ROADBLOCKS!! GAH!!

As my title implies there have been some issues faced today. We managed to shoot our part three bit and we wanted to include the video that I had been sent. Unfortunately, we couldn't transfer it off the DVD and into a format we could work with. Sad panda. Also the video from the camera wouldn't transfer in video format but only in the form of a jpeg. Not helpful. We're working to overcome these roadblocks and we are still hoping to make our deadline. Hoping being the operative word.
On a happier note. I finally have everything I need to do the Joy project. My viking finally has footwear and is almost completely finished. My painting is still in the sketching phase but I hope to finish sketching tonight and start painting tomorrow. My story is still conceptual but I hope to at least begin to flesh it out and polish it tomorrow.
This project has been very interesting for me. There are several times when I have had to step way out of my comfort zone and I think this is helping me to grow as much as if not more than the project itself. I hope that my readers have enjoyed the journey I've been taking as much as I have. Sometimes it's hard to change yourself (correction it's almost always hard) but I found that if I continue forward knowing that things will work out then I ultimately grow more from the experience than if I was constantly wondering at success. I hope that statement made at least a little bit of sense.
So my part 2 is begining to look interesting. In this portion we are supposed to teach a group of people (large or small) to have a travelling mindset. I think what I will do is ask some of my friends to tell me one place they've always wanted to go and what they wanted to do there. Then I get to be a good fairy granting their wish (most likely in a cheesy but endearing way) for a day or two. This project is somewhat based on a portion of the storyline of the movie "A Walk To Remember." The part I'm talking about is when Landon goes about fulfilling all of his girlfriend's wishes that she wanted to accomplish before she died of the cancer that had been plagueing her. I want to be Landon for a day. I want to fulfill those wishes and take my friends to the place they've always wanted to go. I haven't got all the kinks worked out but hopefully it will all be figured out by tomorrow. Hopefully. (*eeh*)
This is me signing off from blogging for the day. Have a wonderful night and I'll talk to ya tomorrow!

Jessie Jane

So, yeah...

My sincerest apologies for not blogging yesterday. It seems that I have a difficult time remembering to do this on Sundays as that is a day I generally reserve for simply spending time with my family. Anyway so I have a rough storyline completed for the Work piece and the viking now haws a bit more armor on. He also has a nearly completed spear that he will be able to hold in his hand. My watercolor is almost completely sketched out and I hope to begin painting today (*fingers crossed*). I'm still working on modge podge gatheringness which I hope to complete before I leave school TODAY!! Now that my report is complete, I can get into the soul searching a little.
I found an interesting quote that has nothing to do with any of my projects but that I would like to share. It was made by a character in a book that I read this weekend and talked about how people get into difficult situations because of curiostiy but it is their being to proud to ask for assistance out of the mire that keeps them from getting out of trouble. I think that I am sometimes that person. I dig myself into a ditch so deep that it is impossible for me to escape on my own yet I insist that I do not need any help in changing my circumstances. I feel like in my project I have to admit that I can't do everything on my own when I go looking for quotes for my modge podge, ask for advice on viking armor from my brother, ask my mom for help in getting my priorities in line, ask a teacher's opinion on the most pleasing way to arrange an object in a painting, and even when I get my inspiration for a story from an episode of a favorite TV show and many science fiction movies and books. The truth is, I know that I can't do things on my own. I know that sometimes I need help. The problem is:  I have trouble admiting when I am wrong.
You may have noticed that my picture for this blog reads "I'm not always right, but I'm never wrong". For a long time this was what I let people think that I thought of myself. I thought it was a good image. But then, my Freshman year of high school, I felt that I was putting on a different mask for every situation that I found myself in. Even at home I wasn't my true self. I could never just let go. So, as I and my siblings have done at various points throughout all of our lives, I went to my parents. I talked to them about what I was feeling. I admited that I was wrong and that I needed help. My mom told  me that I should do some serious soul-searching and find what parts of each persona that I adopted were really me and which parts were just me pretending so that I would fit in (which I never really have anyway and now that's OK with me; I still have friends and they like me for me). Today I think I will change my picture so something a little less pompous and see if that helps me to look for the me I should be everyday and to remind me that God is always there to hear my problems and will never deny me help that I request. I want to say that I really do love being in school. I love my family. I love church. I even love my job. I also love that there are people who love me who are willing to help me as soon as I overcome my pride and request their help. I encourage my readers (though I may not know you) to take up this call to ask for help when we need it and not sink down into a mire that is so deep that we fear there is no hope. But there is hope. All you have to do, is ask for it.

Jessie Jane

Changes, hmmm...

So I have made some changes to my projects from what they were originally intended:

• The Choices and Honor projects has become leather-working rather than wood working and I'm almost playing dress-up but in a very cool and difficult manner. I had forgotten that I knew how to do leather-working but I think that it's going rather well. I have also made use of other random objects which included some wood-working and also some metal-working. So I think that this has just become the worked materials project. Here's a picture of what it looks like so far: 
• In my painting I had originally planned to have the word Faith off to the side of the plant underground but I have now decided to have the roots of the small plant twine around the word and make it a part of them
• I have my story partly done. I will hopefully finish it by tomorrow
• I still have a little work to do on collecting things for the Joy in the Little Things project.

My mom asked me a question today that made me think a bit about what I'm trying to accomplish. My goal is to make changes in my attitude to help me be a better person. These changes are things I was taught but that I chose not to remember or acknowledge. My mom reminded me that changes are made through experiences and asked me how making all these art projects to remind me of various values was going to actually change me because I wasn't experiencing life trials that would actually cause those changes to occur with or without reminders. I think I have an answer. You know the saying "Going by the book..." or "That's how it is in my book..." or "Taking a page out of their book..."? Well, in my book the values got somewhat lost or misprinted (apparently I edited it badly) such that my book is faulty. This project is like a rewrite of my book where the mistakes that I chose to address are being changed to what they should have been all along. This change is so that when I do encounter situations that will give me experience in helping me to make a habit of the new changes, I will be able to open to that page in my book and have the proper answer to my question. For example, if I had a situation where I had to chose between work or family time (this is a choice I've had many times before and, as my parents put it, I keep having to make the decision all over again every time it comes up) I would waffle back and forth, stress, and just all around be indecisive because in my book it had misprinted such that I had never made a definite priority list for my lifestyle. Now that I have corrected that wrong through something concrete and in a way that was fun and enjoyable for me to complete, I can dwell on the proper answer to my question and focus more time and energy on questions that have more difficult solutions. I hope that explanation answers my mother's question. I honestly thought all day about it and that was what I came up with to best describe why I am making all these things. They are reminders of what I wrote in my book so that I can never misprint it again.

That's about it for the night. Any other comments or questions about this blog or my project are welcome and appreciated. It makes me think more and helps me learn better. Thanks Mom!! 

Jessie Jane

Going up the hill...

So in my excitement to share my good news of yesterday with the world, I forgot to complete an assignment given to my by my teacher yesterday. He requested that we state how a poem that we read in class relates to our project. The poem was "Courage" by Anne Sexton and this is how it relates to my work. One of the first lines is about the little things in life. Well, I have a whole subproject devoted to that. I believe that what the author is trying to tell us is that it is those small events in your everyday life that ultimately give you the courage to continue forward and get up every morning. Also she talks about how what many would call courage is not courage at all but pure love. It is love for me to put my family first in all things (although sometimes it takes a lot of courage to go against what others would say would be the right choice to make between family and that great other thing that I just HAVE to do). It is courage for me to decide to do five different art projects and complete them in less than a week's time when I would normally do them at a much slower pace. This is how the poem connects to my current work. With my work to come, however, there is more. In the poem the author describes a buddy saving the narrator's life and losing his own in the process. I am losing myself into the job of helping to save those who are homeless. I will always be me but I will be a better and stronger me for what I am doing with and for these people.
With my projects:

• As I said last night I have completed the Family project
• I'm about half-done with the Choices/Honor project
• I have the Faith project roughly sketched out and will clean up the sketch and begin painting tomorrow
• I am still collecting quotes and things for the Joy in the Little Things project
• I think I finally have a vague storyline for the Work project. It involves bad choices, good choices, and a time machine. I hope it works out. (*fingers crossed*)

That's about all I have except that I will be beginning Part 2 of the project on Monday and will explain more about what I'm going to do with that at a later date which is not today. Also I finally got to actually look at what my sources have sent to me and I am very happy because one sent me a video (haven't gotten to watch it yet but am very excited to see) and another sent me stats, graphs, and tables (I was infinitely ecstatic because I rather have a fondness for those kinds of things). I hope to begin the script for our presentation very soon. Blog ya later!

Jessie Jane

I'm walking on sunshine...

Today was full of good news and lots of development.

• The community activist got back to me and he also sent my email to others who could help and several of them answered my request for information. YAY!!! I think our group may just be able to pull this off. 
• I finally finished my first project. Here are some pictures:

This is the progression of this project  into the finished product. I'm rather happy with how it turned out. Each word is in a different color and those colors are significant. Family is in bright yellow because your family should be the brightest part of your life. Religion is in a varigated teal, blue, white, and purple because this particular thread reminded me of a similar one with which my brother created a God's Eye for our Christmas tree, you can see the parallel. School is in blue because my school's colors are blue and white. Work is in red because I work as a lifeguard and red is one of our chief colors. Last, Miscellaneous is in varigated green because I wanted the green to show wisdom in putting it last and the varigated to show that it is in constant change and flux.

Well that's about all I have. I wasn't able to really begin any of the other projects concretely but I have almost the entirety of all materials necessary for each project (I was missing some poetry and quotations for the Joy in the Little Things project). Anyway, there's not much else to say but goodbye!

Jessie Jane

More new firsts...

So today, as my title suggests, contained more new firsts. This would be in the arena of again talking to adults that I don't know and asking them questions and for help. EEEEK!!! Have I mentioned today that I really hate talking to new people? I'm actually incredibly shy but I pretend not to be. Truth is, I'm cringing away inwardly everytime I meet someone new because it's something new. Anyway, today I talked to our school social worker who was very nice and personable and told me that the group that my principal had told me about was actually at a different high school in town (LHS for those who want to know) and she was able to put me into contact with the community activist who works with these kids and he was able to give me information on someone else I might contact. BIG INTERCONNECTIVITY!! Very confusing and all that but I managed to make some headway. I sent off an email to the community activist and told him about our project and our goals for it. In his email to me he had mentioned a meeting for the students that were already in his group and invited me to it and anyone else I wanted to bring. I have decided to invite the entirety of the TAG program at my school in the hopes that a) "the more the merrier" is really true and b) this will in turn help them with their projects. Anyway, so in my email to him asked him to send me anything he thought would be useful in the creation of my group's presentation. I hope that he is prompt in replying to my email and with good info because I would like to give this presentation about the middle of next week (say Wednesday). That's my goal anyway. We'll see how it goes.
On a different note, here is the update for Part 1 of this project:

• I finished obtaining all the materials for my varied projects
• I am about half done with the family project
• I have sketched out the faith project and hope to start painting tomorrow
• I will start carving the Choices/Honor project tomorrow
• I will finish getting the poetry and quotes for the Joy project tomorrow and hopefully begin modge podging
• I will finally begin my story webbing tomorrow and probably finish the story over the weekend

I am very excited about all the developements I have been having in my project thus far and I look forward with anticipation to my next challenge. (That should have sounded brave and I will keep telling myself that I want it to be true. In truth, I hope that there are no more setbacks but I know that, as JK Rowling said "failure is inevitable." Here's to hoping I can postpone the inevitable until the end of this project.)

Jessie Jane

And it goes on and on and on...

So today I faced one of my biggest fears: talking to grown-ups about something serious. GAH!!!! Today I talked to three different teachers (two of which I had never met) and our school principal. The topic: part three of this project. Me and two other girls in my class (Lydia and Shanyah) came up with the idea to make presentation to our student body to raise awareness about the homeless population in our area and then hold a coat and/or scarf and/or blanket drive. CONTEXT!! The basic idea of part 3 was to find some way to assist the homeless population in our area. Well, that's not gonna happen. After talking to the various people listed above a new plan was decided. We would still give a presentation but it would be through Channel One and we wouldn't have to go out and find our own data from homeless people but could rather use resources already obtained by an organization at our school that was already in existence. Also instead of holding our own drive we could help support our schools DECA organization and encourage donations to their coat drive. Yay DECA!! So I still need to talk to the school social worker to present our case and see if we could assist with another program that's trying to get off the ground at our school that would also help with our goal of helping the homeless.
So, progress on part 2:
I now have pictures of the work in progress that is each of the projects with the exception of the piece of writing:

So hopefully the pictures speak for themselves if you have followed my blog thus far. I will be starting my painting (picture number 6) today after school and I will be starting the family project (pictures 1&2) when I get home today. Talk to ya more tomorrow!!

Jessie Jane