Friday, January 27, 2012

Comic Relief

It's been a long, strange week. But I made it to the end. Congratulations to everyone else for making it to Friday too.

It's been one of those weeks where it feels like I was trapped inside myself, unable to stop myself from being irresponsible and lazy. I did eventually get that Murrow presentation finished, the night before I had to do it. Things started looking up on Thursday (yesterday), because the presentation went really well. I didn't do much else yesterday though, because I thought I deserved to just chill. Then I realized that's what I've been doing all week: coasting, avoiding. Today I feel like a new woman. I've made one of my lists of everything I need to do and the amount of time I have to do it. I feel much more organized and focused now. I guess we all get in ruts like the one I was in this week. The important thing is not to get too upset at yourself for doing that. Everybody needs a break sometimes.

Yesterday and today I drew some comics:






These comics have provided me with a wonderful way to remove myself from any other kind of thought. I am starting to remember the magical healing powers of drawing and colouring. Especially colouring, because it's so systematic and satisfying. I feel like seeking out a colouring book and buying myself one of those 64-packs of crayons. Crayons have always been my favourite colouring stick. Markers are too bold, and sometimes pencil crayons remind me of this horrible project I was forced to do in middle school for art class. The teacher wanted us to do a pointillism-style picture. Needless to say, as a perfectionist child, it took me weeks. And we had to use pencil crayons. I remember one night crying over it because I had to get it done because the teacher was mad at me for it being so late. It ruined pencil crayons and dots for me. I don't know why she wouldn't let us use paint, that would have been much easier.

Once again, Sam Roberts has been the hero of my life. Lately his music has been uplifting, and calming and inspiring when it needs to be. I have been listening to and trying to get to know his new album, Collider. I still haven't listened to it enough to know all the songs, but I find myself "craving" some of them, if you know what I mean. It's a very nice mix of his old style and a newer, almost bluesy style. I don't know music terms very well, or at least don't really know how to critique music because I don't have a very big repertoire of artists in my mind, but I appreciate music. Sometimes it takes me a few listens to really get certain music, but I'm always trying to see what is good about it. Music is an amazing thing. I feel like it's quite unlike any other thing in the world. I just wish I had more of an affinity to playing it. I used to play piano, and I enjoyed it. But I wish I had to ability to write my own music. Music is such a unique language. Everybody can understand it. And it has the ability to convey so much feeling and so emotion. It can tell stories, and make you empathize. I love it. It's beautiful. The best way to experience music by far is by going to live concerts. Such an energy is created during concerts, because you're able to see the musicians at their work, loving it, and loving that you're there to hear them, loving that they get to share their passion with you.

I have started wrapping my mind around writing for my college's newspaper. I don't know how I would do writing newspaper articles. I guess what I do here is a little bit like that. I would just hope that I could find interesting things to write about. The only thing I worry about is how much of an extra commitment it would be. But I guess it wouldn't feel like a commitment if I enjoyed doing it. I met some people who work at The Strand (that's what the newspaper is called) last night and they were people I liked being around. Of course, one of my best friends in Toronto does art for it, so it's no surprise.

I'm hoping that this week, in between catching up on all my readings and preparing for future essays and projects, that I will be able to do some writing. Today I have been feeling particularly inspired. The annoying thing that happens is when I don't feel like doing work, so I procrastinate by doing useless things like playing Tetris and scrolling through Facebook, when I could have been spending all that time not doing work and writing instead. I think it feels like writing would be some kind of admission that I am not doing my work, because I'm completely committing to doing something else. Whereas with Facebook you can keep pretending that you're going to get off in a few minutes. What a fiend Facebook is. I've been considering taking a week or two off from it. My mom is thinking of "giving it up for lent." It's an idea.

One of my friends told me that he got some advice about making specific weekly times to write for yourself, and never, ever, breaking those commitments. I think that's a great idea. Maybe I'll try it. The next step is deciding how much time and when...

As for this blog, I'm afraid this post hasn't been very exciting, but I haven't done a post in a while, and I wanted to reconnect. Hopefully this coming week I will have lots to say about how much work I got done and what a productive week it was. Maybe I'll have some writing to post.

Your friendly neighbourhood Erin.

2 comments:

  1. Have you ever seen Dover Coloring Books? They are wonderful things.
    http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-coloring-books.html
    Look over at the left hand column... "Classic Stories" or "Fashion" or "History." When I was still at home being homeschooled Mom would buy a bunch for the year and we would colour while she read us history or literature. I always used coloured pencils though, I love them. One year for Christmas I got a beautiful set of prismacolour pencils and I still have them. I'm very protective.

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    1. Ah I looked at the website and sent a wish list to my mom! Haha thank you sharing! Pencil crayons are definitely good too, especially if you have the special ones like you got for Christmas that year! I would always drool over those too :). Thank you for sharing your memory :) that sounds like a lot more fun than what we would do in school!

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