07/05/14-08/05/14

To be honest I don't feel there is a great deal to write about this week. I was really surprised that I am really on track with the Taking Stock module, and I think I may have pretty much done all the work I need to do. All I really needed to do for this module was to add an example of somebody who works in Art Therapy for my 5 year plan, just to show that such a job exists, and to show that people can make a living from it. This didn't take too long, and I did actually find somebody local who uses Art Therapy in their work, which is really interesting. Even though it was only basic information, I did find the website really informative, and covers pretty much everything you would need to know about their work, in an easy to read bullet point format.

http://righttherapist.com/dir/therapist-listings/pamela-jackson/

However, I have felt very tired during this week at college, and therefore I felt like I haven't done as much coursework than I could do if I was not feeling tired. I didn't sleep well on Wednesday night, and I have had a lot on my mind recently, so this could be a possible cause for this. However, things at college have been very relaxed this week, and Neil has been very understanding about this.

Also this week I have continued to edit my video tutorials, and have edited and exported three of my six video tutorials at home. I tried to export an edited video tutorial at college this week, but as with last week exporting a video takes a very long time (in this case, over an hour) which drastically drained the laptop's battery, and eventually there wasn't enough battery life to export the video, so I decided to save it for later to export at home.

A similar problem arose when I had to render my Pac Man level, because my display in this year's exhibition at college will be an A2 render, this takes much longer than a standard render (around 10 minutes) which also drained the laptop's battery. This is also worse, because, unlike iMovie, it is difficult to perform other tasks while a project is rendering.

To be honest I do feel like the work I need to do to hand in next week will certainly be manageable, and I do feel pleased that I have managed to keep on track with this project.

30/04/14-01/05/14

Wednesday

It was really nice to see and to catch up with everyone after the Easter break today, and everybody seemed happy to see each other. Today we just had to show the work we have done so far, as well as continue with our journals. Over Easter I had managed to complete a draft of a five year plan, as well as evaluate on most of my previous journal entries. Even though I felt I probably rambled a bit in my five year plan, everybody seemed really impressed by it. Because the other students could see how much I have written in my five year plan, and seemed quite amazed by it, I made a joke about being the "Hermione Granger" of the group. Well, I have the same birthday as Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter films, so i guess we have some things in common.

I think I was in a funny mood today, wanting to have a laugh and a joke a bit today, which did feel good and made me feel happy. One of the things I remember joking about was names of AntiVirus software. One of my friends' laptops had AVG Anti Virus, and I was wondering what AVG stood for. Apparently it stands for "Anti Virus Guard."I misheard this, and thought they said "Anti Virus God!" So I just said as a joke "Dear God, please protect this computer from any viruses, Amen!"

Thursday

Today was more about the work we need to do for our final projects and the end of year exhibition at Stafford College. As I have learned to do, to give me enough to do during my day at college, I wrote a list of tasks I wished to complete today. Since I prefer recording the tutorials at home, I decided that I will edit or re-record the videos at home, depending on how long it would take and how I feel about the video tutorials I have already recorded.

The first task I started today was to perfect what I have made in my video tutorials - The Pac Man level! For this, I altered Pac Man and the ghosts slightly, as well as add other assets to the game level, such as fruit (cherry) and the dots Pac Man eats during the level. I know that I will need to at least have some renders to display in the exhibition, and this is why I wanted to work on this first. It was a bit irritating that Maya crashed when I was modeling the cherry so I had to start again sadly. Although to be honest the cherry was a lot better when I modeled it the second time!. Neil also showed me a quick way to create all the dots, using "Duplicate Special" in the "edit" menu. I could sort of remember this, but I haven't really used it in a while, because there hasn't been much I have needed to Special Duplicate for a very long time. This lets you make multiple copies of an object, and can also rotate, move or scale in the Special Duplicate as well, so objects will rotate, move or scale in the Special Duplicate. This made the task much simpler, quicker and less tedious, and in no time at all I had all the dots I needed for my Pac Man Level.

I also attempted to use iMovie for the very first time this morning. This was initially quite confusing, as most software probably is at first, especially knowing from working on Arts and Media based courses for the past few years, using programs such as Maya, Unity, Photoshop and Illustrator, all of which do take a while to get used to, even when you haven't used these programs for a while. I wanted to edit the latest video tutorial I had recorded over the Easter Holidays, because I felt pleased with the information given in the tutorial, but I remember getting openly frustrated when Maya briefly closed down during the tutorial, so I wanted to edit that part out. This did take a while to understand, and it doesn't make clear how to save videos either. From what I remember you can just simply delete selected parts of a video by just selecting the part of the video you want to delete, then press the backspace key. Also, iMovie automatically saves your workspace, but if you want to create a new video from what you have edited, make sure your video is in the project window, then click Share - Export with QuickTime.

However, this massively drained my Macbook Pro's battery, so I decided not to Export the video until I got home and charged my laptop. This also affected my Maya work as well, so I couldn't do much else other than written work this afternoon. I could have done practical work on the Macs at college, but I prefer using my Laptop to do practical work, and I had some catching up to do with my written work anyway.

I have liked how relaxed everything feels right now, despite having only two weeks left until I need to submit my work for my projects. I still understand that I still have quite a lot I still need to get done, but I feel that everything is under control. I just hope I keep on track of things, and don't wait to get things done.

Easter Holidays

Since finishing for Easter, I have had a wonderful, yet busy Easter break, and it hasn't been all to do with the Foundation Degree. I have been very busy over Easter, travelling to lots of different places, such as Swansea for a few days with the family which I really enjoyed and it was really nice to get away from normal life for a few days. I have also been to the cinema 3 times, to see The Muppets Most Wanted, Divergent and The Amazing Spider Man 2, all great films!

It was also my birthday over the Easter Holidays, and I really enjoyed celebrating with friends and family. In fact, the cinema trips did count for me as celebration of my birthday too! I also had lots of presents, such as a docking station, DVDs, games, spending money and much more! Celebrating Easter was lovely too, I just spent it with the family eating a delicious Easter dinner, and playing a few Easter games, such as an Easter treasure hunt!

Because my personal life was so busy over Easter, possibly because of my birthday, I wasn't able to finish everything on my to do list for coursework I set myself over the Easter Holidays. However, I still feel confident that I will get all the coursework I need to do done and it was also nice to have a short break from it.

I did, however, manage to record my sixth and possibly final video tutorial. I do feel much more confident with my video tutorials, and feel reasonably happy with this one. I did get a little flustered on the video tutorial when Maya randomly closed for a second whilst trying to show the different types of rendering, and it may have come across as shouting, but I hope I can edit this part out, as I felt happy with the rest of the tutorial.

I also managed to write a five year plan for what I wish to do after the Foundation Degree. I showed it to dad, who was really impressed, and suggested I changed a few words and sentences. I feel that showing work to others can really benefit your work, because then an outside opinion is gained that you can use to improve your work.

I have also evaluated my journal entries much more. I decided, because I feel it would be easier to do it this way, to evaluate the journal entries by either each month, each term or each module, depending on which section of the journal I am evaluating on. This has been going really well and has given me a lot to think and write about. It has also been especially interesting to read again what I had written in each journal, and to think about what I would do differently if I approached similar challenges again. I definitely feel I am much more confident and mature about my work, as well as many other different aspects of my life, especially since the start of this year, and I have definitely noticed this since starting my work placement in September.

The last thing I did was to start to collect my research and practical work in a folder ready to hand in on the 15th May. This can usually cause a lot of stress, especially with writing a Bibliography as well, because in the past I would usually do this the night before submitting my work, but I am trying to avoid this stress with these modules.

Exhibition Plan...

For the end of year exhibition at Stafford College I plan to develop the models I created in Maya in my Maya Tutorials, the Pac Man level and characters and the robot and create some nice renders of these. I will do one render for: the level, the Pac Man ghosts Pac Man himself and the robot. These renders will then be printed and mounted onto boards for the end of year show. This is similar to how my work was displayed last year, where I printed trading card designs featuring 3D Models, which were then mounted onto thicker boards.

However, one thing I haven't done for the end of year show this year is the use of Augmented Reality (AR) Technology, which I used last year for the trading cards. This did add something new and unique to my trading cards last year, and I do feel it is really important to add something new and unique to a project that will be shown on public display, to make the work stand out in the exhibition. What I have done this time that is new and unique is the video tutorials of the basics of Maya. Before this project, recording videos is something I have very little experience in, especially making a screen recording of my computer activity, and it is something I've always wondered how to do, so I thought it would be perfect for me to try this for this project.

I could also, if I am allowed to, present ONE of my video tutorials in the exhibition. (perhaps the first one, as it covers the essential basics of Maya.) I can't really display all of my video tutorials for the end of year exhibition, as each tutorial I have recorded is between 20-30 minutes long, and I have recorded 6 tutorials, so watching all the tutorials would take around 2-3 hours long. So I feel that having just one tutorial in the end of year exhibition would be good, as it would show the purpose of what I have modelled and shows more of what I have done as a project. For this, I would need a spare Mac, and maybe some headphones for people to listen to the tutorial, so it doesn't disturb the rest of the exhibition and maybe an opening of Maya, so people can practice the tutorial.

RLJ Evaluation - March 2014

I do feel that over this time period I did manage to balance my work very well. Making a timeline each Thursday breaking down the day and writing what tasks I feel I can do during my time at college has really helped towards this, and has made Thursdays much more productive.

I also have mentioned, like, a million times, it seems (including this time), that I get on better with Neil than I did last year. He is much more helpful to myself and other students and provides much more constructive feedback than he used to, rather than just being critical of my work and saying what needs improving. This is noticed by feedback from my video tutorials, and research, as well as offering to print copies of my online campaign sketch, all of which I really appreciate, especially when printing off my sketches wasn't going right.

I also feel that the Online Campaign project I worked on with the Photography Students and Ananda went really well too, and I really enjoyed working with these people, even though Ananda does interrupt not just myself, but others too. Lynda has noticed this too, so I don't feel too bad saying that. The group project was also a good way to get to know the other people in the Photography group a lot better, and meeting outside of college has given me ideas for meeting outside of college in the future. This project definitely also helped with socialising, something I really need to work on, so I really appreciated this chance.

As for the style of writing, because this is really recent, It wouldn't change too much. I do feel it has improved a lot since the start of New Media, as I do reflect much more and think more openly and broadly and am more open to feedback. However, I did eventually find in one of my earlier journals (I think it was in the first year) about image boxing, but at the time I couldn't find it, as I probably checked my past research files, but not my previous journals. So I have learned to look back on previous journal entries, even more so because I have had to reflect on them all!

RLJ Evaluation February 2014

As I didn't have many lectures in February, due to Reading Week and Half Term taking place, I did not write many entries regarding lectures. However, I remember handling the Professional and Contextual Studies modules much better than in January, despite me still being fairly unsure of the module during half term. This was later resolved with the group project, which was to set up an online campaign of our work through social media. Although we only had one meeting during February, and even though before half term it seemed that nobody was fully aware of this project, despite it being mentioned in the handbook, I felt the first meeting went rather well, even though I may not have said as much as some of the other people in the group. This was fine, as I still contributed and agreed to ideas, such as for me to design an illustration to promote our online campaign, which we later decided to use Facebook for, because everybody was familiar with Facebook.

As for the quality of my writing for the journal entries, I don't feel much has changed since January, and I don't think I would have changed much about the journal now. I did manage to include an image of some research for my Specialist Pathway module, which was from 3D World Magazine, which shows proof of research, as well as giving the reader ideas of the types of work I am researching to gain inspiration for my project. I feel the quality of my reflective writing has certainly improved since the first year, and even since the start of the second year, where I didn't reflect on as much as I should have done. The writing is much more reflective now than ever, rather than just describing events and lectures. It was also nice that I managed to post about some personal interests outside of the Foundation Degree, such as the Lego Move and Pokemon. I thoroughly enjoyed both, and decided to make a piece of digital art regarding Pokemon, which was part of a Facebook game regarding Pokemon.

RLJ Evaluation - January 2014

Even though I hadn't written many reflective journal entries in the second year up to this point, I do feel that my journal entries during January 2014 were very well written. Also, because these entries are fairly recent, there may not be much I would change in terms of the style of what was recorded in the journal. I feel I managed to record all the relevant information from lectures in my journal, and reflected on what I have learned from the information and how it made me feel. I also compared my life at college at this point compared to one year ago from then, when things weren't going as well.

Despite me not writing much about the previous term, I wrote a recap of events from that term, the best I could from what I could remember. I feel I managed to write about all the important things about college and the Foundation Degree of the previous term, such as the modules, my dragon/kart projects, being in a class with the photography students and how I felt the whole experience was going, and I think it was going very well. Definitely the best start to any year I have been at college, without getting too upset or stressed.

I also wrote about my work placement, which has been a very important part of my life as it has started me on a potential new career path in Art Therapy and helping others. This placement has gone really well, and perhaps because I was doing something positive that wasn't to do with college, I felt much happier and relaxed at college on my Foundation Degree.

I mentioned that, with the projects, there was "a lot more creative freedom" this year compared to last year, which I am really grateful for, and I feel I enjoy the more creative projects more because to me they feel more "personal." It was also good that I could choose what I did for my final project, and I do feel I came up with some really good ideas, such as the plane animation flying over Rome and Paris, monster designs from my art therapy sessions, and the video tutorials I eventually decided to work on. However, I do feel I would have been happy with working with any of these, as all the projects seemed fun and fulfilling as projects, where I wouldn't have had too much or too little to do at any one time if I planned my work efficiently. Also, it made me realise that it is good to have a number of options for projects that will be equally as enjoyable to work on, so you're not stuck with working on a project you're not happy with working on. I do feel, however, that the work and entries from January were more about the planning of my project, which is still a very important aspect of any project, so you know it is possible to achieve the best results.

I also remember being rather confused about the Professional and Contextual Studies module, especially about writing a grant for money from the Arts Council, and I certainly reflected on this in my journal. I also remember this module was very confusing last year. However, because I have a good working relationship with the lecturers, Lynda and the students, we were all able to figure this out together. Also, writing about some aspects of this module I learned about, such as PESTEL and SWOT, really helped me to remember what was discussed in the lectures. I have learned that it is super useful in the future to record anything new you have learned in the journal.

I also attended several careers advice meetings, both at college and at the Staffordshire County Council. I feel that since the start of my work placement, I have been considering what I would like to do after college a lot more, which I feel has really benefited me well as it will give me some clearer goals for the future. Although I always found these careers advice meetings helpful and informative, my feelings and hopes for my options have changed very often since then. When I saw the careers advisor at college, who told me I needed to pay for an apprenticeship if that's what I wanted, and also that to become an art therapist I would need to attend postgraduate courses, the options seemed quite limited at that point, but when I went to speak to the County Council I was feeling much more optimistic about my options. Currently I am rather unsure of what the future holds, but am remaining calm as I have lots of options and people helping me to achieve my goals. I have felt very grateful for all the people that are helping me to develop my future career, as I am aware that not everybody has as much support as I do, for many different reasons, and without the support of these people, I don't think I would be as prepared and as optimistic about the future as I am right now.