See I'm Smiling

Copper

2009-05-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

There's a tiny man staring up at me from underneath my desk. He's covered in dust and dirt and for days on end I've been wondering if he'd bring me luck.

Should I make the effort, crawl on hands and knees, to pluck the giver of wishes from his comfortable home between production and sports? He's been there for months. If I was going to snatch it up, I would have done it already.

Or, perhaps, I'm scared I may get all I ever dreamed of.

I haven't opened the odd-shaped case in the corner of my room for weeks for the same reason. If opened, I might actually learn to play the guitar, sing the blues, win you back and live happily ever after.

It could happen, I'm just terrified of the alternative.

If I open that guitar case, I open my heart. I don't know if I could stand to have my heart broken by you. I already did enough breaking for the both of us.

Which is why, for today, I will not tell you how I feel.

On the other hand, today I had an interesting revelation. In a class about the history of photography and images, my professor projected a long list of words and sentences on the wall. A poem titled "An Old Man" by Constantine Cavafy kept me captive. I couldn't move, all I could do was sit quietly and wipe the wet from my cheeks.

At the noisy end of the cafe,
Head bent over the table, an old man sits alone
A newspaper in front of him

And in the miserable banality of old age
He thinks how little he enjoyed the years
When he had strength and eloquence and beauty

He knows he's very old now; sees it, feels it
Yet it seems he was young just yesterday
How short, how short a time

And he thinks how Discretion fooled him,
How he always believed, so stupidly
That cheat who said "Tomorrow, you have plenty of time"

He remembers impulses bridled, the joy
He sacrificed. Every chance he lost
Now mocks his brainless prudence.

But so much thinking, so much remembering makes the old man dizzy.
He falls asleep,
His head resting on the cafe table.

This could be me 50 years from now. Twenty-two is probably too young to contemplate dying alone, but the thought still crosses my mind from time to time.

The penny on the ground stares up at me. All I need to do is pick it up. The patient guitar waits for me to come home. All I need to do is play it. The silent phone waits to be dialed. All I have to do is call him.

Global Media Initiative

2009-03-23T21:39:00.000-07:00

San Jose State University's School of Journalism and Mass Communications has their Global Media Initiative students out in the field in London and Paris for spring break ... and I'm one of them!

Three years ago the GMI was formed out of a desire to expose budding journalists to the opportunities and challenges of field reporting.

The first year, 50 SJSU students traveled to New York City for spring break and met with media outlets in the newspaper, magazine, photojournalism, advertising and PR industries. Several students made contacts at the various news organizations and from those contacts received internships and jobs.

The second year was an experiment in international multimedia production. Dubbed the "Multimedia Boot Camp," Mexico City was the destination and 15 students produced stories for the web and print. Audio, video and photography were required elements in each story. This was the beginning of our all-platform journalism obsession.

Planning London and Paris 2009 began last September. At one point, 50 students wanted to go on the trip. As departure drew closer, the total number of students was whittled down to 20 dedicated individuals. We have one week, two countries and endless opportunities.

Unlike the Mexico City trip, we have an overall lens through which all our stories will focus. The global economic crisis is effecting everything around us, so from immigration to the environment and from fashion to financial aid, we are covering it.

Megan Hamilton

Art Director

Magazine Journalism / Graphic Design
My LinkedIn. My Blog. My Portfolio.

What a difference a year makes

2009-03-17T01:33:00.000-07:00

It's true. I have not posted in forever. One year might as well be forever in the blogosphere. Let me give you an update. Since last April I have, in chronological order ...

... Said goodbye Bath and Body Works, broke up with an incredible guy who will now forever hate me, got hired at Apple Retail, purchased an iPhone (life-changing), rendezvoused with some Brits, enjoyed beer, created a 'prototype' issue for a new magazine called Social Entrepreneur, announced and began planning the JMC's spring break trip to London and Paris, got in a car accident, designed the Spartan Daily newspaper for Fall 2008, dressed up as Stormy from Rainbow Brite for Halloween, chopped off all my hair, rocked a LOT of headbands, elected a new president, voted no on Prop 8, serenaded my co-workers at Apple Corporate on the same stage Steve Jobs does his keynotes, renamed Social Entrepreneur SHiFT, survived my first Holiday at Apple, pleaded for a new MacBook Pro (and got one!), became a gourmand for New Years Eve, decided to be happy for 2009, embarrassed myself for a boy, pledged to run a marathon for charity, redesigned the Spartan Daily for Spring, contracted pneumonia, drugged myself for three weeks, cried as apple juice was spilled on the new MacBook Pro, celebrated my 22nd birthday, suffered through eight long miles of running, iced my groin, strained my foot, hobbled about for two weeks, drafted my first Web site, beefed up my resume, published the 'beta' issue of SHiFT, dropped out of the marathon training, failed to raise funds for charity, wallowed in self-loathing and finally jet-setted for London.

Oh wait, that hasn't happened yet. Stay tuned ...

Rollin' With the Homies

2008-04-23T00:34:00.000-07:00

Today I realized how much I need it to be summertime. I don't know if I can take three more weeks of school plus finals. There are four things that take up the majority of my time: work, school, friends and sleep. On a good week I can successfully manage three out of the four but my downfall is that I have to go to work because i don't want to get fired, I can't say no to my friends and I'll be damned if I don't get a full night's sleep or at least a cozy nap. What does that leave? Oh yeah, school.

Now, I have always loved school. I am Rory Gilmore when it comes to loving school but when the spring semester rolls around and the weather starts becoming wonderful, all I want to do is NOT be in class and NOT doing homework. I am burned out. The Mexico City trip burned me out! I have so many projects to still complete that I really do want to do but I just can't find the motivation to do them.

For example, I have really cool projects for both my photo and my design classes but again, no time and no motivation. I have an excellent opportunity to make another kick ass piece for my portfolio but I'm screwing it up as we speak because I, of course, find it more amusing to write a blog post at 1a.m. the morning it is due.

There are other things wrong with me too but I will save the all juicy details for when I'm super drunk and accidentally tell the world I'm......

haha, you'll just have to wait.

Vectors Make Me Happy

2008-04-16T01:11:00.000-07:00

So here is the new and improved vectorized Megan Hamilton!
It took forever and I am sort of happy with it. This definitely took a toll on my patience. It is quite noticeable in my lack of finesse with the pen tool. I could have made things smoother but hey, who has the time to do that. I am just glad that I finished. Oh yeah, this is me on the airplane to Chicago. I was super lucky to get an entire row all to myself. Woohoo!

Apples and Oranges

2008-04-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

So I hear that APPLEs are really good for you. After all, an APPLE a day keeps the doctor away. No wonder kids are always putting APPLEs on their teachers' desks. It must make them really smart, eating all those APPLEs. Those students probably become the APPLE of their eyes. The bad students in the class are no where near those who give their teachers APPLEs. It would be like comparing APPLEs to oranges. And no one wants to be an orange. Hmm, maybe I should be an APPLE. Everyone loves APPLEs so there is no reason not to be. Hopefully, the Stanford APPLE tree will decide to grow a new APPLE crop in the next month. You can't have too many APPLEs :D

It wouldn't be the holidays without a little...

2007-11-22T14:11:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I wish I had one of those families that gets completely drunk at Christmas. And sometimes I wish I had one of those families that was so dysfunctional that I would have enough emotional trauma to write a book or be an edgy singer/songwriter. Alas, my family is pretty normal. Well, my immediate family is pretty normal. There isn't any drama. There aren't any knock down, drag out fights. We, for the most part, get along. What the hell kind of holiday season am I being subjected to?? Happiness? Joy? Peace on fucking earth??

I wish I had something good to write about. Like that my mom got so drunk and downed so many anti-depressants that she started a karaoke bar in our living room and sold tickets for her show to the people talking a holiday walk along the path that runs next the the picturesque creek by our cozy cookie cutter house in suburbia right across the way from the elementary school I attended for seven years and the park in which I played when I was young. Crap. My run-on sentence doesn't even work because it just segues into how picture-perfect my childhood was. Damn-it, I can't even make my mom a crazy drunk lounge lizard! It just doesn't work! I just don't have enough dysfunction to even pretend to have dysfunction. I hate to admit it, but I don't really have any major life-changing family crap or life crap to shape me into one of those people with "issues." And I ask you, where are my issues?? Everyone is supposed to have them, so where are mine?

Well, Ok, let's face it, my parents are still together AND they get along, my grandparents are all still together. My grandmother on my dad's side died when I was 12 but my grandfather has never remarried. With the exception of two aunts, all my aunts and uncles and cousins are still married to their first marriage partner. No one has committed suidide or attempted it. No one is "the drunk" at gatherings. We don't hate anyone in the family and we actually like hanging out with each other. Hmm I think this is abuse. How does my family expect me to doubt love and relationships, drink my insecurities away, and never have any self-esteem or ambition unless I get a little suppression in my life. For the love of God can't I get some true American normalcy?

The Shaggs Review

2007-11-13T13:49:00.000-08:00

The Shaggs all girl band plays like it has twelve different sheets of music, everyone is playing, no one is leading, and everyone has started at a different time. They purposefully play their music a little bit off balance. It makes the listener unable to follow and unable to catch up.

They are playing as if they are running the race of the turtle and the hare. Half the band is the turtle and the other half is the hare. Their album is the entire race. The percussion stays on beat, they are the constant, ever persistent turtle and the vocalist and other instrumentalists are the hare. They start and stop without any constant rhythm.

The lyrics are so non-scensical that the band channels a 2-year old that is learning to walk and talk at the same time. You can’t do it all at once without stumbling.

Despite all the weird nuances of their music, they are doing something original. They are experimenting with sound and rhythm to produce an audience reaction. I would love to see them in concert at a Berkeley coffee shop.

The band Pastel Pasta was an experimental group that started at my high school. They also experimented with ridiculous lyrics and obscure instruments like the toy piano and a washboard. They entered the Battle of the Bands one year and got about last place. The next year they received second place because of their creativity in performance execution and lyrics that people could laugh at.

The Shaggs do the same thing. It is still entertainment, the listener just needs to go in with an open mind, laugh and have fun listening to something new.

I am Jack's Clever Blog Title

2007-10-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

Up until last weekend I had never seen Fight Club. Oh wow it is amazing and I am going to marry Edward Norton. But that isn't the point. The point is, that after seeing fight club, my junior year in high school finally makes sense. This cartoon was the focus of many many laughs and fun times. My friends and I were geeks, but then again, who wasn't a geek in high school? Enjoy my reminiscence with my buddies Jamal, Billy and Oscar.

Influences

2007-10-22T12:29:00.001-07:00

So there is this artist named Phil Hansen who does some incredible work that is completely unconventional. This is a series of paintings he did on his stomach. Instead of doing each one separately he painted them on top of one another. Each painting was about someone in his life that had influenced him in some way. Once he was finished he peeled off the solid layer of paint and made a self portrait. Watch this video. It is amazing!

It makes me wonder who I would paint if I were to share my influences with the world. There are artists and authors and celebrities and other people I have never met. I think, in the end, the people who have influenced me most have been my friends and family. I guess that is a no brainer. But when people are spending more and more time online on YouTube and other sites commenting on blogs for people they've never met, are our own influences shrinking or growing? Are we losing true friendships and replacing them with each other's computer alter egos? Phil Hansen has now influenced me but how long will it last? Probably not nearly as long as if I had seen his work in real life. So thanks Phil for the amusing Monday. We'll see who will be my entertainment tomorrow.

30 Days of Night

2007-10-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

So I figured I would take one for the team and go with my silly friends to see a crappy vampire flick. They thought I didn't like scary movies because they scared me. However, scary movies may make me jump but usually I end up talking and laughing through all of them because they are so ridiculous. Luckily, Colleen didn't give me too much shit and Drew didn't mind my mockery of him and the film.

The one redeeming quality of the movie for me was, of course, Josh Hartnett. He is not that bad of an actor. And he is nice to look at. In the beginning he was clean shaven and looked like a member of a boy band. But then by "day 7" he had the really hot scruff thing going for him. It was wonderful.

What was not wonderful was the stupid blond girl, Stella. First of all "Stella" is not the name of a blond white girl. Second, her hair was way too perfect throughout the entire film. Her one redeeming quality was that she didn't whine and didn't break her ankle. In the end, she still makes a stupid decision. I won't give it away but in the theater it was one of those "oh come on!" moments.

All in all, Drew said it right, "It was pretty good as far as vampire movies go."

I'm sorry but this is just laughable!

I Saw Dead People

2007-10-16T22:05:00.000-07:00

It is not everyday that an average student gets to spend time with dead people, unless, of course, you are a student on the fast track to medical school. However, for those normal majors like journalism and glass blowing, this is not a run-of-the-mill occurrence. Now, for a limited time, all of you average people out there can experience death first hand! No, no, no one is going on a killing spree. Body Worlds 2 is now showing at the Tech Museum in downtown San Jose. It is a world famous exhibit created by a bunch of scientists, doctors and artists who got together one day and said, "Hey, let's plastinate some dead bodies and put them in action poses around the world." Sounds awesome!

All jokes aside it really is amazing. It absolutely blew my mind that each and every person at the exhibit tonight knew the plastic people were, at one time, real people. They knew that these people died and donated their bodies to this exhibit. Even though each person knew they were in a room with dozens of dead guys, they still paid $20 to be there. Ordinary citizens do not pay money to go visit dead bodies in the coroner's office. Ordinary people do not watch surgeries at hospitals just to see a person's insides. Why then would people be attracted to something as gruesome as death so up close and personal? Why? Because it is art.

The question "What is art?" is so trivial because there are so many interpretations of the word. To some people it is foreign and consists only of things learned in grade school like Van Gogh's Starry Night or Egyptian hieroglyphics. To others art is something for only "those weird people" who sit around all day with berets on their heads reciting poetry and painting on canvas. Yes, each person is different but art lies in the eye of the beholder and in the mind of the artist.

An article by Christopher Bollen about an artist named Keith Edmier who wanted to recreate an exact replica of his 1970s childhood home. Using only his memory and old photographs he was able to create this clone of a home where he used to live. Is this art? If something is reproduced exactly as it was originally, is it art? If exact replicas of human bodies are made or if the bodies are plasticized and put on display does that make it art? After seeing tonight's presentation, I can say yes, it does.

At the beginning of the exhibit, everything was straightforward and scientific. As I moved on, the displays became more and more ambiguous and artistic. One piece in the exhibit called "the Drawer Man" was a man who had had chunks of his body cut and pulled out like drawers. Not only were there just chunks of flesh hanging out, but pieces of him had been dissected to show only the bone layer, or the muscles or the nerves. In some places his original skin still remained. When looked at closely we could still see the hair on his head, legs and armpits. With all his drawers hanging out it was like looking up at one of those children's puzzles that teaches shapes. The circle shape has to go into the circle hole and the square shape has to go into the square hole. He had been pieced together in such a way that it became art. It was beautiful.

Another work of art was a man who had been cut vertically into thin pieces of tissue. He too, had been dissected to reveal certain parts of his body structure. Each thin layer was then placed side by side. Though the pieces could not be touched it was like looking though the poster rack at a record store. Each flap revealed a different story about the old man's life. It makes you wonder what that man was like and how he ended up donating his body to science.

There are dozens of more things I could mention about this exhibit but I don't want to spoil any surprises. There is one room that you should not miss when you go. You will know which one it is once you are in it and you will leave wishing you hadn't gone to it. However, it impacts everyone and it impacts how you view the rest of the presentation. So enjoy! Hooray science! Hooray art! Who says the two cannot be interchangeable?

Wincing the Night Away

2007-10-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

The Shins

The Shins, without your knowledge, has hypnotized you, put you to sleep, and has taken you away to its secret, dream world. You do not have a say in this matter. You have been hooked and now must follow them.

Wincing the Night Away is the alternative band, The Shins’ third album. It begins with one haunting, echoing voice and eerie drumbeats. Slowly more percussion and obscure noises are added to the first track. The rest of the band joins in halfway through with guitar, bass and other instruments. The journey has begun.

The tempo of the song, like the listener’s heartbeat, transforms with each passing measure. Changing from minor chords in the beginning to major chords toward the end heightens the sense of mystery and awe. Lullaby slow in the beginning segues into a tense, anxiety filled adventure taken only by dreamers. Finally, you arrive at the end of the song with the glorious pounding of a rock concert. Tons of rowdy, screaming fans greet you and beckon to you join them.

This first song is called Sleeping Lessons for a reason. The “lullaby” in the beginning is no accident. The Shins teach you to sleep, to dream and make you travel through the endless abyss until you arrive in dreamland. Once you are there, the only way to introduce you to this new land is with the song Australia.

It starts with, “La la la la,” and not a care in the world. In standard time, lively percussion keeps the beat. Nonsense lyrics and messages of pain and depression mix with the campy happiness of the music. Just like a dreamer, you must decode what you see and hear in order to survive.

Underneath all the confusing images and random firings in your brain, dreams can be insightful. In this song, The Shins sing about dodo birds and androids but also about life when you aren’t dreaming. “Your nightmares only need a year or two to unfold,” truly makes the listener think.

The Shins ask you some hard questions. Are your dreams better than reality? Is your reality actually a nightmare? After asking their listeners to come with them and jump out the window, the song ends with a mocking, “La la la la.” You are left feeling numb and your head hurts like you have come out of REM sleep too quickly.

The rest of their songs are as silly and haphazard as actual dreams. For example, the songs Sea Legs, Girl Sailor, Red Rabbits and their first single Phantom Limb all convey images of dreams we have all had. Phantom Limb begins with a perky tambourine and the same soothing voice as the first song. It is like you are floating through this dream world without want or need to go back to reality. Phantom Limb leads into Sea Legs and your body becomes jello. The drawn out phrases give the feeling of seasickness and floating on the water.

The Shins’ lyrics to these songs are unrecognizable so you must listen the way the words sound with the music, not the actual meaning of the words. The physical album comes with the lyrics printed in the pullout guide. These lyrics are sometimes nonsensical but you get an insight you never knew you were searching for.

At the end of the album, the song A Comet Appears wakes you up with morning bird calls and slide guitar. The peaceful notes whisper, “Good morning.” Regretfully, the dream is over and what might have been a restful sleep was actually riddled with strange characters and breathtaking adventures. This musical, dream-like journey is so fascinating that all you want to do is sleep forever. Thankfully, all you have to do is click the repeat button on your iTunes to enjoy it all over again. Sweet Dreams.

Why are Girls So Mean?

2007-10-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

Today a friend of mine disclosed some shocking information. In this guy's 21 years of life, seven out of seven "serious relationships" have ended because the female has cheated on him. That is 100 percent! This information completely floored me because this guy is not a schmuck. I could understand cheating on a guy who was a schmuck. However, this one is actually the opposite of a schmuck (I like the word 'schmuck' can you tell?). He is quite chivalrous (buys us pizza and beer), has an incredible sense of humor and will one day have a huge collection of really nice cars. What more could you ask for? Maybe someone nice to look at...oh wait, he is.

So what is the deal ladies? I understand the wanting to cheat part of the equation but the actual cheating is a little hard for me to understand. Yes, everyone should have their fantasies and their crushes at work or school but acting upon it is a different story. I firmly believe that if I were dead set on acting upon any feelings outside of my relationship, I would break away from the relationship first. I would, at the very least, talk about it. Maybe I am just blinded by my own successful relationships to see the point of view of others in different situations.

My roommate told me she cheated once. She cheated on her boyfriend with a mutual friend in another city. Once and only once she cheated and she regrets it until this day. She got nothing out of it. She vowed never to do it again and she never has. But she paid for it over and over. He friends treated her differently. Her boyfriend, who she eventually got back together with, never trusted her ever again. He never really got over it and was always overprotective of the time she spent away from him. Disclaimer: they recently broke up (again)...(for good). Lesson: cheating will tear down anything you have taken the time to build up.

I think, for the most part, I am haunted by the phrase, "once a cheater, always a cheater." My biggest fear is that, at some point in my life, I will cheat and then I will become "that girl." "Megan is the girl who cheats" will be sung across the land and everyone will label me an awful person. I would lose all my credibility as a girlfriend and as a friend. Saying "sorry" just doesn't cut it and, "I cheated on you" can never be taken back.