needed a dog. I stood around for a few minutes, maybe 15. Eventually in protest against getting a cat because I knew I was meant to get a dog, I returned to the glass you were behind.
But something had changed. The hold tag had disappeared. Absolutely giddy, I told Mom and Dad what had changed. She’s off hold now! My parents shrugged and we went to the front desk and asked to meet you. The couple behind us in line also wanted to ask about you, but we got there first. They brought you into the private room with us, you had just been spayed, so you were pretty tired, but you were so damn adorable and cuddly.
We put our own hold on you, went out and bought puppy food, a bowl, a collar, and that cow you loved so much, and brought you home the next morning. I couldn’t have even imagined a better dog.
I just want you to know that I love you and I miss you every day that I’m at school. You’re the light of my life and you have been for nearly 8 years now. Thank you for being you.
At the suggestion of Jim Groom (the co-professor of this class) I decided to base my character on my cat. It is important to me that readers know art is not a hobby of mine, nor a talent. I felt content enough with how the drawing came out to share it, but it is not anything revolutionary or particularly well drawn.
Drawn by me (2025)
Regrettably, I did not save the information I put into the Google form, so some of the information will not be verbatim and based off memory and it will not cover every single question asked.
Name: D41SY (previously Daisy)
Archetype: Anti-hero
Place and date of birth: Jantra City (It’s a word for industrial in Bengali, I believe) April 27th, 2124.
Occupation: A(n unwilling) member of the government’s military.
Marital status: Single and never married
Bio: The government kidnapped people’s household pets and turned them into part-robots in order to create an army of animals that citizens would not be able to, in good conscious, fight back against or hurt. D41SY is one of these animals. I need to continue to develop this idea.
Favorite food: Rice cakes (this is true to real life too)
Favorite movie: watching a live video of fish swimming around in a tank.
Favorite possession: Her next meal (also true to real life)
I would like to base the story around a dystopian government taking advantage of empathy to control the population. I’m big on sappy, happy endings though, so don’t worry too much.
When picking an assignment, I try to pick something feasible that speaks to me. Like my mother, I am long winded. I can talk about anything for any amount of time if I’m allowed to, so this blog thing has really opened up an outlet for me. So, a captive audience is really my thing.
And so is music! It bothers me when people say things like “I feel things deeper than other people” or “I have a really strong connection to music”. Everyone feels things deeply! Everyone has a really strong connection to music! I think assuming that something is more personal to you or that you understand a general human experience on a deeper level than others perpetuates an idea that our uniqueness is what separates us and not what provides a greater ability to diversify human experience. But now I’m rambling about things that no one is looking to read in a blog post about a song.
The song I chose comes from my 7 hour playlist of songs that I feel in my chest when I listen to them, I could really choose any song on this playlist and talk for a long time about the way that it makes me feel, but the song I chose is Pilot with a Fear of Heights by Felicity.
Felicity, for her 2018 single, Pilot with a Fear of Heights
The first verse she sings about trying to leave a former relationship and its memories behind, hoping they’ll turn into ghosts. She is afraid of someone that she can’t stop thinking about, someone she loves. The first verse is very nice, but it’s the clapping indicating that the chorus is beginning (at exactly 00:45, if you’re wondering) that makes me feel like things are really getting good.
I’ve been thinking ’bout you all night Like a pilot with a fear of heights You got me thinking like ooh, ooh
Singing about a pilot with a fear of heights as a metaphor for someone that you’ve been with and can’t stop reliving the memory of? I just remember hearing that and thinking it was so brilliant. To be honest, I hadn’t really heard the saying about a pilot with a fear of heights before this song, which made the saying especially revolutionary. The line you got me thinking like ooh, ooh may not be particularly unique, but it’s the way that she sings it that really hammers in the feeling. It makes me feel understood on a deeper level.
I’ve been thinking ’bout you all night Like a tiger that’s afraid to bite You got me thinking like ooh, ooh
It’s ironic, isn’t it? The tiger can’t survive without catching and killing (or, biting) its prey. The pilot can’t work without flying an airplane in the sky, but it’s terrifying! And she can’t be happy without a relationship which is full of turmoil. Sometimes when I hear this song I feel like a pilot with a fear of heights myself. I myself have a fear of heights, except I just can’t help but look down. It’s the adrenaline rush, I guess. I would definitely say this song gives me an adrenaline rush.
This is so unnatural That we’re on this level ‘Cause my heart’s surrendering For this new beginning
This verse feels so fresh and wild. It’s really important to hear her vocals in this to really capture the feeling the song gives you. Of course, the audience for this song is probably aimed towards young women and teenage girls, so those in a separate demographic from me may not enjoy it as I do, but it effervescently brings you to the feeling of a new relationship.
I’ve been thinking ’bout you all night Like a fire that’s afraid to light
In the second and final chorus Felicity compares herself to that of a fire which is afraid to light. Jumping into a new situation, whether it be a relationship, job, activity, etc. can be very nerve wracking, but it is that very thing that will bring you joy and life. It is the very thing that brings you to your destiny.
