First Day of Spring Quarter!

Week 1, Day 1

Today was the first day of spring quarter!  My first class of the day was Art 220:  Concept Development; this class goes from 8:00 am to 10:30 am on Mondays and Wednesdays, and is taught by Professor Jimmy Moss.  I haven't had an 8 am class in 2 years!  I actually had to go to sleep early (at 2 am, yes I consider that early) so that I would be able to wake up for class.  I have to get used to going to sleep early and waking up early so that I would be able to focus in class and keep a clear mind.  I am so not a morning person.  I usually feel semi conscious most of the time.  I really need to change my habit of going to sleep late, at least for this quarter.

During class, Professor Moss discussed what we'll learn this quarter.  We touched on the subjects of critical thinking and experimental learning.  Professor Moss then announced that he had something to give to everyone...a Mandarin orange!  One of my classmates walked around the room with a bag of oranges, asking each person to get an orange.  When she got to me, I reached into the bag and grabbed what seemed to me was a "pretty" orange.  But when I took out the orange, it was nowhere near pretty:  the orange was irregularly shaped with a large, greenish gray blemish on the bottom, and the texture was rather rough and porous, which reminded me of someone with really bad skin.  Professor Moss told us that we had exactly 2 minutes to describe our orange to whoever we were partnered up with.  My partner was Sandy, and I described my orange to her first.  I thought that this was going to be an easy task, but this was certainly not the case!  I ran out of things to say after a minute went by.  Describing an orange was a lot harder than it looked!  When the 2 minutes were up, we were asked to swap oranges with our partners and repeat the same 2 minute description process.  Sandy gave me her orange, which had even more blemishes than my original.  Then the person next to me asked to swap oranges, and I ended up with a near-perfect orange.  My new orange has a nice, round shape, smooth skin, and barely any blemishes.  I like my fruit to look aesthetically pleasing, so you could imagine how happy I was to end up with a nice-looking orange. :)  Anyway, Professor Moss told us that we were to do 5 renderings of the orange on 7" x 7" paper every week for 10 weeks, and turn in 50 renderings at the end of the quarter.  Each rendering has to be done using a different tool or technique each time.  Professor Moss told us that this is a perception exercise, and we should be aware of how our oranges would change in appearance over the course of the quarter.

I named my orange Juju!  Juju is wearing a bow because she's a girl :)

We were also told to create and maintain a blog for this class throughout the rest of the quarter.  I've never kept a blog before, so this is a brand new experience for me.  I have decided to call my blog "Lorraine's Lair."  Why Lorraine's Lair?  Well, I've always been a fan of alliteration and I wanted something that would be easy to remember.  Also, a lair is defined as a hiding place, and I consider my blog as a place where I can "hide" behind my computer and express my thoughts and feelings...