Author: chungwipff

The Body

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Sitting around or lying around all day makes you weak. (Livestrong.com)

With the pervasive use of screen time, people are being increasingly physically passive. I heard this quote the other day that rang so true to me:

The body will become better at whatever you do, or don’t do. You don’t move? The body will make you better at NOT moving. If you move, your body will allow more movement.

— Ido Portal

Exercise, we all know, is good for the heart and the bones. It keeps your blood pressure in check.

 

As we train our newly adopted pitbull mix, I wanted to ensure we handled aggression in her properly.

“Dog exercise burns the dog’s excess energy and helps maintain the dog’s healthy state of mind. This is important because, in order to talk to the mind, you need to remove the energy from the body.”

Cesar Milan

I can totally relate to this! I need to exercise and (re)move energy in my body so that my mind can work better as well. Perhaps more humans (especially in cars and on the Internet) would be less aggressive if they exercised daily.

In the end, you only have one body and it’s your sole vehicle for moving about in this world. Help your body take you where you want to go.

Projects

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Just a quick doodle and post today. I’m interviewing two people tonight for my research project on “First to Graduate from High School and/or College.” It’s my hope to compile a series of inspiring stories for graduate hopefuls and get those rates of retention up!

On the dog front, Olive is on Day Four at our house and is doing well, although she and Opal can argue when they don’t see eye to eye. Mostly though, they are pretty chill:

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Devotion

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Olive smiles when she sleeps!

Our daughter came home last night, crying. She accidentally slammed her hand in her car door. On the couch, she recounted the event to her father.

Olive, our pitbull rescue who has been in the house for three days, walked up to her, put her head and one paw on Josie’s lap and looked directly in her eyes.

Who knows what this dog has experienced, and the suffering she has endured. Still, she was able to show affection in this new and strange home.

Often, animals display more kindness and “humanity” than humans!

 

Call for (Graduation) Interviewees

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Hello everyone, I am conducting research on high school and college retention. If you know anyone who is the first to graduate from high school or college in their family, I’d like to interview them.

Please complete the form below and I will contact them

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

Caroline Chung-Wipff

Flocks

 

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Watercolor – Woodpecker feathers

 

This proverb has been in use since at least the mid 16th century. In 1545 William Turner used a version of it in his papist satire The Rescuing of Romish Fox:

“Byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together.”

Source: Phrases.org

 

Quentin Tarantino realized he needed to leave his flock as a young adult. He was working in a video store (remember those?) and enjoying the benefits of watching movies, which were his passion. His co-workers were also making minimum wage, but he knew he was the smartest one among them. This made him feel comfortable  – for three years – where he admits he “lost all ambition.” And then he woke up. He didn’t want to be an elderly man working in a video store, talking about movies. He wanted to MAKE them. So he had to leave his flock.

And he did.

 

 

Rescue

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My daughter and I went to the animal shelter today to inquire about volunteer opportunities. The minimum age is 16, so Ava will have to wait another year…but she fell in love in the meantime. The dog’s name is Maya.

While we were there, a young lady was returning a dog she adopted a few days ago. The dog was too “feisty” and energetic. It’s too bad she was not willing to put in the time and energy necessary to train the dog.

Our Opal was a bit hyper when we first got her. We had to get a crate for her when we realized that she has separation anxiety. She nearly clawed her way through a wall to find us our first time we went out to dinner and left her home. She still prefers to be in her crate when we’re away.

Love means giving your time and attention.

 

Freeform

I’m playing with form, color and inspiration. No great art here, just having a lot of fun. For the last one, I didn’t know I was going to write my name in Korean until I did it. It might have something to do with recently reading about Bruce Lee and how proud of he was of his Chinese ethnicity and because I’m so happy that Sandra Oh is the first Asian-American actress nominated for a best lead actress Emmy award. Who knows?

I started with acrylics, but it’s so hard to clean up (requires rubbing alcohol) and gouache is more forgiving. I’m sticking with gouache and watercolor for the near term.

This is a continuation of exercises from Flora Bowley’s online class. Check her out, she’s a great teacher.