Metacongnition: Mindbook

For mind books, I want my mind book to be creative. It takes a lot of time when I am starting a new mind book page. In such a little space, so many of my thoughts has to be crammed in. Most of my thoughts end up being taken out of my mind while working on the mind book. Everyone's mind book is different from each other. Each mind book is unique. They have different ways of expressing their thoughts. All thoughts are creative and different. My friend was explaining about her mind book to me about how she used a thread to represent her thoughts. I found it to be very unique and creative. However, after school, she told me one of her classmate used thread to represent her thoughts. Now, does that become unique anymore?

Jackson Pollock was special because no one thought of doing such thing. If there was someone that had the same idea as Jackson Pollock, he would not be as famous as he is now. That thought becomes something other people could not think of. I always thought creativity was creating something that no one could think of. But now my thoughts changed. What if two people had thought of the most creative idea? It should not be as creative since two people had the same idea. Then what does that idea become? If two people could think of it, then another person could have thought of the same idea too.

Best of Week: My Self Portrait

During the summer break, I was in Korea. On Saturdays, I went to an art studio about five minute walk from my house. I was working on my self portrait with oil paint. I got to the studio at about ten in the morning and I was the first one to arrive. I had been working on this self portrait for a long time. Self portrait meant expressing my self to the colleges I apply to. I took the most time for this piece so there would be no mistakes. When I showed my paintings to all my friends , they were amazed and told me how good my works were. Most of my friends picked out my self portrait as their favorite pieces.

The seats in my studio was arranged so that two people would share one table. The seats were arranged so that everyone could look at other's works and learn from them. Monday was the due date for the paintings. I came up with an idea that would separate my painting from the rest. I wanted my painting to stand out among others. It took me about 8 hours of trying different styles to create my own style. Before I came to the art studio, I showed my painting to my friend who attended a different art studio. Later through out the day, I found out that my friend used my idea and got all the credit for herself at her art studio.

When I was reading about the Television article, I sort of felt a little connection to him. However, I observed that Farnsworth was wrong. I disagreed that he gave up his hopes when his idea got taken away. Farnsworth could have lived his life by realizing that he was the one who really invented the television. Now, everyone who knows of Farnsworth knows that without Farnsworth, there would have been no television. Unlike Farnsworth, if someone takes my idea again, I am going to come up with another idea that is better than the old idea.

Connection: Magritte and Creativity

In class, we learned about the different types of creative personalities. Even thought all the aspects of personality that were being mentioned was important to have, I thought the fourth statement was most important to have as a creative person. It states the idea that creative people are both in the world of imagination, fantasy, and reality. When I was reading section of paragraph, one of my most influential artist came up to my mind. Magritte, who is known for surrealism, could connect to this section. Those relate to each other since Magritte is sort of the artist who lives in his imagination. He thinks very differently from others. Magritte's paintings stand out to the audience because his paintings go beyond what artists thought back in his days. They inform each other since creative means understanding imagination and reality. Artists need to go beyond what normal people thinks, otherwise they can not create anything new. However, they also need to be informed about their reality and the things happening around them. Magritte's surrealistic paintings always influenced me. His works are so creative, it becomes more interesting every time I review his works.

Change of Mind: Vertical Listening

Learning how to play the piano was the biggest achievement when I was young. By learning how to play the piano, I began to listen to different classical music. Classical music was like a lullaby for me when I first started listening. As time went by, I started to enjoy listening to classical music. As I became older, classical music fascinated me.

Last Tuesday, when I listened to Maple Leaf Rag for the first time, it was just another classical and joyful music played on the piano. I was very familiar with the song. The first time I heard it, I heard the same music I heard back when I was young. However, when I was instructed to concentrate only on the bass part, I heard a completely different melody. Vertical listening improved my listening. After listening to it the fourth time, I was able to switch and concentrate on bass part, melody part, and the two combined together.

After practicing vertical listening, I realized that the bass and the melody sounded very different from each other. I did not realize this since when I listened to music, I would only be able to hear the two melodies combined together. Through this activity, now, I could enjoy hearing the bass part and blocking out the melody. Before, my opinion of the music was that, in a music, the melody is the most important part and bass is just there to keep a steady beat. After, I realized that bass is as important as the melody and without bass, a song would feel extremely empty.