My Blogging Experience

About my blogging experience...

I enjoyed it. I can’t say OH MY GOD, I LOVED IT, but yeah, I liked it, because it was really helpful to practice and improve my skills and vocabulary to write in english.

A thing I didn’t like was to have to write the posts IN CLASSES. But considering the other point of view, it was great not to have homeworks. Um, I think there should have been one or two opportunities to write about whatever we wanted! I would’ve really enjoyed that.

The other thing I didn’t like was the low amount of classmates who read or commented my blog. I felt like I was writing only to myself... Like an emo. Hahaha, that sounds sad! Nah, I’m exagerating.

It’s hard to interact that easily with people you don’t know. Sometimes you have no idea about what to comment...

Maybe I would have been more comfortable with this if I had known my classmates before this course. The person I most interacted with was Loreto, but that’s nothing new because I met her years ago! XD

It’s not that I wanted to make new friends or anything but, comparing the first clases with the last ones, I realized that the “social circles” stayed just the same. Maybe it’s due to the different careers we belong to. I don’t know.

But the good thing is, despite all this, I could know a little more about my classmates anyway, and that’s fun.

Sometimes when you see a person, you can make a wrong impression of them. But when you read what they write, you get to know them a bit, and then the prejudice wall can easily tumble down. It may sound poetic but it’s true!

Lorelai!

I reviewed Loreto Jimenez’ blog. Yeah, she’s my friend, so I enjoy visiting it, and I can recognize many things of her personality when I read what she writes.

Her blog is sleepingcrusade.blogspot.com, but the main title is “Hypnos”. I don’t really know what this means, but I can’t help thinking about her abbility to get asleep. She reminds me to the Sleeping Beauty… but the one from the movie Shrek The Third.



She has written 10 posts till now. This may sound a little sentimental, but when I read them, I felt her own essence: honesty, simplicity, comedy, and a bit of fantasy. And other bit of ‘weirdness’. But to me, her ‘weirdness’ is not weird at all. I’m a little weird too… because I think we are different among the rest of our classmates, at least here in the English class.

My favorite post is My Career Sucks, published on May 21. It made me feel SO identified when I read it. And the picture she put was so funny!


That's how I reacted when I read some posts.

The aspect she should improve a bit (and she knows it too) is her writing, but in the formal, grammatical and orthographical way. Despite all this, she understands the meaning of the words perfectly, so their posts are completely readable.

I don’t really think there are bad things in her blog, actually. I can say something from the point of view of graphic design… Maybe another header, just to start. The use of other colors, and a sidebar. Stuff like that.

Picture

I really do like today's topic. It's about my favorite picture.

There's not much to say about why I love this one... Heheh.
As you can see, it's a photograph about me and my boyfriend. It was taken the day of his brother's wedding, by their cousin. We were in the civil ceremony, celebrated last year on November. We were in the house of the bride's sister.

I really enjoyed being there with my boyfriend's family, having a good time and eating delicious food :). And we were all happy for the newlyweds, of course.

The funny thing is, my boyfriend doesn't like the way he looks on this picture because his face is so serious. But he wasn't! I like the way he looks... And the way we look together. Of course I look very happy, with my usual, natural blush. And no, I wasn't drunk or anything, haha. In fact, I don't drink, and neither does he. He only drinks a small glass of wine when he eats meat or something, but that' all.

The fact that I chose this picture may seem narcissist of my part, but it's not. It's just that it brings me so many beautiful memories...

And I like to imagine that when we get old, we'll show this picture to our grandchildren and remember all the good things we lived together by that time of our lives.

My beloved big, heavy laptop

I’m not a very technological person. Sometimes I think life would be less complicated without technology. I mean, we could live in peace, like people did in old times in history. Not always, though. Living in small villages, harvesting our own food... Something like the Amish. BUT, there would be more risks in health, difficulties in commodities, etc.

OK. Who am I kidding. I admit my life would suck without technology.

I don’t have any of those new super cool devices, like iPhones, iPods, mp7 or whatever they invent. I’m not interested. I’m quite happy with my technologically-made stuff. I THANK GOD for having hot water, electric light, my TV, my guitar, my bed and clothes.

But my favorite technological device is my notebook. It’s an old, big, heavy Acer. I love it and hate it. Despite it has ‘good stuff’ like 3GB DDR2, 250 GB of memory and other things I can’t read in this informative sticker, it’s not as good as it should. Sometimes when I turn it on, the system starts without audio. And since last year it doesn’t recognize the DVD reader. I guess it’s disconnected. Oh, how not to mention the touchpad. I don’t use it because… it’s alive, like somebody else dragging their finger to move the cursor. When I knew this it was too late, the guarantee had expired, so I had to accept it.

Hahaha, it’s the worst laptop ever. But it has saved me so many times, that I forgive its neandethalism. It goes with me everywhere... I can listen to my music, play silly games, work, and be connected with my friends. What else could I ask for? It does the necessary things. Maybe I'll buy another one in a couple of years... or when it's definitely broken XD.

About graphic design

Hello everyone!

I just read the Teacher’s post, so I've thought how to relate the topic with my experience.

Considering my experience in this career and what it takes to be good in it, the first thing that came into my mind was the drawing skills. Yeah, that’s what everybody thinks about Graphic Design when they don’t know the career very well. Like me, when I got in.

I thought I would be a brilliant student because I have drawing skills. But that’s a mistake. It’s a very useful skill, but not completely necessary. I know a lot of people who has survived without being truly talented. It’s a tool, a very helpful one, because it’s the first thing you can do to translate an idea from your mind to the paper (or directly to the computer).

But the most important skill is creativity, knowing how to apply it to specific communication needs. A Graphic Designer is not an artist, but a visual communicator. That’s what I’ve learned.

It’s also important to be sociable. We designers work in groups almost all the time in many projects.

And of course there’re other things needed to be a good professional, just like all the other areas and careers. These are: organization, discipline, perfectionism, rigorousity, patience, etc.

I think these skills can perfectly be learned, and it may be difficult, but it’s possible. Even creativity. But this is a fact: there will always be people more talented than other.

In the University almost all of our professors try to develop our skills. But the greatest things I’ve done these last years in graphic design, have been by my own. And it bothers me sometimes not to have all the support from our professors. Well, they make us believe university is the most important thing in the world… but of course it’s not.

Despite all that, I’m quite happy with my career.

I believe that my professional development will be done thanks to my work outside, but supported by all the tools I’ve received here.

Logopond

Today I’ll present you my favorite design website: Logopond. I visit it very often, when I need to see examples of logotypes. They’re uploaded by the users, who are graphic designers. Some of them are awesome, but there are very bad logotypes too! The good thing is that this site is a community in which you can participate and get “identity inspiration”, like they say. You can register, make comments, participate of the forum, rate your favorite (or most hated) logos, and upload your own work if you want to.

The logotypes are organized in 4 rows of five thumbnails each (small sized images). You can find lots of results using the search engine or the different categories on the menu above. If you click on a logo, it’ll take you to another page with a larger size of the image and its description, like who’s the author, the date, the reason of the logotype, among other things. You can read the comments below too.

I sincerely recommend this website to all designers. Not to copy ideas, but to make your visual knowledge bigger.

BBC Learning English

I explored this BBC Learning English website and I think it's very useful.
It has 9 main categories:

- General & Business English
- Grammar, Vocabulary & Pronunciation
- Quizzes
- The Flatmates
- Community
- For Teachers
- Specials
- About Us
- Downloads

Each one of them has a different color, so you can easily identify them. These categories are divided in sub-categories with useful content and examples, just like a good English book would do. But the difference is that here you can interact with the content and learn in a easier and more funny way. You can find videos, quizzes, activities, and downloads to help you practice your English and your pronunciation.

I've just read and listened to a summary of the news. It's cool. The news I read was "Tintin book on trial".

Another thing that called my attention was the "soap opera" they have, called "The Flatmates". There are 40 episodes, and each one lasts about 1 minute. I think the graphic sucks. It's very basic, cause they only use a background picture, and the characters are static, ugly drawings with no colors. But you can read the dialogue while they talk, so it works, though.

I also visited the "Teacher" section, from the Grammar, Vocabulary & Pronunciation category. There, you can see videos of a Teacher called Alex (a blonde british woman) who gives useful lessons, tips and corrections to help you improve your speaking.

There are so many things you can do on this website, I won't be able to write about all that. But I'll definitely be checkin' this website very often.