We did our showcase for our multi-modal presentations this week. Ryan held down our fort and gave the walk through for the gallery. He explained what our story meant and the purpose all of our pictures and videos. However, like other groups we fell short with the slide show category even though we had included one on our website. So we are somewhat unsure of why a point was taken off. None of us mind though since we are fine with a 19/20 as our grade.
A lot of the students left early for spring which reminded me of a Reddit post I read a while ago on /r/Professors. It basically just talked about how college students need to plan ahead of time as far as vacations go and not leave during the midterm and how their absences put professors in a hard place.
0 Comments
This week our group really kicked into gear with our reading and group work as a whole. Ryan and I finished up early and began to research and fiddle around with some HTML. Pashenee had some insight on how to craft some real neat HTML effects with the help Code Academy and W3. W3 had a code dictionary that provided us with somewhere to begin imagining how our webpage will look. All in all I think that this project will turn out well and I have some expectations for what we will accomplish.
On a side note I found a cool piece of art that was inspired by the book the Alchemist. It is a painting by nagualero and he uploaded the video to his YouTube channel and it is pretty cool. Skip to 2:58 if you just want to see the final piece. Since the video walks through the entire process. I have been trying to decided whether or not I'd like to take the AP test for this class. Already I know that I'd like to sign up for the AP Chemistry one but Calculus and Lit I am unsure of. Michigan requires me to get a 4 to get and credits and they only offer 2 if you get a four. Which is making me shy away from the idea of taking the test because that put a lot of pressure on me to feel like I have to do well or I am wasting $93 of my paycheck for something that only made me panic.
But in class Drew, Ryan and I got into a group to do the Multi-modal project together. I am the video editor, Drew is writing and Ryan is doing the coding for our website. I am not sure how well this will go but I think we can slide by and do all right. Both of my team members are goofy but they usually have some good ideas. And speaking of good idea I found a website called Creating Multi-modal Texts which gives some helpful tips and insight on how to create a multi-modal project. I spent a lot time this week searching for outside sources for my Pecha Kucha. I decided on two that I will be using in my paper and presentation Monday. However, it took a lot of thinking before I was able to remind myself exactly what I had chosen to to my research on. But I read both of my books Brave New World and 1984 so I was quickly able to regain grounds refocus my lens after the fact.
But I had decided to take a look at how technology has had an effect on society and its interactions with government and itself. I wanted to take a look at what is similar to today and the crazy fantasy worlds that were created 68 and 85 years ago by the two authors. And I feel like Aldous Huxley was definitely more accurate with his idea of vision of where he thought the future would lead us. Because there is a certain amount of truth to what he thought may happen 85 years ago. Where are George Orwell's idea is a bit more unrealistic in a way. Mainly I feel like it is due to fact the 1984 universe does not take into account people's natural resistance to ignorance. While we only get to really see in in Julia and Winston, I feel like there is too much unrealistic obedience in their society. This week was pretty relaxed and fun because we spent most of our time watching the videos that we have been making for the past week or so. Being able to see everyone's creations was really fun but after a lot of consideration I found that my favorite video was Luco's. It really felt like he was describing himself in his video. His video also felt the most unique and focused on a topic that everyone in the class could relate to in someway or another because we are all reaching the point in our lives where we are facing monumental huge change. But the best part was the way he was able to incorporated his sister's childish innocence and relative carelessness for the outside world into his explanation for his belief. Overall I felt like he did a fantastic job at summing up his personality and really talking about a belief that defines him as a person.
Another video I enjoyed a lot was Ryan Pashenee's because he took my advice for his story. It came up when we were talking about what our subjects were going to be and Ryan and I had similar topics and he said he would change his topic. But I asked him about his glasses and he chose to include a bit about his poor eyesight in the video. We had a chance to work with a free online video editor this week. The online tool is called WeVideo, it's pretty innovative and has been very helpful. It encouraged me to spend time out of class learning how to mess around with videos and audio files has been pretty interesting. I am currently messing around with other programs such as Audacity to create an audio loop of the song You Can Call me Al by Paul Simon. Mostly for comedic effect, but I might scrap the idea in the end in favor of something else.
Earlier in the week I spent a bit of time writing my conversational piece. I started writing about a more lighthearted subject relating to laughter. But after writing my first rough draft I decided I wasn't digging deep enough yet. Which lead me to try to be a bit more personal with my story so I dug into my youth and found a situation that used to really bother me. I plan on going in more depth about something that I found upsetting as a young whippersnapper and how I eventually overcame the discomfort that it caused me with the help of laughter. Look back into the past really helps remind you how fortunate we are to be in the present. This week we wrote our "This I Believe" conversational piece. I chose to share my belief in "laughter" for my topic. I got my inspiration for the topic from being very ill this past weekend while I was watching clips from the show Conan. I needed to cough to clear my throat from being sick, and I found the best way to cough was to laugh. Which reminded me of this project because of the old platitude "Laughter is the best kind of medicine" which is I feel is an important part of everyone's life.
But the really important reason that I enjoy laughter is because I feel like it is really helpful when times are tough. Now I've had my fair share of hard times in my life. Which have come in a variety of forms but I have always felt that the best way to get past them was to make a joke and to laugh it off. Because finding humor is something that upsets you takes away a lot of the discomfort that might seem to be ruining your life. So looking for humor in situations where it might not always be easy has always been a goal of mine. Because it makes dealing with something that is disheartening more bearable. This week we talked about internet tracking. A subject that I am pretty familiar with as much of my childhood was spent browsing and utilizing the internet. So it was a topic that I felt that was mostly old news. But we also began to discuss more about the This I Believe project earlier in the week and I began to think about a topic. I haven't narrowed anything down yet, but I am sure that I'll come to find something eventually.
And I was not in attendance for the rest of this week so honestly I am not sure what all else went on but I spent most of my time barely conscious with a fever that ranged between 102 - 105 from Tuesday night to Friday afternoon. Apparently I caught the influenza just in time for my 18th birthday! I spent most of my time in class this week finishing up our group's Shakespearean Drama Project. We had to do the finishing touches on our slides and figure out what we wanted to use for our music. Which I felt was the most difficult part of the project. Finding the right style of music to fit the theme of Macbeth was pretty challenging. Luckily for me, other members of my group felt more confident and well versed in different styles of music than myself. Which we all agreed fit the tone of Existentialism better than any of my suggestions.
But the latter half of this week was spent presenting to the class. I was pretty confident going into the presentation, and I had even written myself a little script that I was planning on sticking to. Except there was one part that I should have removed from the final draft because I was not able to confidently pronounce the name of the painter Jacques-Louis David. Which my group had decided to use his work as one of the works that tied into the the who I was portion of our presentation. Unfortunately, I was unable to say his name during our presentation so I had to haphazardly push through that slide. The idea was to draw the connection of Napoleon Bonaparte being a successful war hero similarly to how Macbeth began in the play. Sadly I guess I was either too forthcoming or our audience was unable to understand that aspect of the presentation. P.S. In the future please give us a heads up where we will be presenting. I felt that I had been cheated by not having the room that we were presenting in specified prior to the presentations. Because there is a huge change in lighting from room 202 to room 111, and made my notes nearly impossible to read and caused an unexpected stumble in our presentation. This week we got to meet a lady from Central Michigan University who was an expert on Shakespeare. She met with our group to talk with us about our Critical Theory lens. Her advice helped us further our understanding of our specific lens and how we should go about tackling this assignment. We talked about the transformation of Macbeth throughout the play and how his decisions lead him to his downfall. And how Lady Macbeth tempted Macbeth into going through with the plot even though he knew it would be his downfall.It was also discussed that Shakespeare could have been using existential ideas without putting a name to it.
The poems this week were Spring and All by Williams and For Jane Meyers by Gluck. Spring and All described the sense of death and brokenness that comes before spring before giving way to the season of rebirth. Williams call spring "sluggish" and "dazed" both words that represent something that is slow moving and clumsy. However, at the end of the poem there is a shift beginning with line 16 where it says "They enter the new world naked..." which begins the poems direction to the idea of coming to life. As all of the plants and wildlife seem to has life breathed into them, but line 16 specifically reminds the reader of childbirth. By doing this the reader begins to realize the life that has been thrust upon the world. For Jane Meyers takes a different approach to spring. Gluck subliminally treats spring as something to be afraid of. A season of worrying and death, contrast to what most people think about as spring. Gluck uses different types of flowers such as crocuses, bluets, and daffodils to represent different elements of spring in her poem. And to better understand the references of the flowers I chose to look up visual images for each of the flowers. It definitely helped paint a better picture and gave me a better understanding of the poem. |
AuthorHey! This is my top bunk, I do all of my sleeping here so chances are if you see me here I am about to go to hit the hay. Archives
March 2017
Categories |