Wiki Happiness

"Satisfaction with Life Index Map - Map has no authentic source. Map coloured according to The World Map of Happiness, Adrian White, Analytic Social Psychologist, University of Leicester.
green = happiest
blue
purple
orange
red = least happy"

...Haha, Canada is the happiest in the world & the U.S. is second?!

Wiki Happiness

um, dois, tres, quatro, cinco, seis, sete, oito, nove, dez, onze, doze, treze, catorze, quinze, dezasseis, dezassete, dezoito, dezanove, vinte

talking to someone

can be a breath of fresh air
especially when you are down

i got a lot of backed up stuff
i still gotta write about my yoga ashram trip
and my latest painting class
(i'm no yuppie)

lots of deep stuff has been entering my mind
and it leaves
and it leaves

just like the leafs on the trees

so this weekend i've been doing my spring cleaning a little
early
it is hard work
will i finish tonight?
as spiderman said in spiderman 2
'strong focus on what i want
strong focus on what i want'
hehe, then he jumps and falls over himself
this is when he was losing his powers
gee, i hope the remake of the hulk
is a good one
although i unlike others
did appreciate the first one

k back to work

having lots of stuff around you that you don't care about
creates this hidden psychic tension
diverts your energy and focus
\peace
remind me to talk of what's been going on lately
lots of backed up stuff

talking to someone
can be a breath of fresh air
especially when you are down

1000 ants

make the first step.
and on the second,
a thousand ants
will carry you.

painting 2

so today's class
there was a new nude
and a new student
i was late again unfortunately (i tried)
but i still got a good rough drawing out
the teach said it was good and would make a good composition
so i remade it on the canvas
...i got a lot done
painting the background basically...
for the next three weeks, we'll be working with this nude.
& i'll be filling up the details.

and now that i got all the right tools.
i realize i have to learn
1. better color mixing technique
2. filling in opaque color
3. scratching out clear definitive lines with paint

also, i need a palette knife, more assortments of blues and a nice crimson.

"Don't think about all the things you fear... just be glad to be here!"

we step back

she steps forward one
and i step forward two
she steps back three
and i step back twenty
she proceeds sixteen
and i proceed eleven
she steps back thirty five
and i step back too...
until our backs finally
meet each other

painting is fun (as hell)

painting is fun
painting is fun
painting is fun (as hell)
can i get a hell yah?!
hell yahhh
painting is fun

yesterday in the saga
instructor told me everything i'm doing is wrong
"this isn't kindergarten"
told me to get the painting supplies of a painter
why'd he tell me this : 'cause to save some cash, i brought my old rusty painting
set
a few weak brushes and some small portions of colors haha
i was like beforehand, telling myself
why go get broke buying some more paint now
lemme just use these "kindergarten" thingies
but jyeah
he asked another student if they could lend me some paint
also introduced me to the acrylic medium
oooh wah
i tell you when i put it down on the canvas
it was like a new awakening
oh the possibilities
oh the sensation i cant describe
like an instant inner peace

so jyeah, 100% here now - i'm gonna get some real supplies
and start to paint like a painter

instructor's advice:
> get lots of color
- don't eget tubes, get jars of paint!
get a wide assortment, don't need too much black
need lots of white (i'm offended, hehe)
need lots of blues, earth tones, light color
get a variety of each color
yeah lots and lots of color!

> get a paper pallette
the bigger the better - cause it's gonna get messy.
need to splatter and spread and blend paint - lots of it.

> get some good brushes
invest in some good brushes! it's worth it. he didn't tell me this directly, overheard him talking to another student.

hmm, i like this guy! you know why painting is such a good meditation? it forces you to see life as it is, not what you imagine. and when you see life as it is, you realize that it is way more than what you imagined actually -- which in turn, improves your imagination. after all, we live in nature, we cannot go against it , no matter how we try. there are so many surfaces and so much depth in life. it's wonderful.

breaking things down into their basic shapes:
we've been learning how to "see" in class. that is, basically, how to put together a composition. well, observing the figure: no matter what position you are in the room, you can see the four walls, the other students around you, the floor, and the inhabiting objects.
where to begin is the hardest part for me. not just in painting, but in life. haha, as a side note - i ran across this quote: "i'm like a mosquito in a nudist camp. i know what i want, but i don't know where to start"... but precisely where you start in the painting is the nude, the subject of your piece. i.e., what you want to stand out the most. aha, so i started from the figure, her toes - to her head - and back to her toes. i drew the silhouette using tiny curvilinear shapes.
once i can start to see the nude emerge on the page, then i have to map relationships of space from the figure: how big and what direction to make each thing is what it comes down to. this forces you to stare for a long time. you look at it some more, draw something, then you're like "nah, that's not quite right". you do it again. ahh... i love it.

instructor says think space: foreground, background, the floor, the vertical, the horizontal, and the curve.

think light: watch the reflections around the room and what tales they have to tell.
the blue blanket the nude was lying on was causing the edge of her white skin to look orange. did i notice this? heck no.

Web2.0 and beyond

this video is ill:

capoeira log 2

this won't be very detailed like the last one. today we did basically the same as last class. i'll just mention the sequencia:

right leg back - step forward, meia lua de frente - esquiva lateral - descida - negativa - quick get up - jinga left - armada - quexada left - quexada right

everyone seemed kinda tired today, so Mestre went kind of easy on us.

Joke for geeks

from xkcd.com:

capoeira log 1

we learn such funky sequences in class. for a long time now, i've been saying i should record them. then i change my mind. see, because i question if it will make me less spontaneous in the roda. however, i just can't fight the feeling 'cause i want to remember everything i learn. so here is capoeira log 1. Nothing fancy, I will just go over what we did in each class. The class I'm recording now is M 2/4/05 (6:30-8pm). I should do this for my painting class too.. i'm getting ahead of myself. anyhoo, here goes:

conditioning:
maybe another log, i'll go into our Monday conditioning routine, cause of a lot of it we repeat. what we did differently this time, is a type of crunch. we would crunch from superman position (lying on our backs, our arms straight out), grab our legs, negativa to the left, go straight into jinga position, switch jinga then lie back down into superman.

sequencia:
1. right leg back - esquiva lateral - descida - negativa - [quick get up] (*note to self: find out name for this) - esquiva left - esquiva right - negativa
- switch leg, repeat.

2. left leg back - esquiva lateral - right leg back - quiexada - jump into rasteira -
rasteira turns quickly into queda de rins - negativa on left - [quick get up] - esquiva left - esquiva right - jinga left - jinga right.
- switch leg, repeat.

3. same as 2, but instead of the last jinga, go straight into meia-lua de compasso.

practice:
we practiced au se mao. Little foam sticks were laid out one in front of another, with equal space in between. from the parallel position (left leg facing the first foam stick), we were meant to fling our heads first (swinging out our arms to get momentum and balance), then kicking the right leg straight out into the air, left leg follows and we land in the same parallel position between the next stick and repeat.
thank goodness for youtube, here is a clip of how it is supposed to look:


after we got through the sticks we had to practice au de cabeza back to the starting position. from parallel position, we grab the floor, put our heads on it and do a short au back into parallel.

roda:
roda was action-packed as usual. Mestre was nice to watch. i favor a lot of his movements. like he goes into au, stops into handstand, goes unto the head, then shoots back into the same direction he started into parallel. wow, it's like every class he changes his style, and he's always surprising you with new moves. today, he would fake that sweep thing you do before the S-dobrado. he faked, spinned around then did that funky au where you invert forward in the air into a front flip. he did that a few times. + he did that sweeper into that flying spin kick (gotta look up the name for this). he's usually so fast, other people can barely move in the roda with him... towards the end, Mestre closed in the roda, so that we we're all standing really close to each other. no one was fighting at this point. and then by Mestre's command, the singing, clapping, instrumentation grew at a fever pitch. 4...3...2...1....ay! class was over!


the previous class:
i can't tell you in so much detail now as the class i just had, but we practiced doing short aus and fake short aus combined with negativa. you know like from parallel go as if you are going into a short au, but stop half way, then do that to the other side, then quickly do an au for real - that's what i mean by fake au... but then we would tilt slightly and land in a negativa at the last step. yeah, we did that a lot. even practiced the fake aus from one end of the gym to another. we looked like bears kicking backwards basically.

we also did practice the animal movements. the sapu? (frog) - crouched like a frog, you hop like a frog; caranguejo (crab) - similar to a bridge position, you walk backwards like this; urso (bear) - legs spread apart, both hands straight on the floor, you walk like a bear; jacare (alligator) - your chest almost flat on the floor, arms bent, legs bent, you walk like an alligator; serpente (snake) - looks just like the stretching position you do after crunches; aguia (eagle) - one leg straight out in the air behind you like superman, the arms flapping as wings. these animal movements are fun, and i want to begin to use them more in the roda. in the roda, everyone naturally, was practicing their (fake)/short aus a lot. i want to see a lot more of the animal movements though - some don't seem practical like serpente and aguia, but the others are (at least funny/fun).

also we had practice work with the instruments, even though i only got to play the agogo. i got caught leading the songs, and whoops, my secret was revealed - that i didn't learn any of them yet, and i did horribly... My mestre was like sing Bob Marley, trying to lighten the situado.

\- wow, i didn't mean for this to get so long. but i like the way it went, so there will be no doubt, some other capoeira logs. -/

rain.sunset.childhood kites

and mountain trees. caterpillars

what's going on lately?

my head's a little unwell, but overall i'm a little better... the other day, took a while to try to mindmap everything i'm feeling visually. it isn't perfect but sums it up well. remind me to look at it everytime i forget myself.


different note: finally enrolled in a painting course at SVA. it is pretty nice to finally take some time and develop my skills. what i like about this course is there is a lot of personal attn. and the class size is small. i'm beginning to feel like an artist already. the instructor says to "draw everyday". something i have been putting off for a while. i know he's right. i'm a little rusty. by the time, i would start to get a reasonable sketch down of the nude model, she would get up for her 20 minute break. haha. the instructor whispered to me a little secret, "the pencil won't hurt the paper"!