These Hands

Companion (pt. 1)

This semester, as you might know, I was in a photo class.  The course, ARTS 260, at the University of Illinois, is the introductory photography class.  The first half of the semester involved learning basic techniques, styles, and how to shoot.  We turned in a midterm project based upon four major themes (light and shadow, perspective, depth of field, and motion).  Then the second half of the semester started, in which we were to create our own project with a theme.  This project was to be 10 shots that fit into this theme.

Months ago, while in the shower, thinking about my day, the idea came to me that I needed to tell The Gospel with these pictures.  In some way, th

is story, however I could do it, needed to be told, again and again.  As I thought and prayed, it felt more and more compelling to tell the Gospel story from this perspective of photography and art.  As well, it felt more and more necessary to tell them in a contemporary style.  I couldn't just reshoot in photo form the paintings of the Renaissance.

As the project came about and started to develop, the idea was presented to me to use part of the body to tell these stories.  This started with a great night of drawing the Parable of the Four Seeds on the skin of my friends.  It slowly evolved from this into me telling stories from the four Gospel books with the hands.  Gone was the seeds parable and in was the Good Samaritan.  Gone was using marker for drawing and in was using it to write Hebrew on the body.

I told five stories with these images and I'm still working on how exactly I would present them, but what I do know is that I now have told five tales with these images.  Each pair of images with the same name tells a story.  There is writing on Hebrew on the skin, and in the title of the photos is the meaning of the word.  I hope that this project may stimulate you, regardless of your lifestyle, beliefs, gender, color, or love/hate of art.  This project is dear and close to me, and I hope that you are able to see the effort I put into it, trying to create these situations and communicate as effectively as I can with just two images per story.

Companion (pt. 2)

Here is the flickr link to the art project "These Hands"

A Call for Help

All you U of I peeps out there, this one is for you.

I have a request of you. I am in a class called Psych 358: Human Factors. In this class, we are working on a group project where we are to redesign something with humans and our personal preferences in mind. The thing my group chose to change is the CITES EXPRESS email server. We are right now in the data collection phase and we need your help. We have 3 survey pages to have people complete on surveymonkey.com (the reason we have 3 is because they wouldn't fit on one). They will take less than 10 minutes TOTAL and will help us create suggestions to change the way the University does email. The three links are below. Your help is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, shoot me an email, or comment on here.

Please take the time to fill these out, as they will really help my group get the best sample pool

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Gradumication

So, I got a letter today from the University informing me of my ability to graduate in December and that if I wanted to walk in the ceremony, I needed to sign up soon. Anyway, that is just one more thing making this whole graduating thing quite the reality. OH, and why does it cost an arm and a leg to rent a gown? I could buy a blue sheet for a lot cheaper...

Other News

Watched the presidential debate. I feel pretty confident that with either man in the White House, that I will still wake up the next day and hope that God is working in my life. I can't speak completely as to who was better in the debate though...I guess I'm more of a political outsider (LOL), because I thought it was close, but polls suggest Obama easily won. How do you win a debate? It shouldn't be based upon eloquence, but issues...right?....right??

In the Summers Home Fellowship (my church small group) we are reading a Psalm a day for the next 14 days. The first Psalm was read today. I'll try to at least comment on them so I have some practice thinking about them and writing about them over the course of these two weeks.

Human Factors

I decided since I wrote about my photo class a bit, I'd try to write about the rest of my classes in kind.

I'm also enrolled in a human factors course. "What is human factors," you may ask. It is a broad field that in many ways encompasses design for usability, safety, and efficiency. For example, today in class we looked over a broad realm of things human factors affects.

One is web design (for all you computer geeks out there). Why is facebook more friendly than myspace? Is it the design factor, the networking factor, or just perception?

Another example you could run for days with is Apple hardware/software.

We discussed flight issues with all the gauges a pilot must recognize, as well as industry applications like a Nuclear Power Plant control room.

All of these places and things must be designed for their ease of use, enjoyment of use, failsafes, etc, etc.

I know some people are taking this class as an easy A, but let me tell you, it has the potential to be one of the most fascinating courses I've ever taken here at Illinois. The material is engaging and the professor really encourages interaction with the class. So, check out Psych 358/IE 340, as that...is the class.

A new era

Alan is going back in time. 9 months after getting my first SLR camera as a gift, I have bought a second. This one, however, is a lot different. The first was a digital, this is a film camera. The first one was a gift and new, this one is a self purchase and is slightly used. But, both use the Canon EF mount, which means that I can interchange lenses between them, which is super exciting. The reason I bought this camera was for a class that I'm taking here at Illinois. Photo 1 is the name, and there is a good section of the course discussing black and white film photography. I'm just excited to give it a whirl.

Not only did I buy this used, but it was my first successful ebay victory (granted, I was the only bidder. People really don't want film cameras.) and it was on the cheap. It will be a good experiment, along with the darkroom work in class to really see how far into photography I can delve.

Check out my new toy/tool for yourself...

Tis Settled

I will be taking classes next semester. Obviously, and my schedule will look right along the lines as such...

Senior Design
Human Factors
Engineering Psych
Basic Photography

I say this now...I am stoked about the semester to come. It being my last one, I am truly hoping my classes will be fantastic. Should have very little calculation, which I'm stoked about. Lots of reading I'm sure, but I'm down with that, as I love the kind of thought involved with the classes.

Late Night of Study

This semester has been a pretty lonely school semester. My classes have been predominantly studied for by myself. Not that this is a big deal, but it makes me sad that I haven't made a huge effort to study with people or get to know my classmates too much. Now I know the semester isn't over, but that isn't I guess what I'm thinking about right now.

It is 1:30 in the morning on Monday and I'm studying my butt off. I've got a hw due tomorrow that I really don't even know how to approach. I guess I have ideas, but I don't know. But where is my mind? Talking to my sister on AIM about theology. What does that mean?

Does it mean that I am just finding that as a way to procrastinate or avoid my school work?
Does it mean that I just prefer to talk about God and how he has moved and is moving?
Does it mean that I should already commit to doing ministry?
Does it mean engineering is a hobby or that theological discussion is a hobby?


I guess these are big questions for me as they are going to help determine my direction in my life. These issues have come up a lot lately and I really would hope to have it settled tomorrow (read: hope = unrealistically hope). Instead, I have a lot of options before me in about 9 months. I will be graduating then, so I guess I'm pregnant with the rest of my life now. It's got a standard gestation period and now is the time that I really need to research what it'll be like to take care of it once it pops out.

Could I be doing some form of engineering discipline in a place where they don't have that but need it to establish infrastructure?
Could I be using my engineering knowledge to teach high schoolers in an inner city area because they need education in technical disciplines as much as rich suburbanites do?
Could I be learning how to council people through their struggles?
Could I be coaching sports and doing sports ministry?
Could I be doing support raising for campus missions work?
Could I be working in an engineering job in Colorado, Northwest, any other place and being involved in a church while ministering to my co-workers?
Could I be working in engineering in Champaign and doing campus missions on the side?

Yea, and that's only a list of options that come to me at this moment. I'm positive there must be others. So instead of dwell on this, I shall go to bed, and hit the grindstone early in the morning, while counting down the days to my second trimester.

And even thinking about that, I guess I kinda do have trimesters set up

End of Spring 08
Summer 08
Fall 08

Each will be different in nature, and each will help me to determine stuff about me and my future...I hope

Good night (or good morning I suppose)

Running out of Time

Well, I register for my last semester of classes here at the U of I this evening. I've got a few picked out and I'm working on my strategy for the second when the gates open. It is a rather sad and yet exciting thing. I'm super excited that I am but 9 credit hours from graduation and that I should be done in December. I'm sad because there is a chance that I'll leave this place called Champaign (not guaranteed), and I would miss that. I'm also sad because I believe I am a person that wants to live life to the fullest. I want to experience a lot and don't want to leave much to anybody else. The same goes for classes, (This of course excludes business classes) as I have so many I've wanted to take. They vary like night and day and hopefully I will get educated in some things that are relevant to me and my life.

The classes look as such potentially

Senior Design
Human Factors
Engineering Psych
WILD CARD

The wild card class could be many a thing. There is an advertising class, world religions, coaching strategies, the Bible as literature, philosophy classes, manufacturing engineering, and the list goes on. I also really want to not have class Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, which I am pretty close to having. That time that I'll have free on those days will be great for iLife work, reaching out in the dorms, work interview trips, and anything else I can think of. Anyway, college ending...etc :)