Just visited Ivanhoe, MN to do some research for my Foundations project.
The plan right now is to created a new media project that shows the connections that can be found between Ivanhoe, MN and Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. Thanks to the help of Sue Vizecky, one of the Ivanhoe Public Library librarians, I have many leads and avenues that I can use to create this project. But with it being due in a little over a week, I know I have my work cut out for me.
Wish me luck! There will be more to come as the project comes into being! :)
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Lit Genius.... Woah!!!
In my Short Stories class a few weeks ago, we were discussing a few short stories and my professor introduced us to this really cool website called LitGenius. Originally, the site was created to share song lyrics written by well anyone, but it has become a place where people create annotation about stories that they know and love.
How it works:
You create a profile, and you search for your favorite story or for a story where you discovered something really cool within the text of that story. If you find it you go to a section where you discovered that really cool think and you comment on it. In the comment you can add pictures and links to help explain your point. This comment is then considered an annotation.
You can also vote annotations up or down depending on if you thought the comment was helpful. You comment on the annotation to tell why you agree or disagree with it, or you can suggest to the author to edit the original annotation so that it explains what they were trying to say more efficiently.
If you can't find the story you searched for it's really easy to add it so you can share your discovery with others and so others can share discoveries they've made while reading the piece.
Why this is so cool!:
This site is really neat because it allows people of all walks of life to share and discuss their favorite stories. It creates the opportunity for people to look more critically at a piece and to share their discoveries.
This new media site also allows easy access for people to discover new stories that have been written and they can see what other people have said about the story while they experience the story themselves. I think this is important, especially for stories that can be hard to understand, because it allows us to give specific details about what the author meant and how the words can have different meanings today that can help create different readings of the story.
Some Examples:
Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
This is honestly my favorite Shakespeare sonnet, and to find an annotated version is interesting because it allows me the opportunity to see what others have said about it.
Joseph Conrad's "Youth"
This was the first piece that we, as a class, worked on together. We each had to create an annotation within the piece.
Carolyn Kizer's "Bitch"
I studied this piece in my Intro to Literature class and found there were two meanings to the word "mistress" and knowing there were two definitions to the term "bitch", made this a really interesting piece in my eyes and I wanted to see what others have said about it!
How it works:
You create a profile, and you search for your favorite story or for a story where you discovered something really cool within the text of that story. If you find it you go to a section where you discovered that really cool think and you comment on it. In the comment you can add pictures and links to help explain your point. This comment is then considered an annotation.
You can also vote annotations up or down depending on if you thought the comment was helpful. You comment on the annotation to tell why you agree or disagree with it, or you can suggest to the author to edit the original annotation so that it explains what they were trying to say more efficiently.
If you can't find the story you searched for it's really easy to add it so you can share your discovery with others and so others can share discoveries they've made while reading the piece.
Why this is so cool!:
This site is really neat because it allows people of all walks of life to share and discuss their favorite stories. It creates the opportunity for people to look more critically at a piece and to share their discoveries.
This new media site also allows easy access for people to discover new stories that have been written and they can see what other people have said about the story while they experience the story themselves. I think this is important, especially for stories that can be hard to understand, because it allows us to give specific details about what the author meant and how the words can have different meanings today that can help create different readings of the story.
Some Examples:
Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
This is honestly my favorite Shakespeare sonnet, and to find an annotated version is interesting because it allows me the opportunity to see what others have said about it.
Joseph Conrad's "Youth"
This was the first piece that we, as a class, worked on together. We each had to create an annotation within the piece.
Carolyn Kizer's "Bitch"
I studied this piece in my Intro to Literature class and found there were two meanings to the word "mistress" and knowing there were two definitions to the term "bitch", made this a really interesting piece in my eyes and I wanted to see what others have said about it!
The Nightingale and The Rose
For my short stories genre class, I created a presentation about Oscar Wilde's short story, "The Nightingale and The Rose". The presentation was to show different adaptations that have been created of the work. The presentation has information about Wilde and his life, a summary of the story and some of the themes within the story. It discusses some of the styles used by Wilde and then it goes into the adaptations. These include a ballet and opera and also different videos that I have linked within the presentation.
The Nightingale and The Rose from brittanyvlaminck
The first page covers information about his life and family and what he wrote. Both of his parents were writer, which ultimately sparked Oscar's interest. He married a woman named Constance Lloyd and had two sons. He later began an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas and was arrested for the affair shortly after. He died due to a severe ear infection that turned into meningitis.
He created many works including a book of poems called Poems. Two short story compilations, of which The Nightingale and the Rose can be found within Happy Prince and Other Tales. He wrote one novel that had been first published as a short story but was edited and republished when his critics asked for a longer story. He also created many well known plays.
SPOILER ALERT! The story is about a young student who is in love with the daughter of his professor. She says she will dance with him at the ball the following night if he can bring her a red rose. The student does not have a red rose in his garden and the nightingale hears his cry. She searched the garden and talks to the different rose bushes until she comes to a red rose bush that says he can produce a red rose only if she is willing to sing to him all through the night while pressing her heart into a thorn in the bush. SPOILER ALERT!! The nightingale agrees to do this in the name of true love. In the morning, the student walks over the nightingale's dead body and pick the red rose. When he presents it to the young girl, she refuses because the chamberlain's nephew has given her jewels. The student throws the rose into a gutter and it is run over by a cart while the student goes back to his home to study. SPOILER... well, too late if you already read through this.
Wilde's style has a lot of recurring devices and themes. Some of these are pointed out in this show with excerpts of where they can be found in the piece.
ADAPTATIONS!!!
Some adaptations that were created include the ballet and the opera. The ballet slide has a link to a video from the backstage of the production. The ballerinas and the creator talk about the adaptation because there it was difficult to create the production. Since ballets use only music and dance to convey a story, and Wilde's story use lots of dialogue, it was important for the audience to read the leaflets before the ballet began to understand the story fully. The opera was a compilation of Wilde's story and four poems from Christina Rossetti.
Other adaptations have been created that can be found on YouTube. The slideshow links to a couple of these videos.
The first page covers information about his life and family and what he wrote. Both of his parents were writer, which ultimately sparked Oscar's interest. He married a woman named Constance Lloyd and had two sons. He later began an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas and was arrested for the affair shortly after. He died due to a severe ear infection that turned into meningitis.
He created many works including a book of poems called Poems. Two short story compilations, of which The Nightingale and the Rose can be found within Happy Prince and Other Tales. He wrote one novel that had been first published as a short story but was edited and republished when his critics asked for a longer story. He also created many well known plays.
SPOILER ALERT! The story is about a young student who is in love with the daughter of his professor. She says she will dance with him at the ball the following night if he can bring her a red rose. The student does not have a red rose in his garden and the nightingale hears his cry. She searched the garden and talks to the different rose bushes until she comes to a red rose bush that says he can produce a red rose only if she is willing to sing to him all through the night while pressing her heart into a thorn in the bush. SPOILER ALERT!! The nightingale agrees to do this in the name of true love. In the morning, the student walks over the nightingale's dead body and pick the red rose. When he presents it to the young girl, she refuses because the chamberlain's nephew has given her jewels. The student throws the rose into a gutter and it is run over by a cart while the student goes back to his home to study. SPOILER... well, too late if you already read through this.
Wilde's style has a lot of recurring devices and themes. Some of these are pointed out in this show with excerpts of where they can be found in the piece.
ADAPTATIONS!!!
Some adaptations that were created include the ballet and the opera. The ballet slide has a link to a video from the backstage of the production. The ballerinas and the creator talk about the adaptation because there it was difficult to create the production. Since ballets use only music and dance to convey a story, and Wilde's story use lots of dialogue, it was important for the audience to read the leaflets before the ballet began to understand the story fully. The opera was a compilation of Wilde's story and four poems from Christina Rossetti.
Other adaptations have been created that can be found on YouTube. The slideshow links to a couple of these videos.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Generation Y - Traits
For another class, me and a group of my peers are looking to create a project for our Contemporary Rhetoric class. We were discussing our audience, and since the prompt suggested targeting our generation, I started looking into Generation Y.
This generation normally consists of individuals that were born between the 1980s and the 2000s. It is also called the Millennium Generation, the Echo Boomers, and IGen, or Internet Generation.
An article found on About Careers.com called Generation Y by Sarah Kane says that the most common traits of the individuals from generation Y is that they are tech-savvy, family-centric, team oriented, achievement oriented, and attention-craving.
Agree: I was intrigued. It is well known that our generation has grown up using a wide variety of different mediums, making the tech-savvy observation likely to be correct. And thinking about how this group project has already been going, I can see that every one in my group (all of which are members of the Y Generation) is also very team and achievement-oriented because they are working together to create a proposal and to create a full proof plan on how to attack this project. We have also already planned future meetings to keep updated with each others work so that this is a group effort rather than individual work. This idea of attention-craving suggested more that we like praise and feedback on our work. We want to offer the best work we possibly can because that is what our generation has always been told to do. "Do your best." And because we have this desire, we look for someone to tell us whether they think we did well or if we could have done better.
To Disagree: The only trait in this list that I feel any disagreement with is this idea that our generation is family-centric. I'm not saying that we aren't just that I believe there is a better way to describe this trait. Personally, I am very family oriented, but the reason I like a flexible schedule (as the article suggests) is because there are many things I want to do with my life outside of work. I believe it's important to have a job to provide for our families and our lifestyles, but I have things I want to learn and to be a part of outside of my job. As I'm looking into a career of editing, I'm thinking to myself about my desire to travel to all fifty states, and to become a sommelier, and to own a stylish wardrobe made of dresses and giant sweaters and far too many pairs of leggings. I want to read the Classics of different time periods and locations, and to compare them to the novels that are now being created today. These are all activities that I need free time to be able to do.
I feel that our generation focuses so much on Internet and other mediums because they offer us the ability to communicate, write, read, work - all while on the go. We can share information easily through these new medias and we have the ability to learn new things with just a few clicks of the buttons on keyboards and touch screens. This ability is what we crave because it offers us the option of having free time to see the things we want to see and do the things we want to do while keeping a job and earning that living that is so important in our survival.
Back to the Top: So back to the different traits that describe this generation - I feel that the phrase "family-centric" is the wrong word choice. I feel that the trait they are trying to describe here is "Self Indulging". We believe in an understanding of balance of life between work and fun. We allow ourselves to enjoy life whether that means focusing more time on our families or focusing on goals outside of our work and home lives, we let ourselves indulge on the pleasures that life has to offer.
This discussion shows the connection between English and New Media because it is an article that a writer created that was offered to the public in this medium to reach a large mass of people. Anyone who wanted to know about Generation Y had the ability to find this knowledge by just a few clicks of the keyboard or screen. New media has allowed us to find information faster than before. It also allows us to share our thoughts of the things we read and experience the way this blog is allowing me to share my thoughts after reading Ms. Kane's article.
This generation normally consists of individuals that were born between the 1980s and the 2000s. It is also called the Millennium Generation, the Echo Boomers, and IGen, or Internet Generation.
An article found on About Careers.com called Generation Y by Sarah Kane says that the most common traits of the individuals from generation Y is that they are tech-savvy, family-centric, team oriented, achievement oriented, and attention-craving.
Agree: I was intrigued. It is well known that our generation has grown up using a wide variety of different mediums, making the tech-savvy observation likely to be correct. And thinking about how this group project has already been going, I can see that every one in my group (all of which are members of the Y Generation) is also very team and achievement-oriented because they are working together to create a proposal and to create a full proof plan on how to attack this project. We have also already planned future meetings to keep updated with each others work so that this is a group effort rather than individual work. This idea of attention-craving suggested more that we like praise and feedback on our work. We want to offer the best work we possibly can because that is what our generation has always been told to do. "Do your best." And because we have this desire, we look for someone to tell us whether they think we did well or if we could have done better.
To Disagree: The only trait in this list that I feel any disagreement with is this idea that our generation is family-centric. I'm not saying that we aren't just that I believe there is a better way to describe this trait. Personally, I am very family oriented, but the reason I like a flexible schedule (as the article suggests) is because there are many things I want to do with my life outside of work. I believe it's important to have a job to provide for our families and our lifestyles, but I have things I want to learn and to be a part of outside of my job. As I'm looking into a career of editing, I'm thinking to myself about my desire to travel to all fifty states, and to become a sommelier, and to own a stylish wardrobe made of dresses and giant sweaters and far too many pairs of leggings. I want to read the Classics of different time periods and locations, and to compare them to the novels that are now being created today. These are all activities that I need free time to be able to do.
I feel that our generation focuses so much on Internet and other mediums because they offer us the ability to communicate, write, read, work - all while on the go. We can share information easily through these new medias and we have the ability to learn new things with just a few clicks of the buttons on keyboards and touch screens. This ability is what we crave because it offers us the option of having free time to see the things we want to see and do the things we want to do while keeping a job and earning that living that is so important in our survival.
Back to the Top: So back to the different traits that describe this generation - I feel that the phrase "family-centric" is the wrong word choice. I feel that the trait they are trying to describe here is "Self Indulging". We believe in an understanding of balance of life between work and fun. We allow ourselves to enjoy life whether that means focusing more time on our families or focusing on goals outside of our work and home lives, we let ourselves indulge on the pleasures that life has to offer.
This discussion shows the connection between English and New Media because it is an article that a writer created that was offered to the public in this medium to reach a large mass of people. Anyone who wanted to know about Generation Y had the ability to find this knowledge by just a few clicks of the keyboard or screen. New media has allowed us to find information faster than before. It also allows us to share our thoughts of the things we read and experience the way this blog is allowing me to share my thoughts after reading Ms. Kane's article.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Sharing Stories Internationally through New Media
I have always had a fascination with Japanese manga, from when I was really in my younger teens I was always checking out manga books from the library or searching YouTube to watch different anime cartoons and to see the animation that they use compared to how we create it here in America.
My favorite manga is one called Pichi Pichi Pitch: Mermaid Melody created by Michiko Yokote. It is about the seven mermaid princesses that were the guardians of the seven seas. It focused on one princess in particular, Luchia, because she was coming into adulthood and had fallen in love with a human boy, Kiato. It was forbidden, but the princess continued to kind of "woo" Kaito.
Unfortunately, her true form and the monsters that were trying to capture the princesses created complications for the couple. I have not finished the series, so don't spoil it for me.
How I stumbled on the story is kind of interesting. I had been watching music videos on YouTube that showed animation clips from different cartoons. One of the clips showed a mermaid and a young man together. It caught my attention so I looked into the list of cartoons the creator had used and found Mermaid Melody listed among them. I investigated into the cartoon and found episodes of the anime on YouTube.
During my youth I was only able to find episodes that were in Japanese with English subtitles. I was also able to find similar versions with French or Spanish subtitles, instead.
But recently, I was able to find versions that have voice overs in English, French, Spanish and even Greek, which you can see below, respectively.
I knew the anime was based off of the manga, but I hadn't really looked for it. One Christmas morning, sitting in my stocking, I found an English copy of the first volume of Pichi Pichi Pitch: Mermaid Melody! I was so excited! I have plans to buy the other six in the series and to finish watching the anime on YouTube when I can find all of the episodes.
I found it really interesting how over the course of ten years the manga was created and published in its original form, was translated and published in other languages, and then became an anime that has been recreated by YouTube-ers to have not only subbed versions, but dubbed versions, as well. It is so neat how new medias have allowed the public to not only share stories internationally but how they can be recreated, or changed so that a new audience can understand them in their own languages.
Changes like these also show us back to that idea that "Medium is the Message", because of the different formats this story was created in.
In its original form, its message was meant to reach Japanese individuals for entertainment purposes, then when the English versions came out, it was given the chance to reach a wider audience. It's possible there are other languages the manga came out in, I am just unaware of them at this time.
When the anime version came, it was meant for the content of the story to be shared in an easier format because people no longer needed to read a whole book, but they could watch half hour episodes that breaks the story down.This version was meant to stay specifically in Japanese. The creators did not have plans to create it in English or any other language. But YouTube-ers had different plans. Because these people created versions of subbed and dubbed episodes, the message had now been changed again to allow a wider audience to enjoy the story in the new format.
My favorite manga is one called Pichi Pichi Pitch: Mermaid Melody created by Michiko Yokote. It is about the seven mermaid princesses that were the guardians of the seven seas. It focused on one princess in particular, Luchia, because she was coming into adulthood and had fallen in love with a human boy, Kiato. It was forbidden, but the princess continued to kind of "woo" Kaito.
 |
| Kaito and Luchia |
 |
| Luchia's Different Forms (Human, Mermaid, Warrior) |
 |
| Various Mermaid Melody Villains |
During my youth I was only able to find episodes that were in Japanese with English subtitles. I was also able to find similar versions with French or Spanish subtitles, instead.
But recently, I was able to find versions that have voice overs in English, French, Spanish and even Greek, which you can see below, respectively.
I knew the anime was based off of the manga, but I hadn't really looked for it. One Christmas morning, sitting in my stocking, I found an English copy of the first volume of Pichi Pichi Pitch: Mermaid Melody! I was so excited! I have plans to buy the other six in the series and to finish watching the anime on YouTube when I can find all of the episodes.
 |
| My copy of Mermaid Melody |
Changes like these also show us back to that idea that "Medium is the Message", because of the different formats this story was created in.
In its original form, its message was meant to reach Japanese individuals for entertainment purposes, then when the English versions came out, it was given the chance to reach a wider audience. It's possible there are other languages the manga came out in, I am just unaware of them at this time.
When the anime version came, it was meant for the content of the story to be shared in an easier format because people no longer needed to read a whole book, but they could watch half hour episodes that breaks the story down.This version was meant to stay specifically in Japanese. The creators did not have plans to create it in English or any other language. But YouTube-ers had different plans. Because these people created versions of subbed and dubbed episodes, the message had now been changed again to allow a wider audience to enjoy the story in the new format.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Blog Stats
 |
| Chitter Chatter Stats as of February 27, 2015 |
In class today, we were asked to look at our stats page on our blogs. I looked at it from when I first started it to it's current status. I find it really interesting, but there's nothing too exciting to note.
I feel like my page views are really high, but I've noticed that even my own visits are counted in that number, so a lot of those views are my own. I check the blog to make sure the links work right and that everything aligns right and such.
 |
| February 2015 page views. |
This picture shows my page views specifically for the month of February of this year. This is very different from the all time page view status because it shows that there was a bit of activity in February, but the picture looks like there wasn't much activity. As you can see here the most used day was sometime around the 19th and at that time I had 15 views. Whether these are all my views or from others, I'm not quite sure. But it's really neat to see.
Back to the first screenshot of all of my stats, it's cool to notice how many people have viewed the individual posts, while I know that at least one of those is from me, it's neat to know that four others have looked at my post on 2nd Street Diner. I hope that my post about Wine-ing in SD gets more attention because it has a link to my pinterest page that offers information and links of the different wineries around South Dakota! I think this is such a neat subject because while wine is a world-wide product, SD wines are made to show the best of South Dakota! They use fruits and grapes that grow naturally in the state. I feel like this is a subject of interest and that people may like that post if they were to see it.
The audience was interesting because it's just in the US. But a blog allows access for other countries around the world. My current audience, I assume, is mostly just my classmates but searching the internet allows opportunity to find my blog and posts.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Unfriended
I was at the theater this weekend to see Kingsman. (Btw great movie!!!) During the commercials, there was a new horror movie being advertised. I was very intrigued by it because it put a twist on the usual horror film.
The film is based on a group of students having a conversation on Skype about a friend that had passed away. A video had been posted on YouTube about this friend and the results from the cyber-bullying that occurred affected the girl enough for her to commit suicide shortly afterwards.
As the group talks they notice an extra viewer, or Skype-er as we'll call that person, within the conversation and they start to question who it is and why that person is part of the conversation. The extra Skype-er starts to harass the students to find out who had posted the video. As the movie goes on some of the students die by the hand of this extra Skype-er.
This is the official trailer for the movie. It was posted on YouTube on January 13th, 2015 and as of today (February 18th, 2015) has received over 5 million views. The movie is said to arrive in theaters on April 17th, 2015.
In case there are people reading this that don't understand what Skype is, it is a program that allows people to message, call, and video chat with people. It is a free program that connects people all over the world and allows them the benefit of seeing each other physically even though they cannot touch each other.
With the opportunities that new medias allow for us, the general public, it brings to light that our safety and privacy are now, more than ever, harder to protect because it is so easy to find almost anything online. Even if you're not the one posting them.
The video of the girl, Laura Barns, left an everlasting impression of her to the rest of the world that she was never going to be able to escape. This video was not approved by her, posted by her or even taken by her. She had no ability to control whether this was put out into the World Wide Web, nor did she have the ability to take it down and destroy it. In the end, as cliche as it sounds, this video destroyed her and all of the friends that were involved in the making and posting of it.
The film is based on a group of students having a conversation on Skype about a friend that had passed away. A video had been posted on YouTube about this friend and the results from the cyber-bullying that occurred affected the girl enough for her to commit suicide shortly afterwards.
As the group talks they notice an extra viewer, or Skype-er as we'll call that person, within the conversation and they start to question who it is and why that person is part of the conversation. The extra Skype-er starts to harass the students to find out who had posted the video. As the movie goes on some of the students die by the hand of this extra Skype-er.
This is the official trailer for the movie. It was posted on YouTube on January 13th, 2015 and as of today (February 18th, 2015) has received over 5 million views. The movie is said to arrive in theaters on April 17th, 2015.
In case there are people reading this that don't understand what Skype is, it is a program that allows people to message, call, and video chat with people. It is a free program that connects people all over the world and allows them the benefit of seeing each other physically even though they cannot touch each other.
 |
| Click on picture to view it's web page. |
With the opportunities that new medias allow for us, the general public, it brings to light that our safety and privacy are now, more than ever, harder to protect because it is so easy to find almost anything online. Even if you're not the one posting them.
The video of the girl, Laura Barns, left an everlasting impression of her to the rest of the world that she was never going to be able to escape. This video was not approved by her, posted by her or even taken by her. She had no ability to control whether this was put out into the World Wide Web, nor did she have the ability to take it down and destroy it. In the end, as cliche as it sounds, this video destroyed her and all of the friends that were involved in the making and posting of it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)