So I’m pretty sure I’ve finished another day as emotionally exhausted. Actually today was going really good until about five o’clock when I finally left the house to go get copies made of the handouts I spent all day working on yesterday, and part of today. Basically this handout contained about 12 pages with nearly of all them containing photos. The whole purpose here was that I wanted to have a copy of my PowerPoint available to give out to everybody in class just in case the Power Point itself doesn’t work out because of technical difficulties on Wednesday. Only when I finally made it to Kinko’s and got one copy of the entire thing printed, it was close to five dollars just for the one. The problem with that is that I need thirty-two.

I called my mom after I left the copy place to talk to her about it even though I was already well aware of what the verdict of the matter would be. It was just too expensive. So I can’t get my handout printed in color somewhere or do it at home because it will just be too expensive, I don’t have the time, patience, or strength to re-design it, and some of it won’t serve its intended purpose if I do it in black and white. I was both furious and irrationally upset to the point of tears in the car, but fortunately I had college Bible study tonight. Our Pastor, Larry, was more than willing to listen and it really helped just to get all the worries out. It really helped my anxiety and seemed to dull some of my worries some. Plus some time with Jesus and other students with the similar struggles to mine really helps me to sort out the issues and recognize that this really isn’t the end of the world. I will be so relieved once Wednesday afternoon has passed.

I’m cutting my length of ramble off a little short today merely out of exhaustion, but I’ll probably get more wordy again by the dawn of Thursday. Until tomorrow I fare thee well. Oh and with this post I’ve included a copy of the cover I made today for the hand-out. It’s nothing complex, I was kind of happy with how clear the birds came out. I got the original image here and took the background out myself. =)
Not to self: fix image.

Ugh, I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve posted. This isn’t good at all, I’m supposed to have three blog entries up per week. It’s definitely not that I don’t have anything to write about, I just get tired by the end of the day usually end up forgetting. No matter though, I’ll catch up and get back in the groove. I still am a little lost to be completely honest, is a blog supposed to be organized? I don’t really have any ideas for series or anything like that, though I probably could put together separate files so that I have some what of a journal going on about each of my classes. Honestly I kind of like how things are unorganized though because then it’s more like my brain.

Anyway, I really do have tons I could write about, but I decided to focus on the speech I was working on today. This Wednesday I’ll be giving a demonstration speech in front of my classmates and I think I’m freaking out a little bit. I’m excited…I’m motivated…I’m stressed…I’m worried…I’m frustrated...and I’m just plain petrified all at the same time. With all of these emotions hitting me at full force today, I’m once again experiencing the adverse effects of going through too many emotional highs and lows at once. My presentation skills aren’t even my main concern at the moment as I’m mostly worried about having everything prepared just right.

Basically the speech is supposed to be a “how-to” lecture and I’m supposed to demonstrate what I’m trying to teach everyone right there in class. The topic I’ve chosen is one I’m very familiar with…Birds. I grew up helping my mom raise exotic parrots, so it helps to have a lot of first hand experience with the subject. The process I’m going to demonstrate is how to prepare a blood sample to mail in for DNA sexing. Personally, I think it’s pretty cool and it’s probably not something a lot of people think about so that’s what makes me rather excited about the opportunity to share about it. I might write a post within the next couple of days going into more extensive detail about it, I don’t know.

What’s so stressful about this is that I’m really having fiery arguments with myself over what exactly I want to include and exclude from the presentation. I have a lot of plans and work to get done in order to have it the way I want it. With crafty handouts to design, a powerpoint I’m barely half way finished with, and the ongoing inner debate as to whether or not I’m going to bring a real bird in with me, my mind is about ready to explode.

The point I really wanted to get to in this post though is the ongoing feud I’m having with Microsoft Powerpoint. If I wasn’t so frustrated at this point, I’d probably be laughing at just how much computer programs and I don’t get along. I probably should do more that just skim through tutorials, but I really just loathe reading directions. Right at this moment, I’m also loathing Powerpoint with no valid reason. The image I decided to include with this entry is a shot of what the first slide of my presentation looks like right now. Yayness. So yeah, I’m going to quit for the night and hopefully tomorrow will bring me better fortune, or at least a better attitude. Until then, fare thee well!

Aha! Sunday is here. So it already came to me last night what I was going to talk about today. You see, at some point in time I was going to describe this speech that I’m going to be making on Wednesday afternoon and then inspiration hit me. I guess first I should back up and say that the speech is about a song called “Gloomy Sunday”, so that’s where the inspiration came from. I thought to myself, “Why not post an entry about ‘Gloomy Sunday’ on a real Sunday?!” Okay, okay, so that’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s clever for someone with a mind as slow as mine.

I know I’ve been little bit all over the place when I’m talking about work from the classes I have this quarter…and I don’t think I’ve even made mention of my speech class  prior to this post. For the record though, and for all the people out there in the world who I’m sure must care about this immensely, I’m officially taking four classes right now. These four classes include: Image Manipulation (focused on Photoshop), Fundamentals of Web-based Programming (focused on HTML), Effective Speaking, and Design Layout. Now for my speech class, I have to make a declamation speech this week. All this time I knew what it was, but I didn’t exactly know the meaning of the word. So I looked up “declamation” on dictionary.com and found a pretty good definition, it read that it was an “exercise in oratory or elocution, as in the recitation of a classic speech.” This is exactly what the assignment is. Ultimately, I had the choice between about twenty different selections that my instructor emailed to all of her students; they ranged from famous political speeches to monologues or short stories. I chose this story called “Gloomy Sunday – The song that can Kill You” that was written by Tom Slemen.

Personally, I though Slemen’s piece was fascinating, so I guess that’s why I chose it. The piece is not so much a story in the traditional sense as it reminds me of a journalist’s summarized research into the history of a paranormal event. Although judging by what little research I’ve done, this may be exactly what it is. Tom Slemen has actually written books about different paranormal sightings and events. It’s all very cool. Anyway, the story is about this song called “Gloomy Sunday” that was written by a Hungarian man named Rezso Seress in the early 1930s. It’s said that he came up with the melody on a gloomy morning after things had gone sour with his fiancée. Now once the song made it national, a series of deaths were linked with the song. It was said that this song aroused emotions in people that subjected them to suicidal thoughts and caused them to kill themselves. The rumors were so strong that it soon became banned from the airwaves. Today however, there are many different versions available of this supposedly lethal song that have been done by other music artists.

Now I didn’t confirm any of this information for myself, and I’m not claiming that any of it’s true, I just thought the story was incredibly interesting nonetheless. What I’ve shared is a brief summary of Slemen’s story itself, and the keywords “Gloomy Sunday” will actually give you quite a few results if you look it up on iTunes. I actually found myself really liking the song quite a bit. It is rather depressing, but in a heartbreaking sense. Many of the ones I listened to included vocals, which were nice, but I liked the pure sounds of the melody itself, so I bought a version of the instrumental. Anyway with all of that said, I’m really nervous about making this speech. Even though they’re not my words, I’ve done speeches before, and my classmates are very kind listeners, I just don’t like doing it. Public speaking makes my insides feel like they need to be outside. I’m probably one of those people who fears it more than death itself. Dx

In the image I’ve included with this post, I was mainly trying to very subtly darken the mood of one of my own photos. I probably really shouldn’t have even tried to do that today since I have so much I need to get done, but I just had to do something more than slap a picture of my keyboard on with this post, so I made it darker. Woohoo! In my defense, I really need the practice with Photoshop anyway. The result of what I did very clearly evidences that fact. The way all of the white keys are blending together just cracks me up.

One more thing…if your interested in finding out more about Tom Slemen’s work, check out his website here. I’ll probably read more from there some day…if I somehow manage to remember.

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A note on the Kanjis: I guess I have some weird obsession with the Kanji project, because I just can’t seem to let it go. I was thinking about the restrictions of the project though and became a little disappointed this morning. I mentioned myself that the Kanji is supposed to be the focal point in each piece, but looking at the one I posted in my April 15 entry, I’m just not sure it achieves that. The top portion of the piece with the brighter colors and whites almost look like they either are equal or overpower the kanji to me. What makes this so disappointing was that this was my favorite of the three, and the whole reason I did two versions of the project. Now I’m not sure if it’s even right and my day will be filled with the despair of not knowing. It really is a gloomy Sunday. D=