Something beautiful

Yesterday’s Daily Shoot was: Find something beautiful and make a photo. Don’t over think it.

What I find interesting is the response to this dailyshoot was. Okay, so there is a lot of flower/ plant photos. And there’s a fair few photos of people and animals.

How cute is this?

But people have also posted photos of sprinkles, shadows on a tissue box, paperback books,and a bank deposit receipt.

 

Wish this was mine, haha! 😀

I have to say, I like these photos more than other totally gorgeous photos.

Why? Because they actually stick out in my mind. These images resonate more because they aren’t something that on first glance I would really consider beautiful. But once you shift your perspective, then you can see the beauty in simple things like sprinkles or  shadows on a tissue box.

As for my daily shoot, it was an idea born from several hours on tumblr combined with a loooooong car drive home and a dead camera battery. I borrowed my Mom’s really nice Nikon (so want to steal it!)  and took this photo fairly quickly.

love.

Why do I find this beautiful?

Well, even though many of my good friends are thousands of miles away, across seas and on different continents, they still make an effort to keep in touch with me.  They send me cute letters, postcards, emails and even packages filled with things they saw and bought for me just because they knew I would like it. This photo goes out to all my beautiful friends who remind me constantly how lucky I am to have them in my life. <3

Can't wait for instantaneous travel!! Flying gets OLD after a while!

 

Rainbow Brite: A New Legend Begins

Once Upon a time there lived an ordinary girl named Megan. Oh, she was unique enough in her own ways, she possessed high levels of strength and was a giant Star Wars nerd among other things, but she would never possess any supernatural abilities.

Or so she thought, until one day an unusual being appeared to her as she was walking to her digital storytelling class:

Orin, the wise one.

 

 

The strange creature was a Sprite named Orin. He came from the magical planet Spectra, a planet of pure diamond that all the light in the universe has to pass through before it can reach Earth.

Unfortunately, as Orin explained to Megan over a cup of coffee at Hyperion Cafe, Spectra had been taken over by “The Dark Princess.”

 

 

 

 

pure evil

 

 

The Dark Princess was determined to keep all the light and color in the universe to herself.  If she was to succeed, all the life in the universe would die!

A girl named Rainbow Brite, a girl in charge of creating all the colors for Earth, attempted to stop The Dark Princess. But The Dark Princess proved to be too strong of a match for Rainbow Brite. She stripped Rainbow Brite of all her powers, turning her back into the human child named Wisp, and locked her away in a high-security Dungeon.

Hearing this news, Rainbow Brite’s friends, the Color Kids, attempted to free Wisp.

 

 

However, the Color Kids’ haste and overall lack of strategy lead to their undoing. They too were captured,  vested of their powers, and imprisoned.

With Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids out of the way, The Dark Princess relished the impending demise of life as we know it.

But what the Dark Princess didn’t know is that Orin had managed to steal the crystal containing the powers of Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids. Unable to free the kids from the dungeon without great risk to himself, Orin instead chose to flee to Earth to select a  new and stronger Rainbow Brite, along with her friends, the Color Kids.

The reason he had chosen Megan, Orin said, was not because she was the first blonde girl he had stumbled across, but rather he had heard of her superb athleticism  as a rugby player. With these skills, she would be able to kick the ass of the wannabe Princess and restore everything back to way it used to be; A color filled world, although Earth would still be plagued by little things like wars, pestilence, and poverty.

“So,” Orin asked once he finished his tragic tale, his little paws clutching Megan’s hands in supplication, “will you become the next Rainbow Brite and save the world from imminent doom?”

Before Megan could respond, the crowd of people at Hyperion who had been observing this whole scene with blatant interest (seriously, how often do people get the chance to observe a Sprite in real life?), shouted “DO IT, MEGAN!” “Save the Universe!” “RAINBOW BRITE, RAINBOW BRITE!”

Surrounded by this cacophony, Megan blushingly agreed. It was then that she was transformed from an ordinary College student into *** SHAZAMMM! ***

Rainbow Brite!

Now that this matter was settled, the next thing to be done was to select the Color Kids who would accompany Rainbow on her ass kicking mission.

Hundreds of people threw themselves at Rainbow, exclaiming that they would be the best for the job, but Orin and Rainbow already had the perfect crack team in mind.

Thus, the new Color Kids were chosen:

Steph transformed into Lemon Drop, with power over the color Yellow. Lemon Drop possesses a cheery disposition, able to brighten people's days even in the darkest gloom. When she smiles, you get this warm feeling inside you that makes you want to be friends and do what you can to keep her smiling.

Gigi became in charge of the color Pink and was renamed Cereja Blossom. Cereja is the wild child of the team. She is headstrong, but immensely playful. She distracts the competition with her fast talking and sweet exterior, and then packs them a punch of rainbow awesome. All the while they wonder why she wears a onesie with a belly dancing skirt.

Elena was dubbed Naranja Mango. She was to protect the color orange. Naranja is fiery and passionate. She is the instigator, the one with all the plans. Cereja may be a big partier, but Naranja makes the party. She is Rainbow's lead strategist for the mission.

Colleen became Aquamarine de la Greene, controlling the fate of the color green. She is the most considerate of the team, the one who holds all the Bright Colors in check. Aquamarine is laid-back and down to earth, all of which is reflected in her eco-concious style.

Jess, chosen as protector of the color Blue, was called Cobalt Pacific. Cobalt is the most sophisticated Color Kid, but at times she is just as silly as Cereja. She is the best actress on the crew and the best gymnast, able to perform stealthy maneuvers without drawing attention to herself.

Lastly, Karen transformed into the ferocious Red Dawn. She bites, but underneath this bite is a fierce loyalty and rapier wit. Red Dawn is Rainbow Brite's chief wingwoman, protector, and organizer of supplies.

Rainbow Brite and her friends were about to start planning their mission to stop the Dark Princess when they were interrupted by the legendary Jim Groom.

Now Jim Groom was not only the teacher of Digital Storytelling DS106,  the class Megan skipped in order to talk with Orin, but he was also the number #1 fan of the original Rainbow Brite. With her out of commission, Jim Groom wanted to do everything in his power to enact revenge on The Dark Princess.

While the group debated whether or not Jim Groom should join forces with the current Rainbow Brite as a Color Kid, Groom won everyone over for three reasons:

Reason #1- They needed a headquarters on Earth. Groom offered Dupont Hall to become the temporary Color Castle.

Reason #2- So far, the Color Kids were females only.  That was hardly gender equality right there!

Reason #3- Megan skipped THE-MOST-IMPORTANT-DS106-CLASS-EVERRRRR. She needed to do something big to make up for this absence or else she would #faiiil

Thus, Jim Groom became the final Color Kid, his gender proportionally represented in the group much like the proportion of males to females on the UMW campus:

Jim Groom transformed into The Peculiar Purple Pie Man. As the oldest member of the crew, P-man's experiences and friendship with people all over the universe is a tactical advantage. He is made of win and awesome and represents the most bamf color in the rainbow. P-Man has great faith in the talents of his teammates and is always encouraging them to give 300% to the mission.

Finally, with Rainbow Brite and her team assembled in their entirety, it was time for them to save the universe from destruction by The Dark Princess!

 

Coming to theatres in your area soon!

This post would not have been possible without the help of Ms. Colleen Trachy (former DS106ser) who aided me in character description for the color kids! Also, holla at Wikipedia for all the useful info about  the original Rainbow Brite TV show and the various internet sources I used  for the photos of the original Rainbow Brite characters.

 

Future project: Sleepyhead and Wizard of OZ Mashup

Although I have many projects I need to attend to, one that I’ve been thinking about for a while is doing another mashup.

But to explain why I want to do this mashup, I need to discuss my first stage performance ever.

When I was in first grade I got selected to play a munchkin in the stage production of the “Wizard of Oz” that my elementary school was putting on.

I looked like one of these munchkin women, except a lot cuter.

My one and only song for the show was “Ding-dong the Witch is dead.” For weeks before, during, and after the show, I would apparently sing it nonstop, much to the annoyance of my family.

Even now, I can be found randomly humming or singing this part of the song:

” Ding-dong the witch is dead
Which old witch? The wicked witch!
Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead
Wake up you sleepyhead
Rub your eyes, get out of bed
Wake up the wicked witch is dead
She’s gone where the goblins go,
Below – Below – Below
Yo-ho, let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong’s the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low
Let them know the Wicked Witch is dead!”

From my *star *performance in the play, my love of the “The Wizard of Oz” was born.  I used to watch the movie version all the time. I have read every book in the Wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum; my favorite is definitely: “Ozma of Oz.” I enjoy finding cool Wizard of Oz Memorabilia. For a time I even had sparkly ruby slippers just like Dorothy.

mine were just as cool

Sadly, my feet outgrew them and I had to give then away (I am still kinda sad about this!) For me, the Wizard of Oz isn’t exactly an obsession because I don’t think about it all the time, but its definitely something I like a lot.

So when I heard Passion Pit’s song “Sleepyhead” earlier this year, I immediately thought of “The Wizard of Oz.”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0RvPYRRRbEE

Not only is the “sleepyhead” part of the songs is a strong factor for this association, but also the beat itself reminds me of Dorothy and her crew skipping down the yellowbrick road and Dorothy’s house spinning in the tornado.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellowbrick road!

As I’m not a fan of the official music video for “Sleepyhead,” and because this song just screams for a “Wizard of Oz” mashup, one of my next projects is make my own video version for  it.

I am not quite sure when exactly this is going to get done as I am going to be running all over the place the next few months, however, I hope to get it done as soon as possible. Of course, it helps that I now have a shiny new Mac to create this video. 😀

Jim Groom and ds106 converted me to the apple family.

 

“Tour of Wanderlust” : Photo Sesh 1

I was talking Colleen about all the adventures I was planning for this summer and she has decided to dub it “Tour of Wanderlust 2011.”

The “Wanderlust” part of the name is a joke from when we were trying to decide on the name for our literary magazine last fall. Someone suggested “Wanderlust” which we quickly rejected as a magazine name, but Wanderlust remained as an inside joke.

In regards to keeping up with the daily shoot while traveling, it was actually kind of difficult.  I had lot less internet access than expected. Also, didn’t have that much free time as we were constantly hopping from place to place!

I’m definitely exhausted from all that traveling around and looking forward for a short break before I join my ozzie friend Rose in NYC.

However, despite the chaos of my travels, I managed to snap some pretty good daily shoot photos. Out of the photos I’ve managed to post so far (still have about 9 to go), the only photo I don’t like is the toothbrush one. That photo was really scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of  “I just really needed to snap  a photo, asap!”

I might be posting more photos up from my trip, but depends on how much time I have.  After I catch up to all the rest of my daily shoot, I still have to post the final Rainbow Brite Shoot up from a month ago (wait, has it really been that long?)

Also hoping to catch up with my postcard project and hoping to blog some more about my trip.

So much to do, so little time!

Graduation & life after!

After  eight semesters of hard work, plus a couple of summer classes here and there, I’ve graduated from the University of Mary Washington!

I’ve graduated with departmental honors and a BA in English: Creative Writing, summa cum laude.

Me & Meghan E --> Both of us received honors in English 😉

So now that I’ve graduated I’ve faced an exponential increase of family and/or random people asking me:

“So what are you going to do with your life now that you’ve graduated? Are you going into journalism? Are you going to teach?…”

Then they stare at me, unblinking, until I say something.

Like many of my fellow peers, I don’t really have a plan for my career yet (most of them fell through for various reasons), and thus, these questions get really old, really fast.

If I was smart I would say something random, like “I’m going to become a scuba diving instructor in Hawaii.” (I’m an actual Scuba diver but no-where near experienced enough to be an instructor! Although I would love to move to Hawaii for a few years!)

 

But really this is what I tell people I have planned for the next few months:

1) Figure out how to fit everything I brought back from my apartment into my room at home. My room here is the size of a cardboard box, no joke,  so this is going to be tricky!

 

2) In 11 days I am flying to California to meet up with my Australian friend Rose who I met in New Zealand last year.

postcard I bought last year. love it!!

 

Then we are going to travel together around  California, Arizona and Nevada for a little over two weeks. After that we are headed over to the East coast to do more traveling until she leaves in mid-July.

I am super excited because Rose is one of my closest friends and I haven’t seen her in almost a year. Also, while I’m from California, I’ve never been to Arizona or Nevada, so I am looking forward to traveling there.

Viva las vegas!

Vegas, anyone?

I’m also looking forward to showing off the best of America to Rose because she has never been to the U.S. before.

So definitely be on the lookout for more blog posts about her and our trip in the upcoming future!

3) Once Rose leaves its all going to be about applying for jobs or internships or seeing if I have any money left over to do more traveling. I got the travelin’ bug and I want to see as much of the world as possible before I’m 25.

Goal in life: Visit all the countries in the world plus Antartica. This can happen I just need to invent/write something that I can make bank on!

 

I am so there!

 

Groomed4life

So we (David Noel, Kelsey Conway, and me) decided to make movie posters. They are all about Jim Groom, of course.

Behold: Groomed4life!

Poster 1:

 

Poster 2:

Poster 3:

Poster 4: (image credit to Erin O’Neal)

the infamous jim groom

Creation process:

We all sat together and discussed what we wanted the posters to be.

1) Kelsey came up with the idea of pitting Jim Groom with Tim Doom and I added the Rock-n-sock-robots to the mix. Then I photoshopped Jim Groom’s and Colleen’s face on the two boys watching the robots in the original photo.

I was the only one with photoshop so I put all of these together, while the others gave advice and ideas. I think it was Kelsey who came up with the epic movie title:  Groomed4life

2) David came up with the idea for using crazy quotes from Jim Groom that Jim Groom had actually said in class. We decided to add these quotes around the radio We then used the awesome edupunk photo in the background to represent the quote about the old creeper.

3) We decided we had to use someone’s photo from Flickr for our last shoot. We all really liked Erin’s flaming photo and so we used that one. Thanks Erin! We ended up photoshopping a picture of Jim Groom over the person’s face so it looked like Jim Groom had finally taken over the world.

4) Erin offered to take a Jim Groom photo and make it look all fiery and cool. Then I added the Groomed4life logo. Thanks again Erin for taking time to do this.

Great work team! (:

Combining 3 assignments into 1!

Since I have such a crazy final exam schedule, I’ve decided to combine 3 assignments in one!

Thus, I give you part of my post card final project, with the cover of the post card inspired by my love for ds106 (fandom, holla) and the back of the postcard containing my letter to future #ds106sers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creation process:

I knew as soon as we got the fandom assignment I wanted to make some kind of homage to ds106. Then I decided to make a postcard for it because my postcard final project has been sadly neglected for quite a while.

Originally I was doing a lot of work in photoshop to make the collage of all my photos, but I was having some issues making it turn out exactly like I wanted it.

I made the collage in photoshop, then added the border and #ds106 is for life in picnick. Then it was back to photoshop where I added the barbed wire look, the red Xs and the red heart (all of those additions were created using photoshop brushes I downloaded a long time ago).

The back of the postcard I had to make short and to the point. I could have said a lot more, but you work with what you can do. The back was created using photoshop.

Now to slay my two finals before our #ds106 final tomorrow (or is it today since its almost 1am??)

A week’s worth of Daily Shoot photos

I really like this past weeks daily shoots! I actually remembered to take them the day they were assigned (always a plus!) and they are all so different which is cool.

 

I think the biggest reason why I like them all is because they perfectly seem to represent each day I took them. Normally that doesn’t happen.

These aren’t picture in the actual order I took them  but if we go through the list:

Friday– Computer (had computer issues and thought my computer was tostitos toast!)

Saturday- Fake Mustache one (my friend fell asleep before we were about to go out so I pretended to draw on her to wake her up)

Sunday- Bubble Boy (friends came over for dinner/ studying and then we took a study break to blow some bubbles.)

Monday– action photo (sister came down for a presentation I gave at Kemp Symposium and then she put on a mask I got in this really fab book about vampires)

Tuesday- Bunny photo (went to Passover Seder at my Roomie’s house and then her mom gave us all Easter basket too– They have jewish/catholic household, best  celebrations of the 2 religions 🙂

Wednesday— Sad Karen (SO MUCH HOMEWORK TO DO IT IS RIDICULOUS. Hence the all caps and the sad face D: )

Thursday– Blue Shoots (last day of classes ever since I’m a senior and I’m really going to miss all my good friends at UMW– it was nice to spend time with them AND work on a real project 😉

 

Let’s see what magic I can come up with in terms of taking photos during finals week! Wish me luck girls and boys….

ET Mashups

So lately I’ve been obsessed with Katy Perry’s song ET. I think the lyrics are horrible and very much emphasizes male dominance over women:

“Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction”  aka RAPE ME, ALIEN MAN, RAPE ME….

but it’s so damn catchy.  (Kind of like the Friday song, but better?…)

Anyways, I decided to make fun of the song by doing a couple mashups. My original idea was to mashup Charlie Sheen Clips with the ET song.  But in the interest of time (and so Jim Groom won’t kill me because I’m so late in doing this D:) I also decided to mashup this song with a couple other videos I found randomly. I will try to come back to my original idea, but here’s something for now.

So I found this video on Archive.org website and thought it was really cool and trippy! It seemed to blend in with the song pretty well and I didn’t have to do much editing to put them together:

(Having trouble embedding these videos now, so will figure it out later)

ET Trippy Government Video

Then for this Boobah/ ET mashup, the original video is really creepy by itself. Yet, once the ET song, it is EVEN MORE CREEPY.  Sorry about the video quality, it was the best one I could find on youtube.

ET Boohbah

 

NOTE: I really hate Boohbahs. My sister bought me a blue one as an bday one year as a gag gift and ever since I’ve been haunted by their eyes…. Shudder.

 

UPDATED:

 

I finished the Charlie Sheen video! It’s a lot shorter than I expected, but I think it turned out pretty amazing! 🙂

ET Charlie