Time Strategies

Colmar sun dial

Time management has always been one of my biggest downfalls and I have never really been good at it or able to keep on top of it despite the things I've tried and what others have said. Procrastination has always been my go to for work and that has only changed ever so slightly in College, sometimes...

I often find myself trying to overcome my bad time management issues and I'm not adverse to trying so I should definitely try again this Year and especially in this module.

In this module in particular, because of how the module works and the availability of the weekly tasks I plan to make the most of that opportunity this semester. This is one of the first classes I've ever had that granted us the ability to get ahead of work in a substantial way and a way that matters. I intend to progress in this class by using all my allocated times for this class fully and not just completing the required weekly tasks. This will help me greatly in getting into a rhythm while I do the work and should increase my productivity overall.

For this task I decided to read the articles:

"How Checklists Train Your Brain To Be More Productive And Goal-Oriented" by Lauren Marchese

and 

"THE MYTH OF "TOO BUSY"" by Tim Grahl

I found the former article to be very useful as it reminded me of a time management skill that had actually worked for me relatively successfully in the past and one that I will definitely incorporate again this year. Although I did not fully agree with all the points made in the latter article I did find his tips on prioritising time to be insightful.

Hopefully by taking advantage of the opportunities granted to us in this module I can better manage my time in other modules too.

Technology Tools and Websites for Academics

 

Backlit keyboard

I'm looking forward to using Technological Tools for this module, both those I am already slightly familiar with and those I've never used before because I'll need all the practice I can get.

I am a big fan of the Class Website despite it being unlike anything else I've used academically. Having all the information needed for the module in a centralised place and having the information organised mitigates a lot of the annoying fidgeting we have to do for other modules, between Moodle, MS Teams, 3rd party resources, etc. I'm also very glad that we'll be incorporating Google Docs with this module as I've been using it for years and absolutely adore it, especially in an academic setting, so hopefully it'll make any collaborative or group work much simpler.

As for the tools we'll be using throughout the module,

Blogs

As of Year 1 I have become a lot more familiar with blogs but there's still a lot to learn about them. I've genuinely come to enjoy using blogs more but especially when used less as a academic writing tool and more so as a progress diary.

Image Editing and Graphics Creation

I am relatively familiar with Image Editing especially after some modules in Year 1 and I have been getting practice through personal projects I've taken up over the past year, learning new skills and techniques, but there's still a lot I don't know. In terms of Graphics Creation much like Image Editing I have some experience from Year 1 and have completed some personal projects over the past year mainly in Illustrator. I also have minimal experience using Blender.

Unity 3D

I am most excited for learning Unity 3D, I don't have much to any experience with it but I'm eager to gain some throughout this module and I want to accomplish something with the programme.

Academic Tools

I am not particularly excited or anything for the academic tools such as WordPress or Padlet but I'm open minded to there usefulness throughout the module.

The upcoming Assignments

 

Official Unity Logo

Reading about the all the assignment types we'll be undertaking in this module was really insightful and helpful especially with actually knowing what's required. Sometimes modules surprise you with some of the tasks they assign so this is a great change of pace.

Readings

The readings are something I'm not particularly looking forward to despite them being one of the only things I'm relatively familiar with in this module. I am personally just not the biggest fan of Academic Reading or Writing and never really have been. At least the reading is relevant to the module so hopefully I'll be able to engage with it more than I usually do.

Unity 3D and Project Work

I'm actually quite excited to be learning to use Unity and to start the Project. Although the workload is a little daunting at least it's an area I'm genuinely interested in so that should help me in getting through the work.

Blogs

The use of our blogs for commenting and feedback is an unorthodox part of the module but I'm interested to see how it functions within our year and how helpful it will be to hear from our peers throughout the module compared to the singular input from a lecturer.

Extra Credit

I am honestly extremely happy to see that there are extra credit assignments throughout this module as they take an enormous weight off that almost seems unfair in other modules. Having these assignments to make up for missed credits gives us the piece of mind that this module is still doable even if something happens or if we find something too difficult. It also grants us the freedom to structure our learning and to tailor it slightly to our own needs and interests. It's just such a great asset to be able to avail of and doesn't make the class feel as cut-throat and scary as many others do. I'm also looking forward to some of the extra assignment tasks because the genuinely sound new and interesting like the extra tech learning.

My experience with Growth Mindset

I was very inspired by the concept of a growth mindset and wholeheartedly believe in it too. Personally I have begun to recognise that whether I work with a fixed or growth mindset relies directly on my current mental states. As such I have begun the practice of throwing myself into something new and out of my comfort zone every time I feel myself slipping into monotony or just losing myself in the motions of life. While watching the videos ___ I began to realise my own practices of a growth mindset and how though not overt do help in cultivating that continued learning mindset, I recognised that my constant repetition of  phrases like "I'll figure it out" when faced with adversity is an example of the very thing she was presenting.

Expectedly I had never heard of a growth vs. fixed mindset before College which did not surprise me due to the nature of Secondary Schools. In my experience and from the experiences of others I know it seems very rare to find a teacher, parent, etc. nurturing a growth mindset especially for those in their teens. Possibly it'd be more likely seen in children but from personal experience and observation, after a certain age most educators begin to see lack of ability as a flaw rather than a deficit that should be nurtured. 

In my own experience College has been great for me in employing a growth mindset due to my inclination and appreciation of the creative modules in the course. My actual desire to learn in the course material and skills in College has served as a great motivator for continuing with a growth mindset.

I will probably continue on functioning the way I already am, which is working with a growth mindset but not giving it too much thought. I although I am aware of it now I tend to usually work better when I figure things out for myself be it personally or academically such as cultivating the growth style mindset but I do appreciate having an actual name for it now and a source to validate it.

As nerdy as it may sound, I can probably attribute my first encounter with a growth mindset style of thinking to an Anime I watched when I was, I'd say about, 13 and has cemented itself as my favourite anime ever since. I became enamoured with the main philosophy of the show which was offered through it's protagonists that was based on the concept of drills and moving forward despite hardship. The quote that stuck with me the most and still sticks with me to this day is

“We evolve, beyond the person that we were a minute before. Little by little, we advance with each turn. That's how a drill works!”

which I only now realised instilled that growth mindset style of thinking in me.

Gurren Lagann quote uploaded to Ifunny by user IAmLawless on 31/October/2016

https://bit.ly/30qpM6w

Introduction to someone just kinda figuring it out

To start, to be completely and wholeheartedly honest, I don't really have a goal for this course. I wasn't so sure what I wanted to do in College but just knew that I wanted to do something creative because the monotony of academics was starting to get to me so I filled my CAO with any creative courses I could find that interested me. Essentially I'm just here to be in College and to actually have fun doing something academic for the first time. My only other 'Non-creative' courses were either Psychology or Teaching(more specifically Spanish and Irish)

I've been liking the course so far though and have been genuinely happy about the skills I've learned so far like Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. and have even found myself using them in my own time for personal projects and such. My biggest accomplishment last semester was probably finishing the year with a 3.75 GPA I think it was, especially getting all As in the second semester and my lowest grade overall being a B-. I've never been too bad academically but getting those grades in Year 1 in a sense 'validated' my choices for doing a creative course and my ability to do so.

I also didn't have a plan for this blog post, obviously, but I just got the idea to share some of my own personal work from over the past year.

Here are a couple photos I took and edited that I found on my laptop from the past year.

Burning Rose

Baggot Street 

(I'm pretty sure I did this one before we had even started Lightroom classes)

I used Photoshop to mess around and colour old drawings I scanned in. I also used these drawings to figure out how to turn sketches into lineart on Illustrator. I did a couple of them but these are the only ones I really finished.

The next are a couple fun little photoshop projects I decided to mess around with, neither of these are serious and I spent no longer than an hour on either but they were fun and good practice nonetheless.

Little Tom Holland

Edited "The Great Wave off Kanagawa"

The next and last few pictures are short illustrator projects I took up every now and then throughout the year. They all served as good practice and the new skills I figured out really carried on between them, despite the practice most of them are still pretty 'DIY' and are very much not the most efficient way to do them but as long as they looked fine I didn't mind. I also did a few more projects for friends and family but those were more personal projects. (Most of these were made and exported for Mobile viewing so please excuse the image quality)

Zenitsu Agatsumu poster from the anime Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer)

Japanese Shinto Shrine inspired poster

The next three are from a series I started over quarantine based on the anime Haikyu!!

Tadashi Yamaguchi

Yū Nishinoya

Asahi Azumane

As for other hobbies I like, a lot of them are creative or I will randomly start creative projects when I feel like it. These range from general drawing and painting to embroidery, and often prop or model making. My most recent prop project was a Bokken(wooden sword) that I hand carved, got a pretty little scar on my thumb from the chisel too. I had never really considered Music one of my hobbies for the longest time but I've recently started accepting it as one. I've been playing the Ukulele casually since about 14 and I've recently picked up a Midi Keyboard that I 'borrowed' from my sister. I've dabbled in song writing every now and then, not to much success.

I've also recently gotten back into watching Anime after taking a couple year hiatus from it for no particular reason.

As for games I've been playing a lot in the past couple years, I played a lot of Fortnite with friends in 6th Year instead of studying for the Leaving Cert. I also picked up Tetris 99 in that time which is one of the hardest games I've ever played especially considering that I didn't know how to play Tetris before I started and had to figure it out. My sister also bought a PS4 a couple months ago which let me start The Witcher III which I've been working through gradually. As for more recently during quarantine I have sort of become addicted to Smite: Battleground of the Gods because all my other friends had been playing it for years and after getting a laptop for College I could finally play it with them to pass time and stay connected during quarantine.

I'd love to talk about things like favourite Shows or Movies but I can never remember any, let alone pick one for things like this. The same goes for music because my taste is so broad and quite frankly bizarre.

Favourite Game

 

Minecraft Logo with general terrain background. Found here

I unapologetically love Minecraft so much. I've been following the game for a very long time, from before many people were, I remember when pistons were still a mod before they got added as a staple feature to the game. From a really young age I was enamoured by the game but had no way of playing or getting it cuz we didn't have a PC and we were poor so it wasn't feasible. That was until I think it was my 11th/12th birthday when it was available on the Xbox 360 and my Dad got it for me after years of trying to convince them to. I played it religiously for years while simultaneously consuming any Minecraft media I could get my hands on. I watched as it grew exponentially and adapted with it. I still play it on and off every now and then, I may not be able to sink as much time into it as I could but I still always find myself getting lost in it every time I do.

Unlike many other games, Minecraft is an infinitely playable game, it has innumerable replay value. Though it may have technical limitations in a singular world, depending on the system, you can always just start again but it would take a lot to do so on even the weakest systems and on some it is actually infinite.

Being a sandbox game the game provides you with a set of assets and systems but what you do with them is completely up to you. I always found that amount of freedom to be fascinating and beautiful and although it may seem daunting to some it's absolutely amazing for others. The game also tries it's best to mitigate that with it's goal oriented loose story which it accomplishes through the achievements system.

I feel like I'm writing to formally about my feelings, in the simplest terms I could put it, it captures you in the childlike wonder of having a bottomless bucket of Lego bricks and no instruction manual.