We’re Back, And Better Than Ever! Or, So Many Exclamation Marks!!!

We don't meet here anymore!

After a rather disappointing summer weather-wise, come show us that the rainy days, while plentiful, weren’t wasted ones at the inaugural Rinse Your Brain! meeting of the 2009/2010 academic year! No longer relegated to the dreary reading room in Dunton Tower, our new digs are far more conducive to the spontaneity, creativity and fun that Rinse Your Brain! is striving to spread across Carleton, Ottawa, and hey, well, while we’re at it, the world! Not only that, but we’ve had four whole months of play time, work time and honest-to-goodness spare time to think up all kinds of things to try our hands at this year.

While the agenda has yet to be set, it’s going to be mostly catching up with friends and pitches for new projects so bring everythings, somethings or nothings; just come on out!

E-mail Liz at rinseyourbrain@gmail.com for all the details.

See you there!
-Christine

Theme Song?

Our musical wonderkid Riley Byrne has been working up a storm this summer recording, mixing, mashing and reconstructing sounds and riffs. Here’s the project from April that many of you Rinsers lended your voices and words to. You can download it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?jnd4ggjmdxy

Love it? Hate it? Leave us a comment!

Hope you’re enjoying the remainder of your summers and I can’t wait to see all of you lovely little creative kids in a few weeks.

Stay golden!
-Christine

From the desk of Elizabeth Katherine Aho:

Alrighty, so I figured that I’d write a couple of lines about what I’ve been getting up to while I’m unemployed and my little sister is making “getting Liz in shape” her part-time project, until whatever vision she has for my body has been achieved.

My dad put together a gigantic easel for me a few days ago.  It’s pretty sweet: it’s set up in the middle of my bedroom floor, with two folding tables on the side for my palettes, paint jars, cups/plastic buckets of water, and painterly things.  It’s nice, at night, to paint until your eyes get tired, clean your brushes so they don’t get gross, and hop into bed that’s only a foot away from your artwork.  All while surrounded by sunny yellow walls with guitars, projects and books and my other things nearby.  It’s what I’ve wanted my room to be like for a long time.  The downside to all of this, however, is that I’m having a hard time with the painting I’m working on.  I’ve felt a couple of times now like scrapping it altogether and going back to work on something unfinished from last year, or something new.  I realize now that I made several mistakes right off the bat…I originally wrote them all out, but it made this post pretty frigging long.

I have an idea of where I want to go with it now, and I think the next step is for me to draft some sketches of what I think it should finally look like.  All things going well, it’s going to look pretty different.

School’s Out for the Summer

Exams are done, the grades are in and we’re all relieved. But what does that mean for RYB? It means that we’ll all have to keep one another in the loop about our summer projects, and what better outlet to do so than with this lovely blog? If you are part of the RYB crew, get on the WordPress bandwagon, snap some photos of the creative process and keep everyone from Vancouver to St. John and everyone between and beyond informed of what I’m sure are great things that you have done to keep yourself out of trouble.

I’ve been staying occupied by this lovely machine:

When I finally get around to editing and digitizing them, maybe I’ll post a few stories here. For now, I’ll stick to my love for analog. Enough about me though. What are you making?

First BJ Blues By: Bardia Sinaee

My first BJ would have ended prematurely were it not for the sturdy hands at the Faculty of Journalism. All the history, theory and impossible interviews with the dead seemed like a tease. Instead of doing what I loved – hunting leads, scoring interviews and penetrating stories – I had to analyze the tracks of others that did. I felt too much foreplay; I wanted to dive straight into the nitty-gritty.

Blinded by my desires, I forgot the importance of a sturdy base. A precious career as a writer stood before me like a dream girl smooth and ready, asking me to take it slow, but all I did was try to see through her nightgown.

I was convinced that it was all a scam. The rigid rules made me flaccid, full of doubt and unable to focus on the task at hand. It got the better of me and I did the unthinkable: I put the wrong name in a lead. Zero out of ten.

Thinking this was the final blow to my BJ, I marched into the third floor of St. Patrick’s Building ready to burst. I blamed the school and the rules and the teachers and the assignments and swung left and right until I was limp.

The faculty calmly told me to relax. Teaching me the purpose and direction of the curriculum, they wrapped themselves around the base of my education and held it firm.

In the process of pointing fingers, I saw the error of my ways. My blind rage gave way to tender shame. The faculty and I worked together, listening to each other and taking things slow. Eventually, they took a new position on the CP Style rule.

Now I’m poised toward next year, pumping away at my education and, chances are, I’ll be coming to the third floor of St. Patrick’s again this September.

Bigger City, Bigger BJ By: Sarah Hewey

Journalists are fated to wield the rigid shaft of a career so dangerous, so unfortunate, that we figure education should be the least of our worries. I am a woman on a mission. A student on the path of a BJ so fierce, so mind-numbing, toe-curling and earth-shattering, I plan to spend four years taking it like I’m being paid to do so. Perhaps my payment is the gratification of earning my BJ, however I won’t receive my well-deserved certification from this particular institution. I must part, zipping up my BJ in the pursuit of another series of face-contorting challenges in The Big Stink: Toronto.

I settled hard and fast on sucking it up and finishing my first-year BJ before relocating. I believe my decision to leave began based on distance, a longing for the cozy warmth of the nest as opposed to the uncomfortably stiff feeling of my bones, far from home. A Carleton J-School virgin, I wasn’t sure what I was going to take away from my BJ. Upon entering J1000, one is quick to find they will not be frolicking to a newsroom or beating down on a source in the pursuit of something truly significant, interesting, and new. Let it be known however that without my J1000
de-virginizing, I would not have had the importance of SIN, or any other news value for that matter, permanently tattooed on the one-tenth of my brain now totally devoted to my little BJ.

Using a firm tone and fresh perspective, one is quick to realize that the School of Journalism means business when conquering a BJ and will therefore lay you down not so gently and whip your ass out of BJ virgin territory and into tip-top shape. Said ass-kicking occasionally results in a pub run (or twelve), but it is hardly debatable that one’s potential turn to alcoholism is unrelated to the BJ trail. CU Journalism manages to penetrate the semi-conscious brain, infusing dreams and aspirations of a life beyond J1000 in a world where “I like it rough” will nay ye surmount the wrath of the public and press.

Young minds, you will stare into the recesses of thought-provoking and sometimes downright vile pieces of photography, learn the ins and outs of ethics, interviews, and sentence structure, and by God, you WILL walk out of here in the words of a certain J1000 professor, “with a BJ under your belt”. My experience was not always pleasurable, perhaps sometimes a little uncomfortable, but never unbearable and indeed, at the very least, satisfactory.

So hold strong my fellow BJ students. Be bold! Be daring! Tears may flow, fists may fly, yelps may emerge, but do not part until you have finished what you started. I took my BJ like a man, but now I take it elsewhere.; I depart zipped, equipped, and ready to grit my teeth through the next sequence of BJ blunders.

Sincerely satisfied,
S.

BJ: The Virgin Experience Is Out!

Filled with funny and lude stories about our respective experiences as first year journalism students, BJ: The Virgin Experience is the first official project from RYB. Faculty, TAs and students all couldn’t wait to get their hands on a copy when we released it in J-1000 this past Thursday. And for good reason! Who could not want to read articles with titles like “Why I Flew Half-Way Across the Country For A BJ” or “My First BJ Cost Me $15 000″?

If you would like a copy, talk to one of the contributors or send an e-mail to rinseyourbrain @ gmail . com and we’ll hook you up.

Also, look for some bonus content from the BJ in the next couple of days right on this here blog as well as the musical stylings of our very own Riley Byrne. He’s got some tricks up his sleeves that will tickle your ear drums with delight and baffle your brain with its brilliance. That’s right, I went there.

May The Force be with you,
-L

What A Tease!

Yesterday, Monika, Liz, Catharine, Averie and I got up to no good putting together the first of what I hope will be many RYB sponsored publications. We laughed, we cried, we cried because we were laughing so hard. It was great. Intrigued? You’ll just have to wait until Thursday to find out what all the hype is about.

Email Rinse Your Brain!

Hey, we’re gradually moving further and further away from Mother Facebook…

To contact any of us at Rinse Your Brain about projects, meetings or related creative queries, you can email us at: rinseyourbrain@gmail.com

Awesome and a half.

What’chya Mean What’s a Zine?

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Rinse Your Brain‘s first project is underway and, boy oh boy, is it going to be good! Without saying too much, a few of us would-be journalists have decided to band together and raise our fists in solidarity. The result? A marvelous piece of DIY-publishing goodness with a title so amazing that it can’t be revealed until the first issue hits the shelves on April 2nd.

Keep your ear to the ground, because, as Averie says, shit’s gettin’ real up in here!