Journal 54: Literature and Death

Literature may be a way to overcome death but I do not believe it to the only way. You can be an actor and the movies you leave behind for future generations will be what over comes death. For artists their art work overcomes death. Literature is only one of many ways to overcome death. Even in the quote where the father is troubled after a show, wouldn't he be troubled after publishing a novel, and the book signings are over? Now a days theater plays are recorded and appreciate by those who watch it in years to come. Everything can allow a person's character or achievement overcome death. I myself find it more satisfactory to work on a piece of art but when I complete it I will a sense of accomplishment and pride. Knowing that my work in school would be shown to the freshman and sophomore of the years to come allows me to live on in the school even after I leave off to college. Maybe one day when I decide to come back and visit the students will recognize my name but not my face. That is what I think about over coming death. It no longer has to be just in literature that it can be achieved but in art, film, dance, or song.

Journal 53: Reasoning and Insight

I believe that in sight is of the most important far more important that rigor. Many things in the world are found through experimentation that follow no restrictions. Rigor restricts people from discovering new things. Even though it is important at time to avoid mistake. However that is only for things that are already complete and need no improvement. Insight allows people to express what they feel and what their perspective is. In the sciences and in art insight and innovation come hand in hand. If art was restricted there would be no Picasso, no Van Gogh, and no Salvador Dali. None of the great innovators in art would be viewed as great artist they would be viewed as trash artists who wouldn't follow rigor. Art principles are in no relation to any type of rigor, far away from that. Art is as liberal and insightful as you can get and only then are there great influential figures such as Andy Warhol. If I was ever asked to complete an art assignment under strict rules and regulations, I would produce something that is the exact opposite of the rules and go wild on it. Just to make a point that rigor doesn't create art.

Journal 52: Life of Service

Faith and learning can work together since they share similar principals. Even though I am not a religious person  I still have faith. I have faith in ideals that I believe in and faith in people who I love. To have faith in something one must put work into maintaining it. Learning to acquires one to put work into it. Having faith and a learning attitude can get you far in life. You have faith to stand firm with your ideals and have a learning attitude to learn from your mistakes and from others with more knowledge than you do. Learning new things and following your faith to help people around you help you become a better person and also make people like you. In the modern world popularity is very important, but not the kind of popularity of high school. Popularity in the adult world gains you acceptance to jobs and having a good reputation keeps you on the good list instead of the bad list. To do good for others out of your faith and service-learning can help you renew yourself and cleanse yourself of bad things. Learning to follow good faith will make a place for you in society where everyone adores you, the environment would be good for you.

Journal 51: Best Laid PLans

I have always romanticized things that I plan to do. I would dream about exactly how I am going to achieve my goals and believe that it would be the way that things will turn out. However it is hardly ever what I think it will be and never do I learn the lesson. I was assigned to produce a important video for my school. I planned every that I needed to film, when I needed to film it, and of whom I am to ask to participate. Finally the "shooting" week rolls along and the people who I asked to take part of the video slowly show up, only to tell me that they can't make it. My plans are ruined I had to squeeze in time where I had none just to cooperate with the people who are suppose to make time for me, not the other way around. I was really disappointed. What I thought was going to be a breeze with everything going to plan went all wrong and I had to end up  rushing the final product. good thing it turned out alright. I had to work after school on the video and editing took a lot more time that I thought it would have too. Even though I know that romanticizing is bad I still do it because only then would I have the motivation to do something, there is always a chance that things will go as planned.

Journal 50: My World

Asia, Shanghai, Taiwan, and bit and pieces of America, these are the places that make up my still developing world. I have lived in Asia all my life and only visited the United States once in my life for a school trip. Asian culture runs in my blood naturally and along with it is later injected american culture I've received from classmates and teachers in the schools I go to. The country I live in now is were my whole family is from and where I grew up, apart form Shanghai. The people here are as friendly as it gets with the exceptional few, who are arrogant and mean. It has a very stereo typical Asian society in schools and social areas. In schools everyone is super competitive and everyone is focused on their academics. Art students here are seen as children who can't do well in academics and have to choose the path of an artist or designer. However that is not true. Many art students still maintain a high GPA and hold high positions in school clubs and councils. My community is like a little piece of America trapped in a large piece of Asia. Only a selected few know the cultural mix and are like me.

Journal 47: More Art

I haven't yet seen a piece of art that has greatly influenced me in my own work yet. However the ways that some other people work have motivated me to either work as hard as they do or to not slack off like some others. Also I believe that having joined the musical production and getting involved with all parts of the production I have opened my mind a lot more to different forms of art. By piecing the different things that I have taken in from various experiences I create my own style and a larger impact. Each movie I watch now I try to learn something from it. It can be the theme or how they change the atmosphere to best suit what they are trying to portray. From viewing other people's art work I try to learn the techniques they use to create it and also why they created it. I like to take bits and pieces of what I like, change it and then combine it all together and create something new. I don't like living under another artist's shadow I want to stand next to them and see our shadows race. I know that I am far away from any well known artist out there but I'll start small in my own school and slowly expand my range of notability.

Journal 49: What I Am Proud Of

In my life one trait has gotten me past a lot of rough times. The trait is optimism and forgiveness. I am a very optimistic person and I also forgive people easily but know to keep my distance. There are always things in life that go wrong when you least expect it to. The only thing that you can do then is to think to the future forget the pain of the even but remember the lesson. Optimism along with my willingness to forgive allows to move on and laugh it off. Holding grudges and having a gloomy mood all the time is good for no one. People around you can feel it and they tend to leave you along even though you want company. You only get more miserable as you stay gloomy and refuse to let go. I consider myself lucky to have these traits and I try to help others who are lacking these traits. I try to feel happy all the time because it help my performance in all different fields and when i get angry things aren't pretty. That is the one trait I hate the most. I hate it when I loose control and get angry. When I do I feel that I loos control of what my mind and body does. This is another reason why I learned to control myself and let my optimism dominate.

Journal 48: Busy Busy Busy

High school life never stops for you. Everyday new challenges and work awaits you. Sometimes its the same old thing, and some times it surprises you. Rarely are the things that needed to be done something I enjoy. However when ever I am done with the homework needed to be done I have time to sketch and draw. Drawing is something I enjoy a lot. Even though it make take a lot of time to complete a portrait of a favorite celebrity, the end product always gives me a sense of achievement and pride. I start out by searching for interesting images of people and pick out the one that appeals to me the most. I open my old and battered sketch book and open to a new page, blank and ready for a long process of sketching and erasing. The eyes are what I usually start with because I think it one of the main things to pay attention to. By doing the eyes right I can make the whole portrait come alive. The eyes are the windows to the soul after all. then I work my way down the face nose, mouth. Then back up to the eye brows adding more emotion with each subtle curve here and there. No the outline of the head, then hair, and more details. By the end it would have probably taken me a couple of hours to finish. My eyes are aching form staring at the picture and sketch book for too long and my fingers aching from holding the pen or pencil. I sit back and just stare into the eyes of my creation, with a smirk on my face. I feel accomplished.

Journal 46: Art and Life

Art has always been a part of my life but I never got serious until the freshman year of my high school life. In the previous journal I have already explained why I went on the path of art. I like the freedom and I love the feeling of creating pieces of art. I hope the art colleges will clear up my doubts about my profession in art and also lead me to a major I feel confident about. I am 100% certain that I'll be going for an art major but I do not know which major to take. Frankly I want to do a little bit of everything. That is why I hope that during the freshman year I will have opportunities to take as many classes of different fields of art. From before my high school education, art classes were all very routine and planned unlike what I experience and know as art now. It was dull and boring. My high school classes of art made me want more, craved for more. I enjoy feeling of painting a blank canvas with varsities of color to create a image that was in my head. I enjoy the feeling of shaping a piece of shapeless clay into an abstract or realistic image that was in my head. Everything I create comes form me and me only no other influence. Art leaves me with my creativity, making the world my own.

Journal 45: About Myself

People always ask me why I became an art student. Isn't art for people who are poor in the academics? Every time I hear that the first thing I do is wonder why people are so judgmental on art students. Not every art student have poor grades. Only those who have poor grades become art students because they believe its a lot easier. The truth is I feel that it is a lot harder than being an academic student. Why? Because art students take the same required courses normal students do and then they have to make out time from SAT and TOEFL practices to produce their portfolio.
I became an art student not because I had no choice (most who have no choice don't become good art students because they aren't serious about it), I became an art student because I have a deep passion for art. In ninth grade I truly experiences what art was.  I walked into the art room of my new school expecting the same regulated environment of set colors and materials. However I opened the door to the smell of acrylic paint and materials here and there. It felt so free. I fell in love with the environment immediately however that was not the cause of me becoming an art student. It was what I experienced later on in the class. As many people say "once you get a taste of freedom you only want more". Art was like that to me through that class. It was freedom. The freedom to express myself the way I want and the only way for me to acquire more and more freedom through different mediums and materials, 2D to 3D. That is why  I choose art, because it satisfies my want for freedom and it is what makes me happy.