Creative Path Studio: Trish Roque’s blog, studio, and musings on living a purpose-filled life.

Yes, I sing in the car, especially when it’s a Peter Gabriel song, but lately, I’ve been singing with the Frames.

I love our car radio. Though I rolled my eyes when the car salesman was trying to talk us into buying the car because of it, I now admit, it was worth his talking us into it. (For the record, we wanted a manual car, and the awesome stereo system happened to be in the only manual car they had.) It plays mp3s and has 6 cd slots, and if I knew more about the bells and whistles, I would spell it out for you. But I don’t.

All I know is that I get pure pleasure out of driving to and from school with my music in full blast and me singing along with it.

It took me a while to figure out that NPR news isn’t exactly the most happy listening. Now, because my head is SO FULL OF STUFF from school and I can’t possibly fill it anymore with things like politics and news and the latest death toll in Iraq, happy time is all about SINGING in the car with our fancy stereo system.

It occurred to me that most of my media entries have been about my frustrations with technology, and in particular, computers. In reality, those entries are really more about my need to vent. Quite frankly, it is me in the moment of dealing with media, and my response to it. That is the point of this diary.

But for balance, I need to ask, when do I love my computer?

• When it works
• When it plays Pandora (I LOVE PANDORA!)
• When it pays our bills - ok, I pay the bills, but the computer lets me do it conveniently
• When I can balance our checkbooks with the click of the Update button in Quicken
• When I can communicate with my cousin in the Philippines in real time, especially when I’m up late at night writing this and she’s at work seeing that my yahoo account is active and can IM me.
• When I can make websites look pretty, like this. (I don’t think Jeff would like me calling his website pretty, but there you have it.)

I’m sure I can sit here and continue to make this list. Ultimately, there is something that compels me to continue to create on a computer, despite its frustrations. Maybe that’s the key - the act of being able to create on a computer. At heart, I am a creator, an artist (I still feel uncomfortable using that word, but that’s for another post).

The computer has become my medium. Maybe I should put that on the list.

I don’t know what it is about technology that makes me assume it should flawlessly work. And when it doesn’t, I waste entirely way too much time trying to make it work.

My husband and I have been dealing with technology problems of late. It started with his 7-year old PC box just dying - you know, when you hit that button and the windows logo should appear, but all you get is a black screen with a message that says, “Windows cannot read from the drive” - that sucks.

What sucked even more was my panic at realizing that we were using his machine as a backup for all our digital images. Images that went back to 2000. Fortunately, I had the good sense to have additional CD backups, and then I remembered the external hard drive we were using for my backups, and I thought - we’re covered.

I spent that evening trying to locate images from the external drive. A big sigh of relief, until several days later when I tried to access the images that I restored. Many of the images were giving me messages that said, “Drawing failed” or “Image is corrupt”. BIG SCREAM!

Of particular sentimental value were the pictures from our trip to New Mexico (*sigh* I still miss New Mexico *sigh*). Though I uploaded the best photos onto my Flickr account, they were not high resolution files.

This particular incident is just but one account of my recent frustrations. I believe I may have already written about others.

The big question I need to ask myself, however, is why do I continue to trust that technology will always work, and why oh why do I get so violently upset when it doesn’t???

Man, I need to lighten up!

Jon and I have killed our TV. Ok, so maybe we’ve only killed the cable and regular TV programming. That’s because I still love to watch movies. I love being immersed by a good story, especially one with lots of good special effects and writing.

It’s such a treat to just be able to sit for the rare two hours that I don’t seem to have anymore to just have my brain absorbed by something other than a computer screen. Not have to think, not have to move, not do much of anything. Get completely lost.

Why do I love that so much?

I listen to the radio in the morning, as I get ready for work. Typically, I have it tuned to NPR, and most times, I don’t listen. I don’t know why I have it tuned to the news - maybe it’s to listen to the weather forecast or traffic report. Most times, it’s background noise.

But on occasion, I’ll hear a news item that catches my attention, often making me ask myself, is this really good for me to listen to this? Is it really making me feel better about my life? Or the world in general. Because quite often I find that I am disgusted with the world, and that does not bode well for my general mood.

I should try shutting off the radio in the mornings - at least wait until I’ve had my cup of tea.

I am incredibly frustrated by this campus wireless network. To access the network, I had to download a couple of applications, including Cisco Clean Access Agent (which had errors in its installation!) and the campus virus software (because apparently, the one I had wasn’t good enough!). And of course, after logging in, the f***ing network tells me I need to update my virus definition — but I don’t have f***ing access to download the latest definitions! F**K, F**K, F**K! So it won’t let me login! Damn it!

Yes, these are the moments when I want to hurl my machine out the window. These are the times when technology completely drives me mad, when I waste more time trying to make technology work than actually have technology work for me!!

I know my blood is curdling right now. And the irony of this situation is that at this time I would normally be out on a hike, away from media and technology, away from frustration, away from this sometimes non-sensical mode of - I don’t even have the words right now. I AM SO MAD!

My submersion into the Multimedia Graduate Program has me thinking about the difference between a tool and media. I’m writing on this blog, which is a form of media, but it is also a tool that allows me to express my thoughts to the world, regardless of whether the world cares or not.

A good place to start would be to define these terms, tool and media.

Tool (a few definitions from Answers.com):

• A device, such as a saw, used to perform or facilitate manual or mechanical work
• Something regarded as necessary to the carrying out of one’s occupation or profession
• Something used in the performance of an operation; an instrument

Media (again from Answers.com)

• Channels of communication that serve as many diverse functions, such as offering a variety of entertainment with either mass or specialized appeal, communicating news and information, or displaying advertising messages

I think part of these questions that come up have to do with another word I’ve often found difficult to define: artist.

Regardless, media as a tool, and the tool as media can define the artist’s vision.

I don’t really know what any of this means. I just know that when I’m in front of a computer, I don’t think of myself as an artist. I think of myself as someone using media.

When I work with paper, ink, charcoal, clay, or other traditional artist’s tools, then I feel that I am an artist.

What is the difference and why is there a difference?

Here I am sitting in the library, originally at a desk, now on a “loveseat” (if one can call it that), with my laptop on, well, my lap. I am reading Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality as presented by ArtMuseum.net. It covers (so far) the history of yes, multimedia, but as well, computers, the internet, and the world wide web. I have never considered myself a computer geek - I’ll be the first to confess that there’s so much I don’t know. However, I find myself completely fascinated by the story of multimedia.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: my love/hate relationship with my laptop.

First of all, I spend entirely way too much time with it - probably more time than with any other sentient being (I also live with 4 four-legged creatures). I think to myself, is there something wrong with that? On the physical level, I have had my back go out for a week (hate), tingling in my wrists (hate), soreness on my bum ((hate, yes!), and pain in my neck (hate). All as a result of spending too much time with my laptop (love). Ok, please note that was written in the past tense. I have remedied my work area to be ergonomic though I could force myself to take more breaks. I do force myself to get out. I hike, swim, and play outside just so I don’t end up looking like a computer geek.

What exactly compels me to interact with my computer the way that I do? It is a silver, heavy thing that I carry on my back, and when I turn it on, it is shiny and interactive. Physical looks have nothing to do with it. In many ways, it’s the same question that makes me wonder why I chose to blog instead of write these media entries in my personal journal.

But I do love to play with it.