Week 2 Story: Nukes

Picture source

"Holy cow!" said Rob as his eyes hungrily read the digital article in front of him, "Donald Trump nukes Russia!"

He couldn't believe his eyes. His mind raced over what this meant. Did Trump really just plunge the world into chaos. Rob's nervous hand runs through locks of hair as he considers how his life would be affected. He had to tell someone.

"Trump nuked Russia!"

Rob was standing fanatically in the door way of his best friend Jeff's house.

"What?" Jeff said half-heartedly, head buried in his phone screen. His fingers typed away busily, he was always plugged in.

"Trump nuked Rus..." Rob is interrupted by a soft ding from his pocket. As he pulls his phone out he begins talking, "You tagged me in a post?"

Rob eyes the post, a ten paragraph rant on the American situation concluded by the terrifying News of Russia's demise.

"You wrote that quick."

Jeff replies with a half shrug, still not looking up.

The doorbell rings, Rob quickly opens the door.

"Is it true?"

The gossip of the town, Sarah Tupper, stood at the door, notebook ready for an answer.

"Of course!" Rob was insulted at the doubt.

"O. M. G." Sarah walked away, content that she had the new scoop to share with her friends.

The next hour was a blur. Worry and fear permeated Rob's small town, news travels fast after all.

Rob takes his phone out. He had to read the article again. As he opened the article he sees something he missed the first time.

A little above the provocative title was the name of the website, unseen before, but painfully obvious now.

The article had been written by the onion.




Author's note: the original story of this was the timid Rabbit, the story of a rabbit who freaks out over nothing and subsequently freaks out his entire community. The moral of that story was to not let yourself be scared at every little fright, with an undercurrent of "check your sources". My version of the story leans far more heavily on the secondary message.

Jataka Takes by Ellen C Babbitt. Digital sourceDigital Source.

Reading Notes: Jataka Anthology

Young Hare, a watercolour, 1502, by Albrecht Dürer. Source

The foolish, Timid Rabbit: thoughts

As the first story I read this helps me get a feeling of how the rest of them will be. They remind me a lot of parables like in the Jewish and Christian faith.

This particular story is a great example of a parable. It is a story that works to convey a moral message to the audience. In this stories case that message appears to be, don't freak out over something you don't understand. You are supposed to see this from the main character, the rabbit. I feel like there is a stronger message to be gained from the rest of the characters however. I feel like there is an undercurrent of "check your sources" or "don't rely on blind faith". I wish the story had focused on a different character to get these stronger messages across better.

That being said I did enjoy it, it is a story that got me thinking about my own life and that really is its goal.

The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart: Thoughts

This story like the last is a parable. Almost a retelling at times of "The grass is always greener on the other side", the story definitely ventures to say that you should be satisfied with what you have.

The story telling in this one and the last one both strike me in that the audience is privy to all knowledge of the "evil". The dangers are always known in the stories and what we are left to find out is how the "good" will overcome them. As a device this gives the audience a feeling of omniscience in the world and makes the good seem far more clever for overcoming the bad.

Reading Options

Wow...
It actually blows my mind how many forms these stories have taken over the years. it shouldn't be a surprise given India's population, but still, I had no idea.

Personally I'm very interested in the modern day style telling of the stories available on the kindles. I'll be at the library most days I'm working on this homework anyway, so it'll work out perfectly.

As far as the "second pass through weeks", I don't quite know what I'll do yet, i'm leaning towards the comics or animation because it would be such a different style and really help me get a grasp on these stories.

Some of the options for the second half of semester that particularly interested me are:

          The music: I am always listening to music in my free time, so I feel like this will be one of the more accessible ways for me to learn the stories.

         The comic books (like this one): I used to love comic books as a kid, and I have a feeling I will be able to visualize the fantastical stories told in this form better.

         The art (like this one): As some one who studies art as his career, it interests me to see how other cultures art appears to the western eye. The image below intrigues me a lot beyond just artistic merit, its subject matter at first appears bizarre and mystical.

Source. Parvati and Baby Ganesha

Time Strategies

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Time Management has always been.... an issue for me. I definitely have the mindset of "never do now what you can do later" more often than I would care to admit. Largely this doesn't come back to bite me (hence the habits continuation) but every once and a while my sleep schedule takes a serious blow that temporarily makes me regret my poor decisions. I usually come back to my procrastination though.

The Psychology of Checklists:
This article was cool. I mean that in the basest sense of the word, I thought that it was very interesting all the different psychological aspects to the simple use of breaking down a task into simpler easier pieces. In a kinda meta way it's the same way that breaking articles into sections make them more approachable at first glance than one large section and even more focused, how paragraphs make large blocks of texts more approachable.

Four Questions to Help You Overcome Procrastination:

This article was.... Almost exactly what I was expecting. teachers and parents and generally a lot of people will talk to you about procrastination and the first three questions addressed were the typical 'how can I make this easier' tips that sort of help but don't really. The fourth question however was something that I hadn't heard before and I really think it's a good suggestion. Think of the consequences of  procrastinating right now, will it hurt you. See procrastination gets a bad rep in my opinion. I see no good reason why the very first moment you can do something is any better than somewhere in the middle. 

There are plenty of good reasons to put something off for a day or so. I may just be perpetuating my own bad habits, but that's the insidious thing about bad habits, they encourage themselves.

Website technology

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I'm excited to learn all of the different things we can do using the various website building tools that we have been shown. It is incredibly useful to have it all conglomerated into one place.

These tools aren't only useful in this class though. Website building is an extremely aught after too that almost every company or corporation needs and these tools are the building blocks. I actually really want to start my own personal blog after or during this class. I quite enjoy the idea of putting my thoughts on subjects that matter to me down in this kind of format. 

It's almost like a digital diary.

Thoughts on the structure of assignments

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I really like how this classes's assignments and grading is structured. My extra credit opportunities are especially nice as during production weeks in my film classes I rarely have any free time at all and as such it'll be nice to know that an assignment or two can slip through the floorboards and the house won't catch on fire.

I think the idea of commenting in people's blogs will be nice, it'll create a unique little online community among our class that I don't think I personally have ever encountered before.

I'm excited, this class seems like it will be fun rather than stressful as many of my previous gen-eds have been.

The Growth Mindset and Failure

Something most people don't think about. Source

As a filmmaker I am constantly making new projects and unlike with many other educational disciplines, it is actively encouraged that you compare you work to the work of those in the world around you. As such I have had my share of "I'm not good enough" feelings.

before watching these video I had never heard about the growth mindset. But after hearing about it I realize that it is exactly what I have and what helps me stand out in the crowd of other film students. Unlike many of my friends who will get disheartened and give up when their work doesn't live up to their own standards they expected to meet, I have always been under the assumption that I am not done yet. I have not made my best film. I am just now getting started. It's funny to think that less than 2 years ago I had never made a film, but now I can easily see the rapid progress I have made and I can extend that line into the future of my career and it looks promising.

I love the idea of the growth mindset, because too often we are focused on the immediate now and don't see the future, don't see what we need to do to be like our idols. Few succeed on their first try, but many never take a second. I don't want to be that kind of person. I want to be the kind of person who knows the future still has so much in store for me.

Introduction to me, a blossoming filmmaker

An image of me acting in one of my short films.

My name is Joshua Walquist and I am a filmmaker... Sorta.

I am a filmmaker in the sense that I have indeed made films. They are, however, short films and I am still studying the art. I am currently studying film and media studies at the University of Oklahoma as a senior. My goal as a film making student is to bridge the gap between theory and practice that is created by school systems.

Let me explain. 

The University of Oklahoma has two different degrees that are "film making," Film and Media Studies and Creative Media Productions. The former is in the Arts and Sciences college while the latter is housed in Gaylord. FMS is a degree that at it's core teaches you about how to intelligently discuss film theory and how it applies to different steps in the process. this degree is however lacking a production element, in fact only a handful of students in my capstone course have ever attempted to make a serious short film at all. CMP is where all the production classes are. You can learn every aspect of technical production in that college. They however do not have even a rudimentary understanding of the theory behind framing, story writing, etc.

I have always been the kind of person who takes elements from one topic and applies them to another. This rift in film learning has allowed me the chance to apply this to my career.

You may notice that I haven't really touched on many other aspects of my life yet... That's really because they often seem overshadowed by my film making. It is my life and my passion. I am constantly thinking about what I will make next, what stories I will tell.

I have very supportive friends both inside and outside of film. My roommates all study engineering while me and my girlfriend both study film. They are from an entirely different world than us, but I am able to connect to them because I actually studied biochemistry for a few years here at OU before switching to film.

Film is my work and my dream and I hope one day to be able to make something others will enjoy.

Examining some of my storybook favorites

Elephants of Indian Epics

This collection of story interested me from the very first glance at the title. I have always loved animals, and elephants are one of those animals that always seemed larger than life. It's no wonder there are so many legends about them. Personally I have never heard any of them but I know that elephants have always been an important part of Indian culture, so I was immediately interested to read them. I wasn't disappointed either, the stories were well written and I thought the framing narrative the author used was intriguing enough to keep my attention. I especially liked how this page and it's links were laid out, there are elephants plastering the background and they add a very nice aesthetic to the whole page.

A very festive elephant. Photo credit to "sowrirajan s"

The Story of Hanuman

I have never heard of Hanuman before this, that isn't really a surprise given my rather lacking background on the subject. That might be obvious, but I thought it'd be important to mention that what drew me to this story was not any familiarity with the subject, but an intense curiosity with the image below found on it's introduction page. This really goes to show how an eye catching visual can snag the attention of anyone. The storybook did not let me down. The character of Hanuman lives up to his wild picture while also being much more, I especially found the story of the ripe sun being a mango entertaining.

The image mentioned above. Originally from Wikipedia commons

The Brahmazing Race

I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for puns. This set of stories caught my attention because of the title. This one had a very... unique set up to the rest of the stories. The idea that the creator of the world is narrating them for us is kinda humorous and matches the tone of the title well. This blog is the only one so far where I actually found the author's notes useful because it was interesting to read about how they came up with such an interesting way to present what are in themselves interesting stories.

Kardamili - My Favorite Place

A wide view of the beautiful city of Kardamili, Greece. (Wikipedia Commons)

This last summer I had the wonderful opportunity to travel around the country of Greece. I went all over, from the capital city of Athens, to the small island of Kea. Despite the vastness and grandeur of Athens my favorite city that we visited was Kardamili.

Kardamili is a rather small town located on the southern coast of Greece. What makes this town unique however is the way it combines two very different archetypes for a town. Because of the geography of the area, the nearby mountain range meets the sea abruptly. This creates a wonderfully unique place where you can hike among trees and enjoy the mountain town aesthetic while simultaneously being able to go for a swim in the Ionian sea.

I thoroughly enjoyed the couple of days I stayed here. The restaurants nearly all have seating where the sea water can lazily wave over your feet as you enjoy fish caught that very same day.

Greece is known as the country of ruins and history, but it has so much more to offer to visitors looking for a relaxing vacation.

Photos I took while staying in Kardamili during the summer of 2017.

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I'm going down the road towards tiny cities made of ashes.