Homework 8

April 7, 2016

Within Chapter 9 of Steal like an Artist, I found several examples of Kleon's work that I implement into my life on a daily basis in order to achieve my short term goals, which are daily and weekly, as well as my long term goals which are monthly and yearly. First of all, he discusses the importance of having a calendar. Not only do I have one calendar, I have several. I absolutely believe that organization can help lead to major successes. By writing everything out and planning a concrete schedule throughout my days, weeks, and months, I find myself to be incredibly successful as a result and very organized. I am never, ever late to any event or any assignment that I have upcoming and due. It allows me to work ahead of time and to visually see the responsibilities that I have to accomplish and in what fashion. Additionally, I believe lists and post it note reminders are a blessing. I have an entire drawer filled to the tom of every size, color, shape of post it note you could imagine. Followed by several different list makers. Each day, I write out a daily list and each week I write out a weekly list of objectives. This is all in addition to my giant wall calendars and my personal planner that I live by. Success can be achieved through organization, I agree with that whole heartedly.

Secondly, he states that one should take care of themselves. I completely agree. It is necessary to have proper sleep, nutrition and exercise in order for your body to be healthy and full of energy for the day. I put my physical health and well being high high high on the priority list, otherwise, I do not have the ability to accomplish things to my full potential if I am tired, hungry, drowsy, or even sick. It's incredibly important that everyone maintains their own personal health and strive to better it on a daily basis. There is always something everyone can do to improve just a little bit. It's easier to start with daily goals with your health and progress them into becoming habits and apart of your everyday routine.

While I am here at this fine institution, I plan on enjoying it. I plan on learning and growing, evolving into the best possible version of myself that I can. I plan on pursuing things that interest me and make me happy. I am doing absolutely everything I can get my money's worth for while I am here. That is exactly why I added a second minor. Not just because I didn't want to leave and stay here forever, but simply because I wanted a challenge. I am still graduating on time, within four years. I wanted to pursue an additional interest and have fun while doing it. On the contrary, I want to meet so many different people and build connections that will benefit me not only personally but also professionally with the years to come. This entire journey of college is all a learning experiencing in discovering who you are, and that is my goal and my motive for my success. If at the end of the day I am still growing and learning and evolving, then I am doing something right.

Once I graduate, I want to continue to grow. My college degree will only be the foundation of my knowledge and on a continuous basis I want to achieve to gain more information and experience in order to expand what I already know. I believe that it is so important to never stop learning. The moment people "stop" learning and give up and refuse to take in anything more, life is simply over. It's a continuous journey to expand and explore yourself to different measures and across different times. So, creatively, who knows where I could be. I could discover my new love for a different passion elsewhere after college that I never knew of. I also believe that just because you study one particular topic, or in my case, three different topics, it won't define you professionally. I believe individuals still have the room for growth and can pursue multiple careers throughout their lifetime.

Personally, currently, my creative work is film photography with a combination of a series of papers for my major, communication. The one thing that can be relatable to both of those field of study that is incredibly important to me is the time and effort that is put into each one. I constantly believe that just because you "finished" something does not mean it is truly "finished". You can always go back and make the extra step and put in the extra effort to better it into a more finalized and polished document or piece. On average, I probably edit a single paper 15+ times. I do a series of reading aloud, reading it to someone, reading it to myself quietly, silently, etc. With that, I am able to not only find my errors, but better myself as a writer. In terms of photography, it simply is not a shoot and print method. It takes time of working with different methods, such as contrast filters, burning and dodging, chemical processes, etc that take producing the right combination of blacks, whites, and grey within a piece. I have spent countless upon countless of hours on one particular piece just to get all the different elements as best as I can. Some call this perfectionism, I call it challenging yourself to the next level up.

I choose to leave out the unnecessary elements in my work. The pieces and parts that will not contribute to the overall meaning or context of the work. As far as limitations, those are set by the individual. Currently, I do have real time limitations, I am limited to the location in which I reside, I see this particularly strong within my photography class because I can only shoot areas that are local to Northern Virginia or the DC area because that is what is attainable within my reach since I live here at the university.

At the end of the book, I liked how Kleon said "Be as generous as you can, but selfish enough to get your work done." This particular statement really applies to the college atmosphere since you live entirely with your friends and people within a close proximity. It is incredibly important to think of your own priorities while still being a good friend and having good relationships with other people.