On Wednesday I was flipping through “The Washington Post” when I stumbled across this comic strip for “Speed Bump” of his little kid asking his daddy to ride a mechanized camel in the middle of desert.
I thought it pretty funny, but there is such a contrast between this cartoon and what’s going on in Egypt right now with all the rioting/protesting against the government.
The juxtaposition between the two photos I thought was really interesting (if slightly blurry).
Egypt
What are your thoughts?
Today’s theme for “The Daily Shoot” was “make a photograph that features repetition.”
I’m the VP of the UMW Photo Club and as such, am a photography nut so I really got into the photoshoot.
I ended up taking over thirty photos, but settling on eight to publish. I would like to thank my roomie Elena who owns a Pisocero set, my roomie Natalie’s mom who gave me gingerbread marshmallows and my last roomie Karen who lent me her S’mores. Also thanks to Megan Mc in this class(super helplful!) and Jabamba who provides an endless amount of amusement for me. 🙂
Now I’m off to do homework I should have done earlier!
Bow to the S'Mores
Last week, Gardner Campbell talked about the importance of constructing a digital web identity, and this week we learned (or should have, if everyone read the three assigned articles) what it exactly Web 2.0 means.
Web 2.0 means awesomeness. It means the ability to communicate with large groups of people instantly. It means sharing knowledge with people freely and without discrimination. Going on the web now and using Google or another search engine site I can find million upon million web pages containing information on everything and anything I would wish to know.
Web 2.0 has completely changed the way the internet and the world works and now it’s impossible to think how we would exist without it.
I remember when I first discovered the amazing-ness of Youtube and Wikipedia back in high school. I spent hours and hours of my life looking at random videos or ay random articles for fun. Now when I want to watch a music video, where do I go? Youtube. Where do I go when I need to find information fast about a particular topic? Wikipedia.
Social Networking has also changed so much about our culture and personal relationships. Now I can stay in touch with my friends who live all around the world (i.e. Australia, Panama, Germany), with a few simple clicks of my mouse. I can even call people’s phones in the U.S. or Canada with my gmail account! How crazy is that?
Another great thing about Web 2.0 is the expansion of the ways we can tell stories. Something that is becoming increasingly popular is that of transmedia/ Alternate Reality Games (ARG) which allows players to immerse themselves into a game in which they can actively change the course of the game. We also can tell stories through our flickr accounts, facebook, blogs etc. The ways to tell stories are continuously expanding as developers dream up ways to share information in a fast, efficient and entertaining way.
End result: Web 2.0 is crazy cool! (I sound so academic here, right? ) However, as awesome as Google is, I am slightly terrified about Google taking over the world/internet D:
I have a three hour break from my last class until ds106 which one would think would leave plenty of time to read three articles for class tonight and then blog about them.
But today I was distracted. First it was a surprise skype chat from my friend in Australia (it’s Australia day: Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie, Oy, Oy, Oy!) who is rarely on the internet (she didn’t even have a computer when she met me, the horror!) and then the first article was EVEN MORE distracting!
“Web 2.0 Storytelling: Emergence of A New Genre” by Bryan Alexander and Alan Levine has a host of different and cool links that they talk about in their article. So what do I do? I click them of course and spend over an hour looking at all these things I have never seen before!
I’m obsessed with this site right now. Also this is funny and reminds me of “The Digital Story of Nativity”
So while I managed to finish the first article, the other two have fallen by the wayside for now. I will post later tonight my thoughts on all three. And now to class!
Today was a sad day.
I went to my car in the parking deck so I could go to my Zumba class I do at the YMCA, only to find to find my car was dead. D:
I had to call the UMW police to come and jump it and by the time they did that, it was fifteen minutes into my Zumba class and I needed to drive my car around for 20 minutes or more to make sure the battery would stay charged. Yep, definitely was not going to make it to Zumba. (I’m obsessed with Zumba and had missed my Saturday class so missing another one was extremely frustrating) >.<
To top it all off, my built in navigation system had locked itself and I needed to find the access code (that I had no idea where it could be) if I ever wanted to navigate/ listen to music ever again. So I spent twenty or so minutes driving around random places in Fredvegas wondering where I would find the access code, feeling envious of all the people who were Zumba-ing right now and also thinking about the mountains of homework I had left to do.
Eventually I managed to find the access code (after a million years of searching) and now my car is up and running like normal. I’m still a little bitter of how much of a pain in the ass it was (grrrrrr) but at least I know what to do if this ever happens again.
To end this post on a happy note though, I made toast people today! Toast people you might ask? My friend posted this on her Facebook and I’ve become obsessed with taking pictures of people and making them into toast.
Eddie Mabo Toast
Pretty cool, huh?
Check out more of my toast people on my flickr, or click here if you would like to make your own toast people!
Since I read Gardner Campbell’s essay and watched the youtube clip, I’ve been trying to decide how to best incorporate what I’ve learned. I know some people have written tradition blog posts, or poems, or songs, but I’ve decided to do something different.
I’ve created this Wordle with the words and phrases that stuck out in my mind the most from what I’ve heard from Campbell.
So I would like to thank my Engl314- Literary Magazine class and Dr. Whalen for helping prepare me for DS106!
For the entire last semester, I was working on a online literary magazine, Times Zones Lit Review, devoted to traveling and adventuring. As a result of this, I learned how to add many of the widgets that I needed to have on my blog here. I wasn’t the main person responsible for putting everything on the magazine website, (shoutout to Andrew who’s also in this class), but I learned through association. Not to name drop or anything, but Dr. Claudia Emerson and Jim Groom also helped out with this project, as did my other teammates (shoutout to Colleen who is in this class, surprise, surrprise!) and if you are interested at all in traveling, check it out and/or submit to the next volume!
What also has helped me in creating my blog is the few classes I have taken with Dr. Whalen which has taught me various internet skills and also lead to the creation of: Pluto Strikes Back (also made with several teammates including the same Colleen as above.)
The only app I had a problem with at first on this website was the one I am using for youtube, but that was solved once I actually read the directions [see I can be very smart (: ]
Also, thanks to the person (his/her name is escaping me now) who posted about how to get a gravatar!
Ever since I re-discovered the Harry Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise ” this past weekend I can’t stop thinking about it/ singing the song.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4
But, this is productive as I have an idea for creating a video starring my own puppets. I won’t say more now, but be on the lookout in the future for “Sarah’s Puppet Pals”
Muhahahaha.
A 30 second story (give or take)
It all started when I called my best friend Aitak to ask her what should be the name of my website.
Me: Aitak, I need a name for my website I’m creating for my computer class.
Aitak: Okay….
Me: I was thinking of doing something like my username for the class.: “Cali4beach” But no one is going to want to type “4” so it would be like “califorbeach” which might look a little weird.
Aitak: Yeah its sounds like you are a blonde who can’t spell “California” right.
Me: **laughs** Hey! I’m not THAT blonde!
Aitak: Yes, you are Sweetie. You are so blonde, accept it.
Me: **in my best valley girl accent** Yeah, I’m like so blonde. Like totally, for realz!
Aitak: **laughs** That should be your website name: I’m Like So Blonde.com. Hey, it even rhymes!
Thus, the name for my website was created. Best thirty* second conversation ever
(*the laughter probably caused it to last longer, but we’ll forget about that)