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things you can do

5 November 2010

#310 Set fire to your disappointments

Today’s guest blogger is Alexandra Hedberg, an artist with years of experience in dealing with disappointments and setbacks. Please visit her blog.

Isn’t there often a small nagging disappointment or anger that slowly sucks the energy from you? Like when someone else took the credit for your idea? Or a big disappointment. Like not getting that job? It’s time to do something about it. Put it behind you.

1. Make small figures representing your disappointment (or that idiot who didn’t even give you a chance to show how good you are). A little stiffer paper / cardboard works well for simple silhouettes - but the important thing is that the material is flammable. The figures need not be beautiful, but a face with a screaming mouth and staring eyes are good to have. Build a world for your frustrations. Cut out pictures of such houses or nature scenes from a magazine and paste them on cardboard. Here you can be more or less ambitious.

2. Build the world and characters outdoors. You can tape them on sticks and plant them into the ground. Grab your camera, bucket of water / fire extinguisher and matches. (For more impact wait until night time)

3. Light it up! Burn! (Take a picture) Burn! (More lighter fluid) Burn!

4. Now that you’ve handled the disappointment in a mature manner: gather the ashes of the negative sense, put it in a small jar and don’t open it again. Bury it deep down. It is completely okay to look at the photos. Many times.

Bonus: There will certainly be really nice photos. You can for instance make a small album of the various disappointment burn-ups. Or have them on the wall.

Required time: 
1 day or less
Cost: 
Free
Cons: 
Children might see you and emulate your behavior. You may lose control over the fire. The neighbors might think you are a bit odd setting things on fire in your garden at night. You may find that you are a pyromaniac, and go out to burn more things. Or even worse - you might get the idea in your head that you want to become an artist.
Pros: 
You will enjoy seeing their faces distorted by the fire without doing any harm. You are creative. You put it behind you ... and may even look forward to your next disappointment?
Taggar: things you can do, shoot, photos, disappointment, burn, artist, alexandra hedberg
4 October 2010

#278 See how far you can walk

You don’t have to go to Barcelona, Berlin, or Bombay to have fun. You can stay at home in your own town. You can also do it cheaply. To help you along the way, we give you "Seven free things you can do in your city".

My friends and I have a game called "What if". Most games tend to have a beginning and an end. You decide that now we are playing hide and seek and now we are playing tennis. “What if” has neither. You never know when it occurs. Suddenly we’re sitting outside a café drinking coffee and one of us says:

-What if all people are really small fish in human robot suits.

And then the game starts. We start thinking of details, surroundings, characters and all entire events from one single idea. Even a single "what if" can generate an entire evening's worth of discussion, and we come back to it during the evening in the form of jokes, dialogues and more details to the surroundings and intricacies in and of our newly created world.
One of the funniest “What if" scenarios we've talked about and which recurs every now and then:

- What if everything in the world was meant literally.

A planet where the people beat dead horses. A world where the sentence "See how far you can go" is not about how far you can push a joke or an argument, but about how far you can actually go with your legs. How many feet you can walk. How many centimeters you can walk. How many times you can put your left foot in front of your right foot before they both break.

Text: Navid Modiri

Required time: 
1 week or more
Cost: 
Free.
Cons: 
Sore muscles. Sore feet. You can get lost. Soreness the day after.
Pros: 
Leg muscles. Discovering new areas. Fresh air.
Taggar: what if, things you can do, sore muscles, owls in the moss, new areas, mislead, leg muscles, fresh air, fields
31 August 2010

#243 Start a Student Council

These kids could have used a student council.

These kids could have used a student council.

Now, almost everyone’s started school again after summer vacation. We are celebrating this year of 365 with its own theme week - seven things you can do at your school.

The teachers at my old secondary school hated me very much. There were two reasons:

1. I talked all the time and questioned everything.

2. I knew my rights as a student.

Just because we live in Sweden and have food, shelter and most of our human rights met does not mean the absence of social struggle altogether. Gather your friends at school and start a student council. Piece of cake. Moreover, it can make your situation at the school much better. It can affect the school food, the way the school looks, the length of classes, the amount of homework and tests, and the way teachers hand out punishment in class. Did you know that it is illegal to punish a whole class just because there is a suspicion that a person has done something? It's called collective punishment.

1. Gather a bunch of friends. It is enough if you are a handful at first. Write down what you want to change the school and how to make the situation better.

2. Send an email to Svea - Sweden's student council and tell them that you want to start a student council.

3. Visit the headmaster and tell him or her that you want to start a student council. He or she has nothing they can do about it. It is your right to do so. And you should.

Required time: 
1 day or less
Cost: 
Free
Cons: 
Some teachers may feel threatened and behave in strange and angry when students uphold their rights.
Pros: 
The situation at the school could become much better.
Taggar: things you can do, student council, collective punishment, rights, education, Svea