warning, 110% deep.

ok, im back. had alot of personal things to take care of, but now i think im back to normal. i think people started to figure something was up when i left the same aim away msg on for like 2+ days. sorry about that. anyways. today was the first real day of my visual art class. but before that, ive gotta say, walmart is too big! i swear i can never find anything in that place. i left for school a bit early today so that i could stop at walmart and pick up some supplies that i couldn’t find. so i head over to walmart, but when i got there… there was no walmart! i totally forgot that they opened up a new supercenter like 5-10 mins away. so at that point, i was kinda mad because i was already short on time. so i had to go find that other walmart and get the stuff. needless to say, the stuff i was able to find, i didn’t need today, and the stuff that i will buy tomorrow… thats what i needed today. i wasn’t the only one that didnt have everything, and the professor kinda expected it because he didn’t explain to us what the class was about yet. so anyways, i walked into class like 10 mins late, but he seemed really cool about it. i like a laid back professor. after listening to the normal professor introduction, he had us do the traditional go around the room and introduce yourself. there was not 1 art major in the class which i found funny, but then again, the course is described as being one thats not for art majors. well after that, we got right to work. he told us that we had to think up a personal shape, draw it, cut it out, and describe to the class why we choose the shape. a blank stare found its way across my face. do i have a personal shape? i didn’t think so after hearing what he said. if someone asked you your personal shape, what would you say? he gave us a few more details and examples and let us go. i started drawing some lines, i had no idea what i was doing, but i was trying to act like i did. there were other people in class with the same look as i had on my face. but then an idea hit me, and this is what resulted. {{popup myshape.gif Louis’s_Shape 320×110}} (click for bigger pic). i color coded it just to make explaining it a bit easier to follow. i’ll start with the blue side.

the blue side is rounded. i would say that im a well rounded person. i try to learn as much as i can about everything just because. im one of those people that will try anything once, just for the experience. even in college, i have taken courses that i really dont need, but i just want to take them. we are required a fine arts credit, i have already taken a course last year that fufilled that requirement, however im taking another one now because i want to. same with other courses that im not really interested in like travel and tourism, leisure science, utopian and dystopian literature, communication. none of those courses help me in my computer science major. some would say its wasted money, yet i dont believe so. stuff here on the computer is the same way. i work with digital art (and a huge amount of different programs ranging from adobe/psp to bryce to more specialized programs like terragen). i can program in c++, java, php, and a bunch of less structured languages (scripting). i play online games, but i take it one step further by designing levels for games like quake 3, and jedi knight 2. i have to be able to do it all. maybe thats a fault, but thats just me. the negative space (cutout) in the circle represents that reason… me having to know it all. if i dont, i feel like im being left out, or missing out on something. so i try to fill that void by learning as much as i can. on to the red piece. that represents the structured part of my life. i like things set out in a straight line so that i can plan. i like to know whats going to happen before it happens. also, in computer science, things have to be structured. programming is structured in a sense (ignore that you object orientated people, heh). and the green part represents more of my emotional state. im never truely ok. im either really happy, or really sad. i try to hide it for the most part, i cant help that. im a good listener, but usually i dont expell my problems on others. maybe i see it as a favor because when i get into my moods. i can, and will talk. (look at the size of this post as proof). anyways, i actually learned a lot about my self in this exercise. i didn’t take it seriously as he was explaining it, but as i started thinking about it, all of this suddenly manifested itself in a simple shape. its quite amazing to me. when class was over, i walked out of there feeling extremely well. i dont remember the last time i felt that good. i think this is the start to a really good class.