#blogpostseven

In my previous blog posts, I’ve mentioned that I usually do my meal prep on Sunday for Monday through Wednesday. Then on Wednesday, I do my meal prep again for Thursday through Saturday. Some people have no idea where to start or what to cook for their meal prep, so here is a brief overview of my meal prep:

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday:

Breakfast - Egg Muffins (Egg white, mushroom, onion, spinach and some olive oil)

Snack - Baked Chickpeas (I get canned chickpeas. I drain them and add spices such paprika, salt, pepper, cumin, and garlic powder and then place them in the oven.)

Lunch - Edamame spaghetti with lean ground turkey meatballs (For the turkey meatballs, I add spices such as dried oregano, basil, garlic powder, and crushed red pepper flakes. For the sauce, I just use store-bought marinara sauce.)

Snack - Baked sweet potato chips (Cut sweet potato into thin slices, add whatever spices you like, add some olive oil and place them in the oven.)

Dinner - Honey mustard baked chicken with quinoa and boiled broccoli (For the chicken, I use Dijon mustard, wholegrain mustard, honey, salt, pepper, paprika, dash of lemon, and olive oil.)

Lastly, at the end of the day, I usually like to drink green tea before I head to bed.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday:

Breakfast - Protein pancakes (Chocolate protein powder, egg whites, and banana)

Snack - Rx Bar (My favorite protein bar at the moment. I love the coconut chocolate flavor.)

Lunch - Tuna salad (I like to keep it really simple. I add olive oil, lemon, onions, cumin, salt and pepper. On the side, I have one piece of toast.)

Snack - Halo Top Ice Cream (The best ice cream that actually has protein in it!! Favorite flavors are candy bar and cinnamon roll.)

Dinner - Boca vegan burgers (I replace the bread with lettuce. It’s a good substitute if you’re trying to lower your carbs. I usually keep it simple by adding tomatoes, onions, pickles and top it off with ketchup and mustard.)

I don’t like eating the same thing every week, so I try my best to make different meals and add variety to it so that I don’t get bored. Sometimes if I have no idea what to make or want to try something new, I go on YouTube and find “meal prep idea” videos or I just look up recipes on Pinterest. There are so many options that you could choose from! :) 

         The obvious first sentence here should be an introductory sentence.  But if I were to break the rules, it might start something like this: “Lunch is better after I smell my foot fungus.” Now this may seem silly, comical, or even satirical, but let this be a first example to the importance of rules, not only in writing—but in our society.  For this answer to make any sense, I have to follow a set of rules, including diction, grammar, language, punctuation, and syntax, among others.  Similarly, in society we have a set of rules to follow that govern the sensibility of everyday citizens.

         I would argue that rules are put in place to help maintain a society that functions properly. For example, without rules we could drive as fast as our cars allow, or as slow as the soundtrack of our junior high slow dances. For many commuters the ability to drive as fast as they please may sound delightful, except with the ability to drive at different speeds on the freeway it could lead to detrimental accidents happening quite often.  For example, there are 1,601 fatalities per year that take place because a driver ran a red light (Lombardo & Subramanian, 2007) Similarly, there are 1,574 fatalities from drivers who ran stop signs (Lombardo & Subramanian, 2007) and that is just a simple rule in our society.

        Other rules that are put in place to help maintain a functioning society are rules that govern vaccinations. If a child between the ages of 4-6 is put into a public elementary school, they must obtain these shots: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, hepatitis, measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (State Vaccination Requirements, 2015). If they are not given these shots prior to the first day of school they are not allowed to attend.  I believe a rule regarding immunizations in a school environment is absolutely crucial to the well being of our society. These immunizations are what have stopped and what have helped to prevent such immense diseases and epidemics in the world.  Most people are aware of how fast a common cold can spread through a germ infested kindergarteners room, but without vaccinations, polio could spread just as easily.  

        At this point, anyone reading this post would have been able to make sense of the words I have written, thanks to the rules of writing.  In an effort to be a law-abiding writer the only way to properly conclude this entry is with an uplifting quote, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

Lombardo, L., & Subramanian, R. (2007). Analysis of fatal motor vehicle traffic crashes and fatalities at intersections, 1997 to 2004. U.S. Department of Transportation, 8(72), 1-121.

Major Charette

After receiving the brief on Blackboard I did some initial individual brainstorming to see what idea’s I could bring to our first group meeting where our aim was to develop a solid concept.  Firstly, I looked at the restrictions on the task and what we actually had to do and then branched out to make it a unique design.  When looking into unique, experiential dining experiences I found it quite hard to source inspiration as there isn’t a large amount of things that have been done.  The two main sources of inspiration I found was the representation of Australia at Melbourne’s Vue de monde restaurant and interactive, iPad like screen tables in Asian restaurants.  Not feeling real confident on my findings, I headed off to the meeting in hopes that our great team collaboration would kick in again and that we would be able to bounce ideas off one another.

At the team meeting this was successful, bouncing ideas and changing them from initial ideas into a re-iterated concept for our restaurant: GoMA 360. Collaborating with the other group members was a fundamental part of the design process as it allowed ideas to be bounced and elaborated on.  After a great group meeting with Alice, our idea was more focused and professional, enabling us to knuckle down and get the task completed well.

We allocated different tasks to specific group members in order to maintain time efficiency and to use each person’s individual strengths within the task, allocating each person in adherence with what they were good at.  The presentation was broken down into 7 parts: Introduction to GoMA, demographic, preliminary research, our concept, the prototype, marketing and the promotional video.  My key contributions were determining a way to communicate the GoMA 360 concept effectively and all the post-production video aspects. These tasks posed some challenges as well as enjoyment. Creating a succinct version of a detailed, elaborate design concept was something I found challenging. Working with a team helped this challenge immensely as it could be proofed by another three people who knew as much on the topic as I did. This once again highlighted the benefit of collaborate work to me, building on my already developed enjoyment of it.

While every group member wasn’t always able to make it to all of our meetings I feel as though we all contributed to the task equally and worked super well together doing so.  Overall, the experience of the charette really taught me about teamwork, concept iteration and presentation skills.

Watching the group presentations showed a diverse array of responses to the brief.  Many of the concepts were quite similar to one another, revolving their design around the Jacaranda tree.  I definitely liked that ours was different and unique compared to these.  Overall, I think our presentation went really well and as a group we all spoke well and delivered our content successfully.  However, upon reflection, the things we could have improved on were: • Developing a more realistic prototype - This would be difficult as we don’t have the access to projection mapping technologies, yet I think we could have put more effort into what we did have in order for it to display the experience we are striving for more than it did. • Looking further into projection mapping and the technicalities of it so that we could expand on its function and use it to its maximum potential instead of simply using it as an interactive yet flat projection. • Adding more to the concept - Our tables were well developed and explained, and whilst restricted by time making it harder to add more into the presentation, I think we could have developed our concept a little further perhaps with extended projection mapping as explained before.

Changes in the Self as a Designer

How has the definition of design changed for you this semester? Design has remained rather the same in regard to definition to me from the beginning of the semester; I still believe it uses creative thinking and application to portray a message; be it culturally symbolic or simply beauty.  However, my knowledge, appreciation and approach to design has changed - I’ve learnt the thought process behind design and how much effort, thought and iteration go into each element that is included in the design; be it a logo or an apartment building.  

What risks have you taken this semester? How did they happen? What was something that challenged you? I don’t feel as if I’ve taken any significantly memorable ‘risks’ in regard to DXB101, however different things have challenged me throughout the semester.  As I didn’t do any design subjects at school (they weren’t offered at my smaller school) learning the process of design and it’s difference to what I believed it to be was a bit of a shift.  Design and Creative thinking tutorials were very ‘shared’ in regard to sharing your work and showing it to the whole group, and being someone who hasn’t done this previously I’m quite self conscious of my work.  I’ve never been an outgoing, speak up in class person, however, doing this unit has changed my mindset to not be apprehensive of my work and opinions in class discussions.  After sharing this with the tutorial in reflection, Andy said about how his mindset has changed from when he began his course, developing from self-consciousness to being able to talk about his work for ages, as it’s his work that he has worked hard on and loves.  Growing to develop this mindset is something I’d love to do.

In five years time, what is something you want to have done in your Design and Creative Thinking practises? In five years time, I would like to be working with non-traditional technology in an aim to change society’s social dependence on technology.  I personally dislike how dependent I know I am on technology in regard to social interaction and would love to ideate a type of technology that encourages real life social interaction rather than text on a screen.  However, I also believe that doing the bachelor of IVD will teach me countless new forms of design expression that I will be interested in and potentially want to peruse over the previous idea.  I’d also love to be working or getting experience overseas, possibly in England, America or Japan.