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I can't let you in.

I feel like i have a protective shell around me.
Im on the inside ready to come out and explore, ready to move into a bigger shell
But my shell is on the outside not ready to open, not ready to let me go.
I feel like my shell is trying to protect me from going out and finding heart break
From letting something in to break my heart
At times i feel like im ready to open my shell to you
But my shell is too afraid of what you will do
So if at times you think im too shy or afraid to let you in
its because my shell has been broken before
Every time it breaks it gets stronger
My shell is as strong as it can be
Its not ready to open or trust, there's no way for you to get in
there's no way for me to get out
its too strong to fight all at once.

Boys Like Girls - Thunder

A little goes a long way.

Every time i see you, my heart beats a little bit faster.
Every time i feel you looking at me, my smile gets a little bit bigger.
Every time you talk to me, my day gets a little bit brighter.
Every time i think about you, my mind goes a little bit crazy.
Every time you make me laugh, my spirit gets a little bit happier.
Every time i watch you walk away from me, my sould gets a little bit sadder.
You change me little by little and in the end, you make me a little bit haapier.
When you told me you loved me, Every thing around me stopped.
You were all i could think of, all i could see.
All i could do was say I love you too.

Do you have what it takes?

There are certain traits that can be found in creative people, I'm willing to bet that at least one of these traits can be found in you. One of these many traits that I have, is that i can find order in chaos. I'm able to be put in the craziest situation, stay calm, and make something out of it. I know a lot of people that will freak out ,and go crazy yelling at everybody and everything that's in their way. I don't see that point in that. I just trust myself and trust that everything will be okay and that all i have to do is look a things from a new point of view.

These past few weeks i learned that i have good perseverance. When i start something i always keep going. I almost always get sidetracked whether I might be trying to understand or study some thing that is really complicated, or i might think that somebody else is doing better then me, i might also be working on a certain project that may not be going well. At first i start to think negative, I become ready to give up,but i always keep going. I think this is a huge part of perseverance, getting through the side tracks. I just keep pushing on and on, because I'm getting closer to the finish line. At the end, as you're crossing that line, it's all worth it.

I feel like I have a lot of Independence in judgement. To me this means that I don't base most of my decisions on everybody else's opinions. I get advice from my friends, but at the end the decision is mine. The decision may be the exact opposite of what everybody else said, and everybody may disagree. I think that i can trust myself to go not with what everybody else decides for me, but with what i want and what makes me happy.

Be Free!

You can't truly be creative until you kick out that judge. The judge is the big ,scary,thing that's always breathing down your neck. It may be that disapproving look from your teacher, or the judge may actually be you judging yourself. Either way that judge is watching your every move and trying to nitpick every little detail you try and create. The judge keeps you from trying to open up and take risks because it makes you feel that everything you create is a stupid mistake.

During the creative process, the judge has to go! How can you "kick out the judge"? One way is to have a free write. Set the clock for about five minutes put your pencil to the paper or your fingers on the keyboard and get writing! Let out all of your thoughts and ideas,don't ever stop or erase! Kick out that judge and get going! Another way is to have your daily rituals. They make you feel safe, comfortable, and judge free. Trust me, kicking out the judge will get you alot farther.

Your creative Process!

This is where you start with a bright white room. It's your chance to fill it in!! There is something called the process of creativity. This process can help you out a lot in writing stories, poems, short plays ect. Some people follow this process unconsiously, others follow it step by step to help enhance their work. This past week we have been making a video about creativity in our creativity class. We followed the steps in this process and our video is turning out awesome!!
The steps to creativity are:

• Preperation aka Prespiration- A lot of hard work goes into this phase. This is the phase where you begin to brain storm and get your wonderful idea. For out video we all had a class discussion about the different things we wanted to talk about in our video and we wrote them all down on the board. An example was we wanted to talk about the different creative traits in our video. Other things you can do for this phase is try and free write, get out all of your inner ideas. You just want to get your creative motors rolling!!
• Incubation aka inspiration- In the incubation phase you kind of let everything rest and sit in your mind for a while. You can scratch ( get ideas from other people) and just find your inspiration for a good idea. In creativity we all went home and tried to think of ideas for how we might reflect our topics in our video. You may also read over your free write in this phase.
• AHA!!- This is the Eureka moment! The moment you find the perfect idea in your free write and begin to write about it, the moment we found that a good way to express the traits would be to have a traits fashion show where everybody dresses up as the different traits, the moment all the brain storming is payed off.
• Verification- This is the phase where you want to see if your idea will work. In the fashion show we tried to think " Can we do a fashion show? what will we need?" You might start writing about that subject in your free write only to realize it doesn't go very far at all. This is why you may have to go through the creative cycle more than once, before it finally pays off.

Sweet Dreams

Dreams, we have them every night. There are good dreams and bad dreams. I personally rarely get dreams and the chances of me remembering them are even rarer! A part of being creative is to explore your inner emotions, your inner self.A big way to do that is to analyze your deams which usually come from deep in your sub conscious, your emotions, worries, and deep thoughts. When i first came to the TAG program i was challenged to keep a dream journal. At first i was pretty excited to be able to analyze my dreams, explore my subconscious, and write about them. That feeling lasted about three days.I had a lucky run in remembering my dreams , but soon i started to rarely remember my dreams! .The first of the three weeks i was at TAG i had multiple dreams of clocks. i looked it up in a dream website and realized that the reason was because "the clock signifies the importance of time in some waking situation. You may be feeling some anxiety of not being on top of things. Your mind may be preoccupied with a deadline that you have to meet or some other time-sensitive issue. It is time for you to tread on and speed up your actions. Alternatively, clocks symbolize the ticking of the human heart and thus is indicative of the emotional side of your life."
I realized it was because i was very worried about how long i would be in a strange world away from home. Also the days that I had my clock dreams I had actually had a bunch of homework due the next day. I realized soon that there was nothing to be worried about. Three weeks is not a long time and I'm having a lot of fun here. My clock dreams soon stopped and were replaced by dreams of my friends from home and my friends here at TAG. I know that my dreams symbolize that while i do miss my friends back home, I really love the friends i made at TAG and without them i would be lost. You should try and write about yuor dreams. This habit helps you out a lot!

Deep into a creative mind

Last week I interviewed a girl about her creative process. Her name is Caroline Duncan, and she is your above average creative individual. Caroline lives in Dallas, Texas and is taking a photography class at SMU.
I loved Caroline's photos and I thought she had a very unique way of taking pictures, an original creative DNA. I tried to get details on this, and Caroline described herself as a very relaxed and modern photographer. I asked her if her personality relates to her photography and she enthusiasticly replied "Yes, definitely! I'm usually reserved and you can tell because i dont have any wild or crazy pictures. I stick to straight clean lines!"
Caroline first started photography under her mother's influence. Her mom is a photographer in her free time, and one day Caroline went with her mom to shoot a high school grduation."I had a great time and I've been interested in photography ever sine!".Caroline doesn't have a specific ritual but she loves to move around alot during her time taking photos to capture all of her favorite subjects like stairs and buildings.

I asked Caroline her opinions on good photos,creativity, and creative pictures. Caroline told me she likes color and natural lighting in her photos. She tends to use photoshop as an important tool. Caroline explained that in her opinion a creative picture is completly not plain and has things that stand out. In order to be creative Caroline says , you cannot ever limit yourself.

What's your ritual?

Think of the word ritual. Many people automatically think of a bunch of people dancing around a fire and singing a foreign song! That's not what i mean. Many people have their personal rituals. They are just the little things that we do daily to keep us feeling sane, comfortable, happy, and ready to start our day. These are the times you can kick out the judge that's always breathing down your shoulders. You can look forward to this ritual every day. Many creative people have rituals. Rituals are important to the creative process because the familiar routine helps get your motors rolling. There is no going back, you must now finished what you started.

One ritual that i found very interesting was the one of Mort Walker (the cartoonist). Before he begins writing he soaks one foot in hot water and the other in cold. Another example of a ritual might be working out everyday. You might wake up each morning at 5:30 am, put on your work out clothes and head out to hail a cab. The ritual is not the getting up or the two hour work out. The ritual is hailing the cab. Because once you are in that cab you cant go back. Another example might be to walk your dogs with a family member and talk about your day. As soon as you get back you are awake and ready to start the day. It's a special ritual and it lets you go out into the world ready to take on whatever life throws at you.

My Defintion of Creativity

"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep"

-Scott Adams

A big part of being creative is having your own personal definition and understanding of what creativity is. This quote made me think deeper into creativity. Many people stop their ideas midway because they are too afraid to fail or make mistakes! They don't have any confidence that they can do anything! If everytime you think of an idea, you decide it's stupid, or you may not be able to do it, or it's too easy to mess up , you won't ever get anywhere! You should try, keep going, and not be afraid of mistakes, who knows what they will become. In any form of art, you should come up with a lot of creative ideas and then look at your mistakes in a new light, and keep that special one that turned out not to be a mistake after all.

I've heard many personal definitions of creativity. What is it to be creative? What is creativity?In my opinion, creativity is complete originality. Something that people look at and find interesting and thought provoking.