Student post

kelly’s post

September 5th, 2007

I copied this from where you posted it in the comments, Kelly. I wanted to post it in the main posts section so everyone would see it. When you sign up at uniblogs.org (and this is true for all of you), within a day or two, you will each get an invite to be an author on the blog. Once that happens and you accept it, you can post.

Here’s Kelly’s cool (and very thought-provoking) post:

Well here goes nothing!

If I am to describe myself let me explain something as my writing has been known to be completely different from as I speak regularly, as I have had some time to think before I started during the drive home. After rethinking what we did in class to get to know each other and sharing who we were and what it was that drove us for our goals, I wanted to take the time to elaborate on who I am and what my journey was to my decision of becoming an art teacher, as it was too long to describe in class. I also wanted to add some things about why I have almost no interest in reading for enjoyment.
Lets first start however, with my journey; I promise it’s not really that long. Ever since I moved to Jersey I had been infatuated with horses, if I could see one for five minutes it would make my day! I realized since my family was young and I had a younger brother and sister I knew I wouldn’t get to see ponies every day, so I started drawing them—and thus where the art interest was born! My dad helped a little by explaining that everything you see starts with one or multiple basic shapes. Through out the years I would only draw horses until I impressed myself with shading and foreshortening techniques which I never learned in a classroom.

I was in 3rd grade in a catholic school for my first year in Jersey… Our Lady of Mount Carmel is in Boonton, and that’s where I attended my first nun. All of those stories you heard about catholic school, they’re all with out a doubt, right. There was not a single day that went by that I was not targeted for zoning out in my pony wonderland. There was no way of escape, the other students hid their eyes but wanted to see it at the same time. I remember once I sneezed at the chalkboard, six times in a row, and directly afterwards was pelted with a piece of chalk from across the room, lucky for me it hit me in the shoulder. I hated it there, the horses were my only escape, and I learned to do them out in the school yard since we didn’t have art class. By 6th grade I moved again and have been in Oakland since with frequent possibilities of moving through out the country, this has become a joke to my family.

My interest in art grew like a wild fire. By the time I was a senior I was interested in becoming a fighter pilot for the army but I have asthma and for safety purposes I was declined. Then I set my heart on making video games and movies regardless of the second or third dimension. I started working towards going into the field using programs such as Maya, 3D studio Max, Aura, Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator and other programs, I had even gotten an internship that then turned into a two year job in Midtown Manhattan working for a design company called Mada Design. We did a lot for Topps, who if you don’t know the company are the people that provide sports cards to you. Baseball, football, soccer, you name it we had it, relic cards, autos… yea. They also own Ring Pop and all of those other candies which I did a lot of product design for. Everything was smooth sailing until I realized that I needed to be outside in the summer. I started realizing I really enjoyed teaching and watching a community grow. So I switched gears two years ago, I miss it and could do it forever, but when I go to raise a family I’m well aware that that lifestyle can only do well in people who are the opposite of me. And so I indulge in now, I see the kids I teach in town and in the summer at the lake, and I can’t help to be proud of what they learned in my class. I take that with me as I try to finish up.

Now the second thing that I wanted to talk about briefly as I realize this is a long blog is that I can’t connect with reading unless it is for a project or to help me learn a skill such as with a material I haven’t yet experimented with. I know the value of it and I see why people may enjoy it, but I am not that person. This may come off wrong or relatively incomprehensible to some but I am dyslexic and have an organizational problem. Now you might be asking what I mean as I have written all of this, but I don’t see it when I’m writing it, it’s all done in my head, these are my thoughts. Let me explain what an organizational problem is for some of you that may think that organization is something you can only find on your desk or in a pile of papers left to wrinkle in your back pack… my problem is that I don’t see words in books, magazines, newspapers, or on signs right away, it takes a while for me to realize what is there. So, as an example, if you take a moment after I explain this and try it maybe it will make more sense. When I look at a cluster of words no matter its length, I see a block of grey, after moments of staring, I see individual blocks of grey, and then the words start forming. It takes a lot of energy sometimes and because of the stress of reading in classrooms as I was younger I stayed away from it and leaned on art as a crutch for some time. It has been a while since I could be open with this… in the event that you want to try to see what I deal with on a day to day basis, sit back now and zone out so you don’t see the words right away, once your vision is distorted for a while try to pick out words and then start from the beginning of the paragraph and reread. That’s the best way I can think of to distort what you see. On top of it all I’m dyslexic so some words link into others some beginnings of words latch on to the backs of the same words… it’s a fun time.

Also just as a reaction to class today in objection to the video games concept that playing video games is not beneficial where as reading is, sort of got to me as I know since they were created there weren’t many stories that evolved through the combination of text and visual language, but as the technology grew and still does there are more and more games that push you to know the story, as well as building a tactical way of survival and furthermore allows you to be a character in the game, where as even if you identify with a character in a novel you are not in the book. Just some critical thinking I did in the car. ^_^ .