What I've Learned in STAC

I've always thought that I was an observant person, but now I realize that I didn't notice a thing until I was in STAC. It hasn't become automatic yet. It's not quite natural for me to listen or look for little things that I wouldn't normally notice, but I try to, and it's caused me to see things a little differently.
For one thing, after watching Kontroll, I find myself picking apart every movie I watch. I just watched The Birds with my mom, and we talked about it for about an hour right after and again over the next couple of days. I'm noticing that a good director does everything for a reason, so I try to figure out why each thing is done the way it is. I watch movies from a different point of view now. I look for where the cuts are and I watch for any extras that I'd seen before. I look at each shot and look at what's good and bad about it. I found that after talking about the movie, I had a completely different perspective on it than I had right after watching it. I think one of the most important things I'm going to get out of STAC is being able to talk about things because when you talk about something, you get everything out of it that you can, and then you can use it in your own art.
It's the same thing when I look at artwork. Instead of just looking at the finished work, I look at how it was done and the techniques were used, not that I know very many. My point is, now that I've seen a little bit of how things are done, it doesn't seem so inconceivable that I could do it someday. I also notice a lot of the real colors and shapes of things. Even more than that, though, I find myself looking at shadows. I try desperately to understand them because I notice how much more real it makes a drawing look when the shadows are there and look right.
Even when I'm listening to music, I listen for little errors in the editing. I also listen to some really, really good songs and try to figure out what makes them so good. I listen for each instrument on its own and see how every part works together. I've always been able to match a style to a band I knew, but now I know why because I'm starting to be able to identify what each one does differently.
What I appreciate most about becoming more observant is being able to better observe people. I look for things people do with their bodies and their faces when they're feeling different things. A lot of the observing is done within my family. My mom walks into a room differently when she's mad. I can who's trying to think of something to say at the dinner table and who just wants to eat. I play games with myself when I walk down the halls and look at people's body language to figure out what they're feeling. I'm also noticing how I'm different when I'm with different people. I said in one of my first blogs that it bothers me how everyone sees me differently because the more different views there are of me the less certain I am about who I really am. It's mostly my fault, though. I act very differently around different people. I also noticed that I like who I am when I'm around people who I think of as stupider than me than who I am when I'm around people who I think of as smarter than me. I like the people who I think of as smarter more than the people who I think of as stupider. That puts me in a weird position where I have to decide if I'd rather like myself or make myself better. I notice I tend to choose making myself better and surrounding myself with smarter people. I don't like to call people stupid, but the fact is, there are people who I don't think of as smart. It's not something I control, and I don't try to.
I'm already changing after a quarter of STAC. The things we learn really stick with me. I'm actually excited about the person I'm going to be after three years of this. I hope I can take as much out of it as I can.