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Let’s Go Saleing!
I love getting a good bargain. I love saving money on things I know I need anyway. My Mom and my best friend from high school have helped me develop up a good bargain hunter mentality. We save money this way but also shop smart. I love looking at everything from estate sales, to garage sales, to flea markets, and thrift stores. I have found some of my favorite clothing pieces and sports equipment at these places, in addition to my beautiful china set. I have been able to buy things that I would not have been able to afford otherwise, hockey gloves, designer shoes, and again the china because…
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Why You Should Change Your Car Oil Regularly
I certainly don’t claim to be an expert on cars, but I have learned a couple of lessons since getting my license at 16, owning two separate vehicles, and commuting to college and now work. I love driving around especially with friends, or to places like camp, or my friends who live out of town. So I strive to keep my vehicle in top shape. Everyone wants to make their car last, and oil changes are a relatively easy and cheap way to help make that happen. Oil changes help your car run more efficiently. They also keep your engine cleaner, and effective. So if you like your car, or at…
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Review of Everything is a Remix – Episodes 3 and 4
Ideas transform over time. In the last half of the short series Everything is a Remix, we learn about the basic elements of creativity and how things truly come into existence. Ideas are built from one another, and to hold an idea captive and say it’s yours is protected by law, but not always clear or helpful. The basic steps to cultivating creativity start with copying, yes, copying, as you have to learn how to do something before you can create your own, as noted previously many of the most successful people have done this. The next step is to transform that is, make it look unique, the the last…
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Review of Everything is a Remix – Episodes 1 and 2
Everything is a remix – it only starts with music. Now anyone in any field can do. This week for the Praxis philosophy module part of our lesson is watching a series called Everything is a Remix. It’s the fascinating analysis of pop culture and how ideas are far more intertwined than we’re often led to believe. The series starts with the story of the Led Zeppelin band, and it’s music, how much of it is covers or remakes. What’s most interesting is that when others remixed there work they fought back against it. Music is often switched around, speed up, slowed down, or cut and pasted throughout various songs. It’s…
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Philosophy Module Week 3
A Whole Lot of Culture…and Lecturing 17 hours later and I’m DONE. I just finished Paul A. Cantor’s lecture series on Commerce and Culture. It was good but lengthy. From Shakespeare to video games to the Casablanca movie. Cantor spoke on how culture, art, economics and the market work together, and what viewpoints have produced the best results over time. A consistent theme was that art thrives in the free market. Another consistent idea presented was that art has changed over time, and it has almost always concerned people as it changes. Art created in a free, or commercial market means that artists have incentive to create art that people…
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Styles and Spaces
I love interior design, you can change so much about a space just by changing a wall color, switching up a couple pieces of decor, or adjusting your wall decor layout. Throughout the years I’ve kept an air of cute and stylish in my bedroom, but I’m always thinking about how my space can better reflect my personal style and lifestyle, Since I was about 7 actually my mom actually let me be part of choosing my bedding and wall colors. The only problem in my mind at that time was that I couldn’t get the Hello Kitty comforter I wanted because I had a double bed and not a twin.…
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Define Your Terms – Praxis Wednesday Response
Last night our module got to speak with James Walpole. Although it was really just a conversation between the four of us on the call I found a few notes to take away and appreciated the discussion overall. Something that stuck out to me was when James mentioned defining your terms. This further confirmed a debate/argument technique that I had actually heard before from some of my favorite political thinkers. It ensures you are speaking about the same things, and that you know what the other person is talking about and arguing for or against. Another favorite point from the conversation was that if you use a fallacy admit it…
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Wear Your Memories on Your Sleeve
Or on your bed. I appreciate cleanliness and limiting the number of things any one person has but I do see the value in collections that have intrinsic value to the owner. Collections are something that is curated, it is unique to that person in some ways, or has specific value to a person. Decide on an item that you can find almost anywhere and can represent each adventure well, even if it means you have something lying around you’ll have a piece of each adventure that you can touch. For me growing up, it was primarily t-shirts. I bought one everywhere my family traveled and then was pleasantly surprised…
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Youth Group By Design
Back in high school, I had been part of brainstorming a couple t-shirt designs for my youth group. Now that I’m a leader I’ve decided to try my hand at it again, and hopefully learn a little myself even if my designs aren’t used. It’s interesting where design, specifically graphic design, can find a home in the world. It’s not just about logos or slapping a phrase on a sticker. Design can be about bringing a group together with a visual that was thuroughly considered and planned. I like design. I’m trying to get better at it overall. I still tend to fall back on templates, but they get my brain…
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Art in Motion (Picture)
Throughout history, different art forms have been doubted, from the novel to the movie to the video game. Many in society saw movies s as being too different when they first came into existence to be seen as art, critics claim they were too complicated, commercialized, or counter-culture. When the movie came about many wanted to call it an art form but that was soon challenged as many people wanted to pin down a particular artist for each film. The problem was that even for the greatest motion picture works, this was and is largely impossible. Critics would judge that directors were writing what the audience wanted. Cantor points out…
