Knights of Balls

I HEART "the Guild" like nobodies business!

The Guild

And since school, life, future, has been on my mind a lot and the six season of The Guild started this week I thought I'd share a funny .gif I found.

I to feel like I've got a lot to juggle. Literally.

I Need a Rosetta Stone for Code

Need a Job? You'd better learn code. *link

I do a lot of web-surfing, in fact I like to think of myself as a Pro Web-Surfer. It's kinda my thing! And I love it when I come across something that gets me jazzed about something-or-another about what I'm currently doing, what I want to do or that others are doing.

I really dig it when come across, what I call "the rhyme and reason" of things. What I mean is, when I land on something, a video, blog, write-up about a subject that I'm just getting into. For example, code. I'm just now learning this new language. I had experience with other code languages but I wasn't fluent.  I really didn't have a desire to be so. I just did the basic of code homework assignments, just what I understood. I never tried to push the boundaries of what code could do. I needed something to light the fire, a rhyme and/or reason. And what might you ask is that rhyme or reason? Why the best that there could be, a job. Yes I'm a little lame in that I'm letting the almighty job lead me. I'm going to need a job to pay for this education I'm getting and since this education is providing away to learn this "code" thing, I figure I might as well take advantage.

So bring on the code. Then a good job. Then paying off all my debt. Then retire on a mountain over looking a beach that has a huge city about 30 minutes away by car. The mountain is for my husband who wants a cabin on top of a mountain and the beach and city are for me.

Pop+Push Matrix gets a class

Pop+Push Matrix and their friends Class.



Check out this groovy code homework :)

Intro to CCLab

I'm very much a virgin code[r] when it comes to Processing. I can, somewhat, code for the web (HTML5), Flash (Action Script) and tiny bit of Xcode. My love for code goes about as far as, will here.  I don't really get it. It wasn't important to what I want to do. I knew what I needed to know to finish the assignment and get a good grade. When will I even need code? That sentiment is the old me, the before Parsons -- 3 week long -- Bootcamp. I am a new coder. I am a brave, ready to face code, coder. During the bootcamp you are introduces to Processing aka Code. It's one of them thing you either love or hate, black and white. You either understand it or you don't. I'm not a love or hate kinda person, I'm more of a "I enjoy that" kinda gal. I don't see in black or white, things are mostly tie-dyed, neon, rainbow and some times 50 shades of gray. Hehe! But at first code and I weren't seeing eye to [i] -- [i] here is representing [i] line of code that tells Processing to draw an array function -- just for all out there who don't know. So my first week with code was rocky. I kinda understood what things where doing, how they worked together to create sketches and tried to understand why I might need code.

Code language is not easy for me, it's my Achilles heel. Fun fact, most languages, compute or otherwise, are hard for me. Blast! I can barely speak English right sometimes. One thing I am is hard-headed and if there's something that's stomping me I find away around it. And I did with code. I asked questions. I asked everyone questions. I wanted to learn this. I went to workshops, I did my own research to see what others where doing with Processing, and how I wanted to use it. You see I'm a very very very visual learner. I learn by doing. I learn best when I know what the outcome will be. For example, in printmaking there's a method called etching. Etching is when you take a metal plate and a sharp point tool of some kind and scratch drawing into the plate then apply ink to the plate and paper and run it through a press. I know that doesn't sound exciting or hard but the technic as to how you get the drawing on the plate is exciting. There are many different methods as how you draw on the plate but one of them is using acid. You paint (special etching paint (I can't remember the name)) a coat on the plate. You then etch out your drawing. You dip the plate into the acid and the acid eats away the metal from just the part you drew. There's more process and I'm sure I'm not explaining it very well, but you get the point. For me it was hard to understand why I needed to go through some much process to get my drawing on the metal. I later figured out my frustration with etch was very simple, I didn't know what the out come was going to be. I didn't know how etching looked in the end. I had seen etching before but I didn't know how it was made. How long the metal stayed in the acid, what line where drawn first. I had to ask my teacher to break it down for me. I needed to know/see how it was down. Then I could go and do it, and I did. You can't tell me to do something and think it'll stick. But showing me something, doing something, and I won't forget. OK some times I will. I'm flighty! But I need to understand if I do this I can add this and together they make that. I have to see it. That's hard when it comes to processing sometimes.

So all of that just goes to show you that it was hard for me to be taught all this crazy code and then asked to use it to make something interesting. My head couldn't really wrap around what code function did what and what function did something else. So I copied code I worked on in class and played with it to understand what it did and why. During camp my homework weren't really bind blowing but they completed the assignment and I learned. The down side of this method was that it was a slow method. I spent to much time working and playing with simple code I got to comfortable with the easy stuff. Oops!

I do that. I get so comfy I don't adventure out. And I just realized that to. No more then a month into coding and I had not even adventured out into the code world to see what I could do. Lame! All my home for my Creative Computing Lab, or CCLab as we cool kids call it, has been lame. Not exciting at all. That's going to change. I want to be a good coder, maybe not the best but good. I can do that. I'm hard-headed enough to make that happen. In the end it's going to open so many groovy doors for me and what I can do. I just got to get over this comfy zone thing with code and make something epic.

For some more fun you can check out my Processing sketches at this link.

Open Processing Sketches

You can checkout my blog I kept over Bootcamp and see all my other fun projects from Code, Web and Design.

Parsons Bootcamp 2012

And for good measures you can follow my Tumblr of crazy meme's people at Parsons send each other.

Meme's From Parsons

Enjoy!

Code

Show casing some epic code for CCLab, check it out, HERE.

This sketch is my snow globe, sorta. I would like it to react to a few more functions, such as, after you get the snow going it falls to the bottom of the sketch. I'm not there yet but with some help from fellow classmate and bugging my teacher with my issues, I might figure it out.

Yay Code... stuff!!!

Week One... Done...

One down, fifteen more to go and so far... awesome!!!

In Major Studio 1 our first weekend assignment is to redesign Facebook and mock-up a prototype. Our teacher is so cool. He's totally using social networks as our subject matter. Which is so super cool! That's one of my biggest interest. I want to study and learn more about these social networks. Yay!

What's so great about this class is that we will be working on small projects that lead to a major project. They build on each other and in the end we're encourage to take our project to conferences, to exhibit it or publish it. I'm so excited for all the wicked things I'm about to learn.

In Design for this Century, I'm not to sure yet. The first class was a little odd. D+T student were mixed up with other Parsons AMT students. That 's cool and all because we are all "design" students in one way or another. We just think of design different which is nice to have another angle to look at things. I'm excited to explore "design" with a group of people who see design another way.

For Dynamic Sound & Performance I'm very excited about this and I'm sure the first class would have been epic if the teacher had showed up. The first night of classes myself and about 16 other students showed up and we waited for about an hour for the teacher. We called people, emailed the teacher, talked about taking turn and teaching the class ourselves. After a hour we gave up on the teacher and left. That really sucked! Because all the other elective class I want to take/or that fit into my schedule are full. I need this class and I need it to rock. After a few days I got an email saying they department was sorry for the lack of teacher and that that teacher will not be teaching after all. They have another guy that will step up and teach it. He taught it last semester and I'm told he was very cool. So it's looking like it'll work out. I'll keep you posted.

Creative Computing Lab aka CCLab. I think I'm falling in love. Not to sure yet, haven't really started the coding thing yet, but I'm really happy with the teacher. The first thing out of her mouth was "you need to find your happy code place." You can't force a happy code upon yourself. You have to find the right code for you. Rather that's web, processing, ardiuno or open frameworks. You must be happy. I love that because code is not my second nature. I'm not sure if I'll ever really get it enough that I can just  seat down at my computer and start coding and writing my own code. But I'm going to try, I'm going to learn.

This is going to be an amazing semester!

Revamping All the Things!

So 2012 is distant to be a years of "new starts." For one thing, I'm re-starting this blog, revamping it to more of documentary of my adventure in grad school. My new school highly encourages recording your process, and being aware of where you start with an idea and end with it. But also, getting ideas out. So I decided that this silly blog, I started so many years ago but never really used, would be my catalyst for my adventures into grad school.

Just a little post of what my day was like or what I hope to do during the day. Also, I hope to us this fun blog to keep me focus and accountable. You may not know this about me but I get troubly side-tracked. It's like when a cat sees something shiny or a squirrel can't remember if he turned off the gas stove.

With that being said here's a fun list of what I hope for my time in grad school.

• I'm not sure what the world has in store for me or my family but I do know it will be great. I really loved working in and around museums. I've worked with them for about 6 years. During and after I finished college, and it would be awesome to continue on a pass with museums. So working with museums will be a goal, what's on the other side of the finish line, something to aim for.
• I heart stop motion animation! And my advisor said I have skills that if fine tuned I'd be a good animator. She wanted me to take classes that will sharpen those skills.
• I have a very healthy addiction to the "Distributed/Social Networks." I do believe I'm on every social network you can be on. I'm sure I'm missing one or two but for the most part if I'm on the web I'm on a social network. I want to know more about this "social network" I want to learn how it is used, why it seems so important, how I can use it.
• I'm just so super excited to learn more and use it to make a positive impact in the world. 
• But most important, this is for me. This is important to me to accomplish. To see it though to the end and then go off and do something great with it.  

Not only do these fun fact apply to just me, they also go toward my family. I'm sure most of you know my husband is pursuing his doctorate at Columbia. How freakin' cool is that!? So we have big PLANS, but we've learned that PLANS don't always happen how you've PLANNED them. So we're taking our time and enjoying the experiences we've had so far with this journey, one day at a time.