[Wanda's Scrap] Wait. What?

[Wanderlust]

Heeey!

You might know me from threads, or from chat, or from liaising around, or simply because of my general awesomeness. For those many of you who don't know me (and those that do!), I'm Wanderlust, Wander, Wanda, Wanda Endust, and Wanda-lust! Here, I'll include my (slightly edited) first-ever introductory post to Miz!

'sup :

Hey, hey, hey! The part of my brain that's in charge my behavior on the internet prevents me from sharing my real name with all you strange middle-aged men(?), but you can call me Prid! I enjoy talking about myself and collecting dusty cardboard boxes that I find in shady-looking alleyways.

Last time I tried any serious forum-based roleplays was about two or three years ago. Since then, I've given up trying to impress folks with big vocabulary words and have resigned myself to writing the same way I speak. That is to say, most of my posts on here will be at about a ninth-grade vocabulary level 'cause I'm too lazy (typing "thesaurus.com" is a lot of work, m'kay?) to think of fancy words that I can use to confuse people!

If you wanna know about anything that I neglected to mention here, just ask!

Drop by and say hi!

Yeaaah, Prid was my first PC here! Jamoura will always hold a special place in my heart. Even if I never got past character creation with him...

Anyway, let's talk about me some more! For now -- and for the forseeable future -- I live in the southeastern United States. I have a deep love for America, but I've lived all over the place. At started roleplaying at around 11 or 12-ish years old (I'll share this story here sometime!), but I've always enjoyed reading and writing.

Psychology is my one true love, and I plan on working for the government.

There's nothing in particular I have in mind for this scrapbook, so it'll probably consist of whatever I find interesting or feel like sharing! Even if I've never interacted with you before, you're absolutely welcome to comment on anything or even pop in to say hi! The more the merrier!

Peace. Out.

Me

[Wanda Endust]

It occurred to me that the second scrapbook post is the most awkward. To me, at least.

What do you talk about when you've finished introducing yourself? I've no clue. It feels too soon to begin prattling off about silly things, or even deep topics. So this is me rambling. I do have an idea of topics I want to discuss -- inspiration behind Wanda, artsy stuff. But eh.

If there's anything you want me to talk about, drop me a line. If not, listen to me ramble!

I also have some papers I've written for school that I found interesting and might post here. But I get nervous about work-copiers, so I'll have to see how I feel about that. Not that anyone here would plagiarize! You just never know who's all up in your grill googlin' your key words.

[Wanda Endust]

[Auric]

So. Heeeeeey.

Just want to say I kind of already love your scrap. It's pretty snazzy. I also like your turtle picture, 'cause it made me laugh. And, if I knew how to do it on my IPad, I would definitely post some awesomly hilarious picture, but I can't, so instead I'll just say how much I love your scrap.

Because it's cool.

x

[Wanda Endust]

You're cool!

Ahhh, thank you! You made me smile bunches. :) I'm taking a rain check on that awesomely hilarious picture though!

[Wanderlust]

To whom it may concern!

So! Sorry to all I've kept waiting on everything -- both CSL stuff and IC stuff! School's been seriously picking up, and I've been having to fight "senioritis" for about three weeks now. :/ Not to mention it's hard to find the motivation to write when you're burnt our from all those research papers.

But enough excuses! I'm going to be trying my best to get posts in, and to finish up all my grandfathered threads, starting with whoever's been waiting the longest. I won't be starting any new threads until all (and I mean ALL) of the ones I have now are completed!

[Wanda Endust]

I'm Baaaack!

So hello!

I'm not really sure what to say, other than the fact that I'm so sorry for being gone so long. My disappearance was probably a bigger deal to me than to you, but some things happened and I ended up unable to access Mizahar. Nothing technical, just some issues. :)

I've learned a bit in my absence though, foremost being that I need to pace myself and organize my priorities to keep from taking on more tasks than I can handle. While I was sad to be away, I was also surprised to find that some self-imposed pressure had been lifted from my shoulders. That being said, I'm going to have to enact some self control to balance RPing and real life stuff.

Anyhow, I might post a bit more on this topic, or I might not. The important thing is that I'm back! Maybe not so much with a vengeance, but definitely with organized priorities! :)

Over the next couple days, I'll be working on sending PMs to all those who need/deserve them while I try to get back in the swing of things.

Love,

Wanda

[Wanda Endust]

So I applied for a scholarship on very short notice a couple days ago, and ended up having to write a short essay in just under an hour.... I really surprised myself with what I had to say on the topic provided -- I honestly had no idea what to write, and ended up going with the stream of consciousness approach.

Uh, well I guess that's a pretty bad thing to do when the stakes are high, but I didn't think it came out half-bad to my jumbled brain! I wanted to share my entry, but I'll also include the prompt below to give it some context!

Prompt :

Consider this quote:

"The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but, rather, that they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity."
—Mae Jemison, the first African-American female U.S. astronaut and a physician, scientist, and teacher, as presented in aTED Talk

Having read this quote, reflect on these questions:

"How are you "creative"? Do you see yourself as an artist, a scientist, or something else (a historian, a philosopher, an entrepreneur)? Share examples that illustrate how you see your own creativity."

This past week in my Psychology class, we covered schizophrenia -- one of the "side effects" for which is creativity. That makes sense, considering that their minds can create entire universes separate from our own. What's more interesting, though, is the fact that what makes those individuals so special is simply a bunch of molecules and genes that got thrown together in a particularly wonky fashion. Nothing really makes them that different from us. So maybe every once in a while we're a little insane too, with spurts of creativity that end as a pile of pure genius.

Sometimes I see my self as an artist, but then I consider the chemical chain reaction in my brain that must have occurred for me to come to this conclusion, and I consider how anything we compose or create is all thanks to whatever neurons or cells are firing in our body at the moment. This leads to me believe I'm more of a philosopher, and then that train of thought takes me in a circle back to the arts, since we all know that "Philosophy isn't a science!" And doesn't it take both art and science to interpret sarcasm? I mean, you have to use your English skills to understand the speaker's language while your auditory cortex picks up the sounds and vibrations the speaker makes, which your brain then translates into words that you can understand and respond to. In the meantime, your brain is also busy picking up on the specific fluctuations in the speaker's tone and proceeds to tell you "Why, yes! This individual with which you are holding a conversation is indeed using the linguistic technique sarcasm!" In turn, you can then proceed with your conversation however you see fit. Talking! It falls into the "Arts" category (if you're following the rules of grammar and such). But look at all the science that weaves itself into the works. There is no difference between science and art. As Mae Jenison explained, they aren't the sides of a coin. Rather, they're a ball. In a coin, you can say "this is heads" and "that is tails" because they are definite -- they are attached, but separate. Like Siamese twins. But science and art are the same person, and they're probably a schizophrenic.

So just how does any of this display creativity on my part? Well, creativity is defined as the ability to transcend traditional ideas, patterns, or relationships, and to create meaningful new ideas and interpretations. Now, I wish I was able to contradict the prompt's quote, because wouldn't that be a hoot? But right now my head is still spinning from the realization of the fact that the arts and sciences are so intricately intertwined. Now I'm also considering the fact that everything ever written only uses the same 26 letters. That's pretty impressive, the creativity that humanity must embody to pull of a trick like that.... Maybe I've gone mad, but that's when the magic happens.

[Wanda Endust]

Tutorial Time: Edges and Shapes

So, I've been getting a lot of questions about artwork lately -- mostly about the shapes and transparent borders and such that I use in boxcodes. For most of the shapes and borders, I simply use the Cookie Cutter tool available on my PS Elements 7. However, I somewhat recently found a way to create and design your own shapes! See below for a (hopefully) handy-dandy tutorial.

Warning: Bright colors.

Step 1: Find an image you want to use.

Step 2: ...and a shape you want to use.

Step 3: Duplicate your background image so that you have two or three copies.

Step 4: By either locking the layer's transparent pixels or using the filler tool*, make your chosen shape a color that is not anywhere to be found in your background image.

Step 5: Merge your shape layer and one of your background layers.

Step 6: Using your Background Eraser tool (or the Magic Eraser*), erase the brightly-colored shape from the picture, leaving transparent holes where it had been.

Step 7: By either locking the layer's transparent pixels or using the filler tool*, make what's left of the layer the same color that your shape had been. Make sure to leave the transparent holes.

Step 8: Position one of your extra background layers so that you can see it through the holes in your top layer.

Step 9: Merge the two visible layers.

Step 10: Again, using the Background Eraser (or Magic Eraser*), erase the brightly colored portion to leave behind the shape you'd initially chosen!

The finished product!

* Note that the product will not turn out as well using the filler and magic eraser tools.

So far, I have used this process in each of the following pieces:

Wanda's Traditional Box
Traverse's Box 1
Yvaine's Box
and Aldus's Signature,
as well as my own current signature.

[Wanda Endust]

So I figure if I can write 1000 words in 1 hour, I can just stay up writing 24/7 all weekend and get NaNo knocked out last-minute. Right?