Our first two sessions were purely cerebral and I was a bit overwhelmed with the bulk of readings we had to do and as of this writing, I’ve only managed to read three of more than a dozen articles that continue to pile up with each meeting.  And so when Doc, as we fondly call Dr. Dizon, told us last Tuesday that we would be taught how to use Macromedia Flash, we (there’s almost 20 of us in the group) were all excited with the prospect and looked forward to Thursday.

Come Thursday, we had a quick dinner courtesy of Doc and proceeded to the EDOs workroom and took our places.  I was all too eager to begin the session so I explored the Flash documents that were open.  Earlier, a handout was distributed to us summarizing the components of Flash and its uses.  EDO’s “senior staff”, who are really in their early 20s, facilitated the hands-on session.

I thought learning Flash would be a breeze but I was wrong.  I was told to begin with basic shapes but I was ambitious enough to ask if I could import objects.  I really had no choice so I started with a circle.  Once I was given directions, I was diligent enough to write down the instructions and was left on my own.  And so for an hour I was doing nothing but animating a pentagon, a square and a circle.  When I looked around at my classmates’ works, they were animating various objects already.

So I sat there in front of the computer for what seemed to be hours, which was actually just a few minutes, contemplating on what image to draw. My contemplation was cut short when one of the facilitators approached to ask what was wrong since I wasn’t doing anything.  I sheepishly told him I was just thinking of an object to draw.

I first attempted to draw a campfire but what were supposed to be the flames looked more like the hair of an anime character.  I gave out a low chuckle and just erased the whole thing.  I thought of another object to draw and suddenly remembered the volcano my son drew and decided to do the same thing.  But it came out like an upside down ice cream cone with the ice cream on the tip so I had to erase again.  I actually thought of drawing a house with a door that would open and close but decided not to do it because it would be too complicated for me.  And in quiet surrender, I told myself drawing is not really for me because my brain is not wired to draw.  Whatever part of my brain that controls creativity in this area is apparently undeveloped.

At the end of the one and half-hour session, all I could manage to animate were shapes moving across the stage horizontally, vertically, and diagonally.  But if there was one function I know by heart, it’s Ctrl+Z which undid the previous action.  It surely came in handy when I needed it, which was most of the time.

When it was time for us to leave, my classmates happily shared their accomplishments (as you can see in the accompanying photo), which included a bouncing ball, a smiling face, a butterfly, and a face that reminded me of Jason from Halloween.

On my jeepney ride home, I thought Flash couldn’t be that hard to learn after all because I limited myself to drawing original objects which I’m not good at.  Finally in resignation, I decided to stick to content development for the meantime and leave animation to the knowledgeable ones.  Sigh, if only words can have a life of its own without objects, then things would be easier for me.  And my husband even told me to teach my boys but they’d probably be better than me in a few years time without me teaching them.

But I’m not giving up.  It’s just not me.  And if you have software-learning woes like me, share it with me at openingpagemb@yahoo.com so I’d know I’m not alone.