blogs

1. Playlist: Michael Jackson "Life Under the Microscope"
Revised Submission: Life Under The Microscope

I very much enjoyed the way that Dan present the playlist assignment to us in general. I thought it was quite clever and rather unique of him to present us with the task of filling out a profile of of our own, deciding what changes we would make to the profile to find out more about an individual and then determining how much one's favorite music could be almost a soundtrack to their life and tell a great deal about them. Initiially it seemed as if Dan was beating about for something looking for the right answer I couldn't figure out what he was waiting to hear but now in reflection I can truly appreciate how smoothly and cleverly the assignment was presented.

This is my make up assignment. i left it as an attachment

I chose AIDS as my topic for a video collage because it is something I have always been involved with. It is a terrible epidemic, and the more I learn about it, the more I learn about how many people don't know enough about it. I am hoping my video will teach people a little bit about HIV/AIDS. My video focuses on sub-saharan Africa because that is where it is worst. The music in the backround is sung by AIDS orphans.

VIDEO COLLAGE

Fittingly, my final blog is what I'd like to call "An ode to Dan." I know I've been preaching it all session, but to an idle minds or anybody casually browsing through this site, it must be known that Dan is by far one of the better teachers here at the University. No i'm not just saying this because we don't do the traditional paper writing every week but because Dan still manages to give us heavy assignments, make them fun, and make them learning experiences all at the same time. Everybody in the class will tell you that there was at least one project that they completely despised or couldn't stand, yet nobody in the class can honestly say that there is one project that they didn't learn something new from! As a result of being in this class I've strengthened by computer and composition skills simultaneously! I've learned to express myself through pictures, movie, spoken word, and even on paper.

The other day while working on random school projects I watched the movie waiting. For those of you who have never seen it, the movie stars Ryan Reynolds( National Lampoon Van Wilder, Just Friends) as a waiter at a restaurant called Shenanigan'Z. The premise of the movie is people come into the restaurant and are very rude to the waiters. So in response the waiter, chefs, and bus boys mess with their food. Things are dropped on the floor, sneezed in, spit on, and stuffed down pants. When I saw this i thought it was disgusting and could never happen in real life. After the movie though I commentary from the real waiters the movie was based upon. They said every disgusting act in the movie they have seen for themselves in real life. I myself work in the food industry, but because all customers can see their icecream as it is made we have to be very careful not to contaminate it. Though I have been tempted to mess with some people's food.

Here it is!

I must admit that by far this video collage was the most tedious project of them all! However, for all of the seemingly odd reasons. #1 I don't know why but it took me longest time to find a topic, I think I spent the first couple of days simple browsng the net trying to find a good topic. #2 From there after finding a topic I encountered issues attempting to put myself in the working mood and get started. #3 Google image search chose this project of all projects to let me down, even my generic and broad searches returned few and scarce results. (I later realized that they kept automatically turning on the automatic filter...

link to my video

Linked below is my movie on Materialism in the United States. My intent on this movie was to attack it from almost an economic and yet social sciences perspective at the same time. I attempted to get into the minds of consumers who may be called or labeled materialistic. I included astonishing fact as to the nature of the debt in the United States and yet at the same time I attempted not to get too fact heavy. I decided to use fade out transitions all the way through simply because this appeared the most proffessional to me instead of things flying in and out of the screen. I am by no means attempting to pass judgement because I may be one of the more materialistic people in the classroom my self. Just an attempt to forewarn college students of the hard and grueling debt wars that may lie ahead!

This summer has definitely been the most stressful one I have ever had. Constant school work, and hardly any break between summer session 1 and this past spring semester (which was an extremely difficult semester for me). I have my AFAM 40 final this thursday, and I'll finally be done with school for just short of a month. Unfortunately that thursday, I must begin packing and moving out of the house I am in now; it's going to be rough, because our house is a mess, and it must be spotless before we have to move out (which is Aug. 1). Plus we have so many keg shells just laying around, so we nee