Doctor's Orders

I have a real problem with depression but am completely against taking anti-depressants. At least once a year I get severely depressed and always manage to get myself out of my depressive state. So today I sat back and thought about the way I went about de-depressing myself and I recognized a sort of routine that I go through that always gets me through those rough spots. Here are the docotr's orders:

1. Cut your hair. Sometimes all you need is a change and fresh perspective.
2. ALWAYS change out of your PJs. Staying in them all day makes you feel like your life is so pointless and unnecessary that you can stay in bed all day and do nothing and no one and nothing will notice.Start the day with fresh clothes.
3. Groom yourself every day. Brush your teeth, do your hair, put on make up, shower, etc. Remember: How you look affects how you feel.
4. Read a book for at least 20 minutes a day. Get involved in a series. It's nice to get out of your life which may seem pretty boring sometimes and become involved in one of complete fiction like Harry Potter.
5. Draw or do something artsy and creative every day.Get those creative juices flowing again. When you see something that you have created, not only will you realize that, hey, you just had something to do for a good half hour or more, but also your life will have more of a purpose because you are creating something physical.
6. Make your bed every morning. You'll feel better; more fresh and ready to start your day.
7. Write in a journal. Journals are a great way of getting all your depressive thoughts that clog up your mind released onto paper where they can stay instead of flooding your mind with sadness throughout the day. Journaling can also let yourself see how you are progressing out of your depression, get you excited about your future plans, etc.
8. Start a big project. Whether it is redoing the house, starting a garden, and art piece, writing a book, building, anything at all. Just keep busy. Make sure you have something to occupy your mind throughout the day. Focus on a goal and finishing it. Try to keep it at one large project at a time or at least on large one and a mini project. You don't want to become frustrated because you feel you can't accomplish your goal. Just KEEP BUSY.
9. Make sure your room/workspace is clean. Tidy around the house/room/workplace every day. an uncluttered desk is an uncluttered mind and a clean room is a clean mind, body and soul.

Photo from (http://thelighthascome.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/i-am-never-upset-for-the-reason-i-think/)

No medication is necessary to overcome depression. I'm proof of that. Depression is almost always purely a mental state. And like they say: Mind over matter. Get your mind to think a different way. This way works for me, it might work for you too. You'd have to experiment with different things to see what helps you.

Project 365: Catching Up!!!

May 14, 2010

After a lovely day of playing hooky, my friend took me to this spot to hang out. It's behind these railroad tracks a little inside of the brush, but if you bring a blanket and just lay it out there, the little hideaway is so quiet and secluded and relaxing. It's officially one of my new favourite places.

May 15, 2010

My brother's girlfriend had an ice skating competition that I decided to go to to start getting some sport photography experience and found out that it is very difficult. I actually did manage to get, what would have been, some nice shots except that I don't have the right size lens for this kind of photography. Out of all the pictures, though, this is my favourite. Even though it is blurry I feel it has the essence of a great picture, and if it doesn't well, oh well, I like it.

I just got my new Canon Rebel this week and I've been messing around with it trying to learn how to use it. I figured I'd start my 365 project with a self portrait of myself, even though I look gross after school. Normally I'm more photogenic but still I really liked this photo for some reason. You know how people say that artists paint people the way they see them? Well, I think this photo looks exactly the way I see myself: not ugly necessarily, but not out of this world, beautiful, kinda plain and tired. So it's my painting of myself I guess. I also liked this photo because it reminded me of the head-shots I've seen or the pictures of the authors on the backs of books.

Project 365

Project 365 is a sort of challenge where the photographer is expected to take at least one photo a day. You can take as many as you like, but you post one. Like this, you can view your entire year in pictures as well as make sure you are practicing your photography. The photos can be absolutely anything from a portrait, self-portrait, or a snapshot of you life. As long as the photo is taken by you, it counts.

Why do it?
Taking a photo a day is a big undertaking with big payoffs. Here are just a few reasons why you should consider doing it:

• Imagine being able to look back at any day of your year and recall what you did, who you met, what you learned… (Often we find it hard to remember what we did just yesterday or even last night, let alone a whole year ago!)
• Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.
• Taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. Using your camera every day will help you learn its limits. You will get better at composing your shots, you’ll start to care about lighting, and you’ll become more creative with your photography when you’re forced to come up with something new every single day.

Tips on How to Do It

Here are six tips on how to create your own Project 365:

1. Bring Your Camera Everywhere
   Yes, everywhere. Get in the habit. Grocery stores, restaurants, parties, work, and school. Going to a movie theatre? Snap a pic of the flick with your phone–there are photo-ops everywhere. If you have one of those tiny tiny cameras, you have no excuse not to have it in your pocket all the time. And if you don’t? Camera phones are a great substitute.
2. Make Posting Easy
   You can install blog software like Movable Type or Wordpress on your own site and create an entry for each photo, but for true ease of use, try a photo sharing site. Flickr will let you post a week’s worth of photos in 2 minutes flat, and fotolog and Photoblog.com are geared toward a photo-a-day workflow. Making it fast and easy means you’re much more likely to do it.
3. Vary Your Themes
   Try to capture the day’s events in a single photo. Perform photographic experiments. Take a photo of someone new you meet, something you ate for the first time, or something you just learned how to do. Take a photo of something that made you smile. And don’t forget to take a photo of yourself at least once a month so you can remember how you’ve changed, too.
4. Tell a Story
   Use your blog entry, or your photo description, to explain what’s going on in each day’s photograph. How good did that dinner taste? What made you want to take a photo of that stranger? It’ll help you remember down the road, and it gives friends following along a better appreciation of why you took the photo you did. You don’t need to write a lot, just enough to add some color.
5. Don’t Stop, No Matter What
   This is perhaps the most important tip of all. You will get tired of taking a photo every single day. Some days, you will consider giving up. Don’t. The end result is worth the effort. Remind yourself why you wanted to do it in first place. There will be times you’ll think there’s nothing interesting left to take a photo of, and times you’ll think you didn’t do anything exciting enough to take a photo of. There’s always a great photo to be made.
   Get out of the house and take a walk. Or stay inside and look around. Take a photo of something important to you. Take a photo of the inside of your house so you can see how your taste has changed over the years. Take a photo of anything, just don’t stop.
   N.b. It helps if you’ve told your friends about the project and asked them to follow along. Their encouragement will keep you going!
   
6. Post early, post often
   Plan on going through and posting your photos at least once a week so you don’t get backlogged and feel overwhelmed. Ideally, post every day or two. Again, spend the time up front to make sure it’s quick and easy to post. It’ll make all the difference.

Square Foot Gardening

My cousin recently contacted me to let me know that she had some "baby plants" that she had no space for and if I perhaps would like to start a garden and she could donate them to me. This has been a dream of mine for a very long time. I don't know exactly why, but it has been and now it is finally to be fulfilled.

I think everyone should create a garden and I also think everyone is capable of it. Especially with this thing my cousin told me about called square foot gardening, where basically you make a box 4ft x 4ft dived into 1ft x 1ft squares so that each plant is separated. Like this you can grow, tomatoes, herbs, squashes, fruits and beans in an organized fashion and since the garden is small, it is easier to take care of, the plants are easy to water and all you need is a space big enough for a 4x4 box.

There are a lot of really great benefits to growing your own garden, even if you just start with a few plants. The food you buy in markets is highly contaminated with pesticides and other chemicals like preservatives that aren't really that good for you. By growing your own veggies you control what chemicals are going into your body, eat healthier, food tastes better, and gardening is a great form of relaxation and discipline. Also, after your garden is finished, you have something to be proud of, almost like a child. Not to mention, square foot gardens are attempting to stop world hunger which has become a serious problem especially in third world countries where governments do not have enough money to pay for subsidized farming (which should be OK since that's bad for us anyway...)

I am going to be starting my square foot garden very soon. First I have to gather the materials to make the box, the soil, the seeds and germinated plants I will be planting, and then I have to build the box and then I'm set. I guess it could be somewhat of a project for discipline and living a healthier lifestyle.

If you are interested in the benefits and how to start you own square foot garden here are some links to help you get started:

http://current.com/news/89867838_introducing-square-foot-gardening.htm

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/home

Our Hands: Art Project

Since I'm being given a lovely SLR camera for graduation I decided I should start planning a project of some sorts to start getting familiar with it and learn how to use it. I came up with an idea called our hands. A black and white photography piece. In it I will show all the ways we use our hands. I'm not positive yet whether it will be closeups so you can't see the models faces or if its just going to be shots of actions that you do with your hands... Maybe a mixture of both?? Well, anyway, I can sort of see it in my head. I'd want the pictures to either be a little dark or with a very strong contrast. Now I need to start thinking of all the thing we do with our hands.

My Musical Odyssey

So a little while I did another piece in my personal art project. This piece is more of a text based collage. I really liked writing my words in the shape of a G-Clef. I used crayon, acrylic paint, and permanent marker.

Odyssey of My Birth

I finished the Odyssey of My Birth this morning.

My Personal Odyssey

Ive come up with an art project and I think it is going to be somewhat of a challenge, but I can't wait to get started on it! I got the idea form an old language arts project of my little brother's. It's called "My Personal Odyssey" and it was originally supposed to be a scrapbook of narrative essays of a bunch of different topics like the story of your birth, education, personal goals, etc.

I've decided to turn it into an art project where each topic is the subject of an art piece in my sketchbook. I've already got some great ideas for some of them, but I'm not sure what to do about the others... Here's the list of topics my brother's teacher gave him:

• The odyssey of your birth
• Your musical odyssey
• Your childhood odyssey- the early years
• Your family odyssey- traditions, family members, family lore, family vacations, interesting and unusual family members
• Your friendship odyssey
• Turning points
• Moments of epiphany
• Your educational odyssey- as a student and a teacher
• Your proud moments, achievements, victories and awards
• Special/favourite characters and people in your life- heroes, role models, fictional chracters
• Your sports, interests, hobbies, passions
• Your future careers odyssey
• Your spiritual journey
• Your maxims, values, philosophy
• Your travel odyssey
• Your hopes, goals, dreams
• Your odyssey for your wellness/well-being... physically, emotionally, mentally, etc.
• Your creative/artistic side (yes, kind of redundant in this case, but just giving a list, and I think this could mean poetry and photography as well)
• Your adventurous side
• The odyssey of your fears and anxiety
• Personality traits
• Anything else you can think of!

I already have two different ideas that I can't choose between for the odyssey of my birth. I was thinking of either doing a colored pencil drawing of a baby in the womb and then journaling the story of my birth and naming or doing a kind of comic strip/graphic novel-type thing that depicted the event. I really like the comic strip idea and I can totally see it in my mind, but I'm just not sure I have the skill to draw it... Either way those are two ideas for that one.

For my friendship odyssey I was going to use photography and photograph me and my best friend. I've considered also sketching as well. I'm still not sure yet.

For my musical odyssey I was thinking of something collage like and multi-media. I was going to either draw or paint the keys of a piano on the bottom of the spread, then break a CD into pieces and make a music note mural and draw a large G-clef sign but in words with the names of all my favorite musicians.

My travel odyssey I was thinking could be a montage: a kind of mix between collage and drawing. I've never done a proper one so I think it could be fun to try it.

I originally thought that each subject would fit on one spread int eh sketchbook, but now that I'm really thinking of it, I think some may take up a couple of pages. Like my family one and maybe even the friendship one. I'll most likely post the scanned images of each page :)