Heather

One week from today will be the very last Art of Culture class. I am not certain what I will find discover through my project. I do worry that I will be able to relate this to our text. I guess we’ll see.

Honors Art of Culture

Fine Arts

Weather Map

Reflection

November 13, 2007

Prompt:
 The second project is to group-up in threes, for 5 groups, and look at
each other’s work for the duration of class. Discuss patterns you see,
how some data works (or does not) towards a pattern, and conclude with
how and why they function as “weathermaps of feeling.” Talk about what
sorts of “climates” you think you see, both personal, regional and
national. See if your work dovetails with anybody else in your group,
or if you feel they are all distinct. Take notes. After you have gone
over each “weathermap,” write up 5 paragraphs about what you saw (3
paragraphs on your work, 2 paragraphs on the other maps you looked at,
use screen shots to help explain) and post to your blog for next week.
Again, I am in jury duty service and will not be available for the
rest of the day, but will be available by email.

Reflection:

My WeatherMap

The first and easiest way to go about evaluating my weather map is observing the feelings, events, and weather on a day-to-day basis and seeing how they relate to each other.  In the morning of the 25^th of October, seven were positive and five were negative.  In the evening of the 25^th, the positives too outweighed the negatives.  The 26^th showed that when the weather was sunny, most individuals felt accomplished.  Although October 27 revealed news on negative subjects―such as the California fires, the weather was sunny and most people better.  Most blog entries on October 28^th felt awful, bad, confused, or simply had many serious issues on their minds.  On October 29^th, if by only a bit, the negative facebook statuses outweighed the positives.  It was also very cold this day.  On October 30^th, in both the AM and PM, the majority of facebook statuses were positive.  On this day, it was also noticeably warmer and sunnier―the temperature hit the low 60’s.  On October 31, the top two feelings noted were good and better.

            My second week of weather map had similar findings.  News found on November 1 was negative and the top two noted feelings were fair and spent.  On November 2 I found news of the Hollywood writers going on strike and the top feelings noted in blogs were uncomfortable and compelled.  On November 3 it was sunny and most people felt true or alive.  On November 4^th most people felt better. On November 5^th most people felt certain or awkward.  On November 6^th, a very large majority of facebook statuses found were negative.  This was also a cold day.  Finally, on November 7, most people felt inspired or needed.
 

            Overall, I found that individual’s emotions seemed to correlate most with the weather as opposed to current events.  As one may suppose, I found that on sunny days more people did feel better, while on colder days individuals were more negative.  These observations, however, were not always so vastly apparent that one could always make generalizations between mood and weather.

Classmates’ WeatherMaps

            When viewing the weathermaps of those classmates that had completed their maps I did find some similarities.  Both Laura Veltre and I found mainly positive feelings on October 25^th.  On October 29^th, we both found more pessimistic vibes in our entries.  We also both found an optimistic outlook on October 30.  We both found kind of sad, fair feelings on November 1^st, 2^nd, and 6^th.  Finally, we found that on November 7 most people were feeling happy.

Still, there were also some differences in our findings.  While I found positive feelings on the sunny day of October 26, Laura had a pessimistic entry, this was also true about our entries on October 27.  On October 28, Laura found a hopeful message in her entry, while I found individuals to be confused and upset.  We found opposition in emotions on October 31and November 3^{rd, 5th,} as well.

Overall, the similarities and differences in our observations were equal.  Although it was easy to drawl a correlation between our own findings, comparing my findings to others’ did not lead me to any legit conclusion.  Perhaps it was the different means of collection that caused these differences.