Tabby Cure

Here we are at the end of the semester. We’ve turned in our final projects and have nothing left but the final.  I can honestly say I’m saddened to see this class go.  I have enjoyed this class immensely and I will miss all of my fellow students as well as the fantastic professor.  I wish you all well in anything you do, and good luck on all your finals.

When I started reading Nawlz I really started thinking of Lawls… as in the silly way people respell LoL.  I started by looking at the pictures and only the pictures, then went back and started reading the text.  The ‘whale’ really made me wonder if this person just had a horrible drawing ability or what.  Which is why I had to go and read the text.  I like the way the story flows, and the pictures change as you  move through the story in a linearish fashion.  (yes I totally just made up a word)

I got kind of annoyed with the Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs just because when you had more than 3 of the birds selected, the noise was annoying.  I do think it is interesting that the bird songs were done by humans, and I find it fascinating that they were able to get the words into a bird shape.

I didn’t have the password for Joyce’s Geography of the Word so I have not read that.

Faith is greater than Logic.  That’s what I got out of the ‘poem’.  That’s what I believe Robert Kendall was trying to demonstrate.  Now the question is why would he use this kind of a media to demonstrate it?  I think he did it because he wanted to show, not just explain, how he felt or what he believed.  Perhaps he was once a logic believer and then something happened that made him turn to faith, and he chose to enlighten others with it.

I really enjoyed Carving in Possibilities. The way that David’s face slowly becomes clearer and clearer the more you move your mouse, as well as the various sayings that were used, were enlightening.  It was definitely a unique way to demonstrate this type of media.

I enjoyed reading the Flatness, but I had to take my headphones off because the sounds were entirely too annoying.  I wish they’d had a way to turn the sound off.

I think the best part was when they were saying that the floods are so common that when people repaint after one, they’ll leave a mark above their door sill to show where the water line had been.  Reminds me of a friend who literally had a river flowing through his house last year.  He lives in Indiana, and the river had flooded and they had no choice, it was either open the back door or just let the river break it.  They opened it and it flowed from back door to front door and back out into the street for several days.  It completely mind boggled me.

10:01 was interesting as well.  I don’t know that I got the bomb blowing up originally, but after rereading, I saw it.  Some of the stories didn’t make sense to me. Like why would a woman think about being in a tub and then ‘accidentally’ knock the hair dryer into the tub with her?  That is too weird for me.

Totally a breeze.

I can totally rock this and can’t wait for the quiz on it.  I remember thinking this was so hard, and I wasn’t going to be able to do it.  I laugh at myself! TOO EASY!  Maybe I should go into web design instead of education.

H. T. M. L.  Hyper Text Markup Language.  Something I’ve been told I don’t have the Logic skills to do.  Oye, I’m so nervous.

Ok, breathe Tabby, You can do this!  Just remember to close everything.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I get to learn HTML!!!!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

This was the poem I thought of when I started reading Jorge Luis Borges’ The Garden of Forking Paths.  I also thought of The Golden Compass and how there could be infinite worlds almost exactly the same as our with very slight differences.  Each action, reaction, or decision we make leads us down a specific path.  That path may or may not be the ‘right’ path, but it is the path we take nevertheless.  Makes you wonder… is there really separate worlds that are just like ours? Would having made a different decision some time in our lives have changed anything?

YAY! Its Spring Break time!!!!  That means I get to do nothing right?!

<Sigh> I wish… Instead, I’m going to work on my comic and make it EPIC!

I have chosen to take Minecraft (an awesome video game) and mix it with the story of the three little pigs.  I think that the hard part is going to be the time consuming house building.  I have this unfortunate flaw of perfectionism, and if it’s not just right inside and out, I’ll tear it down and start all over.  Thankfully I will have my friend Amy helping me create the houses.  She’s a fantastic interior designer (with the limitations that Minecraft puts on us) and we’ll probably get this done fairly quickly.  Also I’ll have to create some skins for our characters so they look like piggies and the wolf.  Should be easy enough.  Guess it’s time to get to work!

Continuing my last post about Spatial vs Linear.  Lets talk about the aspects of comics.  According to McCloud there are 6 aspects to comics:  Moment to Moment, Action to Action, Subject to Subject, Scene to Scene, Aspect to Aspect, and Nonsequitor.

I can understand the first 4 with no questions at all, but Aspect to Aspect and Nonsequitor seem very confusing to me, especially Nonsequitor.  How would it be a narrative, spatial or not if it makes no sense?  Nonsequitor doesn’t even follow the line from a to b.  It just randomly picks stuff from places no where near the line and you’re supposed to understand what’s going on? do whaaa?

Framing is important.  If you don’t put your photos in a specific layout, then your story won’t make sense to your reader.  They can probably figure out what order they’re supposed to read it in, but they shouldn’t have to.

Today we talked about comics being Spatial.  While they tend to move in a linear path, they are spatial because of the gutters in between each panel.  You see those gutters and your mind fills in the events that happened between the first and second panel.  I liked the way we were told that spatial narratives can also take the form of authoring environments like The Sims. I love playing The Sims and I can totally see how it would be a spatial narrative.  You design an entire city, then take one character in that city and create their life.  You can make them poor and have just enough to barely survive, or  you can have them be super rich and have everything they want.  You are in control. You are the ‘author’ of their life. Nothing says it has to follow a specific path.

I do however think that Spatial narratives could get very complicated if there’s not some sort of linearity to them.  In The Sims if you have more than one or two people in your family, it gets more complicated to control.  I think the more ideas you put into a Spatial narrative, the more it’ll become clutters and confusing.