marcobrits2018-blog

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16- Listen to a music album you would not normally listen to, at least five times.

I have extracted the concept ‘repeat’ from the previous entry and I feel that this concept suits my last entry well because I am going to listen to a music album that I would not normally listen to, on repeat, at least five times.

I spent a while wondering which album I will choose for the exercise, because I did not want to take something that I know I would have hated every minute, Instead I was looking for an album that might even grow on me and I may even start liking the songs. I decided that Apple music is not the place to find this album, but instead I started going through my mother and father’s old CD collection, hoping to find something interesting and old. After around 20 minutes of reading the albums that my parents have gathered over the years I found something that I was certain about right at the bottom of the shelf with all the CD’s. It was an old Cd box and when I picked it up, I saw that the box was broken and the white paper seemed to become yellow because of it being old.

It was a copy of the 1997 Diana, Princess of Wales tribute album, that they have combined with some of Diana’s favourite songs, songs that was written for her and also some songs that was just beautiful, to honour the fallen princess of Wales. As soon as I popped the CD into my CD player I was impressed with the song that the album opened with. It was ‘Who want to live forever’ by Queen and this had been one of my favourite songs for many years. There were some of the other artists on there that I like as well such as George Michael, Pavarotti, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M.

 The whole of the album consists out of two discs and 36 songs in total. I listened to all 36 songs 5 times, and I was very attracted to the music on this album, because it was a really great collection of songs, and although it had a sad undertone, I was feeling happy and I honestly think that was what the producers of the album was aiming to achieve. I enjoyed this task a lot because I did not listen to the songs once and forgot about them, instead listening to songs 5 times consecutively can change one’s perspective and understanding of a song. I got to learn new music and that is always something that gets me excited.

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Make a drastic unexpected change to your routine.

15- Make a drastic unexpected change to your routine.

 I will go to bed every night before 11 pm, in order to get my sleeping pattern back to normal again or to just have more energy the following day. I got this idea because my previous concept that I have extracted was adapt and I saw that I must adapt my routine in some way for Creative Dev. I always wanted to go to bed before it was 23:00 but somehow I barely managed to make it before 02:00.

It was a Sunday evening when I have decided that it was now time for me to sort my sleeping schedule out because I get tired every day between 12 pm and 14:00. I made sure that all of my work was completed for the following day and at exactly 10:00 that Monday night I closed my computer and knew that my planning for day one had been great. It felt strange being in bed at that time, since that was usually my time when I stared working at night. The second thing that was weird was the moment that I have waked up and checked on my watch only to find out is 03:00 am. My body was so used to the little sleep that I woke up completely, just a couple of hours after my early bed time sleep.  I had trouble falling asleep but eventually could, and then woke up for the second time at 07:30. I was feeling fresh that morning and I did not feel tired or irritated. I was just calm and rested out.    

This was easy to adapt to and I enjoyed the good sleeping schedule while it lasted. Unfortunately it was difficult to keep up with my work since I have now lost a lot of my working time in the process of going to bed very early. I feel that a good concept to extract from this task is repeat, because I feel that this routine gets easier and easier the more I get into the routine and repeat the routine.                                                                                                  

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14- Try out a new hobby

Comic Book Drawing

 I recently had a university drawing project where we had to learn to do comic books and I enjoyed it very much, although I never did something like this from before so I had a lot to learn. At least I have a great drawing lecturer, Dalene. This was a foreign ty-e of drawing for me and therefore this post suits the extracted topic from the previous post.

Since I have started at Open Window it was a big joy ride full of challenges and things that I had to get used to. One of my favourite things I have learned this year was comic drawings and this was important for me to master because it seemed really challenging at first and it is my final term mark that is at stake. The fact that I had to do comics was very coincidental because of the fact that I had just started reading comics ij the holiday before the start of term 4. This was something my one friend taught me and it is kind of our things since all of our other friends thigks that comic books are stupid. I have been reading Deadpool, Galactus, Spiderman and I my personal favourite; Batman the Court of Owls.

In my drawing book for term 4 we had to draw existing storyboards of comic and I decided to draw my favourite Batman court of Owls strips and scenes. This was a easy task and I started drawing at around 8 pm the Monday evening and finished with my homework at around 03:00 am. This all happened spontaneously and I did not even take a single break in that whole time.I started drawing comic strips more and more, even when I did not have homework any more. I feel that my drawing skills started developing rapidly because I was constantly in this flow of wanting to draw the scene even better and I have always had this thing I once heard in my mind: “An art piece is never finished” and I just wanted to get better and better. I am now on a comfortable comic and storyboard drawing level because of my excellent teaching and hard work. The concept that I have extracted from this new hobby that I have found is adapt, because I had to adapt my drawing techniques here and there in order to get on a level that was going to satisfy me.

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13- Have a conversation with a stranger

 I have been playing Fortnite for almost 3 months now and I have met some nice people in the past three months because of this amazing game. The concept that I have extracted from the previous post is mystery and I was put into a party with this random guy from Bulgaria who could barely speak English.

This was never meant to happen but after it happened I felt that it was cool enough to share on my Tumblr feed, because I learned a lot from a complete stranger who is all the way in Bulgaria. When our match started I heard a strange song playing in the background of someone’s microphone, and I kind of liked the song but I did not understand a single word so I decided to say “what is the language of this song?” in my most universal accent. After I asked the question the music stopped and a guy replied in a deep voice; “Bulgarian”. I then told him I enjoyed the song and he can put it back on. He must have thought I had a strange accent because he asked me “how do you speak English like this?”. This was a funny question for me because my first reaction in my mind was “I want to ask you the same bro”. Instead I told him I’m from South Africa and the Bulgarian guy even knew Nelson Mandela.

I later on found out that he was also my age buy only one month and one day younger. He sounded like a 40 year old at first but, after a while of chatting I found out that he was also just like me into games and we both did not mind to stay at home on a Friday night to play a game. His knowledge about SAA was just about Nelson Mandela and nothing more because he asked me after a while if we have schools in SA. I wanted to shock him a bit and then I Googled some key phrases in the Bulgarian language which I then used to reply to some of his questions, and I told him that in SA we have to learn 4 different languages before we can graduate.

Suddenly my friend’s attitude towards SA changed and I could even hear the tone in his voice changing. The concept extracted from this task is foreign, because I learned some things and spoke to a foreign guy from thousands of km’s away.

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12- Write down 100 questions.

 The concept extracted from my walking journey to Zwartkop Golf Club was ‘explore’. I feel this concept can be implemented in the next post which is a task in which I have to write down 100 questions.

At first I was wondering to myself how in the world will I be able to write down 100 different questions. But, it was actually much easier than expected and I enjoyed this exercise a lot because I feel that it was a nice creativity stimulation exercise. I had a chance to use my imagination properly for the first time today, and therefore I just enjoyed it much more. I had some very interesting questions that popped into my head, but my rule was that I must write down every question exactly the way they pop into my head just to make it more interesting.

 I had some questions that I would actually like a answer from, and I also had questions popping into my head that I already know he answer to. The concept that I want to extract from this exercise is mystery, because I had the chance to find out mysterious questions that was hanging around In my head.

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11- Go for an extended walk in your neighbourhood and explore areas you haven’t seen before.

 The concept from the previous post is exercise. Therefore, I walked 3 km with my 10 year old brother from our house in Clubview to Zwartkop Golf club.

 I have always been in love with the specific part of Clubview where we live because of the beautiful plants growing in the area and the large trees. I have always thought that the plants in this area of Centurion is so beautiful because we are based very closer to the Hennops River. This makes sense because the Zwartkop golf course is alongside our estate and the Hennops River goes straight through the middle of the amazingly green golf course.

My brother and left my house at 16:30 on a Friday afternoon, both with a walking stick, and I had my camera with me around my neck. We were walking down some streets near the gate of our estate when we saw a glimpse of the golf course through two houses and this gave us the idea to try and enter the golf course gates with the excuse of me being a photography student and I’m doing a shoot about beautiful courses in SA. This plan was genius because we received the friendliest welcoming from the gate security when I said this.  

As soon as we entered the gate we were overwhelmed by the different shades of green the golf course had. We could never see the beauty of the course from the outside and we both agreed that they should open up the bushes at the main road’s side so that everyone can see this beautiful landmark right under our noses. We explored the golf course for the following two ours and in that two hours we found 9 bridges, 16 golfers on the course and we even found a ‘watering hole’ where a man was selling beer and Powerade. When I was ordering our drinks it was so funny to see my brother’s face when I ordered my beer, as if his biggest dream was to also drink a beer. I remember when I was that age that it’s something you could never lose hope for.

We were walking back home at around 19:00 and we were getting cold so it was time to go. When we arrived home I put my laptop on and my brother and I went through the photos of the day. The concept extracted from this activity is explore.

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10- Attend a sporting event

Signed up and played 7 caps for the Open Window Night Owl indoor soccer team.

 I extracted the concept of simple pleasures from my previous post, and I decided to start playing a sport again, because I figured it will be good for my health and to get my mind off the busy life at varsity and work. I had signed up for the Night Owls before Open Window had officially opened and I have been on the WhatsApp group since the beginning of the year, but I never really got to playing. I Contacted the team captain, Trevor and told him that I would like to play for the A team this Friday. He was skeptical at first, but he told me I can come on as a reserve when I told him that I had played for the Centurion Blues outdoor club for just over a year.

 Our first match was scheduled for 20:00 and the second match started at 22:30 the evening. I was there pretty early and Kayla and I was able to drink a beer before I started playing. In was around 15 minutes into the first match when the one striker of our team was soaking wet and about to pass out from tiredness, funny because it’s the same guy who had a beer with me and Kayla earlier. I has to sub him and I made my debut for The OWI Night Owls. It has been almost a year since I participated in any form of sport and I could feel it on my lungs after 3 minutes of running on that pitch. It was all worth it because I received a great pass and could score my first goal on university level soccer!

 The OWI Night Owls unfortunately lost 9-5 against a club named ‘Finding Neymar’ J. I scored 2 goals in total and I think we had a great game for a team who did not even practice together once. This was an exciting day and I continued to play 7 games more for the team, and this time being in the starting line up every time. The concept that I have extracted from this exercise is exercise since I gained a lot of my fitness back after a couple of matches indoor soccer. 

 I have attached a video of my debut goal in the OWI Night Owl’s jersey.

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9- Spend an evening without electricity or phone (On purpose)

 The concept that I have extracted from the previous entry is the 1927’s. This concept was chosen in the previous entry because it was the release date of the film I have watched. I will do research and ask people like my grandparents what they know about the 1920’s and life in that time. Although they were not born yet- they might have stories from their parents that they can tell me.

 After a shot 40 minute story session with my grandmother, she told me how her parents were extremely poor and had to live without electricity for more than half of their lives. Whenever it became dark they would take a big box out of a cupboard and then light a lot of candles and play family games and spend some real quality time together. I then took this story and decided to do it, and really sit with my family and chat and just spend time that we are too busy for lately.

 This worked out fine, but my parents could only participate for a while, because they were too busy at the time. So, instead I sat with my brother, Werner who is an 18 year old born without the gift of sight. Since he was a little boy I learned a lot from him and he taught me every day how to be strong and, that we will always have something to be grateful about. Technically I was the older brother, but I have always felt that I am not quite on his mental level yet, because of his wisdom and the way he loves people unconditionally. So we sat from around 19:00, just after dinner and we started having a conversation about the weather, because of his extreme love for rain, he could always explain to me for hours how the clouds get together and he would give the scientific name for the type of clouds I would describe to his. On this day we had a maximum temperature of around 38 degrees, and Werner loves this type of weather because he knows that heat waves can increase the chances of a rain storm.  I could see the excitement build up in his body language, as I described the big dark grey clouds that I can see building up from a Southern direction. He knew what this meant, and I also did, because of what he have learned me, obviously.

 I think at around 20:00 the rain was pouring and Werner was not talking anymore, but instead he was just listening as the drops fall on the roof of our porch. Every 5 seconds I could hear him take a deep breath and fill his lungs with the smell of rain, they smell that he had once described as significantly addictive.

 We sat there in the dark for about 4 hours, before we decided to call it a night and go to bed, because he had school the following day, and so did I. On this day Werner taught me once again that we often tend to look for happiness too far. Happiness is all around us and we must master the art of finding happiness in the small things. I will take the idea of the simple pleasures in life and find something simple yet very pleasurable as a way to distract myself from the busy side of my life.

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8- Watch the oldest film you can find

Metropolis (1927)

 The concept that I have extracted from the previous entry is time. This relates perfectly to the task of watching the oldest film that I can find. I decided on watching the classic old film Metropolis (1927).

 It was a Sunday morning, and I just got up and opened my laptop, and it gave me a reminder as soon as I opened my desktop, that it is time for my weekly Tumblr entry for Creative Dev. As soon as I opened the brief I saw the activity of watching the oldest film, and I knew it was time for this one, because if it was bored I will not fall asleep. Since it was around 11:00 am. I searched “great old movies” in Google and I found a YouTube link to Metropolis the movie.

 I was able to understand from early on that the name Metropolis refers to the city in which the movie plays off. The movie started off in a completely confusing buzz, and although I could read the English text and clearly see everything that was happening, I could not understand how all of the elements fell in place to actually mean something. After about 40 minutes of watching the movie I figured out that the movie must have a political meaning, because elements such as hard working people, almost slave- like people, are being used. There was often contrasts that appeared in the film like the rich family, who owns the city comes in direct contrast with the hard working men. The son of the rich family then sees how hard the people are working and how they are suffering, and I think this seems to be bothering him. Early in the film the son, Freder lays his upon a woman with many children, almost a godly women, and this scene is they followed with freder going on a search to find the woman. Freder’s goal in the film is to help the abused workers, because he seems to be feeling it is inhumane and he even ends up working under the city of Metropolis, just like the men that keeps the city from falling apart.

 I enjoyed the film, although I felt that I did not really understand much or get the whole message of the film. It was still interesting, knowing that all of those people in the film are dead. That was a strange idea, and I realised that this was the first film ever that I have watched where not one member of the cast is still alive. The concept that I will extract for my next post is ‘the 1920’s’.

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7- Plant something and maintain it

Checkers seeds growing.

For my next entry I decided on the task of planting and growing something. I found a bunch of Checkers plants in a bag in a cupboard in my kitchen, and asked my mom what they were for. She then explained how the soil and specific pot works and she gave me the go ahead to plant them. The concept extracted from the previous entry was success, and it works for this entry well because I was successful in planting seeds and maintaining the plants that grew.

It is exactly one year since I had become a proud Ficus Ginseng Bonsai owner. This tree gave me my ups and downs, because in the last year I thought the tree was going to die more than once, but somehow I managed to keep it alive and the tree is currently looking better than ever! The plant is standing outside since the start of the summer and the amount of leaves almost doubled since the beginning of this year. The Checkers plants was the perfect thing to level my game up and see if I can grow something from scratch.

 In the beginning I planned on growing 5 different plants, but because I knew myself I did not plant five plants. Instead I planted only two, because my mom had doubles of these and whether or not I mess it up did not matter that much. I planted coriander seeds and some sort of flower seeds. It took around two weeks for both to start growing and I was actually able to see them come out of the soil by them. After this I started giving my plants water every day in the mornings so that the soil is moist as soon as the sun shines directly on the plants. Every month the plants were growing and by the first month it was time to repot them. My mom explained to me that these pots that Checkers give with the plants are nice because they can be planted directly oven into a bigger pot as soon as it is necessary. The soil and plant does not need to be removed from the original pot. After the repotting took place the plants started growing at a rapid pace and every morning when I arrived at the plants they looked different than the previous day.

 This was an interesting experience because I did not think that I would be able to maintain the plants from seed form into the nice Coriander bush and flowers that I currently have. The process is not over for the coriander yet and I think it is almost time before I can start giving my mom the coriander for food purposes. The flower bush will just continue growing and expanding into a bigger bush. My next step is planting the rest of the plants my mom has in the bag, because I have now proven myself and that I am good in being a gardener. I feel a good concept to extract is time, by looking at the fact that this exercise took patience, and I often felt that the plants was growing too slow, therefore I had to remind myself every now and then that the waiting will be worth it in the end.

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6- Read the autobiography of someone I don’t admire.

Finding my Virginity- Richard Branson

 The concept extracted from my Zwartkop Airshow experience is knowledge, because of the fact that I learned so much on the day and I had spent time with people who have a lot of knowledge in the field of aircrafts. For the exercise I had to read a autobiography of someone I do not admire. Someone once told me about Richard Branson’s autobiographies and that they are filled with knowledge.

 One Saturday morning early in March 2018 I went to Exclusive Books in Centurion Mall. The reason for going to this book store was to get educated about the business, Virgin because I had an essay to write about them in Marketing for Open Window. I was relatively excited because I am a person who enjoys reading and I always spend at least an hour in a book store if I go to one. If I was to win R1 million, I would go to a book store somewhere within the first day of spending my money. So after around 30 minutes of general browsing I found the section where there was a few different books about Richard Branson and the Virgin company, so I gave a friend of mine a call, to ask which one he thinks is the best for my Marketing purposes and to just enjoy. He told me that he had read the two different autobiographies that exists, which is ‘Losing my Virginity’ and ‘Finding my Virginity’. JP explained to me that Losing my Virginity is about how Richard Branson go to where he is today and how everything started for him, whereas the second one (Finding my Virginity) is about how he adapted to the new era and how he had to market his brand in a different way regarding the changes that takes place every day.

 I decided on buying the second one, because it was released more than 15 years after the first one so I felt that I will understand the information more based on the fact that book was only written a few years ago. Marketing in the influences of different ways of marketing is also much different than back then, so therefore this book will also be more relevant to my Marketing essay. I finished this 501- page book within three months and I enjoyed the book a lot, because I never realised how interesting Richard Branson actually is, and he is more than just the ‘Virgin guy’. He introduced a different way of thinking to me in this book, and something I work to achieve, is this way of thinking and being able to handle good and bad situations in a calm professional way like he does.

 Richard Branson also taught me that life is about chasing experiences and finding your passion, and first try succeeding and become successful in your passions and talents, because this is what makes you different from those around you. By being yourself and following your dreams you are very likely to reach success and there are not many things as satisfying. Therefore, my extracted concept is success.

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5- Something I have no interest in doing

Attended Zwartkop Air show

 The concept extracted from the previous entry was the word ‘educate’, because I found out that we should not always do stuff that we are interested in, because then we will never experience new things and find new passions in life. This idea suits the current entry superbly, because of the fact that I attended The Zwartkop Air Show, only because my friend who is a pilot asked me to join him as a spectator.

The air show took place on Saturday, the 5th of May 2018 and I was sort of looking forward to the whole expedition, because I knew that I did not know much about anything aircraft related at the time and I was with an actual pilot who would be able to answer all of my stupid questions throughout the day. We left from Wickus’ house at around 09:00 in the morning, on foot, because he lived in V-Town (Valhalla) and he knew a shortcut to the base from his house. The worst part of the day was definitely the waiting in line at the gate to pay. This was not for longer than twenty minutes, and the beer tent was right next to the entrance so we could at least stop there for a while to treat our dehydration.

 After we were both cleared by the barman we headed to the first aircraft on show, on the opposite side of the beer tent, and this was just a regular Boeing 737. I had a few questions here and there and Wickus taught me about the different checks a pilot needs to do before a flight and various fuel testing spots across the body of the plane. From here we saw many different panes including the Mirrage, Saab JAS Gripen, Pilatus PC- 12 and the famous Denel Rooivalk. When I saw the name plate of the Rooivalk this was a familiar name to me, because my uncle Gert Becker was in the SA army at the time and invented a laser eye beam that sits at the bottom of every Rooivalk that exists.

I got to learn a lot throughout the day, and I even learned the dynamics of airspace and air traffic control. I still do not quite get how the engine and combustion works, and how the different turbines on an aircraft function, but I can at least say that my knowledge of planes and helicopters expanded quite drastically because of this day. I feel that a suited concept that was extracted from this experience is knowledge.

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4- Start a collection The extracted idea from my previous post was to start a crystal collection, because of the fascinating stones and crystals I saw in Clarens. For my creative development passport I must start a collection of any sort. I decided on crystals because of how beautiful these crystals are to me and the way they are formed by nature is also remarkable. These gems and crystals can be found in nature in rocky areas, such as mountains and often between rocks in construction sites. The easiest way to find these gems are by buying them from shops. My first ever crystal that I bought was a dark purple Amethyst, and I made this decision based purely on attraction to the stone. I got this crystal from a shop in Clarens, where I also found my next hundred stones or so. These stones are mixed tumbled stones that one get to hand- pick from a big bowl of tumbled stones. Soon after arriving back in Centurion, I found a nice lady who sell crystals from her home in Centurion Golf Estate. This is where I purchased my next 4 stones. These four stones are; amethyst, citrine, pegmatite w. black tourmaline and a citrine spirit quartz. The lady named Malaika would spend most of the time that I spent in her shop, talking to me about the spiritual and healing values that each stone has. I tried to experience these ‘values’ but failed to feel anything else but satisfaction, because of the nice klippies I have. I family friend told me about another stone shop in Pretoria called ‘Palooza Gifts’. This is a very calming shop with a small variety of stones, but most of them are more rare than the others I usually find. I bought one of my favourite stones at this shop and it is called Dioptase. It is a small piece and it cost me R120 for the piece. My collection is now nice and big, and excluding my bowl of tumbled stones, I have 21 unique stones, which all carry a different sentimental value to me. I also enjoy spending time reading up one gem stones and since I have started my collection in March I have a lot more interest in geology. The concept extracted from this entry is educate, because I found out that educating myself in a topic I have no interest in can turn out to be much more enjoyable and interesting than expected.

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3- Lush Music Festival (sober)

The concept extracted from the previous entry is ‘unfamiliar’. I spent a while trying to figure out how this concept can be applied to the fact that I must go to a music festival and stay sober. It was pretty simple to be honest, because the whole ‘festival that stretches over 3 days’ thing was pretty new to me. I was also very unfamiliar with the town Clarens. 

The festival took place in March 2018, and it was something I did not plan on going to, until 2 days before the festival, when my girlfriend asked me if I want to join her and a couple of other girl friends. They still have an open room in the house that they are renting, and they have transport. I was just responsible for my own festival ticket and spending money. The first day and night of the festival was on a Thursday, and we arrived in Clarens in the Volkswagen Kombi at around 13:00pm, Friday afternoon. It was a cold and rainy day- definitely not happy festival weather. 

We left our house at 20:00 only to find ourselves stuck in a line, soaking in mud and rain. After about an hour of waiting we entered the festival grounds and I had a unfamiliar warm feeling of excitement rising within me as the loud speakers, tons of people and bright neon lights shined through the forest trees. This was LUSH. From the first night I was blown away with the amazing acts and artists we got to see, including Fokofpolisiekar, Anton Goosen, Jack Parow and also some artists that were completely new to me. The best night of my weekend was the night I got introduced to the band, and my favorite band currently- BOO! I was also massively impressed by the boys from Van Pletzen, they were definitely the most LEGEH performance of the festival. Back at our home, Clarens provided us with energy in a different form, with the most beautiful view on our balcony, and at least twice a day we got to experience the colour palette of the heavens, with the deepest purples and the most nourishing pinks. I often found myself sitting on a chair outside, all by myself, lost in the colours of the sky, or even looking at the start at 03:00 am after returning from the festival grounds.

The music and performances were so impressive, by the time the festival was over, I made some sums and found out that I had spent only R 200 on alcohol, across the whole 3 days. This allowed me to spend some money on Gems and crystals that I found in a Crystal Shop in Clarens, which gave me the idea to start a crystal collection, since I have to start a collection of some sort for Creative Development. 

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2- Snake Eyes 3.0 Contemporary Art Exhibition 

On Thursday, 17 May my friend Aidan and I decided to attend an art exhibition which I found on Facebook. A week earlier we had a discussion and decided to find an art exhibition to attend in order to write our blog entries. Everything happened very spontaneously, because I literally just opened Facebook and the exhibition’s ad was the first post on my feed.

Without even looking further I took a screenshot, sent it to Aidan and our arrangement was made that he will pick me up at my place and we plan to arrive at around 7 pm. We both found interest in the artworks and the ad itself on the Facebook page, therefore we knew this was the ideal exhibition. It was not too far from Centurion as well. 

The concept extracted from the previous post is appreciation. I feel the concept can easily be applied to this post, which is about appreciating art and finding meaning in art pieces. One piece that definitely caught my attention was the yellow and pink -pattern background piece with parts of a three dimensional donkey disrupting the flat design background. There were also dark human faces painted or printed flat over the saturated background, which comes in perfect contrast with the back pattern and colours used. Whether I liked the piece or did not like it; the price was around R20 000.00 so, if I remembered correctly it will probably be sold long before I have saved enough money to buy it! We were served with free wine, and we stayed until around 8 pm. Aidan then dropped me off, and he went to his house. 

Aidan and I both did not really look forward to this event earlier the day, because of work and we were both tired, but after the event we both felt that it was nice to to something unusual and unfamiliar every once in a while. Therefore the concept I decided to extract from this exercise is unfamiliar . 

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1-   A DAY AT THE PRETORIA ZOO

On 2 May 2018 my girlfriend, Kayla and I decided to go to the Pretoria Zoo for the purpose of documenting our experience for my first entry of my Creative Development year project. I took my camera with me to prove that we did the trip, but also for personal purposes such as picture for possible oil paintings to come. Kayla was my company for this exercise because she is after all my girlfriend, and my best friend as well. 

I was never particularly excited for this trip, because I did not really have the time to spend a whole day doing nothing, and I thought they will probably just have a few interesting animals, because what can a zoo in Pretoria really offer?  From the moment we entered the gates of the zoo (after paying a hefty R 120 EACH) I was amazed by how big the Zoo actually was, and there were a lot of people form different races and cultures with accents from countries from all around the world! I started feeling as if I am getting value for my money once we found the owl section in the very confusing zoo with pathways leading us to places we have been time after time. There was around 8 different owl species and for a moment it felt like as if I am reunited with my family from my previous life. I have had a love for owls since I can remember and until this day I still don’t know where this minor obsession came from. 

My third favorite specie after my girlfriend and owls, is the gorilla and we were amazed to find out that the Pretoria Zoo actually have gorillas, even though they are not from SA and they are endangered. It was about feeding time when we arrived at the gorilla enclosure and it was so fascinating to see the gorilla open the lid of a container similar to the cups yogurt is in. Once the gorilla was finished with his meal he placed the lid of the container inside the now empty container, and threw it surprisingly accurate at a small pile of other empty cups.

The rest of the day went past within the wink of an eye and, we got to see the Patas monkey from Uganda, and this brought me back to my days at a lodge in Uganda where I often had to chase the Patas monkeys out of the Helicopter exhaust or out of a guest’s living unit. 

This was a truly well spent day, and we both learned a lot about animals we don’t get to see that often. I thought about the concept that I should now extract from the trip. The concept that made the most sense for me was appreciation. We got to visit a Zoo 12 km from my house with some amazing animals, that one should actually have to travel halfway around the world to see. Kayla and I both had more appreciation for what nature has to offer and what makes every animal so distinctively different from another. I also had much appreciation when I found out that beer could be bought at the Zoo’s tuck shop, because going through the zoo was a lot of walking.