TGIF

This Friday, I felt it was necessary to treat myself after a long week of grueling (and rewarding) work.  Therefore, the highlights of my day consisted of consuming a green tea frap (my absolute favourite), vanilla bean scones (my newfound favourite) and delicious dim sum at Noodle Express.

The Starbucks downtown had these really groovy hanging lamps that looked like they were imploding with fire.  Fierce.

Also, a friendly visual reminder that the Marker Social is happening this Friday on October 14th, 2011.   I almost forgot myself until I saw this handy dandy poster in the hallway!  Tickets are available at the Mercantile for $10.

My dear friend and colleague Josh Alao agreed to help me exercise my photography skills and acted as a model for the photo that you see above.

The roles reversed and Josh got the chance to flex his creative muscles.  Fantastic job!  Not to mention, the architecture of our campus looks absolutely stunning in the background.

We finished off our Friday one of the best ways we possibly could - with a satisfying meal of mouthwatering dim sum.  In my honest opinion, I truly believe that Noodle Express in Chinatown has some of the tastiest, freshest dim sum around.  Their sweet custard buns are to die for!

Cheers to another week of CreComm under our belts!

Q: What inspires you?

It is strange to say that I'm feeling inspired to talk about inspiration?

I do have a sensible explanation as to why this thought is crossing my mind.  Really, I swear.

A routine class exercise is what provoked this whole ordeal.  I was sitting (very obediently) in my advertising class, listening to some examples of effective radio ads.  They were unique, entertaining and had some out-of-the-box ideas that just seemed to work.  I was thoroughly impressed.  But what I couldn't understand was how the heck these people came up with these concepts!

The question of creativity is lingering on my mind, and I just can't seem to shake it.  As both a writer and an artist, I find rare instances where I'm unexpectedly boinked by creative genius on the head.  However, 99.9% of the remaining time leaves me looking for sources of inspiration.

So my question is: where exactly do you draw your inspiration from?

Last week, I remember Lynn Coady mentioning that her fiction "comes from life", which is most definitely a vivid source to draw from.  She mentioned that her characters are often loosely based on people that she knows.  Hmm.

I often relay traits of my conjured up characters back to people that I know and have met in the past.  Sometimes this method works, but other times I feel like there is a missing dimension to the depth of my characters.

I do, however, appreciate lending life experiences to inspiration.  Each of us have gone through such private and intimate events at various capacities.  Whether it's an eating disorder or simply the order of how we eat, we each orchestrate our daily lives in a completely different way.

What I find difficult is how people get their thoughts and experiences to sound interesting.  Not just interesting, actually, but gripping - to write from life and create a piece that has people hanging onto every last word of it.  Now that is a talent that surely all of us would like to emulate.

There are times when I feel like some ideas are just so farfetched - but they end up becoming literary or artistic gold.  Take 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch, for example.

I feel like I'm beginning to scratch the surface of where creativity can be drawn, but I have a long way to go.  Whether it's a person, past experiences or even someone's writing that inspires you, I think that it's a good place to start - but where do you go from here?

Goodbye @TIB0K, hello @jackiedoming!

These past couple of years, I have used Twitter for three main reasons: keeping in touch with friends, stalking following celebrities and saving myself from boredom while riding the big yellow limousine to work.  I would often tweet about my day-to-day life, which was usually quite mundane, but it saved me from the brink of virtual insanity.  One can only handle profile surfing on Facebook for so many hours, after all.

Renewed!

But alas, @TIB0K was not created in vain.  Today, I saw Twitter under a whole new light during Melanie Lee Lockhart's PR class.  Instead of fruitlessly devoting my time to Dear Girls Above Me or religiously observing Snooki's social feed, I realized that I could put this account to good use!

Introducing the new and improved @jackiedoming on Twitter.  I will be using my account to post news, talk about currents events and sometimes add my own personal zing to the mix.  And, although I plan on reforming my Twitter persona, I can't promise that I won't follow the occasional celebrity or two ..

Have fun while staying informed, I say!