Essayish Elephant

Why working (together) is like riding an elephant.

Essayish thing number 2

In my life I have had the pleasure to ride an elephant several times. The one I remember the most was in Gonarezhou National Park (gonarezhou referring to the shona: gona re nzou, which means field of the elephants). The elephant was huge, but as a small girl the driver (or whatever I should call him) let me sit on top of the head, in front of the driver (who was sitting just behind the elephant’s ears). Sitting in a split, with long and very sturdy ‘hairs’ (that felt like iron wire) and a seat of sandpaper was absolutely no fun at all. However the view was beautiful, and the elephant kept giving me gifts, things like stones and grass, with his trunk, because he knew that the driver behind me had food which was really cute.

Working in a group is similar, especially to the painful part. You have to think about what everybody you work with is thinking, and you have to take all of this into account. You can’t just blatantly be yourself and work at your own pace. No, you are forced into the minds of other people, thinking like them, having to adjust your own pace and will to their pace and will and all of that just to finish a project. A project that you are not doing because you love the idea and are really interested in doing, but something that you need to do to get your points so you can finish your study. Well, this again depends on the people you are working with, as a good group will find a way to make the project a personal goal, not something that needs doing for the good of the study. A bad group fails in this which leaves no enthusiasm and no drive to keep on working.

 Working on your own however, is not very much better. Forcing yourself to do anything (let alone something useful) is difficult. Next to that thinking of something (like a solution for a problem) is very hard on your own, at least for me. I tend to be unable to choose between several possibilities and end up doing all of them simultaneously, which is a lot of work.

On the positive side, riding an elephant is a ride of a lifetime. I am probably one of the few in the Netherlands who has done this several times before the age of 10 (rides at zoos don’t count). On the other hand, it is not very good for the creature itself. Elephants are used to attract tourists and attention, however, they do have to pay, they are not able to live the life they are supposed to live, captivity is never good for an animal, let alone a huge beast that needs its space.

As elephants suffer, so do the projects. In teamwork, the project doesn’t start off very well, nobody agrees, nobody does anything, and in the end, all that is left is taking what you have (which is not a lot) and making the best of it (which is not what it could have been).  For one person, a project is a huge task, one that needs a lot of time, but when motivated, the person can just work, not having to rely on others for information, teamwork or help. But for one person, this project is also a very big mountain, almost impossible to climb up alone.

Is there a solution for this? Well, one solution could be to remove the humans from the equation. Humans are beings that cannot be relied on; they have their own will and are prone to disagreeing. Replacing people by machines would ensure that every piece of the project works as fast and as hard as possible and in the end, will lead to work done. But machines cannot replace the creativity and beauty of the human mind. So we are stuck with each other.

I wish working together would me more like a bite from a snake, painful, but fast working. This would mean that after the difficult start, everything would just work, like taking a Band-Aid off. In a way, it is like a snakebite, however, the painful part is the whole project, it just takes way longer than it would a good snakebite. The dying part would be receiving the mark. I am an overachiever, and putting a lot of work into something and getting no acknowledgment for this is horrible.

More people should ride elephants, as more people should be aware of the hardships and problems that lead to making something beautiful. Most people just need to suck it up and cooperate. Working together is something that is very hard for every person, but something that is essential to Creative Technology. For a lot of people, this means a trip to Africa.


In a way this essayish thing was riding an elephant too, having to sit behind a screen for hours trying to write something that needs to be written, but just doesn't want to be written. A story that fights back, that stings and prods you isn't all that fun to write. But afterwards, when you get of the elephant with sore legs, it was still a memorable journey.

Essay

Could it be possible that a person can only write a certain amount of essays in one life-time?..

During my bilingual course I was forced to write essays, dozens of them, however, now I need to write just two. And after at least a week of trying every single day, I have one line:

The first day of We Create Identity I didn’t know what to expect.  After the first day, I was little wiser. 

Which is very true, ca1 was a very strange course, in which many people did not know what to do and what to expect. Mr Eliens was also the perfect teacher for this, he is definitely very kind, however, he is rather vague. His assignments are do something, or write something, make me something or whatever. This is also rather like is way of speaking, he can say things that seem very logical, however, need even more explaining than the question you had in the beginning. 

This is a way you could show a person their own identity, just let them go with hardly any guidelines and see where they end. But, it is also a way to loose people, I had/have a lot of problems with the do something attitude, and it was also Eliens who asked me, do you need schooling or do you need education. Well, I need education, however, when all the education I have received in my life was via schooling, then this form of education is horrible. It makes me feel lost, like I am doing something useless that has no goal or objective. This really is something that I need to work on, as, from what I know, most of the following courses will be similar. 

Nm1 however, was rather different. Not only because the teacher was away almost all of the lessons, but also because we had a specific list of assignments. Well, at least more specific that ca1, which was a big relief for me. However, most of the assignments were rather rushed as the exhibition that I was organizing together with Inéz for the ca1 course had precedence over these assignments, which meant that I spent almost all my time working on my ca1 project (the interactive movie I posted about, which of course came with it's own organizational problems and hurdles) and the organization of the exhibition. The exhibition, in the end, was acceptable, it could indeed have been much better and more professional, but it ended in the head of the study complementing me and Inéz on how we did it. He thought it was a success. The movie was a problem too, not only was it extremely dramatized (which not everyone could appreciate), the sound failed continuously and, for me, some bits were just missing. However, that too ended in the teacher complementing us on our video, which made me more relaxed and the whole exhibition thing more fun.

In the end, all was well, except for the essay. 

During my bi-lingual course I grew a hate for essays, we were required to write deep, well-structured essays on literature, media and language subjects. All conform to all kinds of rules and regulations, you were even deducted points for using the abbreviated forms of words like 'it's' and 'you're'. Letting go of these, not so pleasant, regulations is difficult for me, I wrote essays in that form for at least 3 years, which makes writing an essay for a course with the subject 'something' very stressful to me. Yes, this is something that definitely needs working on, and I need to let go of the things that I learnt in the past.

Another thing that I need to work on is my way of thinking in 'teacher' and student. As almost everybody knows, I grew up in Zimbabwe, not the best place for a child, or anybody for that matter, but it was beautiful, however, not in every way. We did have a swimming pool in the back garden and beautiful weather. But, the government, or should I say Mugabe, had taken it's toll on the country. We lived quite close to the university, and I still remember how we weren't allowed out of the house for days because there were riots on the road in front of our house, and the police were trying to control the students (as it was the students of the university that were protesting because they were getting less and less money from the government) with teargas and beating. Also, the schools weren't everything. My brother and I were sent to a standard government school, my parents chose not to send us to the international school as they didn't want us to get spoiled and turn into brats. However, the schools diminishing budget lead to all the good teachers leaving to go teach at private schools for the money, leaving us with less qualified young teachers who didn't know how to control anything, let alone a class of 30 children. They resorted to beating us (with the board eraser) to discourage speaking in class and well, everything. The one thing that hit me most (once I came to the Netherlands and started realizing it), was that it wasn't allowed to question what the teacher told you. Basically, he could tell you the world was flat and you just had to accept it, or risk a beating or detention (manual labour in the school garden, not your best Friday afternoon). My first year of secondary school was a revelation, learning to talk, to be myself, to open up, not only to the people around me but also to my teachers. I still see them as some kind of invincible thing, however, the idea of a teacher a some kind of god is long gone. I hope this process will keep on moving forward, until I can see them as an equal.

My portfolio

As a requirement for the Web Technology course and my tutor group I made a portfolio, it needs more information and more stuff, but it is a start:
My portfolio

Enjoy!

Worst Week

Last week was one of the worst weeks I have had. Mostly because all of the stress of finishing our Interactive Video (see our website) and organising the exhibition.

However, in the end, my video was complemented on by our teacher, and the exhibition was complemented on by the director of our study, so in the end, all was well. One thing just got worse though, my health. However, spending days in bed does give me time to catch up on the homework that slipped by in the past weeks when I was focussing on the video and the exhibition. Though I probably  need another week or so to catch up with everything.


Wish me luck, I will post some photo's of the exhibition soon.

Animated

Jeej! I animated it!

Mijn animatie


it is not very difficult or something, and not what I wanted to do.. but it's something...

Programming Processing

Yay! I have something to write about!

Today in the train, I was bored, so I started in my Processing book, and look what I made:

I have never in my life programmed before :P
So whatever you think, I'm proud of my small friendly alien!

Reviews

Well, today I read what people posted about me in their reviews, and most of them said that I should post on my blog more regularly. So that is what I plan to do!

The preparations for the final assignment for Introduction to Computer Science are well underway (even though I don't really understand what it all has to do with computer science) and I am enjoying working with another group. It's refreshing!

Furthermore I finally found the guts to go to a trainings session of the swimming group of Piranha on Monday, and since today I am a proud member of ZPV Piranha! This will mean a lot more aching muscles and beer though....