#process journal

Number of Pages so far: Unmeasurable they all blend together | Number of tea bags so far: 3 | Soundtrack of my madness: The Last of Us, video game soundtrack album

9.10. I was supposed to write this at the start of research poject and not at the end. I mean its how other people do it right? I am writing this because I am in a haze and I never felt so good but maybe thats just the tea fumes. In all honesty, I just woke up from a POWER nap and I feel like I can tackle this sun of a beech paper right now. I feel like I can do it. I mean submission is like in a few hours and I have another class in the evening. All in all, this past week has been discovering late night study with me livestreams in youtube.

I lost a few hours (days) to the mindless beauty of knowledge acquisition. You get into the groove. You write your fucking zettel cards and you collect and have fun and then you realize...

The essay has a clear structure and necessary requirements. It's not a PHENOMENA STUDY. I felt so dumb. I did take a small break to watch horror videos and go through my fat stack of zettel cards and realize THEY DID THEIR EFFIN JOB and I didn't really need to look for more because the links are present. Thank you, past me. I appreciate your hunger. Your greed.

I'll try and finish before the 13.30 and submit it! I want to take a bath then sleep and then read some requirements. Then vacuum the room because the past week of research has made it hard for me to take care of life. I think the cuttings in my room is dying??? i vaguely remember putting old tea bags inside. Because it's good for it, right? Might change water later.

Creativity is one of the few things I truly depend on to get me through different aspects of my life. Whether it’s rearranging my room to better my head space or using my critical thinking skills to solve a problem at work, I realized that it has NEVER failed me. Even when I have failed, a lesson is almost always learned and that usually pushes me to think more creatively and truly push my boundaries. To me, creativity is to challenge yourself to unlock different levels of your imagination while going the extra mile to bring your imagination to real life. 

I did not always consider myself to be a “creative individual”. Most of my life has been dedicated to science, where we have to follow strict procedures and protocols. I always felt like my ability to be creative had to be restricted if I wanted to stay in this field, but I was wrong. I learned that I can still be passionate and involved with science and still exercise my creativity, I was just in the wrong environment to do so. As creators, it is important that we place ourselves in the right environment, whether it is our work space or even the type of work/job position that we hold. For example, I currently work in a lab setting where we follow standard operating procedures. Everything is so restricted from the way I have my desk arranged to colors of pen we are allowed to use. To me, this is not the ideal environment for someone who truly values creativity so I feel that I need to take initiative to change the type of work that I do so that I can thrive in a creative environment. 

I decided to continue my recipe book project in Spring Quarter.  I didn’t get anywhere near where I wanted with typography.  

Keep a process journal.

When it comes time for a critique, there is a good chance that you’re going to give your presentation talking about your most recent model/iteration and the iteration before it. There’s also a good chance that one of the jurors is going to ask about the origin of your project: “where did this action come from? Why this and not this?” And if you’re like me, there’s a good chance you’re going to blank on everything. 

Not everyone will have that issue, some people are able to answer that question immediately, and can draw connections at a moment’s notice. I am not that person. 

There are three main things I keep in my process notes: 

1. Critique notes: Pretty much anything said during my critiques, I write it down, both good and bad. These kinds of notes give me launching points for the next phases of each project.

2. Planning Notes: I generally write these out right after a critique (once my desk is clean, of course). With these, I take a look at my previous work, my critique notes, and come up with a plan of action for the next iteration of the project. Sometimes I include little diagrams, showing what parts of previous models I want to keep, and which ones I need to alter. 

I’ve personally included my process journal right within my bullet journal, so there’s also a couple pages I put at the end of it where I can write down different works that I feel I could use for inspiration in my own future work.