Bleatings from the Sheep

Hmm...Interesting........

I'm finding that the more time I spend away from this blog, the harder it is to want to come back to it. And this is coming from me, mind you. No wonder some people never got past their introductory posts....

Then again, I've been in a fairly awkward mood lately. One of those, I-really-don't-think-I-know-anything-anymore kind of moods. It must be difficult for people to distinguish since, well, no one has yet. But it's really no big deal I suppose. So why am I bringing it up, you ask? Am I just stalling? Wasting time? Rambling? Perhaps. Or, perhaps this relates to something I wish to blog about.

To put it bluntly, I've been wondering about why I'm a DMA major. Not so much that I would do anything crazy like switch majors or anything...I've just been...wondering. And actually, this is just a part of larger trend for me. I've been wondering about many, many things lately, and this has most likely been the source of my "awkward" mood, which would also explain why it's not an obviously awkward mood (since it's dealing with inner reflection nonsense, there's no need to show any outward signs of it). But I digress. While it may not make for the most interesting of blog posts, I figure that since it relates to DMA, I can technically get away with writing about it.




Now on to why exactly I'm wondering. Well, see, I'm DMA Animation. Which seems to fit, because I love animation. I probably enjoy watching animation more than I enjoy watching things with real people in it. Generally speaking at least, though not always. Yet, recently I've been wondering about this for a few reasons. The first of which is simply that I have very little artistic talent. Granted, I'm not awful, but I wouldn't exactly call myself good either. I can doodle pretty well (sheep are my specialty) but that's about as much as I can boast about. Now I'm fully aware of the fact that there are other forms of animation other than the hand-drawn stuff, but still. My lack of artistic skill is not solely limited to pencil and paper either. And I know that there's still plenty of time for me to improve, but sometimes I wonder if I'll ever improve enough to make a significant enough difference.

Which brings me to my second reason for wondering...I feel like I'm somehow behind or misplaced or something when I compare myself to some of the other DMA majors. There are people who are great with the equipment and the technical parts. There are people who have some great artistic ability and are moving forward with that. There are people who have no experience and no idea what they're doing, but are courageous enough to just jump in without a moment's hesitation and figure things out. I, on the other hand, have no interest in the equipment and am sometimes intimidated by it, have little artistic talent, and am a very timid, meek person who is constantly afraid of messing something up beyond repair. So something doesn't seem quite right there.

And lastly, my final reason for wondering is one that I had even before coming to college, but just put on the back-burner until now. More than anything, I'm interested in the story-telling aspect of this all. Do I love animation? Yes. Do I love telling stories more? Honestly, yeah, I do. Before I came to college, I somewhat wondered if this was the right medium for me to tell stories through, but the excitement of it all allowed me to pursue it in spite of any doubts. And honestly, I do think it would be a really cool way to tell stories. But lately I've even been wondering about my storytelling side. All this talk about what makes a good story and analyzing how to tell stories has been weighing in my mind, and now I find that I don't even know how to come up with a story anymore! I used to find joy out of writing short little stories which, for all I know, might've been bad or not told properly or whatever, but at least they existed! Yet as often as I've sat down and tried to come up with something since I started college, ideas evade me...in other words, I've had a serious case of writer's block that's been lasting for months. It's like death, only worse, because death is an end and this is just ongoing torture. (That last sentence is supposed to sound a lot more lighthearted than it probably does....) That may seem doubtful, since this post in itself is already way too long. Nonetheless, it's true. I don't know how to write or even come up with a good story anymore, and that once little voice in my head that says I'm no good at coming up with anything has now become a very LOUD voice saying that I have no idea what I'm doing, that I'm not coming up with stories in the proper or "educated" way, and that in order to do so I'd have to forget everything I thought I already knew about storytelling and pursue a completely different path--which I either cannot or will not do.

So there you have it. That's why I've been wondering. Like I said before, it's still not weighing in enough for me to even consider switching majors or anything like that. It does, however, zap much of the joy and excitement out of the experience, not to mention cause plenty of confusion for life in general, which is already plenty confusing for plenty of other reasons. I don't know...am I completely alone in this? Has anybody else ever experienced any wondering over this, even if only for a brief moment?

Hmm.

Or maybe I'm just nuts. That's possible too.

Anyway, sorry for rambling so much about this. (This post is over 1,000 words! Wow!) If anyone actually has the patience to read all the way through this, I'll be amazed. It's really not necessary though, since my only real purpose in writing this huge post was simply to vent and get it out of my system so that I could write about something more valid for class in my next post.

posted by Caitlynn @ 9:52 PM