At first I was worried finding an expert I could interview would be really difficult. I assumed that the majority of people would be too busy or not care about some random stranger kid’s project. On top of that, there aren’t exactly a ton of origami masterminds floating about, and I don’t know one personally. Thankfully, it turned out to not be a problem. One of the books I got from the library earlier this week was Akira Yoshizawa, Japan's Greatest Origami Master (the link to which can be found on the Resources page), and it had an introduction by Robert J. Lang. Turns out he has a TED Talk on origami, and since I’m a sucker for literally anything involving TED, I just had to watch it. I’m not kidding when I say that I have a YouTube playlist containing over 45 TED-Ed and TED Talk videos that I’m hoping to watch. They’re incredibly addicting and cover basically anything you could ever want to learn about.
Back to what I was saying about the TED Talk, I watched it and actually found it really interesting though some of the mathematical stuff did go over my head. Even if you yourself aren’t that interested in origami, I’d still suggest you watch it (link below) if you have any sort of fascination with technology, math, or science since it deals heavily with it. In the talk he discusses the mathematics behind origami designs as well as its scientific application, things I’d never thought to have associated with origami. Since most people to believe origami to be just an art form, I thought he could bring a really unique perspective. And so I set out to email him, requesting an interview. There was only one problem.
I walked into this having zero idea how to network. Thankfully, my mom is a career coach and so gave me some advice which I dubbed The 4(.5) Points for Networking. Basically, it’s a list of four(ish) points/questions you should answer whenever you’re trying to get in touch with others. I figured some of you haven’t tried to contact an expert yet (if you’re a procrastinator like me), so I decided I might as well share them, right?
The 4(.5) Points for Networking:
1. Begin by introducing yourself--who are you?
2. Why are you writing to this person? How do you know him/her? What is something about him/her that impressed you?
3. What do you want from him/her? What are you asking for/proposing? (Be specific: how long, what time at, and what will it involve?) Make sure it’s something that you’re sure this person knows or will be able to do,
4. Propose the next step(s)--how should we proceed from here? (ex. “If you would like to conduct an interview by phone call, here are some dates and times that work for me…”)
4.5. (This point doesn’t have to be explicit; it should be weaved throughout the other four points.) What’s in it for them? What’s the positive impact of them agreeing to your proposal?
I finished the letter yesterday afternoon, but when I went to send it through his website, I got an error message. Being the worrywart I am, I immediately freaked out, and for some reason it got into my head that this meant I would never be able to contact Lang and that the site would never get back up again. Of course I didn’t really have time to worry about that because I had to leave five minutes later to meet our family friends for dinner. I put it to the back of my mind and figured that I would just try again later when I came home. We got back fairly late--around 9:30 or so--but I really wanted to check if the site was up and running again. Low and behold it was, and, fearing that it would crash again, sent the email then. He ended up responding incredibly quickly with an agreement to participate in the interview, maybe 15 or so minutes later, but by then I was already heading to bed since I was super tired. I didn’t expect him to reply so quickly (though I was glad he did since that meant I wouldn’t have to stress over whether or not he would agree or if he had gotten it in the first place). I started working on the questions yesterday, but I hadn’t actually finished them, so I just wrote back saying that I’d get them to him by Saturday which still leaves plenty of time for him to both answer the questions and for me to write up a corresponding blog post before the due date.
As for my folding progress, I ended up doing five pieces instead of four and have decided that five or more a week will be my new goal. It was hard estimating the the difficulty level of each piece, so some were definitely harder than others, though none of them were impossible. The pieces included the cat box, heart box, sea turtle, butterfly, and Vicente’s flower. The butterfly was definitely the easiest, and the sea turtle was definitely the most difficult one. Difficulty-wise I think the other three were within reach though still not easy which was a good balance.
I think if I were to do more challenging ones like the sea turtle I’d have to use a video tutorial since I found using a book (which is where I found the instructions) was harder to follow than a video. There’s certain lines and symbols on the diagrams that represent various folds/steps, and I kept forgetting what they meant since I have a terrible memory. I ended up having to make a “cheat sheet” so I wouldn’t have to keep flipping back to the key. I also found that with a video, you’re able to physically see how a person is moving the paper. With the book diagrams I’d often get confused, though I’m willing to bet that was mostly because I have a terrible sense of spatial awareness. From now on, I think I’m going to stick to mostly video tutorials.
