Slow Journaling, jour 5
Jour 5
Slow Journaling, jour 4
Jour 4
Slow Journaling, jour 3
Jour 3
Slow journaling, jour 2
Jour 2
11 ans, 3 mois, et 14 jours
Si j'inclue la version précédente de ce blogue sur LiveJournal, Le Pouding à l'arsenic existe depuis 11 ans, 3 mois, et 14 jours, ou 4 123 jours! Incluant les listes d'entrées de Twitter, les trop nombreux quiz stupides (du genre "quelles pâtes alimentaires êtes-vous?") et les trop nombreuses photos de chats, ce blogue compte 5056 entrées en tout sur les deux sites.
Il est intéressant de relire les entrées d'il y a quelques années. J'y vois comment j'ai vieilli et maturé. Les aléas de l'écriture et de la recherche. Tout notre périple d'adoption.
11 ans.
Wow.
It's not mine. I don't own this pic, though for the life of me, I don't remember where I found it. It's not mine.
From the archives: I went digital (2009)
An entry on diyplanner.com from 21 December 2009:
“2009 has been a difficult year for me and my family. Many changes have occurred, many heart breaking events, both on a personal and professional level. As a result, I had to make a lot of changes to my planning habits, in order to keep up with everything. Unfortunately, sadly, I ended up going digital. Kicking and screaming, mind you. I physically miss the feel of paper and pen. I miss planning my months on little index cards. I miss jotting notes on little index cards. I miss little index cards. *sigh*
When my mother-in-law’s cancer went for the worse and we moved to her town for two weeks to be at her side for the end, I brought my computer with me and my agenda, but since all my work was done by computer, all my meetings on my computer, all my messages by email, my agenda went forgotten in the hotel room most of the time.
When two of my colleagues tried to stop my promotion and started spreading libel and smearing my reputation, my computer, my on-line journal and my digital correspondance records became my primary tools. My day book never kept up with the daily changes to my meetings schedule with the union reps and the department head. I fought the trolls and won, I got my promotion. But my day book went by the way side again.
When my father suffered an infarction, I had to purchase a cell phone. I had been fighting the good fight against that one for years and years, but I had to buy one months earlier then I had planned. I wanted to wait for the Droid phone to make a final choice. Coronary disease made the choice for me. I knew that if I got a phone, ever, it would be a smart phone. I got an iPhone. And it took only a week to come to the conclusion that if I had a smart phone with me 24/7, there was no point in my carrying a day book around. Especially since I was already trying to keep up with my email planning in it already...
I have a confession to make: I’m now using iCal for planning. I am also using the notes feature in Mail and the Notes app to jot ideas. I have not used an index card in weeks. I feel ashamed. Really, I do. I miss paper.
The only paper survivors to my passage to digital are my notebook. My meeting notes, my article ideas, my presentation planning all still start in the bound notebook. My class discussion ideas also. It does mean I pull it out less often than before, but at least it means I still have some stationary with me. The circa notebook is still my friend when I go to a conference. I write down all my conference notes and then file by date and topic. Since I go to 4 or 5 conferences a year, I don’t carry that one often, but it’s still my go-to for conference related insights.
2010 will see me being a digital girl all the way. I will not be printing planner pages for 2010 for myself. I did print some for Mamou and I made a pingouin desk calendar for him, but not for me.
I miss paper.”
The finished beast.
Index-Card-a-Day 2014 challenge, post mortem
As I wrote in my previous entry, for the entire months of June and July, I participated in the art challenge Index-Card-a-Day, a.k.a. ICAD, run by the pretty and interesting website Daisy Yellow. The point of the challenge is to just create, spew out some art, nothing grand, nothing precious, just art, everyday, for two months. This is why the challenge involves using simple, cheap index cards as the base for this art-making. For exactly 61 days, you pick up art supplies and you put them to paper. There are prompts, which are not compulsory, and you have at it for 61 days.
I learned of this challenge through an internet friend I have known now for almost a decade whom I know as DIYSara, who also did the challenge this year, as she did on other occasions as well. I met DIYSara on the forums of DIYplanner.com, a site devoted to making one's own planners, instead of using pre-made ones.* We both drifted of the forums five years ago or so, but I met her again on Flickr and later on Twitter. I admire her true talent, and her extensive pen collection. She's nice too.
Since I was going to be going to and fro a lot in June, and was going to be away for most of July, I decided to use another base for ICAD than index cards. I had an unused Japanese pocket notebook from Moleskine (bought back when the company were still known as Modo i Modo and produced their stuff in Italy). I did not know what to do with it. It dawned on me that it was the perfect medium. Which it, I would not have to worry about losing cards or bending them, since they were all attached and had a hardcover! My other worry was that I did not know if I was going to have internet access when away in July. It turned out I was without any cell phone connectivity, so I was not far off. I wanted to use the ICAD 2014 prompts, but they were released once a week; what if I had no access at all? To alleviate this issue, I copied and dated every page of the note book, exactly 61 of them, with the prompts from another Daisy Yellow challenge, Paper-a-Day. And I was set!
I enjoyed this challenge tremendously. I have experimented with techniques I hardly ever use, like collage or hand-made stamping, and used some of the art supplies I use the least, like acrylics. It was cool! The results are rather interesting too.
If you take a look at my #ICAD2014 on Flickr, the first thing that strikes any observer is how much I loosened up over the course of the 61 days. My drawings at first were tight and simple. Boring even. Stifled. Then as the weeks go by, I found myself loosening up, falling into an ease of creation that shows through the pages. By the end, I was enjoying myself a lot and it shows. From cynical, the humour in my pages transforms to whimsy.
Nevertheless, the views on my set show that the page that was preferred most is from mid-challenge. I do have to admit, it's pretty funny.
I certainly will be doing ICAD2015 and I plan on using the 2014 prompts later. In the mean time, I'm doing 61 days of Slow Journaling in another Japanese sketchbook I just purchased for that very purpose.
In the meantime, here are two favorites for ICAD2014.
* I don't know about you, but I used to throw out three quarters of the pages of the loose leaf planners I bought and never could find a bound planner that I really liked. The weekly planners from Moleskine are nice, but expensive and finite. By printing one's own planners, one can print exactly what one needs, in the form that one needs, with the extras one wishes, then decorate it like there is no tomorrow. I have blogged about this back on LiveJournal, but who cares about LiveJournal?
"Slow Journaling", jour 1
J'ai trois entrées en chantier pour ce blogue et j'espère les faire avant de partir pour Montréal samedi. En attendant, quelques mots sur une série d'entrées qui se feront au cours des deux prochains mois.
En juin et juillet, j'ai participé au défi Index-Card-a-Day, qui enjoigne les participants à créer une œuvre visuelle par jour pendant 61 jours. J'en reparlerai. Plusieurs participants ont décidé de continuer, d'une manière ou d'une autre et j'en suis. Pendant ICAD, j'ai appris l'approche du "slow journaling" qui consiste à résumer sa journée en une seule phrase, écrite en gros, avec fioritures et décorations. J'appliquerai cette approche.
Jour 1