Presentation Panic

After watching Luke's presentation today, I realized I needed to step my game up. I decided that I didn't like my teapot from the other day, so I threw a new one today and I am much more content with it. Throughout this project I've found that I was becoming more critical of myself and my work. I think it's necessary to be happy with your final work, and if you aren't, just try again. I want my tea set to be something that I am proud of and not something that I rushed through. That being said, I still have one tea bowl and my tray left to finish.

Thursday is the last day to use clay in ceramics so I plan on going in during all of my free periods this week to finish up. I'm really pushing myself this week on both hands on work and research because I know the final date is creeping up quick. Luke's presentation blew me away and it made me really nervous about my own. I feel really unprepared up to this point and I know I need to focus these next few weeks to get my final materials in on time and to perfect my presentation.

I went back to my portfolio bibliography again and found two articles that I found helpful to reread. The first one, published by the Los Angeles Times in 2003, discussed the health benefits of tea. Hundreds of studies have been conducted testing the health benefits of tea and most have turned out, not surprisingly, positive! I, myself, am an avid tea drinker (at least two cups a day) and I found this article to be very informative and interesting. The next research component was from a website called "How Stuff Works" and it describes in detail the process of making tea and the differences between black, oolong, green, and white tea. I actually didn't know ANY of this! For example, all tea comes from one single plant, the evergreen shrub, Camellia sinensis. The differences in teas is determined by the processing after harvesting.

This research is something I am actually interested in. My project throughout this semester has shifted more to ceramics focus than the Japanese tea ceremony. I'm planning on talking about this shift in my presentation, but I figured I would also address it here. I found myself not being interested in the Japanese tea ceremony anymore and I just wanted to focus on ceramics and physically making my tea set.  I'm okay with this change though, because it made me more interested in my WISE project and that is the ultimate goal for this course.

I'll still add a japanese word at the end of each blog post though just because I think it's fun! :-)

焦点

Shōten

Focus