Writing Center

I went to the writing center to get help on an essay for English 112.The essay was about Fast Food restaurants and how they mistreat their workers. The assistant who helped me was named Sarah. She was very friendly and helped me organize my idea to set up and have an essay that flowed more fluently. I enjoyed the experience but personally I like meeting with my own teacher because she knows exactly what she wants and I know if I do that I will get the good grade. With the writing center I feel as though I sometimes second guess the editing they do because I'm not sure if that is exactly what my teacher would want. Overall it was a good experience and if I could not schedule an appointment with my teacher i would definitely use this resource again.

Final Reflection on "The Creative Habit"

We can gain a lot from Tharp's perspective about not only creativity but also autonomy. She depicts creativity in a different way than we would normally think of it. Most times when one thinks of creativity we think only of art work, painting and projects. But her book focuses more on how to find your own creative habits not only in art but in your life in general. She shows that creativity to her is more of a self driven thing. To her you have to know your goals and drive yourself to achieve all that you want to in your creative projects. To her it represents individualism and who she is as a person and she wants us to find our own too and rely on our own ideas. This is important because it helps you learn about yourself and after you learn about yourself, you learn to stick with it and not be afraid to express these ideas. To be free of fear and create without inhibition. You get to really know your desires and wants which can help you not only with your individual creativity but also with other aspects of life. Anything you do in life that helps you to find your identity is worth it, I feel as though some people spend their whole life not knowing who they are. The more you know and understand who you are the freer you are to be creative with your ideas. Twyla Tharp also talks about how you can incorporate this more into our lives by doing those exercises she put after every chapter. They are there to expand your boundaries and incorporate this “theory” of creative habit into your everyday life. This is something we all should do because it will better ourselves and make for a more interesting creative society. 

College/Life Problem

This will be my final video for this class, thank goodness. I am not the best at making videos but I still put in my effort. We had to do a video on a problem college student’s face but I feel as though we have already talked about the major obvious ones. At first I was going to do a video on sex and what to do if your roommate is having sex all the time but then i decided to change it to STD’s because that is a world problem. I feel like a lot of problems you have at college you will have out in the real world, after all this is a transition to the adult "real" world. Throughout my video I liked my music choice all though it would be nice if I could manipulate the sound volume throughout the whole thing but it does not allow you to do that. I think the video clips go well with the story and add some humor. Something that could have been better is that sometimes the words linger too long and show up on the next picture but that was not how it looked until the movie downloaded so I could not fix it. The movie is much more fluid then my previous ones and overall I am happy with the outcome. 

Exercise #9

and 

Both of these photos still mimic how I am today. I love my grandma to death and me and my brother are still inseparable. Something that is off about this picture is that my cousin Lisa on the far left is hardly ever grumpy or unhappy. In this picture me and my brother are showering my grandma with kisses and affection and maybe my cousin feels left out. Yet today and as long as I can remember she was the most rational and level headed of all of us. This picture is also taken while we were camping. Ever since I was born me and my family went camping every year. That was how I grew up and have a ton of memories with my family there. It was always my brother, mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Only when I was real young did my grandma come along with us because she was still feeling up to it. Now a days my mother and step dad are the only ones who still go camping but now they have a trailer. As the cousins grew up we stopped having our camping traditions. But the love I have for my family has not changed.

Fear

In Chapter 2 of the “The Creative Habit” the author, Tharp challenges us to write down our fears when it comes to being creative and putting yourself out there. I do not have many that really pertain to this. It is not a fear of being laughed at, but in confidence in whatever I am creating. If it is not something I am particularity good at I am a little more hesitant to share it. If I know something is not my strong point I will still do it but not feel as good about it as something I am really proud of. If there is something that I am satisfied with there is nothing someone can tell me to make me change my mind. I will have no fear in sharing it because at the end of the day I did it for me and I like it. Whoever laughs at me, that’s their opinions and I could care less. As for the other things, I always have something to say whether I choose to say it or not. The other one saying that once executed, the idea won’t be as good as in my head, that happens all the time. You either fix it or suck it up and move on. The only fear really that I have is that I will put 100 percent work into it and it will still be bad, disappointing myself. That is sometimes the reason I do not put all my effort into things.

 

Multicultural Center

The multicultural center is located in the Adante Student Center on the second floor. I have previously talked about the art work in the Student Center but did not touch upon what the multicultural center really is. Its purpose is to be a recourse for Southern students and the community to promote awareness of Cultural Diversity that was established in 1991. Not only that but it also raises awareness for other cultures and sets up events such as the West Indie Show Case and National Hispanic Appreciation Month events. It also offers educational programs that help recruit and keep students in school. The other events they sponsor include; conducts art exhibitions, film programs, lectures, and conferences and house a book and video library. Another main goal is to be a positive force in the lives of African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino/Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.

 

Miss Tharp

When I first started reading the book, “The Creative Habit” by Twyla Tharp a few things popped into my head. At first when she was talking about how you need to have a set routine. I agree that practicing your creative habit will improve your performance but the way she described it reminded me a little of OCD. Also some people do not want to do the same thing every morning. That could hinder their creative ability, just because a routine works for you does not mean it works for everybody else. I am not saying that I completely disagree with this because it has validity, yet I just wanted to point out some flaws in this idea.

            One part she talked about was, “In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative.” (Tharp 9)This goes back to our discussion of the 10,000 hours and whether or not you are naturally gifted. She states that even Mozart worked at his music everyday for hours since he was a small boy. She said, “Whatever scope and grandeur you attach to Mozart’s musical gift, his so-called genius, his discipline and work ethic were its equal.” (Tharp 9) I also believe the part where she discussed cutting out distractions, that will definitely help when doing a project or creative task.

            I really liked the part where she gave us exercises we can do to better ourselves and our creativity. I thought that number 2, “Build up your tolerance for solitude” was very true. Most people need to learn how to be alone and be alone confidently. She said, “Alone is a fact, a condition where no one else is around. Lonely is how you feel about that.” (Tharp 31) I really like that quote because it is completely true. However, the next one tells you to go a week without mirrors, clocks, newspapers and speaking. In this world today that is impossible. How will you get anywhere you need to be if you do not know the time.

            There were many other good points, for example your creative DNA is interesting because everybody has their own DNA or personality to their creativity, what makes them their unique self. Which includes their preference in art, music, dance etc and how they create. Other things I liked about this book was the Your Creative Autobiography, although there is no way I would remember my first creative moment, I don’t remember any of that. Overall the book is somewhat interesting and so far this is what I think about the book.