This was to test our skills when it came to the principles of photography.
Where they were shot: Outside shots are at the Winter Carnival in St. Paul, MN. Inside shots at the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul, MN
They were all shot on overcast days with no Flash.
Today was a long at school, this wasn’t because the classes were boring I just had a long break between classes. The classes were rather interesting today with Freshman Comp. and Theory and Practice of Tai Chi Chuan.
In Comp. we watched a Ted Talk on “The Danger of a Single Story”. What is a single story? A single story from what I have gathered from the video is a one dimensional look at the world (seeing things from one point of view). An example of this is the way we see Donald Trump speak about illegal immigration and the people in the middle east. The issue with a single story is: they have a tendency to breed ignorance, bigotry and hatred in those who are not willing to do research and/ or go out and meet people who are different then them. At least, that is what I had gotten from the video. We see people who buy in to the single story trap so much in our society today, it is astonishing to see in this day and age.
In between classes I had a lively and invigorating discussion in the smoking area about religion, politic and corruption. This is one of the things I love about college, actual intellectual conversation about tough topics. I get to practice my conversational skills without the pressure of hurting someone’s feelings or someone just getting up in my face. I just can not to that with my old friends and family. That is one thing that has stifled my personal growth as a human being. I am someone who enjoys that type of conversation, because I get to actually exchange ideas with people instead of having them dictated to me.
Then in Tai Chi it was a basic first day until we started learning the moves. I am so out of shape. We first learned a stance, then practiced breathing and lastly how to walk. Doing the stance was difficult for me because I had a hard time keeping my toe connected to the floor. The breathing was not too difficult, it is something I have been practicing for a while to keep my stress level down. The hardest part for me was the walk. I am a big guy, out of shape and extremely right side dominant. When I was done with the walk my left inner thigh was killing me. The muscle had started cramping up on me it felt like a bunch of needles poking in to a single point on my thigh. I am going to need a lot more practice and push myself to make sure I can do this correctly.
Today was my first day back to school and man did I miss it. I only had one class Freshman comp. The teacher seems pretty cool looks like it will be an interesting class. Tomorrow I have Intro to Cinema in the morning and History of World Civilization 2 in the afternoon. Wednesday I have comp again in the morning and in the afternoon I have Theory and Practice of Tai Chi Chuan. Thursday back to Cinema and History again.
I went to the Experimental Education center to find out what I had to do to return as a tutor this semester. They will be sending the emails this week for returners I found out. The cool thing about this is that My history class has a service learning component for extra credit so, I will be getting extra credit on top of the work study pay. Last semester I just did it for experience not I have additional reasons to do it this year.
I have heard the argument that the states should be divided by other Republicans before. I have just one question. Do we really trust the south with Nuclear weapons? I mean really think about how insane the right wing is in the south. They, and I am using a generalization because that’s how a lot, yet not all despise people who are not like them and are fearful. Ignorance is not bliss ignorance is fear wrapped in false beliefs spread by people who lust for power and control. We have a tendency to fear things and people they do not understand or want to try and understand. People who are self aware know this they try and change themselves to become a better human being. My biggest bitch about the U.S.A. is that as a nation we refuse to acknowledge our own failings as a country. We think we are better than everyone else. This is not true. I feel what we need is the a country’s equivalent of a psyciotrist. If we were to judge our country like we would a human, this country would have many disorders, Including but not limited to schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, narcissistic sociopathic tendencies with an addictive personality.
Schizophrenia, I know someone who has this condition. My biological father I have not seen the man since I was 3 years old, but in my 20’s I was able to have my first contact with his side of the family. This is when I found out about his condition. I have talked to my father over the phone and have had decent conversations with him. That was until about 3 – 4 years ago when around Christmas time, right before my divorce was final. He had gone off on me because either he really hated lawyers of he did not like the fact that my marriage had failed. I am not quite sure. He blew up on me after I had told him that I had gotten a lawyer for the divorce. It seemed it affected him more than me. Had said that I was no son of his, and that he would kill me. I did not know what to do. I knew I shouldn’t let it affect me because I had not seen the man in almost 35 years at that point. I also realized that who the fuck was he to judge he was 26 when he knocked up my mom at the age of 17. From what my mom had told me he also had gotten extremely violent with me when I was younger and was alway jumping in and out of my life. So, my mom told him to leave out of my life for my safety.
Bi-polar I have dated a couple of Bipolar women and I am assuming that trying to date a bipolar man is about the same. They would be good for awhile happy energetic, then from out of nowhere they would turn getting extremely agitated at the smallest thing for no logical reason.
Narcissistic A-moral sociopathic tendencies: In my youth I had a fascination with serial killers and cults. I had noticed that most of the serial killers and leaders of these cults had in common, they were all in it for themselves and said to hell with everyone else. They used ignorance and fear to control and influence people to coax them in to a trap or to do despicable things, like mass suicide, child molestation, cannibalism, murder, destruction and conning people out of money.
These are just a few mental disorders I feel we have as a society. In our society I feel we need t look more analytically in on our nation and start to see the true reasons all this chaos that we as a nation are a part of and start looking for real solutions. One of the ideas I have is a class I feel we should integrate into our schools, is a class on critical thinking . Learning how to think in a more critical manner helps us to see other peoples perspectives better.
Another thing I feel we should focus on is getting people to live in other countries for awhile. No I am not a saying abandon the U.S.A., but living in other countries could help us to figure out how we can better our country through seeing things the way other countries see us. They may also have policies that work over their that could work over here as well. This would make us a more well rounded country as a whole. This would also help with the race divide in this country. If people were to live with and experience things that other people go through they would not be so quick to judge others that are not like them. Of course there would still be those who would try to push a religious agenda, yet if the government were to implement this we could make sure this does not happen for there is a separation of church and state therefore anyone working as a representative of our country would not be able to push that agenda and could be reassigned, retrained and have a mental assessment done. If they still continue then they are sent back.
JJ's World Views 
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