Music Monday

A little too busy and distracted to write blog posts on the regular these days (except for those occasional homework entries), exhausted at the end of the day, we're going to throw some fun stuff in every once an awhile.
Music Mondays, Truthful Tuesdays, Wacky Wednesdays...who knows what will come.
They'll mostly be videos though. You like YouTube.
Who doesn't like YouTube...come on...
This will be fun.
Just a little video we stumbled onto over the weekend, the beat grows on you, the video itself is great...take a look.

Some Sort of Ranting

Got a two week extension on our employment contract...if we could just get three more added to it...it would be so much better (financially). Then we'll only be "laid-off" for five months, instead of six. *fingers crossed*

Should be finding out about our grade on the (communication) quiz we took last Thursday. For some reason we were "lucky" enough to be a glitch in the system, and our grade is "lost". The professor is looking into it...
It's extremely frustrating because we tend to be very anal retentive about waiting for our grades. We've checked several times a day, every day after the quiz just waiting for it.
We don't test well, and so we have anxiety about it, and to quell the anxiety we NEED TO KNOW THE GRADE A.S.A.P.(!) but no...it came through the system as a 0%! So we send an e-mail to the professor about it, stating "I am fairly confident that I did better than that"...
I am very anxious for tomorrow to find out what we got.
We did not do well on the Atmospheric Science (meteorology) test done the same week (scoring only a 76%, which, for an A-high-B student...is...alarming...so...yeah...

We're running ourselves ragged trying to write a paper (done and due Friday!), do all the homework, go to classes, go to work, the bloody (that's British for "fucking")...cooking, trying to keep the kitchen clean (the fruit flies are insane right now)...plus working out when we can (four times a week on the corsstrainer) and mainting some semblance of "happy time" or "alone time"...

After Wednesdays we are fried.
All day, from waking to just before sleep, countless people are talking at us, with us, to us, around us...there's so much noise and so many people. We go to work, then we go to two classes, then we go back to work, then we go to another class...that's around three hours long...then we drive 40 minutes home. The day is too much for our head...too much...but there's only about eleven of them left...

...anyway.

The paper to be turned in on Friday is awesome, so we'll probably end up posting it after it has been graded. Aren't. You. Fucking. Lucky.

Censorship (In Books): Homework Highlight #3

Again from our Communications class, when asked in Discussion and Critical Thinking what "I" think about censorship and what books, if any, would I censor if I was a librarian. (This assignment weeks topic was books.)

The professor of this class requires multimedia in the posts for class. These assignments are submitted through a program called Blackboard, a virtual learning environment and management system used to work in conjunction with classroom lectures. (It's a poorly scripted program, to be honest - but a lot of the Universities use it)

So, this was our critical thinking response on the topic of censorship 

Whether or not any censorship is permissible in any instance is a difficult call.
As a society, should we allow targeted hateful rhetoric.
It doesn’t seem like a moral move to allow something of such negative value. It would be nice to live in a society of mature adults where that wasn’t even an issue; but utopia will never exist. 

Censorship spans every type of mass media format not just written word, and not just hateful implications; if anything one might dare say censorship of targeted hateful rhetorical is least likely to be censored in lieu of revolutionary or controversial ideas that challenge religiously based morals or beliefs. In books, the danger of censorship is ten-fold, because books contain knowledge and information that a sole reader is responsible for understandings and gaining meaning from, which is unlike any other medium in mass media. (i.e. nobody is telling you what it means and you are challenged to figure it out on your own) 

Watch Video

[To Silence a Learner (Censorship Brickfilm PSA)] 

Certainly, there is room within individual homes and lives to allow for personal censorship, but censorship of controversial topics imposed on a society as a whole is abhorrent. 

When it comes to books, like with any other media source, it should be up to the individual to decide what they should or should not read. If they are uncomfortable with the content they can put it down, but they don’t have to be dictators for what other people might be perfectly comfortable reading. Perhaps parents and members of society can use their fear (because that’s what it is) as an opportunity; reading subversive and controversial texts can create a platform for mature discussion, not only between parents and children, but between any groups of people. 

[Censorship And Media Opoly] 

Certainly religious organizations, government, or corporate entities, in a free democratic society, do not have a place in telling people what they can and can’t read; of course that doesn’t stop them from trying. Censorship by any group of people, that further promotes their self-interests, without allowing opportunity to form objective views, is repressive and is a violation of freedom.  

What books are worthy of censorship? Unless it is purely a platform to spread ignorant hatred, based on nothing but the characteristics of another persons being, or in the event they contain misleading or incorrect information, there is no time to take books from my library shelves. Books are a foundation to personal freedom, and to me, the freedom to learn is the doorway to becoming a well-developed human.

Having said that, perhaps it is a little hypocritical to think that the topic of hate is where the line should drawn, so, all the books stay. I just won’t read those (but the ones full of misinformation go).

It's only a 100 level course.
The professor has "praised" us for our level of work and "excellent analysis" - but having nearly 15 years (mostly) on almost the entire class...of course our writing shines.
Even cow shit sticks out in a field of rabbit turds. 

Weekly Update

(image source)

This week:
A paper (2nd draft w.i.p.)
One quiz.
Two tests.

Homework.

Work.

We've managed to hop on the elliptical a bit, just to try to cull some mental balance.

...

Word is our contract for work may be extended two weeks to a month, depending. So, by around Thanksgiving we'll have time to write about all the mental breakdowns we've been having, (ugly, ugly, ugly)...the headaches...the problems...

Meanwhile.

All of our creative juices have been limited to 140 characters.
Thank goodness they are being stored in the Library of Congress (and downloaded periodically to our computer via Twitter archives) so we won't have lost any of our poetry that only exists on Twitter.

Now...back to it.

Media Conglomeration: Homework Highlight #2

Source

It's from our favourite class, this assignment, which is appropriate since it's a communication class.

Last week we posted a response to a critical thinking assignment, this week we'll do the same (there's just not enough time to write anything for the blog these days, except in great times of stress - sorry).

One of the questions from this [past] week was about the thrust of concern when it comes to media conglomeration, and whether or not "I" agree.

"The thrust of the concern about media conglomerations is the systematic removal of democracy by a relatively small (special interest) group of people. Freedom is choice and choice is democracy. The concern, which I agree with, is that if a handful of large organizations own the media, they dictate what we see, what we hear, what we know. They create programming to serve their own agenda; aside from the obvious financial agenda that is the cornerstone of our ever-growing Consumer-based “Free Market” society/government. The risk is the removal of consumer choice to make informed decisions about our world, thereby taking away our individuality and our personhood, which are the wonderful parts of freedom, democracy and a diverse mass communications system."

It may surprise you how short the response was, but it's easily 3x that of most of the students in the class...so...we shall defend it no more.

Eating Some Pride

Literally almost cried in front of the Meteorology lab instructor today because in the time it took everybody else to do five questions we couldn't get past the first and couldn't remember how to do proper unit conversions for word problems...

Even with him helping it was near impossible. It ended up taking over an hour and a half to do five apparently basic questions on our own. Who knows if they are even right!

Not a single one of us is good at math. Some can't even add very well (as we found out one day in a previous job, much to our chagrin, and the disappointment of our manager and the accountant).

...and so, this Semester has just started to feel like it's never going to end. We loath the lecture class (he goes too fast), and now the lab...

Thankfully this will be the last math-science class we have to take for the rest of our University career. We just need to pass with a 'C'. Sadly it will destroy out grade point average.

Time to eat some of our pride.

Our 2013 Gallery

We're pretty stupid, overall.
Procrastination getting back to the easel, when we have time, is stupid.
When we don't, even though some of us want to, we get very angry, we end up having uncomfortable outbursts, we get depressed; when we fail to create, we are on a path of mental destruction. Some of us force it, because they want to destroy us.

Despite completing homework reading and writing assignments today, immediately after we felt...uncomfortable, fidgety. For hours we sat and busied ourselves with YouTube, and social media, and other distractions, but we could feel the drag.
We knew what was wrong...but just couldn't lift out of the mental place and get on the right path.

The drive to create, when not fulfilled, with us, is a disaster. When we are void of ideas or inspiration for a new creation, we are depressed. It gets worse as the years go on.

Thankfully we got off of our asses today, and made it to the studio...

We finished our 6th painting of the year. We didn't expect to get another done, not with just having started full-time University classes and working, luckily we don't have any papers to work on yet (that changes next week).

So, our 2013 gallery...from the most recent. We don't honestly anticipate completing any more paintings until Christmas break.

A Study In Censorship

18 x 24

Acrylic on Canvas

Wolf At The Door

36 x 20

Acrylic on Canvas

Synthesised

24 x 24

Acrylic on Canvas

Slay The Monkey

44 x 44

Acrylic on Canvas

Foul Play Ferris

24" x 24"

Acrylic on Canvas

Les Pendus

36" x 28"

Acrylic on Canvas