what EVAR.

[luciab]

I'm working on homework. On a Sunday night, a week and a half ahead of its due date. The world must really be coming to an end. Consider yourselves warned. It's more Humanities Resources questions, but at least this week it's good stuff-- Visual Arts! Yay! Amazing how much easier it is to find answers when you have a clue. I am still amused, however. One of the questions this time is about Fiestaware. I gotta say, I googled that sucker. I can't help thinking of the scene in Indiana Jones when he gets tired of all the fancy stuff with the whip and just pulls out his gun and shoots the guy. Yeah, there are lots of things I can do to find info about Fiestaware, including books galore, but when the question is "Where is Fiestaware made and what makes it so collectible to some people?" well, really. Do I really need fancy reference books for that? What can I say, besides what a dumb question. I have no doubt that there are people in the world who collect gum wrappers, and who can ever know why? I doubt that there's any book in the world that can adequately address the issue of why anyone collects anything, except psychologically maybe. I'm pretty sure she doesn't want psych theory. So half the question can be answered in about 30 seconds on Google, and the other half may never be adequately answered. I say we don't need a book for this. I'll give her a book, anyway, but geez. I'm putting my metaphorical whip away.

I have had further cause to be amused and dismayed-- this time at myself-- this weekend. We got out of class early yesterday and I wasn't in the mood to start homework just yet. I decided I'd look through some books and see if I could find something to do for the addendum to harleenquinzell's Scroll Blank Competition (see comments for the addendum) and promptly got bogged down in all sorts of competitive considerations. It took me years to figure out that I am so damn competitive that I basically just don't play a lot of things because I know I won't do them well and thus have no chance of winning. Is that pitiful or what? So at least part of what I ran into yesterday is that if I'm going to do an entry for a competition I start looking for something with some flash to it; something eyecatching, maybe not what looks most fun to me to do right now. Utterly ridiculous. Because I have so much to prove, you know. As much as I theoretically know that, my mind gets all twitchy like a thoroughbred horse with a starting gate in sight. Lord, I do make life more difficult than it needs to be.

One thing I'm relaxing and enjoying tonight, though, is the Bourne Identity, which is on TV. I saw the Bourne Supremacy last weekend, but it's been a while since I saw the first one. Sweet.

Comments

[lady-guenievre.livejournal.com]

Did you see this - http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ - when it came out a few weeks ago? It's made me think, a lot... and your comment re: competitions made me think of it.

[luciab.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's a good article. I did some thinking after reading it, too.

[margaretc.livejournal.com]

...so much to prove...

I think that some of the difference between us artsy types and the dukes and knights is that the dukes and knights KNOW they have to keep proving it (or at least they think they do) whereas we... well, don't. Or something like that.

[dragonazure.livejournal.com]

Proof? Admittedly, I've entered A&S competitions, but more as a mechanism to get feedback than to actually win anything. Otherwise, I am pretty ambivalent about A&S competitions.

The main problem is that they are very subjective. Even though we try to establish very objective criteria, at the end of the day, there is a lot of variation--my version of what constitutes technical skill isn't quite the same concept as any one elses, and what I deem authentic could be based on much more or much less knowledge than the next judge may have. Heck, a judge could love one style of illumination and dislike another.

On the tournament field, it is pretty clear. Barring special scenarios and melees, there are only two contestants at a time. Whoever is still standing at the end of a battle is the victor.

[luciab.livejournal.com]

You're talking logic, there. I'm talking gut instinct. I know what you're saying is true; always have. Doesn't necessarily stop my wanting to do something so spectacular it leaves everybody slackjawed. And after it's all over, no matter who "wins" it's not really going to be a problem for me, despite the tone of this entry, because once I get started, the joy of the work will take over and I'll just enjoy doing it. *shrug* As Livia has pointed out in another venue, I'm overthinking it.