History, a Reflection of the Historian Who Writes it.

I have heard it said that all historians do research that reflects their personal or familiar past. I would not want to over generalize about all, since I only know a few historians. But my project this semester definitely reflects my feelings (frustrations) with having been a TA this past year.

I have spent a vast amount of time telling my students to follow Rampolla, and demonstrating the differences between the style for a footnote and bibliography. I have corrected their formating meticulously on all there small assignments, in the hope that they would do it correctly for the large assignments –but this was to no avail.

When I read through their book reports and final essays I got Sparknotes referenced, I had only one page in a book sourced for the whole essay, I got work cited lists instead of bibliographies, and a whole bunch of other mistakes.

So after each assignment I would stand up in front of my tutorial and show where and how you footnote. I would ask them if they understood, and they would all shake their heads in agreement. STILL THERE WAS LITTLE IMPROVEMENT!

Though this picture book is designed for a younger audience, it’s really for all those TAs out there, smacking their head in frustration in their first year students' inability to follow a format. Sure, I know it can be hard if you are using a source that is unusual. But they all used internet or monographs, not some random artefact.

As the semester is almost over, I have a pending dread of marking their final exams.

Here is a link that will take you to the picture book I made. If this becomes supper popular on the web, I have a whole bunch of other villains for Ninja Historian to fight. He can become the Dora the Explorer of the history world.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2TH6TCNbUaidnpOYU9RNnF3b3M/edit

Making it into Book Form:

My picture book is supposed to be a fun (and interactive way if used on an I-pad) of informing people about the need to footnote.

I really enjoyed using the pen tablet, it was supper fun! The most frustrating thing for me was the constant changing of document format, and fitting everything into the same size picture. The reason I found the need to change the format annoying was because the final image had to be a pdf. And since I always make typos it was very time consuming to go back once I thought I was done and reformat an image back to Photoshop, then add a new layer, then rewrite, then condense it back into one layer, then save as pdf, then recreate the large pdf again. And of course, once I think I am done again, I catch another error and have to do the process over again. Thus I think pdfs need to be editable, WORK ON THAT COMPUTER PEOPLE!

The process I took to make all the images and words the same size, so it looks like an open picture book:

1. Make a new document in Photoshop that is 8 × 11 inches.
2. Open a completed picture and flatten the layers, then change name of file.
3. Copy image, and paste onto new document. When I pasted the image it was like 200 times too large since I drew the pictures on a large document since it was easier to do with the pen tablet.
4. Then go to edit , then transform, then scale. Next click on the chain.
5. Next you begin to shrink the size of the image. You can’t just go straight to the roughly 20% size that fits half the page because the image disappears. You have to shrink about 20% at a time so that you can drag the image back into the center of the screen, so you can always find it.
6. Once the image is about half the page you move it to one side of the page.
7. Next you add a layer and click on the text icon.
8. Then you make a text box, and type in the words.
9. Then you flatten the layers, and save the image with a new name.
10. Once all your images are done you go into acrobat pro and create a multi-page file.

Picture and words now one image.

Finito Pictures

So I have completed drawing and adding a background to the drawings. I really enjoyed the layer feature on Photoshop. Thanks to Sarah I was able to add my drawings and manipulate them on to the photos I took in Weldon.  

 What I did…

1. I opened both my drawing and the photo in Photoshop.
2. I used the “magic wand” tool, and then clicked on the empty space on the image that I drew.
3. Next, I went to select, and clicked inverse.
4. Then I copied my drawing and pasted it on the photo.
5. Then I used the “rectangle” tool and made it trace over my drawing that I pasted in the photo. I needed to do this because the image was always too small when I pasted.
6. Next, I did “command T” to “transform” the image in my rectangle. At this point I could enlarge and move my drawing all over the photo. Sometimes, depending on the image, once I was done transforming the whole drawing I would go back and rectangle off certain parts so that I could alter only a section of a drawing. This was very affective for creating distance in the image. I used it to create space between the Octopus and the Ninja.
7. Once I was done transforming the image I clicked on the “checkmark”. Then I went to select and clicked on deselect.

 For some images I would add more to the drawing. To do this, I would drag the image onto my tablet. The really nice thing about the layers is that when you want to erase something you have drawn, it does not erase the background.

See how I moved the ninja in the photo with the picture background to create distance.

You click on the layer you want to work on.

For my next step I am going to make a PDF with two pages side-by-side like a picture book, which people will be able to flip through. I think that the picture book format will better suit how I originally outlined my story, when I pictured it like a silent film with text and picture.

         

A few obstacles but back to progressing.

So I was originally planning on making my comic on Manga; however, it has decided not to open for me anymore. Now I am making my pictures on Photoshop which I am quite liking. Between the two programs I tried Adobe Illustrator but I found it VERY hard to draw with, it does not give the illustrator very much freedom with lines on the tablet.

After being frustrated with Illustrator because I had spent a few hours trying to draw a picture, but was not getting anywhere, I decided to switch to Photoshop. I was a tad panicked because I had never used it before, and my Professor was not on campus because it was a Thursday afternoon; so I could not bug him.  Probably the most important thing that I learned from this class is that you can google instructions and tutorials on line for pretty much everything. Thus, I decided to google how to use Photoshop and did a few tutorials.

Along with learning how to use new programs for this project I am also learning how to use a Mac. I am actually starting to like it; the only thing I tend to keep trying to do is Right click the mouse, which does not exist.

Another thing I keep doing because it’s hard to break natural reactions, is touching the button on the pen. The button is right where I naturally hold a pen, so I keep switching my grip without thinking. However, from this constant mistake, I learned that if you touch the pen button while having the tip to the screen a window pops up that allows you to manipulate the width of the pen line, which is very convenient.

 

To speed up the process of drawing, and to make things a tad more consistent from picture to picture,  I made an octopus outline that I saved, so I can use it for different screens.

Here are a few pictures that I drawn so far... However I have no clue how to combine the pictures with images on photoshop for the next phase.

The cover image

I drew the people in blue

The Historian Hunch

Sometimes when I observe professors at the university I notice that many hunch. I have developed a theory that I shall dub “The Historian Hunch”, though it probably relates to all academics.

To obtain the knowledge needed to achieve a PhD, one is forced to sit at a desk numerous hours of the day, hunched over a book reading. Consequently, as the academic’s mind begins to develop (one may argue to a ‘superior’ state if they are Sheldon Cooper) their body begins to regress into a pre-homo sapien state, to when humans were still hunched over.  

Story Board...

Story Board.
Some photos have arrows because I decided to change the order of image and words.

Planning ...

I think I will be taking a silent film approach to my animated short. I am currently trying to decide where to place the words and the images.

These are some photos I have taken of my work so far.

The beginning of my outline.



I took several photos of the book shelves on the fifth floor of Weldon where my comic takes place.
I am planning on using the images as the back drop because I find it hard to draw with dimensions.

First 3D Image of Ninja Historian vs. Octopus

What I did in class today on Google Sketchup. I would like to give a shout-out to Dave for all the help. THANKS!

MOUSE TRAP!

Pinky and the Brain may be my favourite two mice in history. Their show was one of my favourites as a kid. Pinky and Brain were two laboratory mice, who would break out of their cage at night and try to take over the world. Brain (the short one) was the mouse with the plan. He is like the Napoleon of the mice world. My favourite scheme of theirs, was when they tried to take over the world by having the last tea bag, they were convinced that Britain would crumble to their wants – I don’t think this was such a bad plan.

Using Google Stechup, I made the two a fun mouse trap. The first image in the picture is a full view of the mouse trap. In the next images (going left to right in the first row, then again in the second) I give close ups of the path they will take.

I enjoyed using a 3D model more than the Inkspace we did last week. I found that 3D images make better use of creating images on the computer. I really enjoyed the ability to move parts of an image inward or outward.

Plot Outline and Character Background Information

1.

(Done in Star Wars flying text)

In a land were history has turned into mythology.

Where people copy and steal from others.

Where the historian has been caste from the Ivy towers,

And thrown into the dingy pits of the mines,

Forced to perform manual labour for eternity.

Their books locked-up, and their primary documents destroyed.

There is no hope left for the scholarly world…..

2.

The Adventures of…..

Ninja Historian

(KA POW! N.H. does flying kick through screen)

3.

On the highest floor, of the largest library chaos has taken over.

The 10-foot tall, man eating, octopus – Ambrose, has just devoured the knowledge from half the monographs on the fifth floor of Weldon Library.

The Engineers, whose section Ambrose has just destroyed, are fleeing after a failed attempt to subdue the octopus.

Science has no tools to defeat Ambrose, and there are still students trapped in the library.

What can be done?

4.

Ninja Historian approaches as stealthily as a Grey Wolf, Ambrose does not hear a noise.

Ambrose lunges for a student, but he is too slow.

N.H. strikes Ambrose with a hard karate-chop

5.

Angered, Ambrose uses the ink that he has stolen from the books, to whip it at N.H.

With the ease and grace of a dancer, N.H. leaps away from the ink, never being hit.

6.

Next Ambrose uses his 10-foot long tentacles to swing at N.H.

After leaping away from one, N.H. is hit from behind by another tentacle.

(N.H. is knocked through the air.)

Worry creeps over N.H.

Can he really defeat such a large plagiarizing beast, the more knowledge he steels the more powerful Ambrose gets. 

7.

N.H. takes out his throwing stars (that are FN for Foot note) and whips them at Ambrose.

One, after another, and F.N. cuts off the eight arms of the octopus.

Ambrose is scared. The F.N.s will not come off.

8.

Close up of a F.N. leaching on to the severed tentacle, slowly expanding around the tentacle.

9.

Full views of Ambrose watching in amazement, as his severed tentacles begin to shrink.

10.

Ambrose continues to shrink into human size.

11.

A tiny first year appears where Ambrose the octopus once stood. Shacking with fear.

12.

N.H. pulls out his Rampola Style guide, and tosses it at the boy.

13.

The boy catches the Rampola Style guide.

The N.H.’s voice is heard saying: “Source it!”

Character Background:

10-foot tall octopus. Name: Ambrose

Why is Ambrose Evil? – He sucks out all the information from the books and does not reference where he got his knowledge. When he takes the information, the pages of the books are left blank, stealing knowledge from the world. Further, he uses the ink from the books as a weapon against Ninja Historian. The ink is hot, it can burn.

Named After: Ambrose is named after popular historian Stephen Ambrose. He wrote Band of Brothers, which became a popular mini-series on HBO. However, he is a known plagiarizer. In his book The Wild Blue, he copied full passages from Thomas Childers’ book Wings of Morning.

Ninja Historian- One bad-ass historian. (that’s all that needs to be said)

I think it’s essential that my characters have a deep history, and that future plots include illusions to famous books, to make the text richer. I personally love figuring out what authors are referencing and looking deeper into it. I think it’s a great way of learning lots of little things.

Brainstorming

So my original plan, which I am currently debating if I am going to attempt or not, was to make an animated short about what historians do. However, the historian would have been a NINJA! Obviously, historians are pretty balling in all, but a ninja historian is as cool as it gets.  

My ninja historian has many arch-foes, which would be the living embodiment of what historians face in real life. So far the one villain I have fully developed is (well I am still working on the name) a gigantic ten foot octopus that plagiarizes.  Currently, my vision is of the octopus causing mayhem in the library. The octopus is using all of its eight tentacles to spread throughout the library and take the knowledge out of the books. Imagine books and shelf’s crashing to the ground as the octopus absorbs all the knowledge in them and does not even reference. To battle the plagiarizing octopus, the ninja historian will use shuriken (throwing stars) that are shaped as a FN, for foot note. When the ninja historian throws his FN shaped stars at the octopus they will cut off his tentacles ending his plagiarism. Further, the FN will clamp onto the severed tentacle, and when all eight have been cutoff the octopus will begin to shrink into a first year student who was overwhelmed because he did not start his essay early enough. When the first year student is all sad and nervous that he got caught the ninja historian will throw him a Rampolla writing guide, and then magically disappear (because he is a ninja and they are all stealth and all) until the next history crisis. However, after examining the website my Proff emailed me I am a bit nervous.

My back-up idea that I just started to think about, so it’s not really developed enough is to make an interactive maze. I don’t know if you have been to Ontario Place. But my favorite thing there as a child was the Maze. I knew where everyone of the polls was to swipe your card at. And since I was always trying to improve my time, and since I am really short, I used to run under the boards instead of running among them. I was obsessed with going to the Maze from ages 5-12. I would continuously go through the maze, my parents must have loved this because they got to just sit there while I tired myself out.

My idea is to build a maze that has interactive stops where you have to complete an action to be able to get your card swiped. As a warning my maze might take-up the whole class room.

On a sad note, as I was trying to find a picture of Mega Maze I discovered they have replaced it :(.

Hopefully a change of feelings

Currently, it’s a few hours before our second class and I am sitting in Weldon waiting for the time to pass so I can put down my readings and build something. I honestly did not understand everything we had to read for today’s lab. I enjoyed reading the blog post “Transduction, Transmateriality, and Expanded Computing” by Mitchell Whitlaw. I am kind-of scared of my computer for a variety of reasons: will stop working and I will lose essay just before I press print, can’t figure out how to do very much on it, and I tend to drop my knapsack when I get home from school so I think my computer hates me. I liked Whitlaw’s comment “literally and figuratively cracking [the computer] open, hooking it up to new inputs and outputs, extending and expanding its connections with the environment.” I think a major reason why I am scared of my computer is because I feel disconnected from it. I know what I want it to do most of the time, but I just can’t get it to do it. And its usually the simplest things that frustrate me the most; such as just wanting to move a line over an inch on a graph your making but every time you click its never in the right spot. And then I get so frustrated and feel disconnected because I know this is a task that could be easily done in my real world, but is driving me Fing insane in the virtual world.

(Read this with the boxing ring announcer voice.)

 

On the right side of the ring we have Hilary the Historian with her primary documents and her Arduino set ready to take on the champion, the Silver Dell Computing Machine. The two have fought numerous battles, with the Silver Dell as the winner. But Hilary the Historian has been bulking up in the library typing vast computer script. Who shall win? Tune in at the end of the semester to find out.

Jumping into History

Dear my vast audience that has probably been waiting in anticipation for my first blog of 2012. Or maybe just Professor Turkel. I shall pad my ego with the pretend notion that people read this. Because that’s really what I am looking forward to as a public historian, that my work, which won’t only be essays, will be appreciated by an audience outside of academia. My little frozen Grinch heart swelled a bit when the little old ladies at the town hall meeting were excited by my research.

 

When I think about things lying around my apartment the first thing that comes to mind are books. If I bought a second book shelf this problem would be fixed. But I really do not want to schlep back that much furniture to Toronto. I am actually quite neat; these are very organized piles in the corner of my room. (That sentence has been added so that future Historians don’t write in my biography that I was  messy.) 

So what I have always wanted is a hologram book that you can jump into. I have always wanted to be able to emerge myself into an image by jumping into it since I saw Marry Poppins. It’s the scene where Marry and the children are on their way to the park when they bump into Burt who has drawn a row of beautiful chalk photos of different scenes. They then jump into the picture of the English countryside. During their adventures in the drawing Marry wins a hoarse race on a carrousel hoarse. After which she sings Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Hopefully this has rejuvenated your memory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b-Z0SSyUcw&noredirect=1

I love reading historical fiction. I am currently reading The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli. The book is about a female photographer for Life magazine during the Vietnam War. Well, I would not want to be able to jump into the war scenes; however, I would love to be able to walk around the streets of Saigon. (I just started the book, so it’s only 1963 so far, so its not a completely unrealistic notion.)  

My hologram book would work by opening any ordinary book of one’s choosing and then the individual would place “The Button” on the page they would like to enter the story at, smack in the middle of the spine. Once one pressed “The Button” a rainbow hologram image would appear covering the page. Then you would place the book on the floor, and step into it. Though the weird feeling often associated with Disapparating might be a side affect; I have not worked out all the kinks yet. Once you have arrived in the image you would have the ability to explore the historical backdrop of the book your reading. However, the experience only lasts for twenty-five minutes. One should not escape reality for too long.