#reflectivepost

[dailylaughdose]

"This Clock Isn’t Just Telling Time—It’s Sending a Message You Can’t Ignore…"

Ever felt like time is slipping away but you don’t know why? This image isn't just a clock hanging in a station — it's a silent scream from the universe, asking one question: What are you really waiting for? 😮‍💨

Some photos stop time. This one challenges it.

⚡ It’s not about the minutes ticking — it’s about the moments you’re missing. Don't just keep scrolling. ⏱ This could be your sign 👉 https://urlhub.pro/7a558f

[dystopediapod]

Battle Royale wasn’t just about violence. It was about abandonment -a generation left to fend for itself in a system that no longer cared.

What happens when a society can no longer justify its own rules, yet keeps enforcing them anyway?

That question doesn’t end with Battle Royale.

Next week, we go back over a century to E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops - a story from 1909 that somehow predicted Zoom calls, screen addiction, and humanity retreating from the physical world.

If Battle Royale showed what happens when society loses control of its youth, The Machine Stops asks what happens when we willingly give up control altogether.

🎧 Catch up now & get ready for Thursday.

[antoniab93-blog]

Imposter syndrome - part 3

This post originally started as an exploration of what #ImposterSyndrome was and how I thought I'd experienced it. Last year I chose to do a post reflecting on how I'd progressed from the original in 2021 and I thought, why not do a 3rd?

This post originally started as an exploration of what Imposter Syndrome was and how I thought I’d experienced it. Last year I chose to do a post reflecting on how I’d progressed from the original in 2021 and I thought, why not do a 3rd? This is a NSFW post, I swear a lot. So what’s the definition of ‘imposter syndrome’? From good old Wikipedia: Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor…

[cafemizudashi]

Nostalgia Pt0: Anemoia, nostalgia for a time you’ve never known

It is always the same. I find myself in bed, late at night, lost in thought, checking something on the phone when suddenly it hits. In this case, I really should have seen it coming. The installing of old games, checking old equivalents of interests of mine... 

Specifically today, the trigger was Kowloon Walled City, City Pop, and old consoles such as the original GameBoy. 

Why these topics? Because I am interested in big cities, Japanese music, and videogames. But why these in particular? I was not alive during most of that time after all. Let us first check what all these topics are.

Kowloon Walled City by Atlasobscura

Kowloon was built naturally, it grew and grew up until 1993, when its demolition started. It offered many amenities for its residents, such as doctors, technicians, water sources... And although the Urban Hell  looks and the many drug, gang - triads -, gambling... problems, people often talk about it fondly. 

I do not have any connection to this place whatsoever. It perhaps may not even be the best example. But I find something about this strangely familiar.

Matsubara Miki, Best Collection by Spotify

City Pop on the other hand was created as an introduction of occidental culture into the 70s and 80s Japan. The music takes inspiration from funk, R&B, and soft rock among others, and you can tell by the funky bass, the techno piano, and the unique drums. Again the only connection I may be able to make is Spanish 80s ballads, which my parents used to play when they were my age.

Pokemon Gold by The Orion

Then for my latest example is the original GameBoy / GameBoy Color. These were released in 89 and 98 respectively. I was born in 1998, so I have not experienced them at all. I have no older siblings nor family who may have exposed it to me. I did start with the GameBoy Advanced later, but the feeling is different. 

I returned to them recently, even bought an original GameBoy second hand. And It definitely feels like I have experienced this before.

It turns out that, of course, the internet has a word for this feeling. According to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:

Anemoia - n. nostalgia for a time you’ve never known.

That is exactly how I feel about some of these. And I know I am not alone on this.

Very prevalent in my generation is the liking for things that have old qualities attached to them, even if they may not be.

One of these would be Lofi music. A style that aims to replicate the Low Fidelity aesthetic of older mediums such as VHS or cassettes. These are mostly recent, but perfectly exemplify it. And it is not as easy as creating some pixel art game, or some grainy sounding music.

My favourite is old songs but it's lofi remix. But there are other, more modern, lofi videos on YouTube.

Undertale does this to perfection. At least to me, when I first played it I felt as if I was playing an older title of my childhood.

The game was of course brand new, but everything from the art to the music had that aura. And it is strange that my generation has this love for old things. Such are the Vines compilations that still roam around the internet - even though Vine has been discontinued for years already. Or your family is asleep and you’re playing minecraft on a cool 2012 summer night. 

So it is not that farfetched that new pieces are created to scratch that itch.

Who knows, maybe as I grow older I will experience nostalgia for these things I am now exploring, a nostalgia towards a fake nostalgia. Like having the freedom to write a blog post at 3:30 in the morning - after my previous one was deleted completely, thanks Tumblr.

Nikon 35Ti by emulsive.org

But do try to give it a look. Perhaps if you are interested in cameras try researching about the 90s film cameras, and take some lofi on your way. Or if you are interested in music check some older synthesizers. You may not know what you have never experienced, perhaps you were 10 years late to experience it, that does not mean you have to miss it completely. 

[jamesdyecg]

Research & Enquiry: Reflective Post 10 - Time Management and Organisation

- Why this is important -

Following on from my previous post on Burnout, I have found myself struggling this semester with keeping on track with everything. Suffering time to time from lack of motivation, burnout, and general lack of direction. This is where time management and organisation come in to save the day. As mentioned previously, breaking down a task into much smaller pieces can help reduce the mountain of work in front of me. For this I use a organisational tool called Trello.

- Trello -

Trello is a list based organisational tool, in which users can create boards, lists and more to help with project management. This tool has helped me tremendously throughout this semester, breaking down modules and topics, creating to-do lists, and tracking progress. Below is an example of one of the many cards I have created for this unit.

In this example, I have created a check list, in which I have listed different ideas for reflective blog posts, while a few of them I have decided not to use, It was better to jot them down, than to forget them. Trello has helped me stay organised and break down tasks into an easily understood way.

- Schedule -

Now you can have all the lists in the world, telling you exactly what you need to do, this won't help at all however if you are not doing the work... This is where a schedule comes in to help. Breaking down a project into the weeks or months required you can start to work on the time management part of this. Understanding when different parts of the project are due can help to keep on track and reduce any 'crunch' time toward the end.

Along with a project timeline, it is important to have an individual schedule as well, by this I mean.

A regular time to start work

set break times

set end times

a regular sleep schedule

a diet plan

daily exercise

time for hobbies/relaxing

Whilst these may not seem obvious, maintaining a healthy and fun schedule can help stay motivated, reduces the risk of burnout, and lead to a healthier lifestyle.

- Maintaining organisation as I progress through the year -

The above mentioned methods will be vital to my success in the future. I will ensure I continue to use these techniques as well as continually search for further ways to help with organisation and time management. It is also important to note that sticking to the plan 100% of the time doesn't necessarily equal the best progress, sometimes a rework of the plan is necessary when unforeseen circumstances occur.

- Citations -

Trello Enterprise, 2011. Trello. Organisation Tool. www.trello.com: Atlassian.

[coolgroup13posts]

Belbin Results

Looking at my belbin results I found out my strongest attributes were as a plant and as an implementer. According to the site plants are creative with unconventional thinking and with being able to come up with ideas when others can't. Also implementers  are good at getting the work they need to do and combine creativity with practicality. Looking at these attributes I think that I have a strong combination. When speaking to the rest of the group I found out that for some they had these attributes as their weakest and in reverse my weakest were their strongest. This balance in a group is important and will mean that we are able to be adaptable in our work and combine different skills to create a better outcome.

-Daniel

[placeswhereidontexist]

What is a reflection & what do lecturers expect?

A reflection is an active process that encompasses you to think about your learning. Making time to think about what you have read, heard and did helps deepen your understanding of important ideas. Your reflections help you to create link s between what you are learning at university and your experiences outside of uni.

A reflective text is a lot less formal than a university paper, it’s a lot like a journal or a diary entry. Your reflective texts are about you, where you express yourself through writing and video to demonstrate your thoughts and reactions.

-Uni reflections are usually about your thoughts, emotions and reactions about what you learnt, felt, did and thought.

Your lecturers want to be more active and involved in your own learning to help them show your understandings but to help them understand your thought processes of how you found the work and class to be.

 ·Lecturer’s expectations:

Your lecturers would most likely ask you to write a reflection and they would expect you to write your thoughts and reactions to something you’ve learnt about in your module.

 Some tips to guide you:

- don’t write a description,

-be precise and detailed in your emotional and thought processes

-be clear with your evidence of learning

-demonstrate distinctly that you are an active learner and a critical thinker

[christiewaku-blog]

Gamification & Narrative Timecode (2000) Mike Figgis

What I enjoyed about Timecode is how it caught me off guard as being not one of your ordinary films. Timecode has broken from traditional filmmaking and utilizes tools that are shaking up the studio system.  The way the film was shot, by using a quadruple split screen, to the use of editing, how it was shot in one take without no cuts or edits and also the dialogue between each of the characters, which kind of overlap between each of the screens. As a visual creative whom is used to fast-paced edits and continuous cuts on screens and visual effects, I was intrigued and surprised how Figgis Timecode (2000) hardly uses any, but still works as a great film. The way Figgis has brought the film together leads the audience to concentration and focus more on the storyline of each character. However what I did find rather difficult was following each of the storylines due to the abstract method of storytelling, although set in the same setting, with different journeys and viewpoints. For this assignment, we had two questions we had to focus on whilst watching the film, one being how does Timecode (2000) Mike Figgis uses a linear narrative. A linear narrative firstly is a structure where “the story progresses from a concrete beginning, builds to a climax with various chapters (scenes) that adds to the story, eventually ends in a solid conclusion…” (TheOdysseyOnline. (2016) Timecode uses a linear narrative by the way it moves between each of the narratives, the film does start off with a concrete beginning however events do not happen in chronological order as we further get into the film. The synchronicity of each character when the earthquakes happen in each of the four split screens. Although four separate stories unfold simultaneously in real time, building to a final climactic moment in which they all unexpectedly come together which goes back to how it uses a linear narrative.   There is a three-act structure and a reduces the emphasis on moments of knowledge in a chaos of complex happenings, effort for the spectator to track the events in the various windows. Non-linear examples: shows four different stories going on at the same time, creates a grammar of images and sounds that defy clarity of purpose or outcome. The story is an immediate representation of reality, but a film that constructs a particular form of parallel narratives, a visual interface of simultaneous events. Where the audience enters a form of reality where they are seeing it through different viewpoints. Using four cameras, no cutaways which emphasize no escape for the viewer and multiple viewing.

[webtoolsforeducators]

Luciana's Reflections

Learning is a process. While I was watching the videos I had time to reflect about the educational system that I live in. All of us just learn something  if we are motivated and as a teacher I feel that I am not in the same step as my students are. They are connected with the world and I am an absolute beginner in this digital world. A simple fact like to use tumblr to post something makes me nervous and because of this unfortunately I can't offer my students what they expect. It's very hard for me but I am here to improve. The first step is breaking my own ice in relation to a digital world. Then I hope that I can use the technology constantly and also encourage other teachers to do the same. In relation to my workplace we have computers in all teachers room, but we just use them or to show a power point presentation, videos, some pictures or connect with them through the Facebook. And this not connect us with them. 

[kopijungmadesign-blog]

Searching arrangements

On Julian and Sally’s lesson, each student had to submit the final project draft. As” Fusion of tradition and contemporary in shopping experience ”as mine project draft title, I would like to present a contemporary retail park design which fuses traditional Taiwan culture image.  

My original inspiration was inspired by the second blog which discusses about André fu, whose projects exhibit a distinctive style of fusing the cultures of Westen and Eastern.

 I read a dissertation Emotion Expression of Material Quality in Interior Decoration Design ( HeYan,2012 ) indicated ” With the rapid development of society, people incrementally demand spiritual development apart from the satisfaction for functions, which is reflected in the attention paid on interior cultural emotions ”   Culture reflected a region of experience and lifestyle, and the image of culture would provoke an emotional resonance to local consumers. Meanwhile, an exotic ambiance also brings memorable shopping experience to foreigners.  Through 

Julian discuss my concept with me and point out there is a  necessary to understand deeper on “Customer emotion ”and “Culture”.Therefore, I made a mind map to think about retail store design from a holistic way and think about the relationship between emotion and commercial space.   help me focusing on my searching ideas 

https://www.lsnglobal.com/briefing/article/20465/nailing-the-future

[jamesdyecg]

Research & Enquiry: Reflective Post 9 - Burnout. Burnout. Burnout...

- Burnout and me -

Just like many artists I suffer from what seems to be an unending pit of procrastination and burnout. One second I can be completely in love and involved with a project, the next. I'd rather drag myself through broken glass than open up Blender again.

Burnout is something that everyone suffers with from time to time, it comes in different forms, from overworking, too over-scoping of a project, to just general lack of inspiration toward a project, plus many other forms. My most common form stems from a lack of time-management, organisation, and project scoping.

- The spiralling effect -

Unfortunately a common symptom of burnout is the spiralling effect it causes. If you start to fall behind on a project the mountain of work begins to grow, and can quickly become something that appears unscalable. I can quickly go from working on something 6 hours a day, to 4, and then 2. After that starting to scale that project becomes a complete mental block, and very hard to get going again. Spiralling out of control. Deadlines approach, the mountain grows higher, and the thought of tackling these issues seems too much too handle. This is something that many people suffer with, In fact I don't think any student I have ever spoken to hasn't had at least a little run-in with these problems.

- Short-term Inspiration -

Often there is a small burst of motivational energy during burnout. This can come from anything, a good movie, a motivational playlist, or maybe just a productive day. Suddenly it feels as if you are back on track, you've equipped your climbing boots, and are ready to scale this mountain. Until the next morning, when you roll back over in bed and down to the summit of the work mountain.

- The cure to artists downfall -

Whilst there is no permanent fix to burnout, there are many methods artists can use to reduce the risk or soothe symptoms of burnout. When this mountain of work starts to build up it is important to break it down into small, achievable goals. Finishing lots of small tasks is much easier than tackling a huge cliff face. Organisational tools like Trello can help with this (see next post). It is important to just start working, even if it is only an hour or two a day, that's infinitely better than not at all. After a few days of this you may find you can start to up that to 3 or 4, and sooner or later you'll be back on track.

- Take care of number one -

It is important to note that you will not be able to maintain any meaningful productivity if you are not in a healthy place, both physically and mentally. This is why sometimes it is important to take a few days to yourself, get some exercise, fix your diet. This can speed up the process of getting on track, which seems counter-intuitive as you are not doing any work! I know I have had to take a step back and take a few days to myself before, even if its just for a break (we all deserve them!)

In my next post I will talk about different methods of organisation and time-management, techniques that are vital to avoid future burnout.

[coolgroup13posts]

5 stages of group formation

Other members of the group have already discussed how they felt the group was and what stage we were at earlier in the project but I will look back at the end of the project. The five stages are;

Forming Stage

I felt this went as well as this stage could go. We all discuss our different disciplins and what we found out about from our belbin tests. I think we all felt comfortable sharing our goals for the project and any ideas we had for it.

Storming Stage

I don't know how the other members of the group felt but i think we didn't have any storming stage. I felt we were able to get along and work together to come up with some ideas for the group without any disagreements.

Norming Stage

I think that we fell into this stage very quickly and were able to come to it as soon as we started to discuss ideas. I felt we were able to work as a group and had contributions from everyone.

Performing Stage

This is the stage I feel we are in at the moment. I  think the work we produce is of a high quality and I am linking the outcomes. I think we are working well to come together and finish the work before the deadline while helping each other when needed.

Adjourning Stage 

We have not reached this stage but will do soon. I think we would all agree that we have enjoyed working together to create a good outcome and hope group work in the future goes as well as it has done for us.

-Daniel

[christiewaku-blog]

In the age of social media what kind of feedback can you receive for your work, and how does that help or hinder you? | A Reflective Post

Our first lecture on our Media Discourse module looked at communication theory and social media. Reviewing our lecture notes and going through our teaching resources, the question above really stood out for me.

 As a creative practitioner social media has been a great platform in helping me build a creative brand, aiding in research and providing great exposure for my work online through the use of algorithms that filter what users see in their news feeds and also via tags which lead other creatives interesting in the keyword tagged to come across my work online. 

Furthermore social media did have an influence in my decision to continue on with education, with a lot of research and coming across projects through sites such as Pinterest and YouTube it enlightened my passion for media and urged me to further my knowledge and skillset. 

Being a user connected to more than 8 social network sites, either for creative purposes, professional or social... Feedback via social media helps me as a creative practitioner as it enables me to better the quality of my work and produce content that my audience can relate to. 

Social media also helps in the way that it encourages a two way communication, with either your friends, followers etc.. it let’s you connect with like-mined people who are also within your field, build creative friendships and collaborate ideas. A good example are online forums which are a good help whenever your stuck or need help to figure out a technique etc.. 

In my own experience social media has motivated and pushed my creativity, it has enabled me to take risks with certain projects and has also made me open to constructive criticisms and given me positive feedback on how i can better my craft, the way i work and the way i publicise my content online. 

However social media can also hinder you, this can be possible through the pressures of keeping up with the quality of your work as you never know who is viewing your work online. Your social media profile whether a professional account, or creative sells to the viewer the creative/professional person you are. 

[rainbowmusicnote69]

It's Pretty Frustrating Being 15. They Expect You To Be An Adult Yet They Still Treat You Like A Kid.

[sophiedaveyphotojournalism-blog]

Writing for Journalism Reflection- Week 3

In week 3 of Writing for Journalism we learnt about professional etiquette and employability in both journalism and photography. We were taught about traditional and modern ways in which you can break into the industry and what you can do to improve etiquette. In the second session of the week we learnt how to sub-edit. We were taught about the various things you need to look out for when sub-editing a piece of text. We were then given a raw copy of text which we had to edit and flow into a double-page spread on InDesign. This session taught me a lot more about how to create a feature article using InDesign and I am now quite confident in doing this with the aid of notes taken from the lecture. 

[cafemizudashi]

Burnout and priorities

I am once again to compare my work at the University of Hertfordshire to what I had to do during my Software Engineering studies at the University of Alicante. The difference is that I am not going to be comparing the amount of workload, the absence or existence of exams nor even the quality of the programs - both have been so far excellent - because today I would like to reflect on the difference between creative and more pragmatic work. This is a problem I found that I never thought I would during my high school or my bachelor's: creative burnout.

I did feel burnt about many things, of course, the amount of work was significant, and the nights spent awake more than I can remember, but I felt like I could always brute-force myself through the workload. After all, the projects we were tasked with more often than not were more about understanding or working on problems than about creating new ideas, or projecting them onto a creative environment. Of course, programming has many creative requirements, as every new program or function will probably need some ingenious way to solve it - especially if you do not want to botch it and get it optimized - and to some extent so is 3D Modelling. Creating a mesh, following the topology and keeping it clean, creating optimized UV maps... But I had never had this type of burnout before coming to 3D.

On the other hand, I have found myself more capable of spending a large amount of time modelling without feeling mentally exhausted. Yes, I am tired, but I feel like this is something I enjoy more. But then, why is this the way it is? I am guessing my creative muscles are perhaps not as developed as my hard studying muscles, something we have been designed for since primary school. I also never took any creative kind of studies, so perhaps there is some kind of technique I am yet to learn - although seeing my classmates' amount of hard work I thoroughly doubt it.

I chose to come to this topic as one of the last ones as I knew it would come eventually, so I decided to wait until I was immersed in one of these episodes to finally come and reflect on this. The current status is that I have a long project coming - the Bioshock scene - that at the moment is almost on halt. Both due to the literary work and research, and to myself finding excuses to work on other things. This happened last time with my bachelor's thesis, but in this case, there is no way for me to wait for it to go, or focus on other pieces until I can resume normal activity. I guess the reason also has to do with the festivities being close and thus coming back to Spain. I am a bit worried about how the workflow will be affected so I have been spending an increased amount of time working to try and catch up.

The ways I have been trying to use to avoid this block and keep on working have been multiple, so I am going to reflect on each of them and try to rate the effectivity they have caused on me. Starting with simply dedicating time to unrelated topics. I have recovered hobbies that do not feel like wasting time. These are specifically playing the piano and learning Japanese. Although both had been present these last months, the hours I have dedicated to them has skyrocketed during these last weeks. It has got me motivated back, unfortunately not on the project, but these hobbies themselves.

Another way I have tried to battle through burnout is just following what I felt like doing, within the project of course. This may seem obvious, but when working it is very important to focus on schedules, so it could be counterproductive in the long term. This has worked to an extent. Thanks to this I learnt how to do Houdini seaweed simulations, and I have advanced on different topics within the general project. For now, I believe I will continue working this way.

Lastly, as a final way to recover motivation, I tried break days. The problem is that I did not dispose of that amount of free time to use, and even when I dedicated a few days to myself just enjoying whatever I felt like doing, the environment of work that is present - being almost deadline time - and the fact that I felt guilty during this vacation time, made this option impossible. There is no way to fully disconnect yourself from the work.

Then, what I have learnt about this experience is that I am a person that needs change during work. I need to do different things, they can be related to the same topic, but working on a single asset for several days in a row in the same software can burn me. To combat this I believe we are somewhat lucky. The different workflows and the necessity of smaller projects within a big one can keep the days interesting. For example, for the Bioshock Scene I have divided it between three main smaller sets:

Indoor 1: The living room.

Indoor 2: The tunnel.

Outdoor

There are many different types of assets within all these scenes, so this allows me to feel refreshed and try new workflows for different kinds of assets. Next will be creating modular buildings, something I have been postponing but that I finally feel like doing. In the end, all the projects I have created usually finish to a certain extent, so although I am right now worried about this one, I know that I will manage.