Today I met with Mr Holl in activities for our weekly mentor meeting. We talked about my recent juggling endevours (see video below) and the people I've been trying to contact in the community. Many people in my WISE class (thanks jimmy and jordan!) have suggested that I clown for those adorable kids we see everyday in the Tots and Teens program. Since their door is always closed I was really hesitant to walk up and just knock; I didn't want to interrupt anything important or come at a bad time. A few have you many have seen me lurking around D-building earlier today, trying to decide what the best course of action would be. Fortunately, Mr. Holl suggested that I knock quietly and ask if it was a good time, using my most polite manners of course.
Emboldened by our conversation, I left activties and went right to their door, only to find it open and the kids gone! I timidly walked in and was greeted by a really kind, enthusaistic woman who was so excited about my project! We scheduled my clowning for April 12th, 2nd period. When I introduced my name, she was even more excited because apparently she was a close friend of my aunts and knew my entire dads family. Who knew she worked right at the high school! Overall it was a great success and I shouldn't have been nervous about asking. We agreed that I would stop by the week before and make sure it was still a good day.
Mr. Holl also suggested that I start finding schools and classrooms I can clown in during may and june and make contacts with teachers because the last months of school will be upon us before we know it.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Jokes!
What's big and grey and flys straight up?
An elecopter!
Why were the elephants thrown out of the swimming pool?
Because they couldn't hold their trunks up!
http://www.jokesnjokes.net/funny.jokes.amusing.humor.laughs/Kids/kideleph001.htm
An elecopter!
Why were the elephants thrown out of the swimming pool?
Because they couldn't hold their trunks up!
http://www.jokesnjokes.net/funny.jokes.amusing.humor.laughs/Kids/kideleph001.htm
Community Contacts
Over the past week I've been trying to get some help from the community on my project. The first thing I tried was looking up when the Cornell juggling clubs meets, because I've been having trouble moving past my simple three ball cascade and on to more difficult things. I emailed the listed president of the club who emailed back very quickly with some disappointing news. Their club has dissolved and no longer meets regularly, to my sadness and frustration. I really need someone who knows good tricks to show me how to do them. While learning from The Juggling Book has been extremely helpful, having someone who went through the same learning problems is what I needed. Fortunately Jared Dominguez was super helpful and gave me a whole list of sources that I could learn from
http://www.twjc.co.uk/tutorials.html as well as great advice with what to learn next. He said work on more three ball tricks such as columns and then practice two balls in each hand going continually until you're very comfortable and then I should start with four. He also said I could contact him with any questions I had later in the project! I've been working on my columns and my right hand with two balls and slowly but surely each day I've been getting a bit better.
I also emailed Hilby the German Juggling Boy on tuesday, with no repsonse. I'm planning on calling this coming week because I think he would really help me develop a routine with a few pointers after seeing the videos on his website http://www.hilby.net/who.html. And after all this project is all about interactions with others. I'm assuming my best resources will be other clowns.
Lastly, I've been searching the Cornell and Ithaca College websites for the past hour trying to find a professor in the physcology or sociology departments who specializes in humor development or sociaal interactions through jokes but as it turns out, no one specializes in that directly. So I'm trying to search through people who's backgrounds look close to those topics and email them with my project idea and ask for their thoughts on what people find funny.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Check list
I <3 To-Do lists! But seriously they're great for keeping myself organized. This upcoming week I will...
Perfect my sword balloon
Contact someone from the Tot and Teens Program-clown for them in april?
Keep researching humor development
Contact someone at either IC or Cornell from a physcology dept who can talk to me about humor
Perfect my sword balloon
Contact someone from the Tot and Teens Program-clown for them in april?
Keep researching humor development
Contact someone at either IC or Cornell from a physcology dept who can talk to me about humor
Research Week
So this past week has been pretty research heavy, but I think I really needed to take the time to sit down and figure some things out. I started learning about how humor develops in children and what people think is funny. As it turns out, theres no good way to define what people think is funny, it varies from culture to culture, between languages, it depends on your upbringing and simply your taste. However a recognition of humor is something that every person is born with. Within one week of being born, babies smile for the first time and by four months of age we all were laughing. Laughter is unconscience, and forced laughter is often difficult to produce, as we all know.
From my experience at the carnival I learned that the age of the child you're talking to matter so much! Any one under 10 didn't think my riddles were funny at all but when I hit myself with my juggling balls, now that was just hilarious. As it turns out, preschoolers to middle elementary aged kids are still learning to process words and double meanings, so riddles really mean nothing to them. They will be more amused by physical humor and rhymes, twisting of sounds and goofy words repeated over and over. By later elementary age to middle school the play on words in riddles becomes more amusing and as children as learning to create jokes themselves and expanding their vocabulary, riddles become more natural to them. By high school, people are entertained by situational humor. People tell stories and often laugh at the surprising outcome or the unexpected twist.While riddles still can be funny, they are often met with groans.
When trying to be funny you have to understand the time and the place to employ the humor as well as have good timing. You can't be afraid to laugh at yourself and trust your innate sense of humor, after all we are born with the ability to laugh. You should draw from what you already know to be funny, but also broaden your horizons and test out different types of humor that you aren't always comfortable with. Think silly and focus on the benfits of being a goofball.
This research helps me get a better of idea of how to be entertaining to all different age groups, although my primary focus is on younger children. I want to keep persuing this line of research because I think it is a key piece to my project, I won't be a very good clown if I'm not funny. This week I also researched some different sites with videos and written out instructions on how to make sword balloons because I popped so many of them at the carnival and I need to practice before my next event!
From my experience at the carnival I learned that the age of the child you're talking to matter so much! Any one under 10 didn't think my riddles were funny at all but when I hit myself with my juggling balls, now that was just hilarious. As it turns out, preschoolers to middle elementary aged kids are still learning to process words and double meanings, so riddles really mean nothing to them. They will be more amused by physical humor and rhymes, twisting of sounds and goofy words repeated over and over. By later elementary age to middle school the play on words in riddles becomes more amusing and as children as learning to create jokes themselves and expanding their vocabulary, riddles become more natural to them. By high school, people are entertained by situational humor. People tell stories and often laugh at the surprising outcome or the unexpected twist.While riddles still can be funny, they are often met with groans.
When trying to be funny you have to understand the time and the place to employ the humor as well as have good timing. You can't be afraid to laugh at yourself and trust your innate sense of humor, after all we are born with the ability to laugh. You should draw from what you already know to be funny, but also broaden your horizons and test out different types of humor that you aren't always comfortable with. Think silly and focus on the benfits of being a goofball.
This research helps me get a better of idea of how to be entertaining to all different age groups, although my primary focus is on younger children. I want to keep persuing this line of research because I think it is a key piece to my project, I won't be a very good clown if I'm not funny. This week I also researched some different sites with videos and written out instructions on how to make sword balloons because I popped so many of them at the carnival and I need to practice before my next event!
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Mentor Meeting
Mr Holl and I met 7th period today and discussed how my project has been progressing so far. I went over all of the details of the carnival, most of them positive. I mentioned that I kept popping my swords and Mr Holl mentioned his friend who was a balloon animal whiz said when you keep popping it means you're overfilling. Next time I'm practicing those swords I will try being less generous with my pumping. I explained how I wanted to focus my research, with my macro topics encompassing interactions with people; what they find funny, why do they find it funny, how does the recognition of humor develop as you get older? and my micro topics of research being the fundamental skills of being a clown; juggling, balloons and jokes. Mr Holl suggested I contact a professor at Syracuse, Robert Thompson who specializes in popular culture, tv and basically the science behind entertainment. Thanks Mr Holl!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Why Marigold?
As some of you may have gathered from the last rather lengthy post about my carnival, I have chosen my clown name to be Marigold. Part of my research two weeks ago was to research how a clown picks their name, because besides their costume, thats how they're remembered. Most sources say pick a name that means something to you. Crossroads also advised this, he got his name from the high school year book he started advertising for as a clown way back in his early clowning years. I looked through long lists of names that clowns have had registered with the clown associations of the world and all of them are pretty goofy, some catchy and some just plain weird. I even typed my name into a clown name generator, which are more common on the web these days than you would think. My results were along the lines of His Highness Maryibo Johnihini and the like. So I decided to ask my family for help and my mom came up with Marigold. How perfect! It combines my name and also incorporates the bright, sunny attitude I am hoping to exude as a clown. The name is now on my shoes and every piece of my costume has a different type of flower on it. When I clowned at the carnival it felt very natural to introduce myself as Marigold and I'm confident that the name will stick.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Carnival Reflections
Heads up, this is going to be a long post, I have so much to share! As you may know, this weekend was the IHS Camp Good Days Carnival that my advisors and I organized. Thank you to everyone who came, this event was more successful than I ever could have hoped. Although the carnival wasn't a part of my wise project, I am more excited than ever after planning it to keep forging ahead on my project. Thinking about what kids would enjoy at a carnival and what activities people have fun is an integral part of being a clown. My experiences at the carnival (to be shared later in the post) have helped me put a focus on my project.
My focus? How to interact with other people. I've always been a social person, I've been called a chatterbox on more than one occasion and after my experience clowning for kids this weekend I realized that the interaction you have with people is by far the best part of being a clown. I want my macro research questions to focus on my communication with the people I'm clowning for -what do people find funny? How does the understanding of humor evolve as you grow? (most of my jokes were compltely lost on kids younger than 10) What do you do when kids are shy, won't talk to you or are just not interested? How do you separate your personal character from your clown character? The micro research really includes the things I've been learning up until now. How to juggle, most popular balloon animals, my clown costume, those types of aspects.
The night before the carnival I found all of the necessary components for my costume and all the supplies I needed and put it all on, shoes, hat, the nose, the pants, everything, to make sure I was completely ready. The final touch were a few hair ties with flowers on them and it rounded out the whole costume (thanks mom). I'll include some pictures in a separate post. I didn't see any problems with the costume, I got all my balloons together, my stickers, my pump, and packed my bags for the next morning.
Set up for the carnival lasted from 9 to 11:45, I then went into the locker room to put on my costume. A few swimmers from the swim meet next door walked by as I was adjusting in the mirror and gave me the most confused looks I have ever seen. One literally stopped and had her mouth open btu I calmly suggested that they stop by our school carnival when they were done with their races and didn't let their confusion phase me.
At noon I stepped out into the carnival and barely breathed for the next 4 hours. I made over 75 balloon animals. After the 4th time I was asked to make a dolphin I decided not to ask them what they wanted me to make but instead suggested the few animals I knew (dog, horse, giraffe, elephant, flying mouse, cat) and they were rarely disappointed when I explained how cool my giraffe was. I had a few kids come back to me in tears when their balloon animals broke and I was more than happy to fix them up new ones quickly. I had practiced making swords before I went and they went smoothly at home but when I tried to make them at the carnival I broke 5 in front of two kids and it was so embarrassing. The worst thing ever was seeing them disappointed after the second and third balloon popped and finally after the 5th one I had to ask if they'd rather have a giraffe instead. All in all though my balloon animals were such a hit!
Because my balloon animals were so popular I had very little time to juggle. I'd juggle for a few seconds in front of a table and then I'd feel a tug on my pants and look down to see a little boy or girl with a sheepish parent in tow and they'd ask me to make them a balloon. Alot of little kids (3 or 4) would bring older siblings along to ask (9 or 10) and I would be sure to ask the older sibling if they wanted one too because you could tell they wanted a dog so badly but they didn't want to ask. If I asked and they said no thank you, I'd always offer stickers to both kids, just as an extra fun thing that they got out of the carnival.
My favorite part about the carnival was the chit chat I had with the little kids. I would start by approaching them and introducing myself as Marigold the clown and then ask them what their name was. When I interviewed Crossroads the Clown one of my biggest questions was "what do you say to the kids?" I was so worried I would run out of things to ask. But once I started asking questions and telling jokes sometimes I had to politely excuse myself from one child to make a balloon for a kid who had been waiting ten minutes. I would ask their name, where they went to school, if they liked school, did they have pets, sibblings, had they been doing fun thigsn at the carnival, had they been on the bounce house? I would suggest things for them to do and see and I would always address them by their name in the conversation so there was a connection between the two of us.
It was so rewarding to see how happy kids were to see me and talk to me. Kids I had met earlier in the carnvial would wave to me every time I walked by or drag their friends over to see if I would make them a balloon too. On occasion I would dig quarters out of my pockets and give them to kids and tell them to go play games that I knew they were garunteed to win (these games also happened to benefit the senior class but hey there wasn't really a hidden motive here...) I talked to their parents too and thanked them for coming to the carnival.
I have to admit I was sweating for the first half an hour. I was so nervous. Every time I approached a little kid I was so nervous I would pop their balloon or they would be afraid of me or I would trip over my shoes and crush them. But after a while I got my confidence and had a blast! There were only two children that were very shy but eventually they came around and took a sticker, I don't think anyone I talked to was truly afraid of me. That was my main goal though when I planned my costume, don't be scary!! I think it worked very well.
All in all, I LOVED my first clown experience. It taught me what I still need to work on (making those gosh darn swords) and what I want my project to focus more on so I can become an even better clown. I'll post pictures next and in the next week I'll work on explaining how I picked my name and more research.
My focus? How to interact with other people. I've always been a social person, I've been called a chatterbox on more than one occasion and after my experience clowning for kids this weekend I realized that the interaction you have with people is by far the best part of being a clown. I want my macro research questions to focus on my communication with the people I'm clowning for -what do people find funny? How does the understanding of humor evolve as you grow? (most of my jokes were compltely lost on kids younger than 10) What do you do when kids are shy, won't talk to you or are just not interested? How do you separate your personal character from your clown character? The micro research really includes the things I've been learning up until now. How to juggle, most popular balloon animals, my clown costume, those types of aspects.
The night before the carnival I found all of the necessary components for my costume and all the supplies I needed and put it all on, shoes, hat, the nose, the pants, everything, to make sure I was completely ready. The final touch were a few hair ties with flowers on them and it rounded out the whole costume (thanks mom). I'll include some pictures in a separate post. I didn't see any problems with the costume, I got all my balloons together, my stickers, my pump, and packed my bags for the next morning.
Set up for the carnival lasted from 9 to 11:45, I then went into the locker room to put on my costume. A few swimmers from the swim meet next door walked by as I was adjusting in the mirror and gave me the most confused looks I have ever seen. One literally stopped and had her mouth open btu I calmly suggested that they stop by our school carnival when they were done with their races and didn't let their confusion phase me.
At noon I stepped out into the carnival and barely breathed for the next 4 hours. I made over 75 balloon animals. After the 4th time I was asked to make a dolphin I decided not to ask them what they wanted me to make but instead suggested the few animals I knew (dog, horse, giraffe, elephant, flying mouse, cat) and they were rarely disappointed when I explained how cool my giraffe was. I had a few kids come back to me in tears when their balloon animals broke and I was more than happy to fix them up new ones quickly. I had practiced making swords before I went and they went smoothly at home but when I tried to make them at the carnival I broke 5 in front of two kids and it was so embarrassing. The worst thing ever was seeing them disappointed after the second and third balloon popped and finally after the 5th one I had to ask if they'd rather have a giraffe instead. All in all though my balloon animals were such a hit!
Because my balloon animals were so popular I had very little time to juggle. I'd juggle for a few seconds in front of a table and then I'd feel a tug on my pants and look down to see a little boy or girl with a sheepish parent in tow and they'd ask me to make them a balloon. Alot of little kids (3 or 4) would bring older siblings along to ask (9 or 10) and I would be sure to ask the older sibling if they wanted one too because you could tell they wanted a dog so badly but they didn't want to ask. If I asked and they said no thank you, I'd always offer stickers to both kids, just as an extra fun thing that they got out of the carnival.
My favorite part about the carnival was the chit chat I had with the little kids. I would start by approaching them and introducing myself as Marigold the clown and then ask them what their name was. When I interviewed Crossroads the Clown one of my biggest questions was "what do you say to the kids?" I was so worried I would run out of things to ask. But once I started asking questions and telling jokes sometimes I had to politely excuse myself from one child to make a balloon for a kid who had been waiting ten minutes. I would ask their name, where they went to school, if they liked school, did they have pets, sibblings, had they been doing fun thigsn at the carnival, had they been on the bounce house? I would suggest things for them to do and see and I would always address them by their name in the conversation so there was a connection between the two of us.
It was so rewarding to see how happy kids were to see me and talk to me. Kids I had met earlier in the carnvial would wave to me every time I walked by or drag their friends over to see if I would make them a balloon too. On occasion I would dig quarters out of my pockets and give them to kids and tell them to go play games that I knew they were garunteed to win (these games also happened to benefit the senior class but hey there wasn't really a hidden motive here...) I talked to their parents too and thanked them for coming to the carnival.
I have to admit I was sweating for the first half an hour. I was so nervous. Every time I approached a little kid I was so nervous I would pop their balloon or they would be afraid of me or I would trip over my shoes and crush them. But after a while I got my confidence and had a blast! There were only two children that were very shy but eventually they came around and took a sticker, I don't think anyone I talked to was truly afraid of me. That was my main goal though when I planned my costume, don't be scary!! I think it worked very well.
All in all, I LOVED my first clown experience. It taught me what I still need to work on (making those gosh darn swords) and what I want my project to focus more on so I can become an even better clown. I'll post pictures next and in the next week I'll work on explaining how I picked my name and more research.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
3 days until the carnival!
This post is mostly for my own organizational benefit but I'll try to throw in the occasional joke for every one else's enjoyment. We are currently three days from the IHS Camp Good Days Carnival. Since I'm organizing the entire thing I've been eating, sleeping and breathing carnival for the past 3 weeks. While the planning of the event has been stressing me out, I'm looking forward to relaxing and doing a bit of clowning around at the actual event. By Saturday morning I need to have my entire costume finalized. This includes deciding on a shirt, finish decorating my shoes, find the hair ties I've been looking for in my sisters room for a week, make sure my nose stays on, and find a practical way to store my balloons and balloon pump on my person for the entire day. I am still practicing my juggling a little bit every day and the improvements keep on coming! The day before I am going to run through my joke list, and practice a few times on my delivery. I am going to take one last test run through the balloon animals I know how to make and most importantly I have to get myself into the clowning mood! Jokes galore folks, get ready for laughs.
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