Best Films of 2011!

A major hobby of mine is watching movies -- from brainless Hollywood comedy to artsy independent film, I love them all. Well, maybe I don't LOVE them all, but I do give them all a chance, at least. ;-) (For those of you curious about my reviews/ratings for movies, see my Miso account).

Every year I eagerly anticipate the release of the critics' top ten picks of the previous year. Better still, Metacritic.com publishes these lists together, and I go a step further; I compile all those lists into an UBER-list, and rank the movies by the number of lists each one appears on. (Metacritic itself does something similar, but stops after the first 20 or so...)

Granted, each year there's a lot of bloated, overhyped movies of mediocrity to sift through (I'm looking at you, "The Aviator"!), but in these same lists you can find little-sung gems like "Sunshine Cleaning" and "A Home at the End of the World". This year, I vehemently disagree with the #1 spot -- "Tree of Life" has many good parts that deserve to be in a much better movie. Preferably one WITHOUT random sequences featuring morose dinosaurs. (WTF? Exactly.)

Anyhoo, I always try and see as many as possible, especially as they become available to rent. Which lovely surprises lay in store? We shall see! Below is the list, for your viewing pleasure:

Rank	Movie Title	Votes
1	The Tree of Life	75
2	A Separation	44
3	Drive	44
4	The Artist	43
5	The Descendants	43
6	Hugo	40
7	Melancholia	38
8	Take Shelter	38
9	Moneyball	35
10	Certified Copy	32
11	Martha Marcy May Marlene	29
12	Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy	29
13	Shame	27
14	Beginners	26
15	Margaret	26
16	Meek's Cutoff	26
17	The Skin I Live In	23
18	Bridesmaids	21
19	We Need to Talk About Kevin	20
20	Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives	19
21	Midnight in Paris	17
22	Poetry	17
23	Rise of the Planet of the Apes	16
24	Weekend	16
25	A Dangerous Method	15
26	Mysteries of Lisbon	15
27	The Interrupters	15
28	Margin Call	14
29	Young Adult	14
30	War Horse	13
31	Attack the Block	12
32	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2	12
33	Nostalgia for the Light	12
34	Bellflower	11
35	Le Havre	11
36	Le Quattro Volte	11
37	Of Gods and Men	11
38	The Arbor	11
39	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	11
40	50/50	10
41	Cave of Forgotten Dreams	10
42	Rango	10
43	The Trip	10
44	Win Win	10
45	Contagion	9
46	Super 8	9
47	The Future	9
48	Tuesday, After Christmas	8
49	Warrior	8
50	A Brighter Summer Day	7
51	Incendies	7
52	Like Crazy	7
53	Senna	7
54	The Help	7
55	13 Assassins	6
56	Project Nim	6
57	Submarine	6
58	The Adventures of Tintin	6
59	The Muppets	6
60	Another Earth	5
61	City of Life and Death	5
62	Film Socialisme	5
63	Pina	5
64	Bill Cunningham New York	4
65	Buck	4
66	Cold Weather	4
67	Coriolanus	4
68	Hanna	4
69	Into the Abyss	4
70	J. Edgar	4
71	Jane Eyre	4
72	Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol	4
73	Putty Hill	4
74	Tabloid	4
75	The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu	4
76	The Mill and the Cross	4
77	Another Year	3
78	Aurora	3
79	Carnage	3
80	Crazy, Stupid, Love	3
81	El Sicario, Room 164	3
82	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close	3
83	In the Family	3
84	Kill List	3
85	My Joy	3
86	Terri	3
87	The Clock	3
88	The Guard	3
89	The Illusionist	3
90	The Last Circus	3
91	To Die Like a Man	3
92	Tomboy	3
93	We Were Here	3
94	Wuthering Heights	3
95	A Better Life	2
96	Alps	2
97	Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey	2
98	Black Swan	2
99	Blue Valentine	2
100	Captain America: The First Avenger	2
101	Cedar Rapids	2
102	Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame	2
103	Extraordinary Stories	2
104	General Orders No. 9	2
105	Hell and Back Again	2
106	Higher Ground	2
107	How to Die in Oregon	2
108	I Saw the Devil	2
109	Leap Year	2
110	Love Exposure	2
111	My Week With Marilyn	2
112	Petition	2
113	Rampart	2
114	Seeking the Monkey King	2
115	Source Code	2
116	Sucker Punch	2
117	The Adjustment Bureau	2
118	The Kid With A Bike	2
119	The King's Speech	2
120	The Time That Remains	2
121	True Grit	2
122	Tyrannosaur	2
123	Winnie the Pooh	2
124	X-Men: First Class	2
125	3	1
126	50	1
127	A Screaming Man	1
128	A Useful Life	1
129	Abracadabra	1
130	Agrarian Utopia	1
131	Amigo	1
132	And Everything Is Going Fine	1
133	Animal Kingdom	1
134	Anonymous	1
135	Archipelago	1
136	Assassins	1
137	Beautiful Boy	1
138	Biutiful	1
139	Café de Flore	1
140	Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer	1
141	Crime After Crime	1
142	Damsels in Distress	1
143	Dogtooth	1
144	Elena	1
145	Elite Squad: The Enemy Within	1
146	Fast Five	1
147	Final Destination 5	1
148	Foreign Parts	1
149	Four Lions	1
150	Fright Night	1
151	Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life	1
152	Goodbye, First Love	1
153	Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench	1
154	Historias extraordinarias	1
155	Hobo With A Shotgun	1
156	Kaboom	1
157	Kinyarwanda	1
158	Knuckle	1
159	La Pivellina	1
160	Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen	1
161	Limitless	1
162	Love Crime	1
163	Mildred Pierce	1
164	Miss Bala	1
165	My Perestroika	1
166	No Strings Attached	1
167	On the Bowery	1
168	One Day	1
169	Oslo August 31st	1
170	Pariah	1
171	Pink Ribbons, Inc.	1
172	Polytechnique	1
173	Position Among the Stars	1
174	Psychohydrography	1
175	Redland	1
176	Rejoice and Shout	1
177	Road to Nowhere	1
178	Roadie	1
179	Secret Sunshine	1
180	Silver Bullets	1
181	Take This Waltz	1
182	Target	1
183	The Deep Blue Sea	1
184	The Double Hour	1
185	The Elephant in the Living Room	1
186	The Green Hornet	1
187	The Ides of March	1
188	The Inheritors	1
189	The Iron Lady	1
190	The Last Lions	1
191	The Mouth of the Wolf	1
192	The Myth of the American Sleepover	1
193	The Princess of Montpensier	1
194	The Return	1
195	The Strange Case of Angelica	1
196	The Three Musketeers	1
197	The Whistleblower	1
198	The Wise Kids	1
199	This Is Not a Film	1
200	Trollhunter	1
201	Tucker & Dale vs. Evil	1
202	United Red Army	1
203	Vengeance	1
204	Viva Riva!	1
205	Voluptuous Sleep	1
206	We Bought a Zoo	1
207	Wiebo's War	1
208	Wrinkles	1
209	You All Are Captains	1

Which ones of these have you seen? Do you have any recommendations? I'm all ears! :-)

Pumpkin Patch Adventure

A weekend or so back, the family took a trip to a local pumpkin patch. This was the first outing with the NEW CAMERA, so I was totally stoked to try it out. Before even seeing the pictures, I was impressed with how much easier to use the DSLR is than my old digital (which would take several seconds between depressing the button and taking a damn picture). Better still, the pictures look lush and lovely. Happy Karla!!!

So my strategy is to get used to the camera in Auto-mode, and then eventually start branching out into the fancy-dancy settings. There's a while to go yet before I'm fully comfortable with even the automatic mode, but I'm enthusiastic about the process of gradually unveiling my Canon's mysteries. ;-)

In the meantime, as promised, enjoy the pictures! :-D

Will decides to kiss the pumpkins.

The Methodology of a Name, Part Three!

Finally, after a ton of reflection and soul-searching, Dave and I have unearthed a select few names for our impending HelgaHume. (Though the list is, as always, still secret.)

As luck would have it, for girls, we both individually gravitated towards the same four names. We each liked a fifth, but after some discussion, Dave decided he liked my fifth better, so now we're fully agreed on these five names. Which to pick? Depends on who we meet in December!

Boy's names, on the other hand, we're having a bit more trouble with. We've centred on four first names that we both like, but each one has a big problem associated with it.

Indeed, no name is perfect; I resisted "William" for the longest time on the grounds of, "No child of MINE is getting a TOP TEN name!!! IN-CON-THEIVABLE!!!!" but the fact is, for a huge number of reasons, the name was a perfect choice. (But that's a whole other blog post.)

Still, though, which of the following issues are dealbreakers? Which are no big deal?

• One (visually-similar) letter away from a very common name: Meaning, people quickly looking over this name on paper will probably assume it's the common name, not the actual name. Kid will possibly spend his whole life correcting people, which is annoying for him.
• Stupid meaning: This name has everything going for it -- great sound, great association, unique but not off-the-wall -- except what it means. It has a stupid meaning. Not offensive, not bad, just... meaningless. Can he live with this?
• Unimpressive counterparts: Another name we're considering has everything going for it (see above), except that when I've met the 2-3 guys with this name, I was not especially impressed. (As opposed to, say, Hugh, where every Hugh I meet is a pretty solid dude.) Will he break free of this company, or am I setting myself up to be unimpressed?
• Gender-neutrality: Not a bad thing in and of itself, but aside from this one exception, gender-ambiguous names are not usually our taste. I've heard from some that it's inconvenient for two friends discussing you, such as in the following case: "Hey, dude, thanks for the party invite! Mind if I bring along (name)?" "Sure, bro! Is she hawt??!" "Uh, dude, (name)'s a guy." "Oh, that's too bad." Is this an acceptable fate to foist on someone?

Hmm... I've never personally dealt with any of those name woes, so I can't say whether they're problematic or not. Hence, I'm pretty stuck, and would love your input in the comment section. :-)

Looking forward to hearing from you!

New Camera: This time, it's gonna be different!

I am positively ecstatic to announce that I have finally caved and purchased a new camera! As such, you can expect more pictures to start appearing on this blog. I'm so stoked about this.

My tumultuous relationships with cameras goes back to the earliest digital point-and-shoots. My huge, heavy, battery-devouring, SLOW, unreliable Kodak misbehaved at the best of times, despite the best treatment and care. The next camera, a Sony, was marginally better, but then decided to randomly wash my pictures with psychedelia whenever the air was a little damp. After that, the Nikon ground to a halt when exposed to the tiniest quantity of sand, and then the last camera, my Olympus, incrementally embraced senility to the point of not even *taking pictures* when commanded.

Which makes me think, when it comes to digital cameras, I might be cursed.

So, eschewing the perpetually disappointing point-and-shoots, I decided instead to leap over to the digital SLR camp. (For those of you unfamiliar with the SLR term, it basically means a camera that looks old-school, with a big lens, but it's digital. And spiffy.)

Because this time it's gonna be different. Surely, the curse won't follow me over to a totally different type of camera, right? . ...Right??

So after a ton of research, I settled on an entry-level Canon (Rebel XS), and am now setting about learning how to actually *use* it. My dream is to eventually post rich, beautiful pictures on this blog... but hey, one step at a time, right? ;-)

Anyhow, wish me luck! Feel free to leave me your camera tips/stories/woes in the comments, would love to hear em!

The Methodology of a Name, Part Two!

Progress has been made in narrowing down the name lists even further, partly thanks to the great suggestions in the comments from the last post. If you have any ideas, keep em coming! ;-)

8. Real Life Pairings

Jenn was right -- certain pairs of names need to be avoided, at the risk of having other real-life personages curb the blossoming identity of our new addition. So despite my love for the name "Grace", having a Will and Grace in the house was not an option. Same for Will and Harry, Will and Kate, William and Trillium, and even Bill and Hilary.

Casualties: Grace, Hilary, Harry, Blake


9. War of the Words!

Both Dave and I have a penchant for word-names. They're easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and can invoke a meaningful totem to guide the child. That being said, we'd rather not have *two* word names, as a name like "Indigo Lily" feels a bit gimmicky to me.

Therefore, the words must all battle one another. There can only be one!

I grouped together all the word names for boys and girls, and then we thinned out the names we were less fond of. With girls, we were able to narrow by subject; we had A LOT of plant names and colour names to work with.

Plant Battle Casualties: Lily, Saffron, Sage

Colour Spectrum Casualties: Indigo, Scarlet, Clementine

Boy-Word-Casualties: Grant, Phoenix, Sterling


So, what's the next step? At 25 names, the girl's list still needs some paring down, which will likely happen by getting pairs of names to compete with another to eliminate weaker options. However, our boy's list is down to a manageable dozen options, so from here we can skip straight to examining the combinations for unfortunate initials and clunky sounds.

And of course, ideas are always welcome! :-D

The Methodology of a Name

As some of you may know, Dave and I are expecting our second child this winter. We're very excited to meet this new little person, albeit somewhat terrified about the prospect of chasing around not one, but TWO small children. I suppose the evolving/devolving coherence of this blog will be a testament to how we're managing. ;-)

Anyhoo, we are once again having to contemplate a name for this impending HelgaHume. And unlike our first time going through this process, we have less time and energy to sit and daydream about perfect name choices.

We have to be focused. We have to be decisive. And somewhere in there, we also have to listen carefully for the gentle, easily-missed messages from the universe... quiet messages guiding us towards the baby's true name.

No pressure.

So here's the method we are using, in all of its OCD-esque glory. To keep things interesting, I included name-casualties at each turn... the list of active names remains very secret, but perhaps you might be entertained in knowing which names have hit the chopping block, and for what exact reasons. ;-)

1. Buy a name book, preferably one slanted to your own naming sensibilities

Unsure of where to start, we purchased a baby name book specifically tailored to the kinds of names we are drawn to. The tongue-in-cheek book of choice was "Cool Names for Babies" by Satran and Rozencrantz, chosen for its emphasis on less common names, ranging from "a little different" to downright strange.

Casualties: Ultra-popular choices Jacob, John, Emma, Madison.


2. Secretly write down every name you don't hate

Dave and I independently went through the book, writing down every name that we were at least lukewarm about. We also added names we'd come across, or thought up, in the interests of having this list be as complete as possible.

Casualties: Names in the book that didn't resonate... Gable, Otis, Lola, Olivia


3. Combine lists, make notes of overlap

I then combined both lists into a single MEGA-LIST (in Excel), boldfacing the names that appeared on both lists. Note, there were no casualties at this point, as they happen next...


4. Blackball!

This was fun. We'd independently look over the list, and cross out anything we hated. Again, anything that was at least lukewarm to both partners could stay. Still, it was fun to tease each other for "weird" selections. ;-)

Casualties: Elvis, Connor, Lydia, Isabella


5. Points system

We were left with a long list of names, and now needed a way to prioritize them by how much we liked them. I proposed a method involving allocating points, where:

• 1 point = lukewarm
• 2 points = kinda like it
• 3 points = really like it!
  

Going through all the remaining names, we individually gave points to each according to how much we individually liked them. These scores were added to one another, for a total ranging from 2 to 6.

Then, we sorted the names by points, and removed anything scoring 2 or 3 points, as that meant that neither of us was especially keen on said name.

Casualties: Bigby, Kennedy, Tamsin, Sonata


6. Weird meanings?!

Given that name meanings are important, we looked up the meanings of the remaining names, and removed any with strange or uncomfortable meanings.

Casualties:
Tennyson = "Son of Dennis". Uhm, no, and Davidson/Karlason doesn't sound as cool, or relate back to awesome poets of yore.
Hudson = "Son of the hooded man". Sounds kinda rapey, dont'cha think? :-/
Caledonia = "From Scotland". Not really.
Ingrid = "Beauty of Froy, the mythical Norse horse". Pretty as a horse? No thanks.

...but the prize goes to Ripley, meaning "shouting man's meadow". Hee hee hee... "AUGH!! AUGH!!! I'm in a meadow!!! AUGH!!!" Yes, I'm finding that way too funny.


7. Stella Barbarella: Thinning the list by removing less desirable same-end-letter options

I noticed on our girls' names list that a stunning number all ended with the same letters. Granted, girls' names ending with "a" and "y"-sounds are both very common, but it pointed out to me that we could not indeed give a first and middle name that both ended in the same letter/sound without it sounding weird.

Hence, when grouping together eligible names by last letter (=LAST() function, for all you Excel junkies), I realized these groups were all in direct competition with one another. As such, it would be wise to thin each end-letter group to three or so entries, according to which we're showing a stronger preference for.

Casualties: Augustine, Sawyer, Isadora, Melody


... So what's step 8? Your guess is as good as mine! Our lists still need thinning, but at least they're prioritized. Will update you with further steps as they arise, but in the meantime, I hope this has minimally entertained you. ;-)

HelgaHume Wine Tasting Party VI

A while back, the HelgaHumes had our sixth wine tasting party. Much has happened since, and in the tumult, I had forgotten to post the results. However, here they are in all their glory:

• Pinot Noir has a patchy performance at our tastings, tending to get either first or last place. Here it was last again...
• For the first time, the sparkler was NOT last place! Maybe I'm finally succeeding in my pro-sparkling propaganda... (or maybe people just REEEALLY didn't like the other two!) ;-)
• Oz took first place (no surprise, the Victoria crowd seems to like full-bodied wines), but second place went to the not-often-considered Argentina! I must make a point of including them more in future wine tastings.
  

I also noted that the ordering effect is more pronounced here than usual, and as a result, I will be planning something diabolical to counter it in the next party. Enjoy!

HelgaHume Wine Tasting Party V

Two weeks ago, we held our FIFTH HelgaHume wine tasting party! There were some shocking results, so here be the highlights!

• The cheapest wine (Paul Mas, $15) won! Not a first time, but still a rare occurrence.
• The most expensive wine (Cremant de Bourgogne, $25) was LAST place! This has never happened before.
• France had the first-place wine (Paul Mas) AND the last-place wine (Cremant de Bourgogne)!
• HelgaHume wine tasting FIRST: A French wine won! Usually they don't do so well at our parties.
• Sparkling Winner: Seaview from Australia, $17
• CabSav Winner: J. Lohr from California, $23
• Malbec Winner: Paul Mas from France $15
• Wine sequence attrition was higher than usual (as in, more people rating A than G), and definitely skewed the results. If anyone has any ideas on how to curb this, I'm all ears. :-)

And now, for the detailed results:

What should a BC government data catalogue do?

In my day job, I’m part of a team of people who are working to bring the BC Government into the global open data movement. It is very fun, exciting work.

In  Citizens @ the Centre: BC Government 2.0, our public service has committed that people from British Columbia and around the world can access our provincial government data to improve research and decision making, and foster innovation in  information services through things like web and mobile apps.

 

A key element of this shift will be to create a data catalogue that allows people to access BC’s data. And so the question of ‘what should a data catalogue do?’ becomes pretty relevant.

 

Let’s pause there and say that what follows is a set of ruminations and thinking, and not an official representation of the BC government’s position, and that it could be subject to radical change. If anything, it’s an official representation of me trying to do my job (my official title is Executive Director, Citizen Engagement in BC's Ministry of Citizens' Services) by engaging people who are smarter and more experienced in a discussion about  what would be ideal for BC to be doing, and where we might have blind spots as our team goes about our work.  Really, this is risk management—I don’t want to miss some great opportunities and I don’t want to do anything dumb either. That said,  I hope you’re keen to dig in alongside us. Many thanks in advance.

 

Looking around at what’s been done with data catalogues to date, you see most of them working with a basic concept of data provision.  Toronto, Vancouver, Australia and New Zealand fall pretty squarely into this category, with Edmonton’s catalogue being among the most sophisticated. Other sites like http://www.data.gov also encourage data conversations by not only providing data, but also seeking some dialogue around the data through blogs and discussion forums. More interesting to me are data catalogues like http://data.gov.uk that put an emphasis on data action by trying to connect ideas about using datasets to a development or analysis project. Equally interesting are sites like http://data.worldbank.org that seem to focus on data understanding by focusing a lot on visualizations of data sets, making them more understandable to researchers, policy types and other people who aren’t necessarily skilled in data manipulation.

 

We can sum these up as a series of intents or purposes for data catalogues: provision, conversation, action, and understanding. In my mind, while these overlap and build on one another, what you choose as your most important intent will have a big impact on the function and design of your catalogue.

 

So here’a  good time to stop and check—is this typology right? Is there another intent that’s missing that could extend what data catalogues can accomplish?

 

One thought that occurs is what I’ll label data relevance. Data relevance would try and personalize how data sets are presented, especially using locations. So you could imagine searching for an issue, seeing a location of an office that deals with that issue (so, search for health, see a hospital or a clinic or a local nursing school), and then present data that is relevant to that issue (see performance data or research data or enrolment data). Ideally, these data sets might even link to the specific place itself, so you could see the data produced at that location. This, I think, is what Tim Berners-Lee is talking about when he’s going on about ‘linked data’ or ‘web 3.0’—where data can find other data. We see this on the UK data catalogue, but the explanation about what it’s supposed to do is pretty fuzzy. I might be wildly off base in making this connection,  but the feel of where I’m going seems to be following Sir Tim’s line of thinking.

 

Looking at these opportunities, then, where should BC’s emphasis lie?

 

While understanding that provision is fundamental—if our data is no good or impossible to find, everything else is a non-starter—I don’t think that it should be BC’s emphasis. What I think I’d like is to prioritize our intents this way:

1.       Action—BC’s catalogue’s success will be primarily  measured by how many projects it sparks that make use of provincial data sets. As such, the site should be designed with focused calls to action that move people from exploring data into using the data in productive ways. It will use the social networking capacity of the internet to help  ideas connect with skills and other necessary resources to make things happen.

2.       Conversation—BC is in its infancy in providing data to the public in this manner. Having rich feedback loops that allow the province to sense demand for data, how it can be improved, and how it is being used will help BC get better at providing data. Luke Closs’s rough-in work for a new data catalogue for our Apps 4 Climate Action contest is a big inspiration—especially his ideas about how to triage a data set: http://demo.socialtext.net/a4cadata/index.cgi?how_to_triage_a_dataset

3.       Understanding –those skilled at manipulating data—software and web developers, economists, statisticians and researchers—are not the only people we want to learn about the data. Telling stories that place the data in context can help all kinds of people understand issues that are important to them, and help build understanding of the issues facing BC, and maybe what we can do about them. A great inspiration for this kind of approach would the Guardian newspaper’s http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog.

4.       Relevance—that we build on GeoBC’s geospatial strengths to start connecting data sets to places as early as possible. The resulting map interfaces could be incredibly powerful.

5.       Provision—that we get the basics right, meaning: a) anything we call open data is in a format that is machine readable; b) that there is robust metadata that explains the data's provenance etc; c) that the data is structured through standards in such a way that it is usable; c) that it is findable through a strong search function; and d) that data, over time, becomes automated in terms of updates and publishing, using xml feeds and APIs. In my experience these basics aren't necessarily that easy, and really getting these right will be an ongoing process rather than something that gets done right off the bat.

What do you think? Is this the right order? Something missing? Am I off my rocker?

 

Depending on the answer, the next step will be to start to imagine some functionality that could support these intents, in this (or whatever) order. I’ll take that up in a subsequent post.

Posted via email from CoCreative

Inaugural Victoria Wine-Tasting Party!

Last weekend, Dave and I hosted our first ever wine-tasting party at our new home in Victoria. The night was a wild success, thanks to our amazingly fun guests. Thanks also to the experts at the Foul Bay BC Liquor Mart, as well as to the wine-matching cheese connoisseurs at Chiarellis, who did all the wine and cheese selections.

And now, with no further delay, here are the results!




The next wine party will likely be in January... so stay tuned for more results! ^_^

A New Direction

As I was unpacking the contents of our new home, I came across a familiar, red tube that contains my more cherished drawings. Bracing myself for nostalgia, I opened it up to look inside.

...But instead of nostalgia, I found inspiration.

This nude, one of my favourites, was one I did back in New Zealand. Dave had pushed me to take a weekly class, if only to meet new people and to flex my long-atrophied art muscles. I was shy and nervous, but I went, and in pushing my own boundaries of comfort I produced some of my best work.

Sitting on the floor of my new home, beholding this near-forgotten beauty, I remembered how happy I'd been when I was drawing.

And here I am, once again in a new city, once again having gone too long without incorporating art into my life.

As such, I resolve to get involved in the Victoria art community. I resolve to unshackle myself from my comfort zone.

I resolve to get drawing again.