User:Emilyszarek

=Freshman Seminar=

Always Wanted To Schedule

 * Topic

To be the star in my very own music video. To lose 10 lbs or 5" by the end of the quarter, a partial goal towards my loss of 100lbs total.
 * Research Component

How to make a music video, along with the history of the music video. Weight issues, fat acceptance, my own history.


 * week 1

Assess my diet, lifestyle and desires in this project.


 * week 2

Create an exersize and diet plan that is condusive to my lifestyle. Begin the diet, charts and logs.


 * week 3

Work out at least 2 times for 30 minutes, maintain a food and calorie log. Begin research, hone in on certain subjects.


 * week 4

Begin research on weight managment and body dysmorphia. Health vs. appearance. Continue on diet and bump exersize requirements to at least 3 times a week.


 * week 5

Continue research on diet industry. Ramp up exersize to 4 times a week.


 * week 6

Continue diet and exersize, begin paper/powerpoint on diet


 * week 7

Finalize research paper, attempt 5x a week exersize. Track goals and compare self from the beginning.
 * week 8

ta daaa Final due.

Midterm Assignment 1: Taste & Aesthetics
Find something I don’t like about the Olympic sculpture park. Well, you can safely assume I’m pretty intent on writing this here and now, as I’m stuck in a computer lab at AI working on a Macintosh…or rather suffering on a Macintosh. I don’t like them, either….however I believe that stems from me not understanding them, or their wacky and fairly useless one button mouse.

I have been to the sculpture park only twice. Once on accident in the evening of a chilly autumn day and once on purpose, to really see if there was anything worth my admiration there. Coincidentally, I have also only visited SAM proper twice. Once to buy my father a Frank Lloyd Wright tie, and once to see what all the hub-ub was about. I did not however attend the field trip we took, as I was not feeling so well that day, and I have selected to opt out of revisiting that place for the time being, so that I could really focus my dislike based in my memories of it.

Cheesy. The sculpture park is goofy, cheesy, pretentious and bare. I find it neither relaxing nor inviting. I see it as a misused piece of property that Seattle has wasted time on, and furthermore I am disappointed that it has made the waterfront street car turn into a bus rather than a cool old timey trolley. Sure, each piece was perhaps lovingly hand crafted into what we see before us today, but artistic value and pain aside, I can only see the baron wasteland that reminds me of office parks with small plots of land injected into them, wilting pansies frowning towards the earth, begging to be in an open meadow. The art there all seems cold, unforgiving and stagnant. Concrete and metal in shades of monotone-monolithing above us like dead giants. I’m quite positive that even though during my one visit there I spent about two hours observing everything the park had to offer, I have blocked out most of my trip and am avidly trying not to recall those lost parts.

To me—an art park features life, color, the surprise of something magnificent hiding amongst a maze of bushes. Animals flock to this refuge, and people can find peace amongst the offerings laid out. Clear, open bodies of water provide a meditative aquatic vision in which one can sooth themselves from daily stresses. It is a place one walks through in the hopes to escape from the rape of everyday life. It is a haven with shade and secret caverns of art and nature, somewhere that even upon recollection makes you smile immediately.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to appreciate the sculpture park—and the more benevolent side of me probably will at one point. However I am incredibly hard pressed to find it as anything more than a horrifically flashy display put on by Seattle to show the world that it’s more than Nirvana and Starbucks. Seattle has shown, in my opinion, with this sculpture park that we as a city are so terribly divided by our tastes that we might as well just break off into two entirely different cities—one comprised of people who are actually artists, and one of people who just think they are. So many public displays in Seattle are ill attended or weak due to lack of notice or funding, and yet there’s the sculpture park, a multi-million dollar lump on the skull of Seattle.

I suppose that I could sum up my feelings like this. Seattle is a person, and that person was starving. The Olympic sculpture park was a quadruple processed flavorless ‘meal’ bar that not even third world countrymen would be pleased to ingest. It satisfies the need, but none of the desire.

Midterm Assignment 2: Manipulation


It's everywhere, all the time. People, print ads, advertisements, all promising you will be in love with yourself once you are exactly the opposite of what you are right now. Thinner, taller, prettier, richer, more powerful....the list goes on and on. Occasionally you're right in believing them, I bought an 'as seen on tv' pet hair remover that really does pick off every one of those little orange fuzzies my cat leaves on me all the time. But how about the millions and millions of people who buy the crap that doesn't really do what it says?

My "always wanted to" project is dealing with these things on some level, and I've briefly wandered into the mind boggling world of online diet scams....but the funny thing is, I believe them. Of course I believe them because I'm a bit more of an in depth thinker than many of the 'get thin quick' types.

The Tony Little Gazelle, for example. It's a goofy thing, made out of cheap plastic and metal bits. But Tony swears by it, and so do the ladies he's got helping him in those videos. Now, don't get me wrong... I know that by itself, sitting alone in my back bedroom, the Tony Little Gazelle won't get me to the firm butt of my dreams. But if I (GASP) diet and actually USE the gazelle, I might lose a ton of weight. I know, because I've done it. I lost about 80lbs in 6 months once by eating less and moving more. It's this really simply method that usually irritates people. They want to gobble down a bag of baked cheetos and sip their diet coke and all of the sudden be Lindsay Lohan thin. Well, sorry, it doesn't work that way.

How do I know?

Because one fine day I stopped using my gazelle, and I started eating whatever I want in whatever quantities I wanted any time that I wanted. And guess what, I got fat again.

So I don't necessarily think that there are issues with WHAT is sold these days, but how we look at whats sold. How we interpret the item or service we've purchased. I can't say that about every bit of snake oil out there, but you get the picture.

PS: I ended up in physical therapy this past Tuesday, hence my absence from the entire class. I've been pretty depressed too since the accident, because I'm in the second year of dealing with another accident claim that's fairly similar to this one....and I'm tired....In any event, I'm sorry to have missed it, as I'm sure our class came up with some interesting points on this subject. Thanks again for your understanding!

Midterm Assignment 3: Always Wanted To Progress Report (100 words or so)
UGHHHHH.

I was really hoping to have the ability to do something more interesting than losing my gut... however I think that in my final presentation I may be able to have some fun... I'm doing ok with my project however. I've been ramping up on it, and life has forced me to change my plans a little bit, "Thanks, car accdident!" but all in all I think I'll have a neato presentation in the end. I guess I wish that I was able to do something I REALLY always wanted to for this, but there was just too much going on in my life to really explore that... I did get to do some neat stuff this quarter though, just nothing that falls into the realm of this project and it's subject. I guess I'm happy with where my project is, just mostly dissappointed in how boring my subject is/was.

Final Presentation

 * Topic (10%)

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 * Research (20%)

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 * 1) Internet site:
 * 2) Book:
 * 3) Scholarly Journal:
 * 4) Other (interview, TV show,etc):


 * Your accomplishment (20%)

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 * Project Review (50%)
 * 1)What went well
 * 2)What went poorly
 * 3)Future strategies