Z e u m M a s t e r s

Leigh Ann's Thoughts on the 2009 Holiday

2010-01-17T14:17:00.000-08:00

1. Describe your experiences working at Zeum during the Winter Holidays (one of the busiest times of the year!). If you have worked here for more than one Winter Holiday season, share any experiences from those years.

This past winter holiday season was a lot different that past holidays. This is my 3rd winter holidays and this was definitely the most busiest ever. I was surprised that it was this busy because of the recession, people losing their jobs and cut backs. This season went a lot smoother in terms of order, structure and support. Even though we had 400 plus people each day and 515 plus on the last days before school was crazy busy, it went smooth because we had managers, office staff, team leaders and ZeumMasters all working together and communicating effectively.

2. What did you enjoy and gain from the 2009 Winter Olympic Games? What suggestions and additions would you like to make for next year?

What I liked most about the winter olympics is that the games were really fun this year. We were more competitive this year than last and all the ZeumMasters and educators worked together and made everyone in their group feel like a team. For next year, my suggestions would be get the point system more clear because we were told different things by different people and to get ZeumMaster input on what games they want.

3. How will you apply your experiences from the morning team building exercises and the teamwork witnessed on the museum floor to the upcoming spring months?

I would apply the stuff that I learned with the team building to the the spring months by remembering what i learned and also the effective communicating and keep up those skills.

Michelle's Holiday Reflections

2010-01-17T14:12:00.000-08:00

1. Describe your experiences working at Zeum during the Winter Holidays (one of the busiest times of the year!). If you have worked here for more than one Winter Holiday season, share any experiences from those years.

Working at Zeum during the winter holiday was a good experience for me. It was one of the busiest days of the year but it wasn't so bad because of all the help and support I got from the staff working here. I thought i wouldn't be able to handle the big crowds but I actually did. I felt like I developed my communication and leadership skills even more.

2. What did you enjoy and gain from the 2009 Winter Olympic Games? What suggestions and additions would you like to make for next year?

The Winter Olympic Games for this year was really fun. It was a good way to start the morning. The games helped me get all the energy I needed to start the day. The fact that it was a competition was even more fun because of the prizes we would get at the end. I really enjoyed the games every morning as I got to work with the other ZeumMasters as well.

3. How will you apply your experiences from the morning team building exercises and the teamwork witnessed on the museum floor to the upcoming spring months?

I will apply my experiences from the morning team building exercises and the teamwork witnessed on the museum floor to the upcoming months by continuing to work as hard as i did. When it comes to free days i know that it will work out because of everything I learned, experienced and got out of the winter breaks.

Happy 2010 from the ZeumMasters!

2010-01-13T13:48:00.000-08:00

Happy 2010 from the ZeumMaster team! We enter the new year with amazing experiences from the floor, reflections from morning workshops, and of course OUR STORIES, told by US.

In the most recent morning meeting, we asked the teens to share their thoughts on the recent 2009 holiday season at Zeum. For those of you who have not experienced a 400+ visitor day at our museum, it is NOT an EASY task. But what's amazing is how the ZeumMasters make running a packed museum LOOK EASY to their visitors. Yes, these 24 high school interns are a huge part of making the magic happen here. Come visit and find out for yourself!

Below are the 3 questions we asked each ZeumMaster:
1. Describe your experiences working at Zeum during the Winter Holidays (one of the busiest times of the year!). If you have worked here for more than one Winter Holiday season, share any experiences from those years.

2. What did you enjoy and gain from the 2009 Winter Olympic Games? What suggestions and additions would you like to make for next year?

3. How will you apply your experiences from the morning team building exercises and the teamwork witnessed on the museum floor to the upcoming spring months?

Look out for each ZeumMasters responses and our thrilling ZeumMaster 2009 Winter Olympics short film by educator Eli Africa!

Zeum Fieldtrips

2009-08-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we took fieldtrips to the Pistahan festival that took place in Yerba Buena Gardens. It is a festival to celebrate the culture and heritage of Filipino Americans. There were many different performances such as singing, dancing and people sharing words of wisdom. Along with the different performances, people also had booths to share knowledge and information about differnent things, from a police booth to insurance. I was shocked to see that it was very diverse, not just one race but also great variety of booths. At the festival i thought it would be all Filipinos untill i saw alot of races.

Another fieldtrip we took this summer was to San Francisco's annual AIDs Walk. The fieldtrip included me, Fran, Wing Yan, Tatyana and Gladys. There was alot of people so we kept getting lost but still managed to find each other. At first it was hard to walk because it was so crowded and alot of people brought their dogs but it was fun. Along the way, we got freebies every two miles which was nice. The best part of it all was seeing all the cute dogs and spending time with Wing Yan, Tatyana, Gladys(Fran's dog) and Fran. Team Zeum raised $200 which goes to resarching a cure for aids.

Preview of a possible future

2009-08-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

so we talked all night about the rest of our lives, where we're gonna be... when i listen to this song (Graduation- Vitamin C) i think of college. the end of our highschool years is approaching and i'm sure everyone is thinking about their future. for high school seniors, we are all thinking about the college we want to attend and even what we would like to become in the future. so we planned the UC Davis college tour following the Stanford trip (both led by Irina on her free time :) thanks IRINA !UC Davis is one of the top universities of the nation. It is located in the Yolo County. The school is unique for its over 100 majors and 5300 acres campus. during the trip, we interviewed people about Davis. Many of them agreed that the professors are easy to talk to and that they have the best dorm food. The class size ranges from 20 to 400 people. Moreover, they have many popular majors such as pychology, economics, biology and political science. The school also offers financial aid such as student grants. However, the recession did affect Davis because there was a staff reduction and an increase in student fees. Will the economy continue to affect us? We will just have to wait to find out. Have you thought about your future yet, or even, did you picture your future the way it is now?

Two Weeks n the Job =D?!

2009-07-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

Hello =D, My name is Gary. I been working at Zeum for about a two weeks now and i think its great :D. I got this job through MYEEP, even though it wasnt my first choice im happy that i got this job. One of my favorite exhibit in Zeum is MPL. I really like MPL because you get to see alot of different people sing songs. Also , when it's a slow day you can sing some awesome songs :D. Even if it isnt a slow day ... you can always sing along with them on the sideline. Sometimes when there is a High School Musical song or a Hannah Montana song... i sing along. Some of you may think that kind of weird lol... but im just having fun =P. Even though i sing these songs on the sideline... i can never do it infront of the camera lol... (camera shy =D). But, before summer ends i am gonna sing a song in front of the camera and record it :) and bring it home lol... So help me choose a song lol and come watch me sing it =D. Haha!!

Working at Zeum has been great , i learned alot about technology. I never really worked with technology except for my computer ... but the stuff i learned from Zeum is way more technology then just my computer LOL. I learned how to make music videos, photoshop ,and how to work istopmotion. Probably my favorite technology that i learned was MPL (as i said earlier lol). In the MPL i also learned about Green Screen which was really cool. It's cool how we can have different backrounds when people are making music videos. You can be in space, a basketball court , on stage , and a lot more.

Also, claymation is very cool . You can make whatever you like! I'm not really good at it and only really completed one of them. But , while i'm still working here i am gonna create more lol.

That all i really got for you guys. See yea!

-Gary

We Heart PlayLab

2009-07-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

We had some before-hours fun this morning with Zeum's newest exhibit, PlayLab! Evidence...

MPL: a place to rock out...and express yourself

2009-07-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

HI MY NAME IS ERIC BEVERLY BUT EVERYBODY CALLS ME EB!!! its freaking awesome at Zeum - it was a perfect match for me. When i got hired and started to work it felt like i was married to Zeum ,cool people different personalities,and most of all helping all the kids. I love everything at Zeum ,but my favorite part is M..P..L.. music production lab. Music production lab is my favorite because its a good way to express yourself and tell how your feeling . AND SO ON LIKE DENZEL SAYS.....the technology of it was not that hard to learn it came to me quickly. But the skill that benifits working in m.p.l is my outgoingness, I really like the music production lab beaucse kids come in and dress up and try thier hardest, some act silly and its really funny but overall my experience with Zeum is mind blowing....... but yeah this is my blog to the world hope you digg it................................!! PEACE!! oh yeah and here is some people in m.p.l rocking out.

A Day In the Life of Yvane: ZEUM Edition

2009-07-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

This is a sample of our morning workshops.

Hello everyone. My name's Yvane, I work at Zeum, and I'm what you would call a ZeumMaster. If you're wondering what that is, well its pretty much a master of Zeum. And if you're still wondering what Zeum is, well I'll give you the definition: San Francisco's hands-on, multimedia arts and technology museum for kids. And it pretty awesome. I've only been working here for a little over a month, but I LOVE it.

As a young child I'd always pass by Zeum to stop by the Yerba Buena Gardens playground a.k.a. The Big Slide. You see, I'd always pass by Zeum, but I never actually knew what went on inside. Finally, early last year

in 2008, as a sophomore in high school, that's right SOPHOMORE. You're probably wondering why a tenth grader is visiting a museum targeted for 3-12 year olds right? Well, I came here on a field trip with Miss Ashkenes' Honor's English class and did a short movie workshop regarding immigration. Though the workshop was pretty short since we only had a little amount of time, my fellow 15-year-old classmates and I had a lot of fun. So yeah that's my fondest (more like only) memory of Zeum prior to working here this summer. But look at me now. I've been officially been working here for about a month and 5 days. And I've got tons of stories to tell that I can even fill up a book. Unfortunately since I have to get back on the floor and go back to my shift, I can't share

them all. But I will share a few.

So once upon a time, I remember ending my first week of work with a really awesome day.

That day was the same day I let out some of my Russian and I first brought out the uke on the floor (I remember thinking I would get in trouble for having the uke out, but it turns out the staff loves it!). Well anyways, I was stationed in the Animator's Studio and I overheard a family talking in Russian. Since I recognized the language, I waved to the lady, and greeted her, "Zdrastbyute!" which is Russian for hello. The lady greeted me back in Russian and gave me a warm smile. A little later when I was stat

ioned in Main, I met a little girl from the same party and she was so amazed about the fact that I knew how to speak Russian, that I actually ended up singing her a song I wrote for my Russian final while playing the uke. After I finished singing her my song, she asked me to perform it in front of her mom and her mom's friend. Luckily they loved it and were impressed that a Filipino girl knew how to speak their native language. And after I sang my Russian final in front of them, we ended up jamming to old traditional Russian folk songs.

A little while later, I introduced the little girl who was so amazed that I knew how to speak Russian, Ashley, to one of my fellow co-workers. The three of us started jamming to the uke, attempting to freestyle. Good times. And because I met these two awesome parents originally from Hawaii, I had a long awesome conversation with them about Hawaii, the uke, and life in the Bay Area (they just recently moved to the East Bay). And while that was happening, it turns out Ashley met the whole Zeum staff! Before she left she was already planning her next visit to Zeum. How awesome is that?

And on that same day right before we were about to close, a mother and her young daughter, Hannah, from Vancouver, came to check the place out. The young toddler invited me to build a castle in the playlab. And because they were having so much fun, they planned on coming back the next day. I was so ready for the "Highlight of the Day" portion of our end-of the-day meeting where Ari (for my first week of work at least), usually asks everyone to share a moment that really stood out in the ZeumMasters' eyes/ brought a smile to their faces. Sadly we didn't do a "Highlight of the Day" portion for that meeting, but its alright since now I'm sharing that day to whoever maybe reading this.

Well, unfortunately I'm out of time. I'll pretty much give you a few of my other highlights

in quick notes: a mom singing Hannah Montana, my little sister performing in front of Zeum Staff, lip synching in DW, reuniting with two of my kindergarten classmates as ZeumMasters, making a short a rap about filling out a Zeum survey, me and my fellow ZeumMasters jammin' to Michael Jackson while closing up, Zeum campers taking on the role of a ZeumMaster, becoming a visitor at my own job, and lots lots lots more. Well that's all for now folks, I'll share more stories with you the next time I return to the ZeumMasters Blogspot. Otherwise if you're too eager to see what's going on with my life as a ZeumMaster or my school projects, checkout my Youtube account by clicking the link below. Aloha for now.

And this is a taste of what can happen at the end of the day meetings.

Dancing Freestyle

2009-07-17T14:59:00.000-07:00

Heeyy everyone! [: My name's Yvonne and I am a new ZEUMmaster! This job is extremely tiring, but it's worth it! When I was waiting to be interviewed, I thought everyone was going to be strict and really mean. I thought wrong. They were SUPERR nice and I was like "Ohh, I have nothing to worry about!" Every staff member was very friendly. People say I'm a little shy, but with the ZEUM staff members, I've broken out of my shell already! [: I've only been here for about two weeks and I've already made some friends. I love watching all the families and camps come through the door. Every day I get inspired by all the creativity that I see from everyone. This isn't like those boring jobs that people would dislike having to wake up every morning to go to. I get excited when I know it's time to work at ZEUM. To me, this is like an extra curricular activity.

I'm a Polynesian dancer, lion dancer, sketcher, and now I am a ZEUMmaster.In Polynesian dance, they make you freestyle what you've learned, and at ZEUM, I see kids AND adults dance and freestyle at the MUSIC PRODUCTION LAB (MPL) I play the drums in lion dance and everyone depends on the drums or else the lions have nothing to move to. Being in that position with so much power(muahhaha), I can make them dance to anything and they have to follow. At ZEUM, I see people doing their crazy dance moves and it inspires me what I could do to the lions [; When I'm at the Clay Animation Studio, I see people make these really cool figures and then I would go home and sketch it out
ZEUM ROCKS!!!!!!! :P

The Path to Passion...at Zeum

2009-07-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

Love, passion, and inspiration motivate one to strive for his or her dream. They have brought me to Zeum and I could not have asked for more.

I have always enjoyed working with kids and had a passion in arts and craft since I was in elementary school. I was pumped when I found out that at Zeum I was going to be able to combine both of them together. What more could I ask for? Well guess what? Working at Zeum gave me more than just the opportunity to work with kids and art. I received a priceless gift unexpectedly. The chance to help kids create big smiles and laughter. :D

Although I have only been working at Zeum for a month, I already have many fond memories. One that stood out the most was this one friday when two big summer camps came to Zeum around the same time. I was in digital workshop and I did not anticipate that I would have to get people to start a line to get into the room. I was working alone in that room and kids were screaming for help. Thankfully, I was laughing throughout the whole experience. I guess it is a natural cover up for me when I'm under stress, but the laughter pulled the stress right out of me. This one little 6 year old boy was too short to be seen through the camera so he had his friends carry him up and they ended up taking a group picture instead. It was hectic, but every kid was satisfied with his or her picture and their group leader thanked me. I was proud of myself because I handled the large group by myself and I managed to stay positive and help each kid individually.

Although I see my friends helping each other out in a daily basis, there's always that magic spark that jumps in my heart when I see young kids help each other. Kids offer help and in return, they just want to have fun. I am glad that Zeum can offer them a place where they can experience art and tech with their friends. Museums in general are places where kids can get an insight to a specific topic, but at Zeum, although it is an art and tech based museum, there are endless opportunities for the kids and their family to "create, collaborate, and communicate" at the same time.

At the end of the day, I would have probably received more than 100 smiles. Although some kids may not have grown all their teeth yet (haha), but those smiles are still worth a million!

-Amy

Alternative Clay Building

2009-07-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

There is more than one way to build a clay character. Normally we give the visitors wire shaped into a person and they can make that shape into a four legged animal, butterfly, fish or whatever they choose, but today we learned how to make characters without using wire or a lot of clay. Once we made the characters, we got paired up with another person and had to tell a story with our clay character. Once both partners told their story, we had to come up with one as a team with a conflict and a resolution.

We could use this technique and show visitors. When we get little kids into the clay animation room.

we could show them this technique so they can build a clay character that they could take home without using wire. This is a great way to get the little kids into building clay characters and not just smashing they clay together.

Not Just "Josh's Little Sister" ;)

2009-07-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, my name is Jessica. I started knowing about Zeum from my older brother, Josh. He worked at Zeum for about 4 years until he went off to college. I remember coming to Zeum to watch him work, it was fun. He was outgoing and made the kids come out their shell. He made them laugh and i noticed he was very good with kids after seeing that. Everyone knew me at Zeum as "josh's little sister". I didn't mind, well matter a fact, when his co-workers asked me who i was i referred to as "josh's little sister.

I loved going to the second floor of Zeum to watch the kids sing in MPL( Music Production Lab). I was too scared to go up there to sing.( I guess the kids weren't the only one who was shy). I also remember going to some of the"end of the day meetings". It was very interesting...even though I had know clue of what was going on. The more I came, the more I started to think this would be a nice and fun place to work. I talked to my brother about working here, but at the time he didn't really want me working with him, so i kept visiting.

As time went on my aunt wanted me to start looking for a job, so I came back to my brother and said I was applying to Zeum. He finally was okay with it because he said then he could watch me( sure) lol. It then came to me that my future was based on child development and dealing with children. That's when i realized Zeum was more than just a fun place to work, it would further my career.

I then got straight on it and started applying. I remember applying in there staff office, since I was Josh's little sister, his co-workers let me go in there. The same day I got it was the same day I turned it in. I was so anxious to work for Zeum. I wanted to start right away, but of course you have to go through that long old process to get a job, let alone your first job.

The manager at the time, Christian, said he'll call me in about a week or two. For those two weeks I was hoping to get the job. When I received his phone call, I was relieved. He told me to come in for an interview. I was so anxious but nervous..lol. I was interviewed by my friend from my program and Ari, who was the assistant manager of Zeum but is now the manager because Christian went back to school.

I remember the interview so well. I felt good and nerves went away after answering the first couple of questions. Then I had to get a work permit, which is kind of a long process because at the time I was moving so all my information was packed away, but since everyone at Zeum liked me they gave me time. ( I felt even more glad to work at Zeum because they understood that I needed time to get my papers).

When i finally got settled down I returned my work permit in and was almost a ZeumMaster( Not exactly because you have to go through the training because there's so many rooms so you have to learn something new in every space). It was fun to shadow the ZeumMasters at Zeum to observe how they engage with the visitors. It was a great experience because from there I learned more. Also since we all are in the same age group, we have many things in common. They should me how everything works and the first question you should always ask is"Have You Been Here Before?" because depending on there answer there different things you have to do. At first it was kind of scary to engage with the visitor, but the more i started doing it the more it just came to me like second nature..lol.

I was then officially a ZeumMaster. All my hard work paid off. In the beginning I didn't expect to become a ZeumMaster, but here I am almost a half a year working at Zeum. I intend to stay working here until I go off to college. Another crazy thing is, I'm thinking about going to my brothers school in LA( our hometown). After all this, I didnt even end up working with him because he was graduating high school going off to college, which was about the same time I started to apply. "This was fun to talk about my experiences!" ( Blogging is fun)-July 2, 2009

Also the photo above is a self portrait that I created in Zeum's Digital Workshop.

Playing to Learn

2009-06-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Hey, hey, wassuppp?!? I'm Cristina and a new ZeumMaster at the Z house. Lol. I'm just chillaxin at Zeum writing my first blog of all times!!! SUPER COOL HUH!!!! I'm soOOooOo intrigued that I recieved this job. When I was in the process of applying to Zeum I wasn't sure of what Zeum had in store for me. I expected wonderful things but I didn't know that it would be this good. First of all I have a long background of "supervising children" but really I just ABSOLUTELy love KiDZZzz. I swear they brighten up my whole life with one smile. I liteweight wish that I could be SUPERWOMAN and save all children from deviance. LOL, but that's beside tha point..

Not only does the Zeum embody the 3 C's ( Collabration, Communication, and Creativity) it makes the children strive to use their imagination to create wonder and beauty. That's what makes this job AWESOME! Like there are some kids that come to the Zeum with low self-esteem yet, when they leave here they are touched with a light that they can create ANYTHING!!! If I ever can "touch" a child's life and make them feel that at least a lil better than before it's worth it, and at Zeum this is what we do.

Today, specifically we had a training to strengthen our knowledge in how we approach children and help them learn. We are broadening our targeted ages to 3-12 and we need to make changes on how we make things more fun for the younger audience. So anyways today, in the morning we had a training like we do most mornings.

One of our staff led a training this morning to teach zeummasters how children develop and how to interlock this knowlegde into what we do at ZEUM. Well we learned alot, that connected me back to my psychology class. We got to see how kids learn through play. After playing a vicious game of blocks, : p, we quickly saw how children play and where we fall in that process. We were confronted with the issue of playing well and playing to win. We at Zeum don't want to encourage playing to win as much as playing well. Children need to know that collaboration and solving simple problems with creativity is the same as winning. Every object a child makes is in turn them succeeding, it reflects their hard and complete work. At Zeum every one is a champion, because they are challenging themselves to trumpth. WELLL i gotsZ to get back to my JOB!!!

LOVE ALWAYS,

CRiSTiNA

P.S. i LOVE MY JOB!!!

Zeeeeeeeeeummm!

2009-06-20T14:39:00.000-07:00

I couldn't sum up everything ZEUM is in one sentence. There are so many possibilities and amazing things that happen here. I just started working here for the summer, and it has already blown me away. It was what I expected and much much more. From the outside, Zeum already stands out from many other museums from it's funky spiral shape and glass exterior. The kids that come by are just awesome. It really brings me back to when I was younger and had a limitless imagination. It's true that children see the world in a completely different perspective, and I'm so grateful that I can be in on the action and that I get to witness this every day I work at Zeum. The creativity just bounces from wall to wall in this building and the energy is always up! After joining the ZeumMaster team I got really excited and I already wanted to show off how great Zeum was to my friends and family. I think it's really great to have a place like Zeum for children to explore their creative sides and break out of their shell. There are so many opportunities here and although this is a children's museum, it's also a place where adults can go back and do things they may not have had the chance to do when they were younger. It's really true that everyone is a kid at heart.

The exhibits in Zeum are crazy. My favorites are definitely the Music Production Lab (MPL) and the Animators Studio. It's really fun watching all these different people sing together. I feel like I've learned so much about myself from this program. I hope that Zeum can expand to touch many more lives. In the Music Production Lab, it's really touching to see kids to come in shy but then by the time they're supposed to go up, they rock out and have a super fun time. It feels really awesome to be contributing to their experience here at Zeum, and I hope their time here is something they won't forget. At the MPL I've already made many memories with the visitors and with my peers. I love to sing, but I usually save that for when I'm at home or with my close friends. When I first became a ZeumMaster, I wasn't very comfortable on the stage but after a couple days, I love the stage and connecting with the visitors.

The Animators studio is so great because here the kids can make their own Claymation movie or go to another part of the exhibit and make a 2D or 3D animation. The visitors just love the studio and some stay for hours to perfect their clay characters and such. As a kid I didn't even know how animation was made but with this opportunity, the visitors have a chance to make movies like the ones they see on TV and the big screen. I love to just sit with the visitors and just listen to what story they've cooked up and the big plans they have for their animation. Their ideas are inspiring and they think so out of the box.

The smaller exhibits we have can also make a huge impact, like with our Lego and Colorform exhibit, I've seen some crazy things that visitors make and it really opens my eyes. How a Lego wall could be transformed into something completely different, it's really amazing. The visitors' personalities are displayed clearly through their artwork, and their stories.

The staff here is amazing and they couldn't be any greater. I love working at Zeum and I can't wait to make more memories here.

If you haven't been here, you're missing out!

-- Shelley [:

I Love Zeum!

2009-05-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

Heyy everybody! I'm just going to blog about how much I enjoy Zeum =). I've been working here for about 5 months?? Well, it doesn't feel like work. It almost kind of feels like play time! I've learned more then I've expected to learn. From working with computers to working with kids and adults, there's a variety of new things to learn. I mean, every room you go into holds a whole new path of creativity and imagination! And, dude, there's alot of rooms to explore. When I help out the guests, not only do THEY experience new things, but I do too! For example, the questions each guest holds, the reactions to the experiences and fun they're having, ideas on how to improve what can be done, the things the kids create with their own i m a g i n a t i o n s , things that even I, can't think of.

My two favorite rooms right now are Music Production Lab (MPL) and Animators Studio. I'm liking MPL because I love m u s i c ! I find it pretty cool when I see and listen to kids, adults, and Zeum Masters singing. There are many different voices and songs out there. Sometimes, I even learn new songs while listening to everybody.

Animators Studio is another favorite because I used to love making art when I was little. I loved drawing and painting. I remember in kindergarten, the teacher would give us an option to play in the playgroud, or stay in the room and draw or create things ! Everybody would choose to go out, but I remember myself staying in the room playing with the crayons. Animators caught my eye when I first got here. I was like "Woahh this is cool!". I've made a couple things in Animators already. One I like the most is the sliced clay cake. Its in the display box! (The Pink Cake). I like this cake because I've seen kids go look at the cake, and then make a cake themselves ! Another cool thing was that the inside is all guts. So, when I sliced open the cake, it looked pretty cool!

Well, yeahhh today is my last day! Hopefully I'll be back in the summertime. kThnx For reading! =)

Collaboration For a Better Future

2009-02-07T14:45:00.000-08:00

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." - Barack Obama current U.S president

Five Spaces .

Four Concepts .

Three Green Screens.

Two Floors.

One Idea

Zeum is once again on the move . Change is a must . Now a days we want it bigger want it badder want it awesome. So Zeum as a standing role model will once again try to meet the requirements of a changing pace. Plus its always nice to deserve a wow.

This time its a little different. Zeum is coming to us, the ZeumMasters for help and critique on each of the spaces . Wow right ?

So heres the deal : Themed Exhibits

An idea to bring together the spaces and to spice it up .
Your favorite exhibit is gonna get a makeover every month or so , You come into the room and have the option to participate in the theme of the month.

The purpose of all this is to offer something new and different to keep all you visitors happy and entertained.

The way it goes is that each month we will brain storm different ideas for the month and make it a reality with our budget. The Zeum Masters in collaboration with the Educators with choose what to buy how it will look where to put it and how to present it. Who knows maybe some of these will be permanent .

ZeumMasters really have special input at Zeum. Close enough to having control over it but far enough away to think like a consumer. Age wise to we know what is in and what is not. As teens its amazing thought that we have more control than we previously thought. To be given a task to be trusted , well its quite a feat.

At Zeum were all about what you take when you leave this place. My goal for Zeum is each time a visitor revisits I want them to notice something new. A quote on the wall somewhere a new costume. I want visitors to make visits to make memories.

AND YEA ....

♥ Brianna

ZeumMasters on Film

2009-02-06T16:57:00.000-08:00

Check out this video, made by Nae, Brianna, Denzel, Andrew, Leigh Ann, Wing Yan, Victor and Sammi and with the assistance of awesome Educator Eli.

We Still Dream for San Francisco

2009-01-19T12:35:00.000-08:00

This morning, in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., ZeumMasters, Team Leaders, Ari, Irina and David shared dreams for San Francisco...read on...

I have a DREAM that everyone, especially children, can receive the same quality of education, despite age, race, color, religion or beliefs. Starting with teachers passionate about what they do. With that DREAM, parents and children forced to believe that they are incapable of moving up in this jaded society and a social class system that they think still exists, will be more aware of events and issues that aren't happening in SF but also around the world. Education is where it all be

gins.

The city and California need more funding for you

th activities to keep them off the streets.

I want San Francisco to be a place that is affordable, safe and welcoming for everyone.

MY DREAM = clean planet, peaceful earth, friendly people.

I HAD a dream that there would be less violence in San Francisco.

I have a dream that racism never existed. I have a dream that you wouldn't get killed by the color of your skin or your race. I have a dream where if you say you're not someone, you wouldn't get shot for mistaken identity. I have a dream to live in a peaceful world where there is no violence, guns, knives, killings and where we all get along. I have a dream where the economy would never be bad so everyone has a chance for employment and education...R.I.P. MLK, Josh and G-l...If we lived in a world without racism, y'all would be with us and not dead because of your race.

I have a dream that just as many people of color will live in pacific heights as white people and that people will not have reason to think of certain other neighborhoods as dangerous. I have a dream that San Francisco will pave the way for equality in as many ways as we can continue to dream of.

I have a dream that the economic crisis will end so that there will be no poor or homeless people, that everyone will have a job and be productive in the community.

What's your dream?

ZeumMasters Silk Screen!

2009-01-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

Heyyyyyyyy my name is Dayana and today we went on a really cool field trip. You ask where? Well i shall tell you. We did silk screening in the mission. It was a lot of fun.

We had been working on them for a while. We first started out with nothing. You could use any image you wanted. You could draw an image or you could pull one of the net. only if it was not copyrighted. So i decided to use some pictures i took at a concert i went to. The concert i went to was called SassyBack Tour with Cobra Starship, Forever The Sickest Kids, Hit The Lights, and Sing It Loud. The pictures i used were of Kyle&Austin from Forever The Sickest Kids. At first i was debating who's picture to use, either Kyle or Austin but then David saved the day and help me put both of the pictures together. After working on our pictures we finally got them printed onto our screens.

Today was the day we went to go print our images on paper. It was really fun - first we had to put ink on the screen. Then somebody would hold it down for you as you spread the ink with the squeegee. Once you spread it with your squeegee you can either add a little more ink and do it again or you can wash it and play with some "fake under painting". At first I just played around with just regular white paper. It was pretty cool how the picture came out. But after I played around with the white paper. I printed on red and yellow paper.The pictures came out good and all I can say is I had a lot of fun and learned so many new things :)

Happy Holidays to All!

2008-12-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

Happy Holiday Season
from the ZeumMasters to all!

The creation in the photo is from this morning's winter olympics event in which teams paired up to create blindfolded interpretations of Kwanzaa, Chanukah, Christmas, Chinese New Year and The Winter Solstice. :)

ZeumMentors

2008-12-07T15:52:00.000-08:00

During my first day working at Zeum I expected to merely travel to work, work, eat lunch, work, and then return home. I did not expect to be associated with a mentor group within the Zeum Masters' program. Although it appears long and tedious it is actually fun and is very productive. I feel as though I am learning many new things such as different ways to make biographies, clay animations, and today we learned how to make an interesting type of artwork. (image on the side)

Through our mentor groups we have discussed how we would like to tell "our" story, may it be some clay figures fighting atop of a desk, the time a relative did something intesresting, a famous event in time, or just what you did the other day. These groups help us elaborate our ideas or real life experiences so that we may effectively display them. Eli and Ari, my mentor group's leaders, are very helpful with finding out exactly what story we wish to tell and through which medium we want to tell it in. Through tasks which help us see what parts of our life or imagination we want to utilize in order to express the ideas. We are to tell these stories through multiple mediums. Such as an biography type video, clay animation, poem, and etc.

Zeum is neither an ordinary museum nor an Arts & Crafts workshop, rather it is both, a place where one's imagination may be stimulated, expressed, and even taken home. As a Zeum-Master I have discovered a multiple of ways in which stories may be told, how they are told, what they really represent, and how expressing them may show people how you really are, aside from your appearance. They get a chance to discover how you feel and how these feelings are seem in your songs, music, videos, animations, pictures, and/or etc. Although it may take a chunk of my time to complete these projects, mentor group projects at Zeum allow me to express how I feel and it will help my friends and me to understand myself better.

Tempera Resist in the Morning

2008-12-06T14:49:00.000-08:00

What have we been creating? We've been silk screening and film making. Here's a sneak peak at some of what ZeumMasters have been up to...work by Andrew and Leigh Ann.

What Do You Get When You Cross Art and Technology?

2008-11-15T11:26:00.000-08:00

Mentor Groups Round 2- Silk Screening

Is there a better project out there that combines art and technology than silk screening? Thanks to our beloved educators D.Danger and Fran, zeummasters now have the chance to experiment with silk screening.

We spent the morning discussing silk screening 101. The possibilities are limitless. We could silk screen any image on shirts or paper. David showed us a virtual silk screening demo on an Andy Warhol website and gave us some pointers on what kind of images to use. In a couple of weeks, we will be going on a mini field trip to Babylon Burning (a close three blocks away from Zeum!), a store that centers on top quality silk screening, so we can see how the process works.

The next week or two will be focused on finding and adding personal touches to images we want to silk screen. We have ideas flying everywhere from spoons to faces to the Great Wall of China. The best part? You never know how the images will turn out and it could come with the perfect surprise!

Whatever we decide to make, they will probably be put in display at Zeum so that visitors can be exposed to the world of silk screening. Who knows, our project could inspire future Andy Warhols. All anyone really needs is some time and imagination (and silk screens and ink and paper and blah blah blah). What will you create?

-T

Angry Black White Boy

2008-11-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

On Saturday November 8th, 2008, we went on a fieldtrip to see a play called "Angry Black White Boy" at intersection for the arts. It is based off of the book written by Adam Mansbach. The play was about a 14 year old white boy who was angry and tired of learning about white history and how they oppressed black people since beginning of time. That was one of the reason why he wish he was black, another is because he says rap is another form of poetry. The main character(angry black white boy) committed white on white crimes. He was a white taxi driver who tried to rob white passengers, while doing that he threatened them.

This play was interesting. The parts I liked the most were the beats and the music. At first I thought it would be super boring because I don't like plays and can't sit in the same spot for too long because I lose attention focus and want to do other things like text. The play made me a little sensitive thinking about tragedies that happened at my school the past few months and and also other personal things.

This play is very relevant today. There is also more racism and hateful crimes. An example of this is when the N word is used. I feel the feelings felt by the angry black white boy are still felt among youth. The main character said hip-hop isn't for white people but it is. Anyone can listen but I feel the actual rapping should be done by blacks since they are the ones who started it. I feel the same as the main character when he said he hates learning about white history and wishes he wasn't white. For me learning about how whites oppressed blacks, that made me soo mad and not want to be white. I don't know anything about 90s music.

Stanford!!

2008-11-02T16:28:00.001-08:00

On October 18,2008 Irina, Wing Yan, Sammi, Nicole, and Leigh Ann went to Stanford for a field trip. On the way there we talked about radio stations, college and a whole bunch of other stuff. When we finally got to the college campus we kind of got lost. Thanks to Irina, we eventually found a parking spot, and began our journey on the campus of Stanford.

Before we went on our tour, we decided to interview five people, but we only interviewed four. The first interviewee was named Lawrence and he is an economics grad student. What he told us was, "The best thing about Stanford is the weather, academics, and the campus." Like Lawrence, Nell, an undergrad, also liked the weather at Stanford. She also told us, "[The] people here are really eager to learn." She commented that the most important part of the admission application was the essay, on which she wrote about the things she really cared for. The last two people we interviewed was Dariust and Collin. They told us that the worst thing about Stanford was the "stanford bubble", that people think they're living in paradise and are not aware of what is happening in the outside world. But the best thing is the people. They also thought that the essay was the most important part of the applications and that Stanford has a really god financial aid program.

After all of that, we finally went on our tour! The tour guide was Janice, she was so friendly and funny! She talked about the history of the school, the Stanford quarter system, the different buildings, and the academic programs offered there. Did YOU know that Stanford use to be a farm?! I didn't think so, and now you do!

Overall we had a great time. We got to eat at a place there and, truthfully, it didn't taste really well, but we were all hungry and we ate whatever we had. Next time, we hope to see many other colleges and we hope we can go with Irina, who takes pictures of people blinking!

and you're listening to....RADIO Z!

2008-08-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

It's NEW !

It's HIP !

It is the ZEUM MASTER RADIO STATION .
Coming or as I have heard it is already set up and running at a Zeum near you !

The Zeum Master radio station was a sudden and glorious idea that one of our educators had and was set into immediate action much to everyones pleasure . The idea is that there is a Dj that is one of our great Zeum master staff and they will become the role of Dj and everyone in the museum who is broadcasting the stream shall be able to listen and enjoy .

When I say they become the Dj they really do become the dj . Everyone creates a dj name and a set . A dj set is a group of songs , announcements , contests , etc that are mixed together to create one continuous track .

The Zeum radio conveniently named RADIO Z really allows all the zeum masters a chance to express themselves through music . When you create your set your allowing people to see what music makes you smile , what songs make you sing , what beats make you move . You allow the audience a chance to see a part of you . Here at the Radio Z set all of the zeum masters personality's definitely seep into our sets . Different djs here have built up definite radio personality's that specific to their type of music .

I know when I hear Dj Coco Puffs rumbling through the speakers down in the animators studio I am in for a whole hour of popular hip hop music and crazy contests that have no other way but to tell me that Denzel is on the microphone . When I hear backstreet boys and Hannah Montana then I am definitely listening to Leigh Ann busting it out . When I hear the great king of pop Micheal Jackson playing , well then that could be anyone .

The Zeum Master radio is also a way for everyone in the building to stay connected . Everyone at zeum is close ; part of the zeum family . The radio really lets the zeum masters be connected to each other when there is a whole floor of guests and exhibits keeping us apart . The radio also helps us stay connected to everyone who works as a part of the office portion of zeum . Although us zeum masters hardly see them it dosn't mean we dont wonder who they are , what they do , and how they have been . In a work place where there is so much going on all the time its great to know something so simple as a song playing through the radio can keep everyone together .

Up above you will find a music player playing a music clip that I created with the help of a Zeum educator [the same one who had the idea for the radio in the first place!] help me make and publish onto this blog . Let me tell you NOT as easy as it sounds ! The above clip is a RADIO Z sampler BRIANNA style.

And a huge shout out to Michael the official director of marketing and develpoment at Zeum ! He got my blog to be read by tons and I really loved all the feedback . So thanks to everyone who supported my blog !

Signing Off - DJ BEE -

Camp Zeum from the inside...

2008-08-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

This summer I got to work with two camps AND help with the film festival. The first camp I did was Little Voices I. with educator Fran. Little Voices camp This camp's theme was puppets. We made many puppets like sock, bag, string, stick and shadow. We had a guest speaker come in and talk about the history of shadow puppets and showed us how to tell a story with shadow puppets.

The next camp I did Shout Out! with educator Irina. For this camp we learned about ourselves, different communities and communities around the world. We did blogs, podcast and short films. This camp was made up with kids ages 11-13. We interviewed different issues relating to the 3 topics of out camp. For ourselves we interviewed Nick from BayCat. For our community, we interviewed London Breed from African American Cultural Center in the Filmore. She talked about how she is trying to make change for kids in that community so that they aren't wandering the streets getting into trouble. The last people we interviewed were Katina and Victoria. They talked about world issues and helped us realize other people's perspective and we should keep an open mind about people around us not just ourselves or our community.

After working on the two camps, Irina, the camp coordinator asked me to help her with the Zeum's first annual film festival. I was totally shocked she asked me to help because she could've asked anyone else. I spent 2 days editing the podcast and films for Shout Out! camp. That was really long time to edit and more than I wanted in the beginning but once I started editing the stuff, I really got into it. I wish I could've done more editing.

For Fran's camp, at first the kids gave me a headache. I think i thought that because I am not use to working with the same group of kids for a week straight because otherwise i work with different people all moments of the day. Once i got to know them one on one though, it was alot better. They were respectful, adorable and sad that camp was ending when the week was over. The kids were amazing.

Working on camps was fun. I got to many things i never thought was possible for me since I'm usually working on the floor. Camp was tiring since I am not use to waking up at 6:45 to get ready to be at 8:30AM. Usually I wake up at 8:00AM to get ready to be at work before 10AM. Waking up early for a week straight was worth it though since i grew to love the campers. My favorite memory was when I learned new things like, for example, going in depth with Imovie and garage band and the history of shadow puppets! Once the camps were over, I was sad because even though camps were only a week, I grew attached to the kids!

Nae's trip to the Jewish Museum!

2008-08-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

Hey! Its Nae...I'm currently a zeummaster. I've been working here for two months now and i love everything about zeum especially helping kids create things by using their imagination.

All the zeummasters went to visit the Jewish Museum on 8/12/08. We had the chance get a tour given by two teens that work in the program there. The place was coo and from what i heard everyone enjoyed themselves. We learned how old the building is and what it was used for back in the day because part of the building is old and part is new. It was cool to see how the building had more meaning than what i'd thought was a "sacred place for people all around to see how Jews live and feel". Here's this coo pic that I got off their website!

I was impressed with the tour guides and their interest in the architechtural structure. They made it easier for me to become interested. What really shocked me was how much time and effort people had put into making the building..it shows they care about the space they were given because they were creative and used it wisely. I think the tour would've grabbed more people's attention if they showed us some art that resembled the Jewish community.

When i stepped inside of the building it was as if i was surrounded by art that i quite didn't understand. As they started to tell me about what the walls symbolized and the history of the building I started to become comfortable with the art. I was able to see how things connect.

It was great and I really enjoyed myself. This was a museum like no other, It had its own style. I usually walk into a museum and see painting or sculptures that represent something and I didn't feel that at the Jewish Museum...I'll be visiting again, soon!

2008-07-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

*+_+BREANNA+_+*

hey everybody my name is Breanna, I love a lot of things here at Zeum. I started here not knowing too much about this internship. i am now sad that I'm leaving on thursday and probably won't get to see all the friends i've made over the past 12 days ( the program I'm in makes the learning experience really short) because we live really far. I am so glad that I've gotten this opportunity to meet people who come from all over the world to visit Zeum, at first i was like you got to be kidding me and like my second day of working at Zeum i met people who where from israel. I LOVE THIS PLACE!

+_-*JESSENiA*-_+

HOLA EVERY1!

My name is Jessenia and i love art, music and poetry. Working here is so much fun and has been a very big experience for me, because i have met people of different cultures and races that have inspired me to become more open minded. Also, i have met cool Co-workers that i would have never thought i would be friends with. Im so glad i have had the chance to be here, because i have been learning new things every time i have came to work. I enjoy being around people and making them feel good. Zeum and the people that i have been surrounded with God has truly blessed me to have you guys around me a lot because by the time i leave, i will walk away with new skills, life lasting memories and good friends. I Thank GOD for this opportunity and GOD bless all of u at Zeum that has worked with me. Thank You very Mucho!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i hope you guyz have also enjoyed working with me also.

A Reflective First Blog Post by Brianna

2008-07-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone !
Brianna is taking this blog for a joy ride . I have been working at Zeum for almost one year . That one year mark is coming at me fast and I really can not even believe it . Going from never visiting Zeum to becoming so much a part of it is a dramatic and welcome change . When you first introduce yourself to someone you put down the basics " Hello my name is ___" and then your age , birthday , what you like , what school you go to , and other things along that line. Well heres how mine sounds - Hello my name is Brianna . I'm fifteen years old, and a ZeumMaster.

Zeum is such a big part of my life now . It is a place where I work yes but also it is a place where I learn. I honestly can not say how much I have learned from everyone who works here at Zeum. I believe it is because people who work here are all so different and diverse. If I have a question about anything under the sun and beyond I believe there is someone who works with Zeum that can answer that question ... Or at least know enough to help me find the answer.

Also Zeum is a very rare place where teens can work with adults and feel like they have some importance. I'm not busing tables at some awesome cafe , bagging grocery's at your nearest Safeway , Or even serving you coffee at your neighborhood Starbucks . I am a part of an organization that really incites great feelings in people. A place where people like working . A place that harnesses creativity . I really truly believe that a young children's lives are very impressionable. When I was around seven I used to watch tons and tons of movies . I would read almost non stop . When I used to read I would make the books I read into movies in my head . Then as I realized that I could make the images real . What I saw real . That came in the form of art . Now as I am getting older I still carry that same passion for art .

I think everyday that I work at Zeum I look at all the kids and can notice the ones that are going to take something from this place that day . Really that is what we are here for . To open peoples eyes to something they may have or have not ever before seen . I am just ecstatic to be a part of that great mission.

P.S : This was my first blog not only for Zeum but EVER. YAY !

Blinky Bug Workshop

2008-06-29T12:35:00.000-07:00

On Saturday 06/28/08, we had a guy come in at 9:30 to do a special workshop with the ZeumMasters. The workshop was about making Blinky Bugs. "What is a Blink Bug?" you may ask. A Blinky Bug is a bug you make from using electronic parts like: LCD Lights, copper wire, guitar strings, conductive tape, pipe cleaner and 3volt button battery.

He told us how one day he was bored and he had a bunch of old electronic parts lying around so he decided to experiment by putting the parts together. He also told us that before he discovered the conductive tape or glue dot he had to saughter the parts together(hot glue gun the parts together). He said it is cheaper to buy the materials online instead of an arts and craft store, walgreens or electronic store.

For me, when Ari told us about the blinky bug workshop i thought "This is going to be boring or dumb" but once we actually got to making it, my attitudes changed. I actually liked it, i wanted to keep making more but time ran out. My blinky bug didn't work and was all messed up. One reason mines didn't work is because i chose red and blue eyes and those two colors don't work together. This has to do with how l.e.d.s work. But look above. Two blue eyes and it works!

Kickoff to Summer and...

2008-06-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

ZeumMasters finished off a long and inspiring day of team building and nonstop action on the summer kickoff day with a few songs in the music production lab.

Almost Summertime at Zeum

2008-06-13T11:21:00.001-07:00

Hello Folks !! Summer is about to kick in and I am uber excited. I am looking forward to a lot of fun and interesting things; going to summer camp at Hidden Villa with full scholarship, working at Zeum, assisting with Zeum's summer camp, Little Voices and taking a Health Education class.

I am really excited to help Perry with his camp, Little Voices because I really enjoy working and educating young kids. I always wanted to work with kids (which I already do as a ZeumMaster) but for camp we see the same kids for one full week and that way I get to know them more than I already do as a ZeumMaster. My goal for this camp is to make every child an artist and an amazing performer on stage. And if they're shy then I'll try my best to bring them out of their shell within a week. How, you may ask? I will use my creativity that Joy taught me, my way of inspiring people when they seem to look like they are day dreaming, by offering them unique things to do or telling jokes that Perry taught me, and self motivation that Bob taught me.

For example, last week there was a visitor who really wanted to make an animation but without clay! He wanted to use his toy car that he had bought from Walgreens. He was screaming and yelling at his mom because his mom was like you can only use clay, how many families do you see using cars? I obviously eavesdropped and I stepped in and explained to the mom while his son was take a potty break that anything the boy wanted to do in his animation was ok. When he was done he gave me a big hug and that made my day. I really didn't expect that I could do something like this but I guessed wrong.

It has been ONE year since I first became a ZeumMaster. Zeum is a terrific job. Working with different kids is an opportunity and I feel privileged. Seeing kids smile when they're done with their animation, music video, paper mask, what more can you ask for? It felt like I had an impact, not only in customer satisfaction but my daily live. Zeum has been contributing a lot to my daily life. Before working at Zeum, I was really shy performing on stage (and I still am) but working on it, nervous when talking to a huge group of anxious visitors and just shy in general. Now, I am not shy to talk to huge crowd of anxious visitors, I talk to them about Zeum to personal life. (; I am however still a little bit nervous on stage but I am determined to sing my lungs out when summer is over. (:

My Going Away Final Blog Post

2008-06-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

Working at Zeum and being a zeummaster has meant a lot to me. Having this job has a big affect on me. I could talk to any of the adults at Zeum and youth. I’m blogging about these things because I’m going back to my hometown, Los Angeles, where I was kidnapped from to go to San Francisco, just kidding. However, I am going to miss my job and being with the people at Zeum because they are like a second family to me. Being with the people at Zeum, they have taught me that its o.k for a young man to get sensitive sometimes and no one would make fun of me or think I’m soft (a punk), which is what associates call it in the streets. Now, I can listen to women music, talk a lot and brush my hair which has become really wavy.

I don’t think I’ll ever meet bosses like Christian and Ari. They are the coolest bosses you could ever meet because it’s like they never get mad and they are always smiling which brightens my day and also makes me smile. I want to have the same mood as them when I get older like them because the people in my family, most of the time are always grumpy for no reason. I think it doesn’t take much to just put a smile on your face. Show them teeth, no one cares if you didn’t brush them, just kidding, but wait I think that’s the answer…People don’t smile a lot because they don’t brush their teeth as much as Christian and Ari do everyday. See, if people don’t start smiling then that’s what people should think, so you better smile and show them teeth. A teeth smile is what I mean, not a lips’ smile.

To get back to the point, I hope I could come back to Zeum in the future and see the same people because they are all like family.

To conclude, my most memorable moment at Zeum was when all of the zeummasters went down to the slide at that park by Zeum. It was funny because when we went over there the little kids thought we were taking over their territory but teens can play too. So, we went over there and all the kids all stoped what they are doing, looked at us like we didn't belong. Then on top of that you had the cutters, which was unfair.

I really really enjoyed being apart of Zeum, I learned a lot. I thank everyone and now I’m off to college in L.A. Peace Out you guys and girls, and I hope your lunch breaks become longer than half an hour.

Mixing & Matching: The artform of Mashups

2008-05-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning ZeumMasters had a special presentation by DJ Earworm ...and dont worry its not an ear bug. DJ Earworm creates what are known as "mashups." A mashup is a combination of differents songs lyrics and background music. For example, you would put MIM'S "this is why im hot" lyrics and add them to Rihanna's "Umbrella" music. And its not just like the mix songs you hear on the radio, they're 2 different things.

While the mixing we hear on the radio starts out as one song and then gradually you hear a second song fading in, a mashup uses the same song beat and takes out the lyrics from a different song and gets added to the beat. Its like a new song. You can download an acapella version of a song and and instrumental version of another song and mash them together( hint the term "mash-up")

I don't consider myself a really "technically connected" person, meaning it may take me a while to pick up on things on the computer. But when DJ Earworm was explaining everything to us and showing us how we could create mashups, i was really following along. I love music. Its a huge part of my like.

Music does so much; it gives people something to move to, and it can change peoples moods too. Its a form of expression. I could really connect to the concept of mashups because when i listen to songs on the radio i think to myself "that would be cool if i could put these words with that beat". I was really into the workshop because it gave me a chance to see that i can do stuff like that. He explained that mashups work when you choses songs whose key and tempo are the same, and my mind was thinking of so many songs that would sound good together.It was neat to hear it from someone who got into doing it by accident. I think it also opened up a lot of people mind's by showing them different things and forms that they can do with music. Being able to have the opportunity to hear from and have this presentation done by DJ Earworm was also influencial to Zeum because it gave us different ideas about how we could maybe incorporate mashups into the Zeum environment, such as MPL.

DJ Earworm showed us some examples of mashups he didnt like, and he showed us one of his more popular one's named " United State of Pop," which is shown below;

All in all the presentation was really fun and opened my mind. It gave me a chance to think about music and the different things that i can do with it.

Trip to Youth Speaks Poetry Slam!

2008-05-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

On Friday May, 16th, 2008 Zeum took a field trip to Youth Speaks Poetry Slam. It was amazing, they talked about real life issues like the War In Iraq, Abortions, Violence among youth and so much more. One thing that surprised me is that young folks care about issues that you wouldn't think young folks would care about like Education Budget Cuts, War In Iraq, Global Warming, God, Violence, Abortion/Parents not wanting you and so much more.

Most of topics I could relate to like Abortions/Parents not wanting you because a few of my friends had abortions which is sad because abortion is a real serious issue. I also agree strongly with what one person said about War In Iraq should end and the budget cuts should not go through.

I give the people who went up alot of respect because they shared personal stories about their life and their feelings about major issues in the world teens wouldn't be caught dead talking about because its uncool, geeky etc... I would not be able to get up there and share my personal stories.

This poetry slam relates to zeum alot. like the poetry slam where youth can express their feelings, youth can do that here by making claymation, news broadcast, music videos. No one can judge you because of your contents in your expression.

I got this picture from the youth speaks website : youthspeaks.org

What's Going On Here

2008-05-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

When I first started working as a ZeumMaster I really didn't know what to do and how to be friendly and communicate with visitors. For the first month, I was basically like a sponge, absorbing a lot of new information from technical stuff to dealing with challenging visitors, and observing other ZeumMasters ...how they handled challenging situations such as a when a visitor injures themselves, or how they greet customers. Now, it has been 40 weeks since and I feel like I'm a PRO! Having said, I am able to greet visitors and handle all problems professionally.

Want to know what's going on right now? First round of mentor group is about to end, and round two is about to start, how exciting can that be! Throught out the twelve weeks as a group, I gained skills to operate the software iMovie, effectively operate Macintosh computers, and confidently greeted visitors. What I loved getting to announce the Best Of Show to everyone at Zeum andI enjoyed answering their questions. I remembered the day when we as a group voted on what project we should do as a group and we all voted to do the best of show. It was nice to see that we as a group shared a common interest.

One thing that didn't work well was the day when we were setting up for the event because we were kind of in a rush and we really didnt have a large bowl to put the popcorn in but we managed to do everything on time. What I hope to do for round two mentor group is have people from outside of zeum work on a project with us. I really look forward to meeting new people and hope that we get to do something like this.

I'm also excited about camps this summer! I hope I get to work with Perry's Little Voices Camp. Most of the summer camps this year have to do with the 2008 Election year.

Paul

TWJN: Traci Wendy Jule Nicole blogging

2008-04-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

PODCAST PODCAST PODCAST.

Our project is centered on producing podcasts regarding the budget cuts in California. These cuts initiated by Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger are severely crippling the education system in all over California, including the bay area. Our project aims to inform the public about these budget cuts in order to make an impact on the situation. Our belief is: Knowlege Can Lead to Change. If people know about these cuts, they will start to work together to make a difference and change our current situation.

We have spent the past couple of weeks interviewing average San Francisco citizens about the budget cuts. Not only have we learned how to approach strangers without looking like a creep with a recorder, but we also learned how to affectively interview people. We learned how to come up with questions as well as create related questions on the spot. We're planning on asking our teachers, students, and parents about how the budget cuts are affecting their lives. Our project is still in a rough draft state, but we're moving at light speed to deliver this podcast series to the public and stop the budget cuts.

IT'S NOT FAIR!!

2008-04-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

''Students Walkout In Alameda Over Budget Cuts''

Hundreds of students walked out of their classes wednesday in Alameda in a protest over the state's proposed budget cuts which have already led to local cutbacks.

I chose this quote because i think that what they did in alameda was really smart. This kids walked out because they were cutting $250,000 from high school sports. But I think that students should be also upset about their education. Education is more important than sports. Unless you're really good at basketball or any other game, athletics won't really take you anywhere in life.

I'm afraid this is going to affect me next year in high school because there might be so many students in every class that teachers might not have time to help every student individually. Another thing that bothers me is that Schwarzenegger is ready to cut $1 billion from medi-cal. It's not fair because some people really depend on Medi-Cal. They might not have enough money to pay for everything the medi-cal pays for.

Well i just think all this is not fair. It's not fair that teachers are getting fired, because some of them are really good teachers. One of my teachers got a pink slip. He's one of my favorite teachers, and I don't think that was fair. I feel very upset beacuse I actually learned something from him. He makes learning easy. And if so many teachers like him got pink slips that they might not be working next year because of the budget cuts I think that's bad.

Califonia's education budget cuts are a huge issue to deal with.

2008-04-12T10:18:00.001-07:00

Hello, my name is Leigh Ann, and I am doing a podcast at Zeum on the proposed California budget cuts. We are collecting our research on this blog site so that we can share it with the rest of California.

In my opinion, Schwarzenegger is a cruel cruel man. He plans to cut 4.8 billion from California's education system and additional money from other social services. According to the article "The Governor's Budget Cuts Nearly Every State Department" published in the SF Chronicle on January 11th, 2008, "As Schwarzenegger pushes for an overhaul of the state's health care system to cover nearly all of California's uninsured residents, he also is ready to cut as much as $1 billion form Medi-Cal, the state's medical services program for the poor, elderly and disabled.

To achieve the savings, administration officials said they want to eliminate some Medi-Cal benefits – such as dental care for low-income adults – instead of reducing the number of people who get basic medical services." In my opinion, this quote shows that Schwargenegger doesn't care about other people who are in need, all he is worried about his salary and not people who need health care services and education.

In the same article "Schwarzenegger has asked for several cuts immediately, including $400 million from schools and community colleges, $33 million from Medi-Cal, $74 million from welfare programs and $25 million from a project at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center."

In the in article entitled "CSU rallies against propsed budget cuts" posted on the Mercury News website by Leslie Griffy and Dana Hull, the authors mention that "California State campuses could be forced to reject 10,000 qualified students, offer fewer courses, put off maintenance and lay off lecturers if Govenor Schwarzenegger proposed budget cuts for the system become reality. The state of California has a $14.5 billion dollar deficit."

Budget cuts are a major issue and we should not just let it slide and pretend it doesn't exist, because it does. If you don't want education to be affected than do something like call up his office: (916)445-2841 and tell him what you think. As a reminder if you do call, please be polite and respectful.

Mentor Groupin'

2008-03-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

MENTOR GROUPS! This is a new thing we've been doing. The goals of creating mentor groups are several. We work with the same group of four for twelve weeks. It provides more one on one time with an educator based off of our needs. Mentor groups also serve as building a stronger community within a small group. Different educators work on different things (for twelve weeks) such as working on a project, hosting an event, and possibly interviewing our neighbors about things from helping homeless people to getting the community involved with Zeum.

I'm in a group with Carlos, Jule, Samantha, Irina, and myself, Paul. We are currently working on an event called "Best Of". The art from Best Of is basically from when visitors come in and make awesome movies... we highly encourage them to fill out a media release from to have their movie showcased.

All four of us have different jobs. Carlos's job is to call different restaurants to ask for food donations for the event we're hosting. But, we all took turns calling because there were four restaurants to call. My job is to fundraise. I am basically looking for potential donors to donate money for us to rent the Zeum Theater. Fund raising is a new thing for me. One thing I've learned from my mentor group about fund raising is to be calm and polite. I had to call Buca Di Beppo for possible food donation and I was calm, polite and nervous. Usually my nervousness take over but this time it didn't. I remember calling a customer to remind them to stop by for your interview , and my friends were next to me and they were cranking out jokes and I accidentally drooled and I stopped talking in a middle of a sentence. But then I told her that there was static problem. Sorry. Samantha's job is the food entertainer as well as keeping and making sure everything is running smoothly. Jule's job is to advertise this event. Together we made flyer's saying we're having a Best Of showcase for Jule to put around Zeum. Irina's job is similar to Samantha's job except she is making sure we're doing what we need to.

One thing I like about mentor groups in general is that we really get to know who we work with and what each other needs are. I think that schools, after school programs and senior outreach programs should all have a mentor group because that is the only way to get to know who you're working with as suppose to working with 30 people at once. And the fact that after twelve weeks we show what we've done is totally awesome. When the first 12 weeks is over we will switch mentor groups and learn more new exciting things. And I will definitely look back at the time I spent with my group and acknowledge what we've successfully done.

Graffiti is Art

2008-03-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

My name is Carlos Monroy, i'm 16 years old and im a ZeumMaster. I have been part of the Zeum crew for 5 months and it's been a very good experience so far.

Zeum has so many things to introduce a young person to. It is a great place to work and to be in and as a worker it has given me many ideas and one of the ideas that I want to talk about is graffiti. Graffiti is not just vandalism. It is also art. Art that people misunderstand and don't know the differences between them. People do many things to express themselves such as write poems, play an instrument, act, play games, and many young adults such as myself do graffiti. There's different kinds of graffiti; There's tagging, trow ups, pieces, wild style, and murals.

What you see around the city is tagging and tagging is just a name that writers get and their object is to be around the city, so that every other tagger knows them. Trow ups are a small graff that you make with cans and it doesn't take long to make - it's easy to do.

Pieces are around cities - you can sometimes see them on store walls and other places. They use more colors and are more organized, they take time to do.

Then there's wild style letters that stands out and many people can't read it... but its very cool... it takes practice to do and many people enjoy looking at them and trying to figure out what they say.

Last form of graff writing is murals, the best of the best it takes a lot of practice and a lot of time to be perfect.

All these kinds of graffiti can be amazing, but few people enjoy this others hate it and don't want to see it. They just think that people who do drugs, and high school drop out do it. They are wrong we are not drug users and most of us are doing very well in high school. There's also people who feel offended and think that the city looks dirty, that is a crime but expressing yourself is not a crime.

My idea that I am bringing to Zeum is to let Zeum and everyone that attends Zeum is to let the art of graffiti stay alive and encourage many young artist who are afraid of going to jail for expressing themselves. With the project BRINGING ART by DARK will make the wall outside in main gallery look better and not just a simple wall. This project will be conducted by a street artist and his friends and it will be soon to come.
"paint the town in many colors and name it art."

It's time for a change

2008-02-18T15:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at zeum, a few of us had a chance to express our views on the various political issues going on around us. We talked about the presidential election, which is a first in many ways.

We talked about the government fundings and most of us agreed that education is what's most important. We looked at images of political art (like the one to the right) and graffiti. Recently, the government funding for education was reduced and many teachers lost their jobs. Teenagers like us, we want a change. We want to have a say in what we think is most important for us. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtgul, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has," says Margaret Mead an anthropologist. We should never underestimate the power of teens, nor shall we ever neglect their opinions. thus, teens will be the next generation to make a change in this world.

Many of us depend on those who already have power to help us solve our problems, yet, we dont participate nor believe in politics. "Unlike the older public, halfheartedly involved in democracy, we dont realize the purpose in any involvement at all and this may destroy everything we wish for," says Camila Domonoske. Domonoske is so right, the new generation of teens do not pay attention to politics. thus, we should not complain about the reduction of school funding, the war in Iraq, or the people without healthcares if we are not going to believe and participate in politics.

At zeum, we are given the opportunity to make a change in this world, to change our reputation in others' eyes that we dont engage in politics. We're working in mentor groups now and my mentor group with ari and christian will create our own political statements in photoshop and stop-motion animation, to present to people that us, teens, have the ability to cause change in this world.

Josh on Media Movement

2008-02-10T12:10:00.000-08:00

What I think about BAYCAT (Bayview Hunters Point Center for Arts and Technology) Presenting: Media Movement - the new exhibit up in the spiral gallery. (the photo is of me, Joshua.)

This morning, the ZeumMasters looked at the new show in the spiral gallery, which was mostly made up of videos. The video I watched the most was about transforming the negative. I picked this video because youth that start off young, influenced by the negativity don't help anyone at all. Living this way not only makes their life difficult, but the community they're living in also.

I know this because it took me till I was fifteen to realize that I wanted to make a difference. That was the turning point in my life because something bad would always happen to me when I was disobediant. I wasn't going to school, I was hanging with youth who were selling drugs, and I would be involved in turf issues just because I was with the wrong crowd. I didn't want that in my life anymore. Pretending to be someone you are not is very hard because everyone wants to be and feel apart of a group.

If I were to run a workshop with other teens on how to use media to make a difference, first, I would give it a name. It will be called, "Love looking for trouble". The video would be a discussion with different youth from different turfs (neighborhoods) but not about the negativity anymore, with another group of youth who are influenced by the negativity from different turfs and have a small conversation on why youth today, love looking for trouble!

I say and pick this name because in the past, my friends and I would be so confused about what's life about. We would get up in the morning and say lets go look for trouble. We would go in the streets looking in cars to see if there was bags in the front or back seat. That mean't that either lab tops were in the bag/s or something useful was in the bag/s because then people would put bags over things. That's why people don't leave important things in their car unless it was some books. You don't get that everyday...a person breaking in your car for a book which is quite funny to say.

However, my friends and I were so confused that we loved looking for trouble until one day we ran into trouble. That was the day where my friends and I knew what we were doing had to stop and change our lives around into something that could influence others to start being positive. For example, instead of stealing and hanging out, finding a job was a better choice. Instead of hanging out on the streets getting into more trouble, playing basketball was a better choice. And finally, instead of waking up bored and lazy, going to school getting educated became the number one thing in our lives.

Of course, other youth in our neighborhoods and people my friends and I knew called us names and thought we were "soft" (doing the right thing makes you soft), but we were told by an older adult, that you only get one life, so be the best that you could be and make things better in life not worser than it already is. This older person was a random senior citizen who knew what we were getting ourselves in just by looking at us. That was surprising!

ZeumMaster Winter Olympic Madness....

2007-12-30T15:49:00.000-08:00

The ZMs have been full swing into the annual Winter Olympics. Here's a little sneak peak into the inner world of the ZMs....From the top, Flor shows off her winning creation in the foil hat making competition, Sammi models her hat, Educator Jordan and finally, a group shot.

A World Savvy Tangent

2007-12-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

To sort of start off, I'm Dan, and I'm a ZeumMaster. I've gone to Zeum since
I was nine years old, amazed each year with the changes made to each
part of the "museum"...I used to kick the metafield-maze's butt before
they programmed in a level 2. I've been working as a ZeumMaster
for a good seven months now. Done good, made friends and all that.
Everything's been pretty peachy. Capice?

This is also my first time blogging, so don't get too weirded out by whatever
tangents I will quite possibly make.

Yes, it's kinda cheesy, but this is one of the few short video uploads
made by the creative youth at the World Savvy Jam Session whilst informing this generation's long list of intelligent intellects about life changing extremes like poverty, conflict, and peace building in order to prepare a future of great minds.

World Savvy not only encourages a generation of intellectual thinkers, but also challenges people to speak out against unfair situations, promoting natural rights and freedom of individual will, something one could also find at www.youthforhumanrights.org. Look them up.

World Savvy is currently building up for their 2008 theme on Global Health, which, by itself, is one massive topic to cover. But hey, they've done tougher stuff before, and they can do it again, and again, and again, and again.....etc. PBS states in their article on the importance of global health that…

"The world's scientific knowledge, technological expertise, and economic resources are greater than at any point in history. We are capable of applying our collective know-how and wealth to reducing the health risks faced by all nations and alleviating unnecessary human suffering. Many see this as the shared responsibility of wealthier countries. Others continue to raise arguments against pursuing a collaborative approach to the problems of developing nations."

Now, as flawed as the middle sentence is, all countries, be it rich or poor in Resource fulness should be able to touch on a "love thy neighbor" basis. People should be willing to collaborate with each other in order to work towards a common goal, and I think World Savvy brought out global health in order to bridge whatever gaps
they could to help the little guy in this equation.

Poor countries shouldn't have to watch like the lesser sibling while the self appointed favorite sibling gets a bigger slice of the metaphoric cake of good benefits. I know that with every equation, a huge problem has to equal one or more solutions, and that is World Savvy's steps towards a bright future for humankind. I solute your efforts, Savvy.
Keep up the good work.

Those of you who don't know what I'm talking about should go to worldsavvy.org.

Talking about Hip Hop

2007-11-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

This morning we had an amazing workshop about gender and power in hip hop.

Hip hop is something I always loved to listen to because not only did I grow up on hip hop, it's a part of my culture. However, what I learned during this workshop was that a lot of mainstream hip hop is controlled by these rich white, old men that have the choice and power on whether to put certain hip hop in the media or not. Also, the media has a way of only showing the public, hip hop that they think should be what the public needs to here. And that the public they are thinking about making money off of is the youth.

There was some great discussion that went throughout the workshop and I was able to give a lot of input on what I thought about hip hop.

I noticed that because a lot of things I see and hear on the internet, such as on youtube and on other cool websites, I think are being held back and sometimes interesting for the public to hear on the radio but are not given that opportunity. To be specific, a lot of music that is always on the radio mostly has the same message...such as talking about the sexuality of both male and female, turf issues, violence, weapons, politics, drugs, and sometimes about where their from and how things set off in their hood/neighborhood.

During this workshop, the group and I were asked an agree or disagree question on whether it matters if you personally care more about listening to the beat rather than the lyrics or vice versa. I told everyone that the beat of the music determines whether or not I want to listen to the rap/song or not. This is because the tone and base of the beat gives me the opportunity "to lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the lyrics.

Sorry to say, but if I, JJ, don't have the opportunity "to lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the beat then, something is really wrong with this song because leaning and rocking to the beat gives me a feel to the lyrics and make me want to say, "This song GO"! When I say that, it means that I really like this rap/song/music and when a person such as I, don't know the lyrics to a rap/song, it only frustrates me when I cannot "lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the beat.

In others people's opinions, they said that the lyrics attract them more rather than the beat because they would like to actually get a message out of the rap/song/music instead of just leaning with it and rocking with and to the beat.

The workshop made me feel open to saying everything that was on my mind about hip hop. It felt like there was no right or wrong answer and that anything I said, other people in the workshop could relate to and speak on more about what I had to say. -JJ

World Savvy Jam Session!!!

2007-11-18T13:11:00.000-08:00

Coming to work and knowing that I'm going to participate in a field trip is cool because field trips are rare, and it makes me feel special. Liz, Ari, Joshua, Jule, Wing Yan and myself were the 6 participating in the World Savvy Jam Session. We gathered at Zeum and walked to the SomArts Cultural Center located on 934 Brannan Street. It was a long walk, it took us about 30 minutes. The Jam Session was basically about youths bringing their creative energy and vision to make artworks with professional San Francisco artist while addressing the World Savvy theme: POWER!

Upon arrival we were all hungry, we all signed in and got our name badges. We were all separated into groups; pink, orange, blue and black. We were offered pizza and we all had two slices, they were delicious. After 60 minutes of waiting we were called into a big warehouse art room and we watched 'Kibera Kids.' It was about a young boy who wanted a life of his own because his parent died. He was always forced into doing things that he didn't want to like stealing phones from others and selling them for money. Everyday he would get beat for not stealing phones. Then one day he decided to leave the country Kibera and start a new life. It was about hope.

We got into our groups based on our registration color. I was in the blue group and our main focus is being a POET. Our group was very unique because the other groups did a physical activity and our group did a verbal activity and it was very strong and deep. We separated in two groups the resistant and the non-resistant side. I was in the resistant side and we had to come up with short lines starting with "I am ....... that's why they call me power" and the non-resistant side came up with quotes to support (positive way) the resistant side. My quote was "I am a very smart person and teachers and my peers look upon me for answers and they call me POWER." I had a lot of fun participating in this session. The people that I worked with to come up with different quotes were teenagers around my age and even the instructors were teenagers. Since I am shy in front a huge group a people, this session brought me out of my shell. It made me express my opinion on what I thought about POWER and how I can relate it in a poem.

After preparing for our performance we gathered into the big warehouse art room and group by group we did our presentations. Our group was second to last. I was a little bit nervous because I had to present my quote with the microphone to the big mob of an audience. Can you imagine what you would feel like in this situation? It was ... because I had to say why I was powerful.

The group I liked the most was the Pyramid group and our group Poet group. The pyramid group really showed a lot of self confidence because they had to climb on top of each other and if one person decides to doze off then the whole group fails. If I could change one thing I would extend the amount of time participating. It was very fun and interesting. There aren't a lot of organizations who offer free programs and sessions in San Francisco so I give them a lot of credit for hosting this event. If they're planning to do this again next year I'll indeed do it again.

My Own Powerful Media

2007-11-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

My name is WENDY I've been at zeum for about 2 weeks. I like zeum. It's actually really fun - I like seeing the kids have fun and I be having fun too. What I like about everybody who works here is they are really friendly and nice. When i first came I was kind of scared and shy but now that I know everybody and I've worked with almost everybody... its actually pretty fun.

Well this morning we had a workshop with World Savvy and Theo, a photo journalist and Katina from World Savvy came in to talk to us. They talked about Cindy Sheehan how she went to Texas and sat in President Bushes ranch because she was mad that her son died in the war. Theo had taken a lot of different pictures and the picture that was different - the one that ended up getting published - was the one where she was like screaming and she was holding a cross with her son's name up high. We talked about why newspapers choose the photos they choose. They choosed the picture they think is best to one that actually relates to the article they writing about.

All the attention was on Cindy. There was a sign that was against the war and another one that wanted the war to continue. Some one made a poster that said "god bless bush and the troops." There was a chair that had a sign that said "why is bush afraid to talk to cindy?" Then they also showed us another picture where a 9 year old little girl that had another sign that said "thank you Mr. president for staying in Iraq." But in the pictures it seemed like a lot of people were supporting Cindy. After he showed us an article that they used the picture that said "why is this man afraid to talk to Cindy?" and in the bottom it said "i'm so sorry" then it had another picture with a family and Bush they looked pretty sad. Theo told us about a lady that lost her son in the war to and she sent a letter to bush and it said that she still supports him after what happen with her son. Some of these picture were chosen to be in some news papers and some in others. Newspapers have a lot of power -they pick the pictures based on what story they want to tell.

Pictures can be interpreted in different ways. people interpret pictures the way they want. In pictures you can't actually hear or see everything the people do, so that's when they say stuff about the people just by looking at it, even if is not really true.

Then Theo talked about an immigrant family, he showed us a video with pictures. Some girl was talking about how Americans say that supposedly they're taking their jobs knowing that they could get better jobs than them and that they would never do job they do. She also said that almost all Americans think immigrants are criminals when that's not true.

After we finished talking about that we got to make our own article about topics we don't see in the news and that peoples don't actually talk about for example they only talk about teens when they fight or kill somebody but they never say the good things they only publish the negative stuff.

I wrote about how everybody thinks that all immigrants are criminals and that is NOT TRUE. I choose to write about that cause my parents came to San Francisco as immigrants and they are not criminals. They came here because they wanted a better future for my family. The only reason why my parents came here was for more money cause my grandmother was sick and they needed to pay her medical bills cause everything in El Salvador is expensive.

THIS IS SOME OF THE WORK OTHER ZEUMMASTERS WERE DOING THIS MORNING.

My Power In Film

2007-11-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

I have always been interested in film making. As a little kid I was always messing around with a video camera. When you’re younger you really don’t know what you are doing but you are just so interested in it that you just keep playing around. As I got older my passion for film was becoming even bigger. I began to watch films that most kids don’t really watch. I paid attention to the methods in which the director portrayed their movie.

When I got into high school I learned the art of editing. I started off simple small little short movies with my friends and I. Then I moved on to creating skate tapes. I never thought I was that good at the process until I was assigned a school project in which I had to use you media to create a story about genocide. I took this project seriously because it was something important to others and not a project that can be half done. When I presented the movie I saw tears in the audience.

Unsure of what that meant I confided in my teacher. He told me that people can speak out through music, writing, and even film. I didn’t really believe until a woman whose grandparents survived the Holocaust told me how power that movie presented. I felt accomplished that I was able to speak out trough film. After that I fell into my slump of writing films and trying to develop new movies but none had that same passion in which I showed in my Genocide film.
It wasn’t until today that I hit point in which I was able to speak out. I was out going to film in downtown San Francisco. I was filming for my online video blog site. As I was crossing the street I heard the sound of a car spin out. As I looked I saw a white truck driven up on to the curb and hearing woman scream. I ran over with my video camera and began to film.

Watch my blog here
http://beta.yourtrumanshow.com/videos/viewVideo.jsp?id=633

Censorship In Our Media

2007-10-28T14:16:00.000-07:00

Long time no blog. This morning at Zeum we had a World Savvy workshop about photography, censorship & the media. When I first heard the words: censorship and the media, I immediately thought of human rights, the Iraq war, and Google. The news informed us of China trying to limit search results on Google, and the US government trying to cover up the current situation in Iraq. But today we focused on things a little closer to us, like censorship of our school newspaper or artists we listen to. By seeing censorship in a new light, I got to learn more about how it affects me everyday.

When I got to the workshop, we started doing the agree/disagree activity. A situation was presented to us and we chose whether to agree or disagree. After all the situations were presented, we would discuss each one and why we made the decisions we made. At first, everyone stood firm on their side, but once we discussed each one, "what-if situations" were thrown at us, making us question our choice. In the end, it was clear that it was hard to draw a line between censoring to prevent offensiveness and profanity, and exploiting censorship as a way to manipulate the public. Our next activity was an experiment to see how much of what we see in the media is controlled by one big corporation. The results were mind shocking, showing us that though we may get our sources from a couple different places, most of them are owned by one big corporation that could possibly be just showing us a side of the story that they favor.

Through these activities, I got to see how censorship is closer to me than I once thought it was. Censorship, like most things, has a good and a bad side. It all depends on what you limit and where you draw the line. But once you allow one thing to be uncensored, it opens many other doors and controversies over what else should be uncensored. Often, different people will view one thing differently. Some people may be offended but some may see it as perfectly fine, and wrong to censor. Even at school, you may think it's right to have the school censor things like profanity on the school newspaper, but what if one teacher thought that a certain article was inappropriate and the writer didn't? The battle of censorship rages on, and the decisions towards what should be censored is affecting our view of the world everyday. Sometimes what we think is the truth, could be just one big corporation showing you their favorite side of the story to try to get you to think a certain way. In a world where everything is controversial and the truth is debatable, where should censorship in the media stand?

Inspiration

2007-10-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

My imagination grows bigger and bigger everyday. There's always something new to think or write about. My inspiration comes from the mind and it sees, my heart on how it feels.

I like to write about dreams i have sometimes, kids n how i used to be when i was a kid, and what moods i feel through the end of the day.

I also get ideas from music like Marvin Gaye, Al green, Marc Anthony, and other oldies.

I started writing when I was in 5th grade. I was always quiet all the time mostly my whole life cause I was shy so much of the time that i got to used to it. So with my shyness i started writing in class and my teacher look at what I was writing and said that I was good. It keep on going on on through school years, all my English teachers said I was gifted or something. yeah writing is my thing. Later on I am going to do a project here at zeum. like a slide of pictures and have a poem reading out loud in my own voice using the tech tools here. I'll come up with more later.

here is an example of my writing...

It Ends Tonight

My days are going by fast.
They are not going to last.
They is no point on going on.
All I have lived for is done.
Why should I make myself suffer this long.
To stop this heart to keep on beating,
for what I am feeling.
It ends tonight.
falling from the sky.
This is the day I die.
the end

What's up with YAC

2007-10-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

Zeum has recently started something called YAC, the Youth Advisory Council. It is a group made up of ZeumMasters, and run by ZeumMasters. YAC was started so that the ZeumMasters, the teens working on the floor, have a voice in their internship program and can have their ideas implemented into their own experience.

I decided to join YAC so that I can contribute to this experience and help bring everyone's ideas or concerns to the table. I like the fact that I am part of a team with other people my age, working together to benefit and satisfy everyone. We discuss issues happening on the floor, and come up with fresh ideas that will hopefully help make the day for our visitors.

Lucky for us, Zeum cares about what we want to get out of our internship. They have created a group that will help support the program and contribue to the changes done to it in the future. YAC will make sure that the internship program can remain as a fun, fulfilling experience for current and future ZeumMasters. I am a member of YAC.

James and the Giant Peach

2007-10-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, I went with my dad and my brother to see JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, starring Zeum's Jerrod and Perry. Perry played the grasshopper and Jarrod played the earthworm. In the story, James' parents died so he had to live with his awful aunts. He wished for a better life and his wish came true when he decided to run away and live in a peach and made a lot of new friends who were bugs. The peach rolls off the aunts hill and lands in the Atlantic ocean. They used their teamwork and skills to escape the man eating sharks. They had a lot of struggles but survived through the challenges and obstacles.

I wanted to write about this is because Zeum is all about story telling and performance and being creative... so I really felt like it was related. whether its through creating an animation or a production at the production stage and being creative and that's what the play is, creating a story come to life and being creative.

The part of the story that affected me was when James ran away from home because at times I feel like running away because life at home can get hard. A lot of the times I have to a lot of the work like James...I get blamed for things my brother did. The other part that touched me was when James made friends with the bugs and they became really close and became best friends for life. I have a few close friends who are my best friends. I don't know what I would do with out them, that's how close to them. I also have a few close people here at Zeum, if something were to happen to them I would break down and cry. They are like my family.

The play was AWSOME. The actors and actresses did an amazing job especially since they had about 2-3 roles EACH and had to memorize SO MANY lines. They all seem so dedicated and put a lot of time and hard work into making the show ...you can tell. Just watching the play, I could tell that to be in a show like this, you have to have completely dedicated to what you're working on. That's inspiring. If you are not 110% dedicated you wont be able to learn your lines on time for the play. And also if your not 110% dedicated you'll probably not be focused during rehearsal which will determine how you do on opening night

When i talked to Perry and Jerrod after the show, they said it was great seeing someone from work seeing the play. they were excited to see me there and same for me. I was SO EXCITED to see them. the main reason i went was to see perry and to support him.

I can totally relate the experience of going to the theater to working at Zeum. Since we have a music production lab and a production studio, people learn to be comfortable with getting in front of the camera. When you do a play you have to be comfortable being in front of an audience or else you'll freeze up and mess the entire show up.

When I have to get in front of an audience of any kind I get so nervous. A lot of the time I feel so nervous my hand shakes, i feel like throwing up or I feel like breaking down and crying. I feel this way because I am afraid if people will judge me or make fun of me.

Since working here at Zeum, I'm not nervous talking in front of strangers.... for example when I greet them and explain what they can do in the room I am always perky and friendly but I still feel the same way if I'mtalking in front of people i know. I feel a lot more nervous talking in front of people I am really close to like my co-workers or friends.

I totally recommend seeing this show. It's at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts in Berkeley.

"You Really Love Your Job, Don't You?"

2007-09-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

Being a ZeumMaster has given me loads and loads of experience working with people and working as a team. I can definitely say that I've learned a lot from this internship.

One of my many lessons was one day in Main Gallery when I was working on a performance with a family. As always I was ready with a positive attitude and a huge smile. I became super involved with what this family was doing. I helped them with ideas for their script and costumes to go along with it. The family requested a whole bunch of background changes and scene transitions that took a lot of work on my part, but I was more than happy to see a family leave satisfied with a DVD that they could watch over and over again.

As they were finishing up, the mother came up to me and said "You really love your job don't you?" I responded "Yes, I do." Then she continued and told me how great it was to have someone helping them who really cared about the outcome of their production.

That mother made me realize that although we probably talk to hundreds of people a day, if we just put a little extra effort into each of those conversations, we can really mean something to them. If we make each experience with our visitors just a little more personal, families can leave feeling like they were in a caring atmosphere and not just being fed mechanical directions.

Seeing families truly enjoying what they have created here at Zeum is one of the most satisfying parts of the job - knowing that my help actually made a difference in a child's, or a family's, experience. My moment with this mother was just a little reminder of one of the many gratifying parts of this internship.

What Does Community Mean to YOU?

2007-08-25T11:35:00.001-07:00

Around mid or late July all the ZeumMasters were introduced to a project we chose to participate in. The topic was community. It could be a specific community, school Community, ethnic Community, hobby Community etc and etc.

Since the project was about community, Michelle and I thought why not blog about our schools. Comparing them to see how similar and different they were, and adding photoshoped pictures too. Michelle goes to Lincoln, while i go to Balboa. The schools project didn't work out, since Michelle went on a trip to Boston for awhile. I couldn't write a blog about Lincoln since i don't know much about the school, and I can't compare schools with just Balboa, so we changed the project to a video interview about community.

Our project is about peoples perspectives of community, and their definition of "community." We basically had to interview people from Zeum and people from different areas to get different perspectives from different people. We interviewed Paul, Sammi, Traci, Monique, Michelle Fisher, Michelle(this girl from the library), My friend Diane, and Ryan.

When we were done interviewing people, I had to upload all the files onto my computer and out of my camera. I had to edit the video and everything. It was really fun though, because i like editing videos anyways. so it was all good. Michelle helped with the layout, so it could be pretty. Avia helped me with the layout a bit a couple days before michelle got back from Boston, but the computer froze and i never got to save my work. that was kinda lame. yeah....but i learned that you gotta save almost every 5 minutes, just in case! =]]]]

The questions that i asked were pretty simple and to the point. I asked three questions, and they were. What comes to mind when you hear the word community? What does community mean to you? and What community are you apart of? The answer were similar and different at some points. The answers were surprising, in a way. Because all the answers were similar and i thought it would probably be different.

The fun part of this project was interviewing everyone and editing the video. I think the most challenging thing about the project was the fact that the computer froze and i had to redo it. still lame!

The finished project turned out good. i saved to my e-mail, but i'm gonna try to save it to a dvd. viewing the video from downloading the attachment off of my e-mail kinda went wrong, because the computer made it really small.

TAH DAH!

Why Zeum?

2007-08-07T11:04:00.000-07:00

Finally, I, Lilian Fernando, am creating a blog post. It's taken me the whole summer to actually settle on what I should blog about. I've finally decided on TALKING ABOUT THE BENEFITS we ZeumMasters, the teens working the floors of Zeum, get from participating in the internship program. It's NOT YOUR TYPICAL TEENAGE JOB. It's not just a thing to do for the money. It's unpredictable, fun, and nurturing.

Imagine a hands-on MUSEUM FOR VISITORS OF ANY AGE, OF ANY GENERATION. A museum that can change a kid's childhood by opening the door to endless possiblities in the areas of visual and media arts; a place that can help a family bond while creating clay figures, and where parents or kids can discover that THEY CAN STEP OUT OF THEIR BOX and perform on our production stages. It sounds FAR FROM ORTHODOX OR TYPICAL, right? Those are just some of the things that are happening at Zeum every day.

Now imagine being able to EXPERIENCE A FAMILY BONDING at a set, creating a clay animation movie that you taught them how to do. Imagine recording a little five year-old singing, 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star', standing at center-stage all by herself. And WOULDN'T YOU LOVE TO BE THERE when a couple, celebrating their 50th anniversary, become experts at using Photoshop. As a ZeumMaster, those are just some of the things I've been lucky enough to be a part of; BET YOU'RE JEALOUS NOW.

But of course this place is not facilitated by teens alone; in almost every room, you might find the older-looking staff member. That staff member is the 'Educator'. Our EDUCATORS help make sure that rooms are running smoothly. Beyond that, they HELP OUR VOICES BE HEARD. They encourage individuality, they encourage us to develop our interests and talents, and THEY ENCOURAGE US to show ourselves off. This summer, we have been given the opportunity to work on projects, with the aid of an Educator, that will be in a show, that our parents are invited to, at the end of the summer. Each ZeumMaster is creating a project within the realms of visual and media arts. A majority of us are working with Video Production and Clay Animation, so NEVER THINK THAT WE ARE INCAPABLE of answering questions in the Clay Animation Studio, or on the Production Stages.

So, if you become a ZeumMaster, you get to work with people of all ages, you get to see kids overcome their 'safe-zone', and you are encouraged, by the people you work with, to create projects that express you using visual and media arts.

COOL.

Zeum as Community

2007-07-27T15:21:00.000-07:00

What makes Zeum a community? There is many things that makes Zeum a community. One thing that makes Zeum a community is that we care about our visitors. This makes Zeum a community center to the general public. We work very closely with our visitors. We greet them and help them when they walk into the exhibit. We take turns rotating and talking to visitors to make sure everything is running smoothly. When a piece of equipment is broken we walkie the tech person as soon as we are notified of the broken equipment so it is running back up as soon as possible so we can please our visitors.

Another thing that makes Zeum a community is that we are open to anyone, not just to people living in San Francisco. You can be from a totally different country and visit here. We had some people from Europe visting while staying on vacation to San Francisco.

I decided to take pictures of Zeum Staff. The reason why i decided to take pictures of Zeum Staff is because we are a community. What I did was uploaded the pictures from the camera to the computer and opened them up using Adobe Photoshop. Once the program was open, I used the different filters to change how each picture looks. Somethings I did was use the paint brush to paint on the pictures, blur filter, wave filter and so much more.

Everyone on the staff has been like family to me. They all care about me and check up and see if everything is going ok. Besides Zeum being a community center for the general public we also have a community within the staff. Everyone of the staff cares about each other. When ever ZeumMasters need help with a personal problem or a problem with a piece of equipment we know we can turn to each other for support. Being part of the Zeum staff community has changed my life. Before I was all sad and miserable because of home life but being here, away from my home is the happiest place I have ever been to. I wait every week to come here on Fridays because I get away from home.

When Fridays come I am happy because I get to see the people who care about me. I truly love everyone on the Zeum ok. When Perry was giving me a ride home after seeing Assassins, the play that he was in I was talking to him about personal stuff that was going on in my home, he was totally supportive and gave me advice about what to do and how to handle the situation. That showed me that he cares and is there for me whenever I need someone to talk to.

I am going to mention a few words i would like to say about how the staff touched me.
Perry, Ari, and Noel touched me by caring about me. When I would have a problem I would then with my problem and they would listen. They are totally supportive and help me with my situation the best they can. They would come to me on occasion and make sure everything is ok and I'm doing well. They truely ment the most to me and I will miss them.

Debbo and Derrek touched me by making me laugh. Whenever I was sad they would always give me a high five or do something to make me laugh. Sometimes Derrek would say someting to make me laugh.

Paul and Michelle F.,Musiliu,Sharon touched me by caring about me and keep saying that they will miss me so much. It's nice to know that they care so much that they keep telling me that they'll miss me. I WILL MISS THEM MUCH because they are like my brothers and sisters.

Learning Here and There

2007-07-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

My name is Musiliu Adewunmi, and i am an "Afropean", which simply means that i was born in Nigeria. I'm from the continent of Africa and also mixed with French. I am a capricorn born in the month of December. I love to listen to music especially hiphop and R&B, play video games, watch the T.V. and go to the movies with friends. My favorite holiday is Christmas, it is a special holiday because it brings family and friends together, sharing presents and enjoying christmas cards from well wishers. My favorite style of breakfast is toasted bagel with cream cheeze and fried bacon with orange juice. There is nothing more delicious than having peaches and cream for desert.

I want to write about education.

School is so fun for me I know that some people will think that Musiliu is insane but you know what, I don't care what other people say or think about others. Education is uplifting for every one including myself as an individual. School allows me to be more experienced in community work.

Education in the states is quite different from that of my Nigerian and French education. Back in Nigeria and in France, the teachers really get strict with the students. Students get hands on experience being at school and a lot from learning the hard way which is teachers being strict about our school work and attendance in school. In America students don't get struck by the teacher at school when there needs to be correction, when homework isn't completed it is suppose to hurt the students grade while they get away with only a warning or two. In Nigeria and France, students get more than just a warning but we realize our mistakes through a little bit of discipline.

School is important for teenagers today because it keeps them motivated towards a higher education, leading them to success and enabling to fulfilling their career goals. Going to school i realized the outcome of having a community which helps in areas of group projects, sport teams, after school programs, and clubs.

I see Zeum as a community because it has given me the opportunity to be more flexible, having a cooperative work force with other Zeum masters at including my supervisors, Christian and Raquel. I have gained more communication skills such as answering phone calls, greeting visitors, teaching visitors how to create their own take home art work. I could relate my work experience in the Zeum community to school because working with different people and even multi-tasking usually on busy work days has given me the chance to realize what responsibility is all about, getting my work done in school and in the work place.

Learning in Zeum is different from learning in school because in the worksite, interns like me are taught how to work with technology in music production,video editing and production, mask making, clay animation and even blogging. In school we are taught with computers but without the involvement of music and video production. The task required in Zeum, takes us all interns to a whole new level of experiencing the art work in technology based on hands on experience.

Storyboarding Basketball

2007-07-26T14:23:00.001-07:00

Above is my storyboard for animation. (you can click on it to see it bigger) It's for my community project - I chose to talk and create something that relates to me in my community. When I first started thinking about what I would do for this project, basketball was the first thing to come to mind. I'm talking about how I love to play basketball and how its my thing to do.

For my project, I'm going to make two clay male characters and animate them using stop motion animation. Just to let you know, one of the characters out of the two clay male characters is me and I make the basketball go into the net of the court, all net, at the end of my performance.

Also, something cool about my project is that I will speak a rap to the audience and as the two clay male characters move the rap music I say goes exactly to what the characters are doing regarding movement wise. In the end I look forward to seeing everybody who gets the chance to see my work to say, "Cool", after I, the clay character hits the shot and it swishes threw a clay basketball court.

A Little Local Theater....Assassins!

2007-07-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to see Perry's show, Assassins. It was fun to see a live performance because everything becomes a lot more real to you since the characters are basically right there in front of you. You may not get the special effects of Hollywood but its fun to have a front row seat (and we did!) to see the action that is going on on stage. It was also great because we actually got to see Perry on stage performing to his fullest. I liked saying that I personally knew one of the actors in the show.

Assassins was different from what I'd expected. I assumed it would be another history lesson on people that have killed presidents. Instead it was told from the side of the assassins in a not so depressing way so it wasn't at all boring. What really kept my interest was all the songs that the characters sang - they weren't so serious, actually they had a comic overtone. They told the story with sort of a carnival background "Win a prize try to kill a President." Instead of just having one person come out at a time and tell their story they made it seem like they were all friends and tied all their assassinations in together with one another.

Seeing the way the actors portrayed the characters was good for me - It was great to see all the different kinds of emotions coming out of each person they played. They didn't have to be sad all the time they could go from mad to even happy or just crazy. It's good to know the different type of acting techniques that people can do on stage. I love seeing different styles and ways people act. It's like a mini acting lesson for me.

I love acting, especially in musicals. When I go see plays it only helps me get more into what I am doing because I have a chance to see how other actors work in their space, with their characters, and in the performance they are doing.

Even though it was a small space, the performers used all the open areas they could find to perform in making us feel like we were involved in what was going on in that scene. At Zeum we could do the same we have a lot of space and its fun to use it all because you get a bigger effect when you take up all you have. We could use things like the spiral walkway to do something fun or the metafield maze to get everyone involved. What if??

An special addition to getting treated to a performance was we got CREAMPUFFS that Ari bought for us. They were vanilla and strawberry and extremely good and we ate almost all of them. Good show and good creampuffs.

Music as Community

2007-07-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hello fellow BLOGGERS!

I've been at Zeum for 3-4 weeks now... And now ZeumMasters are in the process of starting our own projects.... topic = community. The definitions of community that I took to heart were support and family. My project is about music as community. I find support in connecting with other people who like the music I listen to and especially in my school marching band.

I truly am in a school marching band. I consider a band to be a community because a lot of people gather together and help each other out. Without support from every single person, a band wouldn't function. In the summer before my freshman year, I had to make a decision whether to take a music class, a video production class, or a theater class. After thinking it over, I decided to choose a music class because of my passion for music. I play the trumpet, saxophone, and a little piano.

Just think! What would life or the world be without music? In my opinion, life would be empty and dull. If music was never created we wouldn't have composers or songs such as: Beethoven, Bach, John Legend, Stevie Wonder, Bohemian Rhapsody, Beat it, or High School Musical.

music is my LIFE. It helps me relax, be happy, be sad. Without music, I probably wouldn't be the person I am today. I probably would be lost, and a whole different person. Just listening to what artists sing and rap about is a big thing for me. They rap and sing about their own life experiences and how they feel about things. I relate to what they sing about.

For my project, I want to make a "beat" for a song. I'm going to do this in the "Sound Lab" in the middle of Zeum's Main Gallery. Super Duper Music Looper can help me play all the different types of instruments that all of my band members usually play. I can be the whole community at once.

"MUSIC IS MY LIFE." -- me.

First Job: Under Pressure and Lovin' it!

2007-07-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

Time flies! It's my first blog-so be easy on me. Before working at Zeum I was volunteering at the store with Bob, who manages the store. That was a customer service job mostly. But part of volunteering at the store is that you have to "walk around Zeum." I didn't feel comfortable walking around Zeum at the time because I was agoraphobic. :)

I'm a ZeumMaster now....and becoming less agoraphobic!

Being a ZeumMaster is more than just customer service because there are times where you have to sit down and work with kids. The very first day when I started working at Zeum I was really too scared to greet customers because they would come in as a big group lunging at me and asking questions rapidly and I just wasn't prepared.

Zeum is my very first paying job I ever had. I had to get used to a lot of different things such as talking to strangers, having a set schedule, having to soak up so much information at once, and going to meetings. It was sooper hard for me to adjust to real work life.

But with the support of senior ZeumMasters and educators I've been becoming more and more comfortable greeting customers and assisting all kinds of people with different exhibits, and it made me come out of my shell that I was hiding in!

Okay!!! Now one of my favorite movie that I've watched twice is Ratatouille. It's totally incredible. In the movie Remie was helping the janitor to cook by pulling his hair and the Janitor was really scared that his boss would figure out that he had a rat cooking for him. That was a ton of pressure on him. At the end of the movie Mr. Janitor comes out of his shell by telling everyone about Remie, the rat in his hat.

This totally relates Zeum: almost everyday there's a lot of visitors coming in and out and that can be stressful. Like the pressure of working in a restaurant's kitchen with a rat in your hat. But when I actually stood up and told one of the educators how I was feeling about greeting customers and how I was scared of big groups and that I needed help and more support. Now that I've gotten the support I needed I am now lovin' the job!

The Sky's the Limit: Considering Photoshop

2007-07-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

So...this is my first entry as a ZeumMaster, but definitely not my first time reading this Blog. I first came across this page when I was applying to become a ZeumMaster back in marchish aprilish. What really drew me into applying in the first place was the opportunity to work with arts and technology. I hail from a long line of photography lovers, and I myself take a photography class at my high school.

Its quite amazing how art and technology can both be meshed together, and I think photography is the best example of that. At school, we mostly worked on dark room stuff (for now at least), and my mother, being from the olden days and all, never worked with digital photography. So I saw Zeum as a wonderful chance to get into different aspects of digital photography, like photoshop.

Basically the only thing I can do with photoshop is open it. ... ok, thats a lie, I can do some basic things on the program. But my experience with photoshop has barely begun and I'm totally ready for 20 more tons of it to smack me in the face. Here at Zeum we have a "space" called Digital Workshop, which is where people can take a picture of themselves on the computer and use photoshop filters and brushes to change it up. ... Sound familiar? Maybe some of you Myspace freaks out there (ugh!) like to go to the apple store and change up your picture too. For those of you who deny you like to take pictures of yourself, don't worry, cause theres plenty of photoshop out there, it's just camouflaged. How else do the stars hide their blemishes? Why do you think everyone in advertisement look sooo beautiful? one word: photoshop (well actually this computer is telling me photoshop isn't a word...).

Photoshop....the root of evil, the reason why we're all living a lie? or a miracle of a program that was the best thing that ever happened? This all depends of course on how you use it. Unfortunately photoshop is used to perfect everyone in the media and set unhealthy goals for 12 year old girls, but this program also holds so many different opportunities! Photoshop itself could be considered a form of art, a way to exercise your creativity. The ability to change the image of reality and beautify everything is so powerful and fun. And that is exactly what I want to do with photoshop here at Zeum.

I want to learn how to use this program to change the ordinary to extraordinary, and I'm so glad that Zeum is providing this program to its many many visitors. This is a chance for so many people to learn about this great program, not just how it can turn people into sticks, but how it can be just a fun tool to use, a tool that could create wonders with a couple of clicks.

I feel like Zeum is giving everyone the chance to see that photoshop is accessible to all , and everyone can be an artist. The sky is the limit, and photoshop is here to help. I am so excited to learn more about the program and I'm so thankful that Zeum is giving me the chance to do so!

Watch out, one day I'll be working my photoshop like no other at some big magazine company, and you'll say: wow, I knew her back when she was a ZeumMaster, look at her now...shes a pro. And I'll be like: thats right....

Working for the Summertime Zoo

2007-07-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

I've been a ZeumMaster for two years now, and I have truly enjoyed every day I have worked. The part of my job that I love the most is working with kids, helping them and teaching them how to make clay animation and how to perform.

There is one part of being a ZeumMaster that I don't like - I don't get to see the same kids everyday. A lot of the time, after helping a visitor with the clay animation process, I often feel like I'm a part of their experience, and I begin to miss some of the kids after they leave Zeum.

Throughout my two years as a ZeumMaster, I thought of learning to do other things at Zeum, such as learning how to work the store, but I never thought of working as an assistant at a Zeum Summer Camp. About a month ago, Christian, Raquel and I were talking about summer and Christian suggested that I work at the Zeum Camp. I was really excited because I remembered when I was at camp and how much I loved my counselors.

I really had no idea what to expect. All I knew about the camp was that I had to start earlier (which I hated at first), and get a longer break (which I loved of course).

Then I realized: Now I would be a counselor and kids would look up to me and love me, and I would get close to them and get to know them more than any typical visitor at Zeum.

On the first day of camp, I met all the kids and attempted to learn their names as quickly as I could, and on that first day I ALREADY grew attached to them.

Throughout the two weeks of camp, I used my ZeumMaster skills while also being a Camp Counselor, so I did what I always wanted to do with my job-work with the same kids everyday. I helped the campers with their animation, just like I do on the floor, helping them make their character and assisting them while they made their movie. But by the end of the two weeks, I felt like I was also a mentor to the campers, who at times would come to me with their problems, sometimes in tears. I felt like I had an impact, not only in their camp experience but in their daily lives.

Being a counselor for these two weeks has made me want to work at my summer camp that I went to when I was younger.

On the last day of camp, the campers put on a show for all their parents and friends, showing them their clay animation movies and sets.

I was so proud of my campers, and they were proud of their work too. All the pics in this post are of their creations in the session I helped with "Zeum Zoo".

To all Zeum Masters: I recommend working in at least one summer camp session at Zeum. It is a great experience.

Goal = To be an Artist Even if it Scares Me

2007-06-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my first day working as a ZeumMaster. At first I was nervous but then working with the educators and other Zeum Masters I got more comfortable. When the staff greeted me, I felt like I was important. I had a lot of fun. Working in the animator studio was cool. I love working here.

So last night was also parents night. Parents night was a night for zeummaster parents to come and see what we do. We got to see all the old zeummasters projects they've been working on for a while. The art work was amazing and I want to do one for the next time we have parent night.

They did a fantastic job. The zeummaster projects inspired me. I want to develop my art skills.

I think that working at zeum will help me develop my art skills because here at zeum there are different forms of art like technology, clay animation and so much more. I think I would want to do a poetry piece, a play, a drawing or a clay figure. At the beginning of the event, christian welcomed the parents and thanked us for being there. In the middle of the event, the parents got a tour of where we work. all the old zeum masters and educators work really hard to make the event as successful as it was. parent night was a huge success, we had a lot of parents.

I think I like the idea of having my own art show because then I can chose the art I want to be displayed and it would be a lot of dedication and hard work because you need to be organized and on top of your game. this way if I have my own art show I can put art of of the visitors and zeum masters. I do not consider myself an artist but I would like to try to make art and put it in even if im not that great because this way people can see what i have created and my hard work. Making art scares me because people can judge me and my art and I take things personally and hard even if it is a joke or sarcasm.

What does it mean to be an artist? To me being an artist means expressing your self in poetry, lyrics, drawing, music and so much more. If you express yourself in anyway, you're an artist. The reason why i came to zeum was to get away from all the stress at home and just express myself. Here I've been expressing myself through playing with the clay figures because it calms me down and I can be an artist when working with it.

Old Places New Faces

2007-06-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

It feels like its been so long since I was gone. Here I am, blogging again! I love blogging because its one of the many ways we express our feelings here at Zeum. we should take better advantage of this site since it was made just for us. ZEUMMASTERS ;]

Before, I worked at Zeum through a program called MYEEP and since that program ended, I stopped working at Zeum. I decided to reapply. and now I am here again ;] I had to go through training again and this reminded me of when I first got training 8 months ago. A few days ago I met the new Zeummasters and went through training with them. this is my second time being trained. I remember the first time I was trained, I had totally different people with me and we were trained somewhat differently. It was then when i realized how far I had come. these eight months had sure past by way too fast.

While I was gone, I missed zeum alot, the people and the place itself. I felt like I couldn't say I worked at Zeum anymore and that made me sad. but I got really excited when Raquel called and offered the Zeummaster position to me. I thought, everything will be the same again.

When I actually arrived at Zeum, some of the old people were gone and new people came it. I think its not typical for a teenager to work at a place for so long and I am glad I have the opportunity to do so. even though I was so sad that the old workers left because they graduated, I was glad to meet the new people. I know that every year, people would come and leave. and some of the new Zeummasters will be leaving when summer ends, so i should better spend more times with them. ;]

Getting Down to Business with the new zms

2007-06-17T14:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Debo, Derrek, Angee, and I led the New ZeumMaster Orientation. It was a lot of fun. Angee and I came up with the idea to help with training the new ZeumMasters and after several weeks of hard work and planning, it finally happened. We wanted to show the new folks what it is to be a ZeumMaster from the perspective of someone actually in that position. So who better to show them that than us? :)

We love our job here and we want them to love it too. So we started off by having each person STAND UP and introduce themselves and tell us 3 things about themselves. We introduced ourselves to them as well. Then, to break the ice and bring them out of their shells, we went outside and played a couple games the way we do it at Zeum. First we started out by playing a name game just so everyone could get to know each other. It ended up getting hilarious at certain points. The point of the game was to get everyone to let go and just CHILL around each other and to be less hesitant and more outgoing, an important trait of every ZeumMaster. We NEED to be loud and crazy to do our jobs right.

Then, we played a concentration game where they were given a category and they had to think of something that fell into that category and the first person to mess up or repeat a thing was eliminated. We had categories that got harder as more people were eliminated, such as: Colors, Things Found in Parks, Ice Cream Flavors, and Bart Lines. We got crazy answers like "Vomit" and "Birthday Cake Remix". It got crazy but we had a lot of fun and everyone got to know each other and have a good time.

After the fun was over it was time to get down to business. Our job was to give them a little taste of Zeum from a technical point of view, but at the same time in a relaxed and understanding atmosphere so that when it actually comes time to learning all the little details, it won't all be so new and overwhelming.

It was nice to see my peers actually listening to me and taking notes on what I was telling them. We were professional and informative while at the same time keeping the friendly atmosphere. I tried talking to them the way I would've liked to have been talked to when I was trained. It was fun getting to know the new ZeumMasters and I think they enjoyed it as much as, if not more than, we did. I just hope that everything we told them will be useful to them during their Zeum Career.

On another note, Mission in the Mix (a hip hop dance show) opens this weekend!! This workshop group I'm performing in it. It's gonna be an AWESOME show, so everyone should come. It's recommended that you buy tickets in advance because they WILL sell out. They'll only have a FEW at the door. *Tickets are $15 and sold at Dance Mission Theater across from 24th Street Bart Station.

ZeumMasters train ZeumMasters

2007-06-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

The new season means new ZeumMasters! Today marks the first day of ZeumMaster led orientation for the newbies. Angee and Samantha led the first round, owning it, teaching it, rocking it.

Check out some of the evidence....

Spoken Music: Fran Varian visits Zeum

2007-06-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

This morning Ari's friend, Fran Varian came and talked to us - she is a spoken word artist. I might have mentioned spoken work in my project in media and self image because that's how I'm performing it. Spoken word is a kind of performance art in lyrics, poetry, and stories are spoken instead of sung. So it's like talking music.

Fran gave us a insight into the world of spoken word like slam poetry, which is a competition with eight people who have two minutes to make up their own piece of work and get judged by random people from the audience. Wow that must take extreme talent to make up something in two minutes... it takes me weeks to come up with something even close to a poem.

The artistic process is different for everybody... but I'm seeing that the base of a spoken word poem is to "be vulnerable". A lot of artists write about things that are really personal. This can be hard because people feel uncomfortable but also really easy because you are writing about a subject you know the most - yourself. When you talk about yourself lots of people might respond to it because they might have felt the same way or had the same experiences.

I have never really performed as myself - I'm use to getting characters and being someone else. But I can be someone else and even be myself at the same time. I talked about this with Fran and the group. Even in getting a script and being a different character can be a way to "be vulnerable".

Fran told us about an organization called Youthspeaks.org it helps teens get into spoken word. It gives them a chance to really have a voice and express their feelings, opinions.

I'm using spoken word in my project so it was good chance to hear about her process and actually hear one of her poems. It was cool because the hardest part for me was to get down and write what I wanted to say. Hearing Fran talk about her process of writing made working on my project a little bit easier. I never thought of myself as a writer but in reality if you write something down on paper you're a writer.

End of Junior year. Beginning of Zeum Summer.

2007-06-09T14:45:00.001-07:00

My junior year has come to a close. I made it through finals. This past year was stressful and very busy, and working at Zeum only added to my crazy schedule. Although my Saturdays were always occupied from the hours of of 10am to 5:30, I'm glad I had Zeum this year.

It's hard to believe that I've been at Zeum for an entire year. The time has gone by so fast partly because working at Zeum is so much fun. The kids are great, the staff is even more amazing but I cant lie though, it is hard work. Overwhelming crowds made me question how much I wanted to work with kids. Some days were crazy, running from room to room, trying your best to please every visitor, pay attention to every creation, always an impossible task when the numbers reach the 500 mark.

The only way I was able to survive and have such a good experience was because of the other staff, seriously. We made the hard days go by faster by laughing.

Saturday mornings at Zeum are always fun. We'd spend the first few minutes before morning meetings trying to catch up and explain what had happened during the past week. Eventually Christian would summon us to "Animators" for our morning meeting. That never stopped us, we would still be telling our stories from across the table. We have our own inside jokes, our favorite songs, and Angee is the founder of the ZeumMaster hand sign. (see me demonstrating in photos)

Like most Zeum Masters, this is my first real job, and working on a team is not new to me, but not something that I've had a ton of experience with. A big part of life at Zeum is teamwork. We work together with the common goal: to try to make the best overall experience for the visitors, most of the time that includes making a fool of ourselves. We perform all the time. High School musical is a favorite - we'll act as silly as possible to embarrass ourselves and try to encourage shy kids to perform.

People constantly ask me "What do you do at Zeum?" That question often stumps me. I have to think about it for a while, but eventually say "We help kids perform and create art." and they just give me that puzzled look and I know they're thinking "thats all." But the truth is it's so much more than just helping kids with art.We ZeumMasters facilitate and practically run the museum with the help of the educators. The ZeumMaster team helps with not just the art and the performance, we help make the overall experience an amazing one, a hard but possible task.

I now look forward to another busy summer at Zeum. This summer I can call myself a senior staff member and have the pleasure to help the newest Zeum Masters. The summers at Zeum are always with swimming with camps of kids and visiting families. The most exciting experience is meeting all the new Zeum Masters.

I met so many new people this past year and at times we had just as much fun as the visitors. Summers at Zeum bring out the kid in all of us.

Hello, it's Summer

2007-06-03T10:56:00.001-07:00

Summer at Zeum can be crazy. Instead of being here one day a week we practically live at Zeum working weekdays also. Oh my God waking up early going to work everyday how BORING!!!! Actually coming to Zeum for my first summer made my summer so much more fun and interesting. Coming into my first work experience ever I wasn't too ecstatic about that I mean I wouldn't get to spend my summer sleeping in bed all day.

Zeum isn't the typical white collar job. Starting my first summer I have to say it was confusing after all the fun and games of the scavenger hunt and games it was time to get down to work. All the exhibits all the buttons. Going through various workshops and trainings I felt like I was going to forget all the things when and why I suppose to push things turn on things.

It was so hard recording people the first time I even forgot to tell somebody to use the microphone at the main gallery and you couldn't hear them on the video. After some bad tapes, changing floppy disks in DW, and learning pretty good animation I can be proud to say I'm a certified expert (there are still slight mistakes here and there) in all the rooms.

This month it will have been one year that I've worked at Zeum.

Yesterday, I graduated from high school. Because of Zeum, I have experience in the work field so that when I get another job (hopefully one as fun as this) I will know the basic groundwork for working.

I also got to use my performance skills at Zeum. Being here helped me develop my talents while working. Having fun while working - I never thought that was a possibility.

So now I want to go to AMDA American Musical Dramatic Theater Academy to study musical theater. for now, I'm going to San Francisco City College to study musical theater - I guess I'm still going to stay in San Francisco for a while.

Now that this is my last summer at Zeum I plan not to totally forget what I have learned. I know that now once I get in front of a camera I'll be prepared for what do thanks to the production stage. Excellent.

On Performing, the Main Gallery and FINISHING a project

2007-06-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

This morning at Zeum, I finished my final project: Fantasy Seder. I performed the one girl play I'd written about how I imagined my family members at a Passover Seder. I was really unsure as to how I was going to be able to act out my different family members and really show the audience different personalities that I was hoping to portray. Recording myself was a bit nerve- racking because I wanted the audience to see what I saw as I was writing the script.

I enjoyed recording myself because I was finally able to make a project that I help kids do everyday when I work at Zeum.

All the kids I work with take their performance so seriously and they really have a vision of how they want their performance to be. When I was recording myself at the production stage, I felt like a visitor, like I was new to the experience even though I've worked at the production stage so many times. I wanted my performance to be right what I wanted. I did a practice run-through, and then did another two more practice runs, until I was finally happy with it, and hopefully those who watch it will be happy with it too.

I've been working at Zeum for two years, and over this time, I've seen Zeum change. The production stage in the Main Gallery is one exhibit that has changed a lot, and where I have become a lot more comfortable working. When I first started working at Zeum, I hated working in the Main Gallery because I never felt like I was 100% prepared to help kids produce a performance.

With Zeum changing over these two years, I've changed a lot too.

These days, working at the production stage in the Main Gallery is never dull, helping kids make their own masterpieces. I have become much more confident, and I have much more to say to visitors and helping them make a great performance. Because I feel more confident working in the Main Gallery, I was able to make a great performance of my own, using the same skills I use to help visitors.

Watching my final project made me feel proud of performing something and I felt that I really portrayed what I wanted the audience to see.

ANGEE on Human Rights, Technology and the Artistic Process...

2007-05-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

For Parent Night I chose to create a movie based on the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Now, the Declaration has THIRTY articles, so I didn't know if I were to make a move based on all THIRTY articles or just a few.

Now, it's still a work in progress. I'm still going to tweek it here and there, but overall it looks good.

Here's what I've done so far:

Enjoy!

Starting out, I realized that basing the movie on all THIRTY articles would be a little ambitious, so i just stuck with the first ten. Then, I had to brainstorm how to do this: animation? drawings? claymation? I didn't know just yet.

LIKE A BOLT OF LIGHTNING it hit me. I could just do images on photoshop based on each article. ADOBE PHOTOSHOP is one of my favorite things to do here at Zeum. I've been working with photoshop for about four years now, so I thought it was a great idea.

On Photoshop made an image for each article. To do this I would get an image from the internet, make it into a black and white/positive and negative image, then define a brush. Photoshop saves the brush automatically. This is a good function to know. The brushes I made then became backgrounds for the images I created.

From there I took the articles and placed the text over the colorful backgrounds. I think it came out great, just like I wanted.

Now, what to do with the images?! Make a gif. file? Movie? Hmm...Then I remembered how well I worked with Windows Movie Maker...PERFECT.

I took the images I made on Photoshop and created a movie. I started with titles introducing the articles and quick history on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, followed by the images I made, and then quick credits at the end. All of this was accompanied with the song, "Dream" by Common and Will.I.Am.

Yeah, it's still a work in progress. But MOST DEFINITELY a project that I'm proud of.

Passover Story

2007-05-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

I have a big family - we're all over the country and all over the world. My immediate family lives in San Francisco. But my aunts, uncles, and cousins on my mom's side live in New York. And most of my dad's family lives in Israel.

Because my family is so large and scattered about, I have decided, that for my end of the year project, I wanted to write a short play about my ENTIRE family at the Passover Seder dinner, and kind of make up how I think they would all interact with one another.

I'm planning on performing the whole play myself. A one girl show, reading the skit aloud, acting out everyone's part. Because my family who lives in Israel doesn't speak English, I'm going to perform some of it in Hebrew.

I always wanted to gather my whole entire family together for Passover because it would be so amazing for me to see everyone at once for such a special holiday.

With this project I'm creating my wish that someday, this gathering of my family could happen, and I would really see how they would get along.

Because of the differences between some of my family members, i wrote it so that an argument arises between my cousin (who lives in NY), my Uncle (who lives in Israel), and my mom.

The argument finally ceases when my dad says "OK, let's eat and sing songs." And I bring up the Passover song that is my all time favorite - Echad, Me Yodea?" (One, who knows one?"). Suddenly everyone in my family is talking about the song and how special and meaningful it is to every one of them. The lyrics to the song are so powerful and are strong enough to bring everyone together. And the fighting stops.

Who knows three? I know three!
Three are the mothers and two are the tablets that Moshe brought, and one is Hashem...
Who knows four? I know four!
Four are the fathers and three are the mothers and two are the tablets that Moshe brought and one is Hashem...

The song continues in this fashion of counting up until the number thirteen, and it has a lot of meaning because the song is very biblical and mentions important biblical figures. The melody is also beautiful, especially when sang in Hebrew.

When my family was all singing together, I realized that the holiday of Passover and the songs are a "common denominator" in my family and it's what brings everyone together. In spite of their differences, we all share the love for the holidays, and this, in turn, brings the family together and erases any tension.

Digital Comic Strip Finished!

2007-05-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

I finished the digital comic strip! I made it with a computer program called Comic Life Deluxe. The program was great. Really interesting to learn.

To see what I'd written before about this project, click HERE.

For the strip, almost all of the images are symbols. The scale is a symbol of the balance and unbalance conflict. Paper money represents wealth and coin represent poverty. The black box in the third image represents the illegal activities of the wealthy people. The person that's kneeling on the broken glass with a no sign means no punishment, stop it. The sick lady laying on bed represents the poor because usually poor people don't have anything to eat and they would be sick and die. The birds flying behind the scale represent peace.

The strip is done. I was shocked by how amazing it looked to me when finished. It was so cool, I never expected it would come out to be this good. I feel really happy right now. This was the first time I've made a comic strip on the computer. Although I did on paper before.

Parting Thoughts of a ZeumMaster

2007-05-19T13:29:00.001-07:00

Being that this is my last day at Zeum, I wanted to share a couple memories at this place known as an "arts and technology museum for kids of all ages."

In my last post I wrote about the expectations of the media on young Latina girls - what the media expects of me vs. what I want to be. With this experience and new knowledge, Zeum has led to being a step closer in being what I want to be and not what was expected of me by the media.

My typical day at Zeum usually began with my late arrival (5 minutes after 10am). I would rush in, put on my shirt fast, put on my badge and storm into the Animators studio, where I'd find everyone in a meeting sitting quietly. I would try to sneak in, but then Christian always noticed and gave me the "You're late again?" look.

As they continued with the meeting, everyone would be listening attentively while I'd be trying to get my heart beat to slow back down. Then we'd check in and everyone would say how they felt and some random thing, ("I feel hungry and I like hippos"... random). My favorite mornings were when we would all cut clay and talk about movies (perry would always know all the showtunes and sing them for us). By about 10:50 we'd be ready to open the museum and we'd spread out to different rooms. (Usually animators, everyone feels that they've been in the animators room too many times).

As we walked up the 4 flights of stairs (Exaggeration according to Ari) we took our time and sometimes had detours. Once we were in our assigned destinations, we turned everything on, got all the materials ready and waited as the kids arrived.

When I'd get to my station/exhibit, I was suddenly the director, producer and technician. I was in charge (They must have really trusted me to put me in charge.... Just Kidding). As the day went on I'd dance, laugh, sing, animate and all of a sudden it would be 5pm. We'd turn everything off and march our way singing and laughing into the animators studio once again to reflect on the day.

As I leave Zeum and reflect on these typical days (although some days were not this typical!) I realize that I learned how to, make a music video, make a production, make an animation. Things I never even knew I was capable of doing. Thank You. But I also learned more to the technology part of Zeum, I learned the art of being a co-worker, filling out a time sheet, (filling out leave requests), but most of all the art of making new friendships.

Once again, Thanks Guys/Girls.

'Killin it with Dance

2007-05-13T11:06:00.000-07:00

Anybody can dance. Anybody can perform. Whether you're amazing or horrible it feels nice to just get yourself out there. Dancing can be a way of expressing yourself or just a way to let out stress after a hard day at work or school. Having a way to escape from life and just dance is good for you. You can forget about life's. Dancing is like a vacation for your mind.

I'm making a documentary about dance. In my movie I want to show that good things can come from dancing whether or not you're good at it.

Performance is a big deal at Zeum. We have our production stage in our main gallery and our stage in the Music Video production lab so it's crucial that we help kids realize that they can perform too even if they think they're really bad at it. Everyone has a performer inside them, you just have to bring it out of them. For the kids that come here it's a big deal to be up on stage. A lot of them get nervous because they think they can't do it but with a little encouragement they get into their performances and put on good shows. After doing their thing on stage a lot of times they get excited and have a little self-esteem boost.

With my video I want to show the positive effects of dancing on people's lives and that anyone can experience these things because anyone can dance. I'm gonna interview a few big name dance teachers about what get them started in dancing and what dancing has done for them in their lives. My video will show their interview with me and then will go into a video of them actually dancing. I'll do the same thing with people who are in dance companies and then take it down to people who simply take classes and then take it down to people who do it just for fun.

I've been dancing for 4 years. I mainly do hip hop dance. I started taking dance classes just to see what it was like. I had always seen people dance and though "Wow, I wish I could do that."

After a while I was motivated by the compliments I started getting. It's the best feeling to have someone ask me "How'd you do that?" or have a teacher tell me to keep the good work cuz i was "killin' it."

Dancing has helped not only to boost my self-esteem but also to get me through some tough times. When I dance i can forget about everything going on around me and just focus on the dancing I'm doing. Nothing else matters. I can go home after dancing and feel like I accomplished what I needed to that day. I'm at my best mentally after I've danced. I can think better having let out all my stress and energy in dance. I get my endorphins flowing so I feel pumped up but I'm more at ease so I can think better. And after getting all tired out I can sleep better too. So dancing can benefit you both mentally and physically.

Digital Comic Strip in Progress

2007-05-12T17:02:00.000-07:00

I drew this, it's part of the project that I wrote about before on the blog - the comic strip. This image describes the punishment of the wealthy people, kneeling on broken small pieces of glass in 1950's China. Many people died from the punishment and some escaped to the United States. This is how the story ended. I just wanted to put this on the blog to show the progress.

In the other comic I'm working on, I'm imagining a new ending. It's more peaceful.

I drew all the images this week. next week I'm going to scan them into the computer so that I can import them into a really cool program that lets you make digital comic strips.

I can't wait to see the whole thing finished.

How Do You Define Human Rights?

2007-05-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

Through the years my ideas about human rights have changed. I grew up with the perception that human rights violation happened in countries distraught by war and corrupt politicians. The media has presented human rights violation as torturing prisoners and murdering entire villages and I easily accepted the idea that this had no relation to my environment. That changed when I took notice of what was going around me. I have come up with my own definition on human rights: The right to feel safe.

For Example, a ZeumMaster left her purse near the programing station in Main Gallery and later found it at the bottom of the stairs with all her belongings stolen. She lost her phone, her iPod, but more importantly she lost her sense of safety. Having your belongings stolen - Could that be categorized as a human rights violation? When we're in an environment where we feel completely comfortable, having something as unfortunate as this happen makes the experience that much worse. You have the right to feel that not only you are safe, but your processions are as well. Although some may not agree I would categorize this event as a human rights violation.

It could have happened anywhere. And I love Zeum. But I just want to say that even your safe places can be violated.

I'm doing a documentary project where I'm interviewing Zeum staff members and strangers and using their experiences and their definitions of human rights to create a video. I'm going to record them as they answer the following questions: How would you define human rights? What do you need to feel safe? Have you ever felt unsafe?

I hope to show that feeling safe is a simple right that everyone deserves. Human rights violation does not have to be as intense a physical torture, for it to make someone feel uncomfortable. Everyone has stories and I want to share them.

Creating a documentary will not only give me the opportunity to use a video camera and edit, but using real stories with real people will create a strong message.

End of the Reel: last day at zeum

2007-05-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

This is my final blog post. My internship is coming to an end and my last day is May 16 so I decided to write a blog comparing my first day to my day yesterday and see how I have changed from this internship.

My first day at Zeum I had no idea of what I was getting into I knew no one but my mentor. I didn’t know if I would get along with any of my co-workers and I didn’t think I could handle the 7 hour days. It is very strange how things can change it 12 weeks.

My first day on the job I was very reserved and just talked to the people I knew, which by the way were my classmates and fellow interns. After my first day I had no clue if I was even going to enjoy my time here.

As I look back to yesterday and compare it to my first day I can give a big smile. I am going to miss all my co-workers, the happy kids and their families, and my mentor. Over the 12 weeks of work I have been able to develop a professional and personal relationship with everyone there. Hanging out in the office, the main floor, eating lunch with the other interns, can’t forget watching the Matthew and Perry singing and dancing. I would really like to thank all the staff for making my internship exciting and always making ready to come in.

Finally I want to talk about my project. My project to me was simple but ended up being very hard. I felt that editing a movie of teens playing games was going to be a piece of cake. First of all I just like to edit - it is a passion for me. Here, the part that got hard was that I didn’t understand any of the footage. I also didn’t understand how important it was to the teen interns and to Zeum in general.

After having 2 meetings with my mentor and director of the intern program I knew it had to be good. Still I wasn’t moved to try my hardest. In fact it was after meeting the other teen interns and seeing their reaction I put all my effort to making it good for them. This project taught me that it is important to think of others because one small thing to me can mean a whole lot to the others.

I want to thanks the ZeumMasters who made working there a good time for me.

Chili Fritos Memory: My Sister

2007-05-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

What I'm writing here is more stories for my memory project.

This is a picture of my oldest sister, Erica and I. We are in Detroit Michigan at this time. It's very hot out there with not enough oxygen in the air.

When my sister Erica and I were little, I would come home from my elementary school across the street from my house. I would be coming from my after school program after six and I always would see the ice cream truck as I crossed the street. Because my sign is a virgo and I love to hustle positively, money would always be in my pocket.

When I stop the ice cream truck by raising my hand like I'm in class, I would always get the same thing and never try anything new, "chili fritos". If I'm having a bad day, after eating chili fritos, my day is automatically brightened. The good thing about chili fritos is that they were cheap, you could buy them from the ice cream truck for a dollar.

Sometimes before I would eat them, I would go in the house and put them on the table to go to the bathroom and wash my hands. My sister Erica would be sleep on the couch, having the TV watch her instead of she watching the TV. I would go to the bathroom come back and my chili fritos would be on the table empty. I'd wonder who ate them because there was only my sister Erica and me in the house.

After five more times of this situation happening, I started to figure out a plan to "catch" that person eating my chili fritos. It was obviously easy because I would act like I would go to the bathroom and instead, hide under the table where my chili fritos were and end up "catching" my sisters Erica not eating my chili fritos but gobbling without chewing. There went my chili fritos down to her stomach. I had a camera on me so I immediately snap-shot my sister for evidence. In the end, all we both could do is laugh.

Mama Memory

2007-05-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

My memory project begins with two pictures of my mom.

This is a new picture of my mom, dad, and little new born baby brother. My mom's name is "mom"! My dad's name is "dad"! My new born baby brother name is Jeremiah. My mom and I are very close. I remember there was an entire month when my mom just wanted to take off of work just for me and spend time with me by going to lunch. I appreciated that so much.

I felt like an only child. As my mom and I kept going to lunch throughout the month, I was wondering why she chose me to spend time with. Did I need special treatment or something? What? But that was not the case. The case was that she felt like I was her only son, not only child and that she don't see me as much as she does the girls (my sisters) because I'm always running around or with my dad.

My mom is the best and I'm glad she gave me life (having me was hard work is what my mom told me). I also appreciate my mom giving most of her genes, very outgoing and learning how to make a good impression on new people I meet. Cheers, to mom!

I have a lot more pictures to write about. Pretty soon I'm going to start the recording so that you can hear me, Joshua, telling this story.

Imagining Peace in Comics

2007-05-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

When I was 15 my mom told me about the land reform movement in China in the 1950's. I'm now 19. She'd lived in China during that time.

I was interested in the Children of Jerusalem exhibit, which is about the Israeli/Arab conflict and is why I wanted to do conflict resolution for my final project. It was after looking at that show that I started to remember my mom's story. So I decided to do the story that my mom told me because it was related to the Children of Jerusalem, conflict and resolution, and it was happened in the real live and it was took place where I was from, China.

Land Reform is about redistributing arable land, whether previously collectivized by the state or held by rich farmers. The farmers are forced by the government to give up their land at prices thats unfair. Landowners evicted the farmers without their consent, and that's why they were so rich. The goals of Land Reform is to take from the rich and give to the poor, reducing poverty, expanding rural development, or returning land to it's previous owners.

I was inspired by the show of the Children of Jerusalem, and I like the symbols that they used in their paintings. Birds. flags, the colors, wall. mystery, sea.

My thing is that I like comics a lot, so I wanted to make a comic strip. My favorite is Case Closed. So I'm going to draw and make a comic strip about the land reform conflict. I will be also using symbols and some text like what the Israeli and Arab children did for their paintings. First, I will draw it on white paper with pencil, then go over with pen, and color it. Cut it out and paste them on a bigger hard cardboard.

I've already sketched out the two comics. What you see here are those rough sketches. I did two pages, one is the conflict as it happened for real and the other one is how I think it could have ended more peacefully. The conflict is that during the 1950s in China, the people were equal, but the wealthy people made the scale unbalanced. So the government needed to do something about it, and it was to punish the wealthy people by forcing them to kneel on the broken small pieces of glass. Thats what the original ending was. But i want to make an alternative ending to it to make it a peaceful conflict resolution. Instead of punishing them so harshly, I want to free the people and take their money and give it to the poor. So there's no violence and everybody is equal.

I used a scale to show the unbalance of the rich with paper money and a Chinese dollar symbol on it, and poor with only coins. At the end, I will draw white birds flying over the balanced scale to represent peace.

I want to show people that violence can't solve problems. People have to work together to make a resolution. To compromise.