Star struck

I've been pondering the mysteries of being a fan this week. I've never really understood the whole celebrity culture. In the main, I'm guessing because we didn't have a TV or a whole lot of choices for movies when I was going through the teenage crush stage. But last Friday night, at nearly 50 years old, I got a taste of what it means to be a teenage-like fan.

Alan Alda, of MASH fame, was in town. He was here for the World Science Festival (#WSFBrisbane), a program to bring science and scientists to the people. A great initiative, and one that he is obviously very passionate about. We attended a play reading that he had written, called 'Dear Albert'. It was a fascinating insight into a scientist I've never paid much attention to. Sure, Einstein's theories have had life-changing impacts, but I don't understand them; I've never needed to understand them; so I've never really taken an interest in Albert, the man—the rather flawed and very human man.

After the play, we were told (Daniel coerced the usher) that we might be able to meet Alan Alda at the stage door. When we got to the stage door foyer, he was sitting with Brian Greene, a scientist. (Prof Greene is another scientist I don't understand. Eleven dimensions! I'm not sure that the fourth isn't just a man-made construct.) I'm sure they were having a quiet chat and enjoying being away from the crowds. There was no-one else there! Thank you, Brisbane, for being too polite to barge in. I know we weren't the only fans in town.

For about five minutes we chatted, he graciously signed our MASH DVD box and one of his autobiographies, and then we left. What did we chat about? I can't tell you.  What I can tell you is that it was probably not articulate or intelligent. It represented neither my abilities nor personality. I remember aiming for 'polite' when I asked for his autograph. I suspect I may have missed the mark and hit sycophantic. He would never have guessed that I spent five years as a professional communicator, that I have a science degree, or that I have a Masters in wordsmithing. So many intelligent things I could have said, but didn't.

I've always held that all people, are not just created equal, but are equal, regardless of their current 'status', simply by virtue of them being people. I have high regard for many individuals, but never felt that anyone warranted special attention based simply on their celebrity status. But meeting Alan Alda was not a literary, but a literal, adrenalin rush—I was shaking when we walked away. Ridiculous! I met a man, I shook his hand, I uttered a few idiotic phrases, and I felt like a giddy teenager.

On a more logical level, I have an even higher regard for the man than I did before the WSF. I listened to his speech to the National Press Club after meeting him. For nearly six years, I tried (often in vain) to teach scientists how to 'write good'; how to communicate scientific principles and findings with integrity, but in a way that Joe Public could understand and relate to what they had to say. It often felt like an uphill battle, and I was just working with a small group of specialists in one company. I am thrilled to know there is a whole university school that teaches them before they hit the real world. This week I have purposefully avoided watching MASH. It feels almost like a betrayal to all that Alan Alda has achieved in the past 30 years to relegate him back to 'merely' being Hawkeye. (I'm sure I'll get over it.)

Logic aside, my brush with fandom has bemused me.  There are no benefits, short-term or long-term, to meeting Alan Alda, but a week later, the memory still brings a smile to my face, and I have an understanding of why we call it 'star struck'.

2015

So, this is the New Year. Funny, it doesn't feel all that different to the old one. That's the thing about New Years that I don't get. People pin such high expectations on it, endow it with almost magical abilities to transform their lives. But at the end of the day, it's just day, like every other day. The ability to transform our lives lies within us, not in a day.

Anyway, enough of my New Year's bah-humbugging. What have I got planned for 2015? Oo, lots. I started looking at my goals in November. Looked at the ones I missed in 2014, considered why I missed them. Looked at the ones I hit and gave myself a pat on the back, because I think it's important to see what you've achieved more than seeing what you missed. Considered the year ahead and what I want to achieve, and how I plan to do that.

Goal Types
My goal setting process has multiple methods. It's all very well to say, "You should set SMART goals", but some things I want to achieve don't fit the SMART mould. And some things I want to achieve are not goals as such, they're habits I want to develop. My goal setting methods are:

1. Set a specific SMART goal: run a 5km fun run some time after August (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely). These goals then get broken down into monthly chunks and then weekly chunks and then daily chunks. Every month I look at my yearly goals, consider what I need to achieve in the month. Then each week I look at that monthly chunk and work out what I need to do this week on a day-by-day basis.

2. Set a "list goal". I have a lot of projects I want to finish, for example a dozen or more quilts. A list goal is to focus on one project every month from the list that I keep with my goals. My lists grow as the year progresses, as new projects are added. Each month I choose the focus from my list, and decide how much I want to achieve, which depends on what stage that focus project is at, and what sort of a month I have ahead of me. Project lists include quilts, other sewing, holiday scrap booking, house renos, garden projects. I also have a list of people to write to (the goal being one per week); friends to catch up with (one per month) and similar activities.

3. Set a "percentage" habit. Habits are tricky goals to set, particularly for perfectionists. We feel if don't hit them 100% of time we're failing and (more often than not) might as well quit. This year I've come up with the percentage target. I want to develop a habit of taking my vitamins every day. The perfectionist me would say 365 out of 365 days is goal achieved, anything less is not. Reality me knows that just isn't going happen. I track every day that I take my vitamins. Each week I record how many days I 'hit'. Over three months I calculate my percentage hit. My habit goals are to hit 25% in the first three months, 50% in the second three months, 75% in the third three months, and 90% in the last three months. This gives a stretch goal, it gives me a target, and it keeps me realistic.

Putting it on Paper
I mind-map my goals. This year, I've gone back to Stephen Covey's concept of 'roles'. I have four roles: artist, community, care-taker, worker.
I have the year in the centre and a branch for each role. Each 'sub-role' is on a smaller branch. Under 'caretaker', for example, I have 'finances', 'spirit', 'body', 'house' and 'garden'. At the end of each sub-role I list my goals, whether SMART, list or habit.
I keep this yearly mind-map in my diary. Once it's created, I scan it and remove the goals at the end of the branches and the year from centre. I print out the remaining basic structure and use it each month to set my targets for the month.

Blank mind-map for ready for monthly targets

In addition to setting goals for the year, I picked up an idea from a fellow quilter a couple of years ago, of assigning a word to the year. The word I've chosen for 2015 is "harmony". I want to develop as a musician, I want to find balance with all my pursuits, not focussing on any to the detriment of others, I want to develop strong, healthy relationships with people who are important to me. Using a tool I found on-line (http://www.wordle.net/create) I created a word cloud (also kept in my diary).

Harmony word cloud

That's a basic overview of my goal setting process. Although, at the end of the day (even New Years Day) I think there's just three things that are important for reaching a goal:
1. Write it down. Research shows if you write it down, you're more likely to hit it.
 2. Review it. If you write it down and ignore it, you won't hit it. Review each month and each week, "What do I need to do in order to achieve this goal?"
And then, the third important step is simply "Do it".

Creativity Journal - Day 21 (Story)

Write a ten-word love story. Bonus: Illustrate it!

Woohoo. Three weeks complete. And it's only taken me seven to get here. Today's was fairly easy. Ten words isn't a lot but if you add illustration you can say just about anything. My first thoughts were of the opening few minutes of the film "Up" - no words, lots of love story. And my next thought was a video that several people have posted on FB over the past few days. And so I offer these ten words:

She was beautiful, loyal, and smart, and loved him completely.

Creativity Journal - Day 8 Update (book)

Transform an old book into something new by cutting, folding, gluing, and so on.

I finished this challenge a couple of weeks ago, I just forgot to post about it. I finally overcame my hesitation (paranoia) about cutting up or destroying a book. I will confess going to two op shops before I found the 'right' book. I didn't even really know what I wanted to do with it, and still I couldn't choose a book. "Too plain, too fancy, too many pictures, too many photos." Sigh!

Finally I found a book that was a good mix of words and photos. In the end - I didn't use any of the photos at all. Still, I've saved them, I'm sure they'll come in handy for something. One day.

I found a poster on Pinterest that I really liked.

I wanted to make my own version; something uniquely ours rather than a copy. Knowing I planned on working with cut outs, I designed it in Excel using bold fonts, no thin line fonts. I used Excel because it allows for limitless page size.

I had already bought a canvas. I didn't buy a square canvas, because it wouldn't work in the space I was planning to use. My canvas is twice as long as it high, so although I was using the above layout as a guide, I had to think about my own design elements. Once I decided on what words were going on what lines, I used Word Art to allow me to drag the words bigger, higher, wider (or smaller, shorter, narrower) in the space I wanted.

The fonts I used are:

• Rockwell Extra Bold (twice)
• Cooper Black
• Berlin Sans FB Demi
• Franklin Gothic Heavy
• Arial Black

When I finally had a design that met the Teen's approval (my art critic) I printed out the lettering. I rough cut each letter, laid it over the section of the book's page I wanted to use and then cut through both layers with a craft knife. Much easier than cutting out the letters, drawing the letters onto the page, then cutting out the page.

My letters all cut out and ready to go. I considered cutting out the pictures from the book somehow to make a collage background for the canvas. I decided that it would be too busy and not the look I was hoping for. In the end I squirted rows of green and white paint on to my canvas and just sort of smoshed them about with a brush.

The end result was quite evenly coloured, but it has a hint of variation. Because the paint ended up quite thick, I used it to 'glue' the letters down. Sadly, that means not guide lines and my letters are little wonkier in placement than I would like. If I did it again, I lay out my lettering before I painted the canvas and draw faint guide lines to get a more even layout. Everything should be moved down just slightly; the 'most' is supposed to tuck into the 'h' of 'house' - not sit over the top of it; and the 'share' line has a slight slope, but these things are hard to remember when you're working on the fly.

Apologies for the poor quality picture. I think I must have taken it in the afternoon, when the sun comes through the window behind this opening.

Creativity Journal - Day 1 (Start Small)

The first step is the hardest, so start small today and make something that fits in the palm of your hand using only the materials in your immediate environment.

Today I have gone out of my way to be creative with words, but I have also been creative with fabric (and scrap-booking). One advantage of not working for someone else at the moment is the time to complete projects. Even without the journal I have been reasonably creative.

My fabric creativity is an ongoing project. Some time ago my dad's sister gave me some embroidery panels that belonged to her mother or her aunt. Some are started, but none are finished. I rediscovered them just recently and currently keep one next to my armchair to work on while watching TV. I'm not really very good at embroidery, but I'm improving.

My creativity with words was inspired by a trip into the CBD today. I dislike the City. I always feel rushed and pressured. Visiting during Friday lunch time in the school holidays probably wasn't a great idea.

This was my initial idea. It is the palm of my hand (an outline, on paper, not my actual palm). The idea was for it to represent city blocks, but I kinda forgot to allow the streets to have any width.

As I was playing with this, lines from one of my favourite poems came to mind.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet. 

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

"Clancy of the Overflow", by Banjo Patterson

My idea was to take a map of the CBD, create an outline of the blocks, superimpose the words over the city blocks, remove the lines. That is, have the words of the entire poem make up the city blocks. I hit a couple of snags:

• The map of the CBD is always shown on an angle. The streets run almost 45° to the edge of a page.
• The CBD is not actually a pure grid. There's lots of little bumps and alley ways.
• A map the size of my palm requires a very fine pen and steady writing hand .
• I figured the easiest way would be to print the map and then overlay a blank sheet to write on. I don't have a light box, and I can't find my handy-dandy piece of picture frame glass that I usually use.

I copied the CBD from Google; drew the blocks using the Draw facility in MS Word. I rotated my new very plain map and used MSWord to add the poem. It's not quite the end result I wanted. I think, ideally, this sort of image is best created with a larger map. After the words are added by hand, the whole image can be scaled down.

STILL, the purpose of the exercise is creativity. To do something creative, to think differently to the routine of humdrum daily life. This is not something I would have thought of doing of my own inspiration.

What fits in the palm of your hand?

Creativity Journal

Some months ago we were visiting with a friend, when she mentioned she was struggling with her lack of creativity. She is a creative person (as I believe we all are), but she wasn't being creative in her day-to-day life. She was struggling to find time, motivation and inspiration. Later in the same week, the Teen and I were doing a bit of window shopping and happened into a book store. (Some of sort of magnetic field around book stores that we don't quite understand). We found a book. (Actually, we found lots of books, but that's another story.) This book was on sale and the perfect "thanks for being a great hostess" gift.



The book is called "365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life!" by Noah Scalin. After some introduction to the concept, Noah gives a 'starting point' for being creative each day. Day One says "The first step is the hardest, so start small today and make something that fits in the palm of your hand using only the materials in your immediate environment." There is space on each day to record what you created.

After a couple of days, it became clear to the Teen and I that we both needed this book. But, alas, the book store had no more copies :-( We can get it online, but we're still trying to get it locally. In the meantime, I have bought an e-book. No recording facility in the journal itself. The reality is, I'm highly unlikely to use it anyway.

I am going to give the 365 days a go. They may not be 365 consecutive days, but we'll see how we go. (My track record at maintaining any project is pretty dismal. I can't even take vitamins every day of the week.)

One of the suggestions that Noah makes is to choose a theme and/or medium. I'm a sewer/quilter, so fabric is an obvious medium. But then I wondered, is it too obvious? Should I stretch myself in some other way? I'm still undecided, so I may use two ideas, because I'm keen to explore some creativity with words. Some days I may use both fabric and words, some days I may do just one. My creativity, my rules.