#nkueng394

[friendzonecaptain]

Final thoughts on my final project!

This blog is exciting in and of itself because I’m done with all the preparation for my presentation on Thursday and not only am I excited about being done with the class, I’m also actually excited to present my project. Because I personally think it sounds like a totally awesome rendition of Writing for the Digital Age!!

So I created a syllabus for my project, and I still stuck with my original idea of “Movies of the Digital Age.” I created a course schedule for it, with a movie to watch and discuss every other week, and the other weeks to be filled with specific discussions. I still implemented blog postings into my syllabus, but I changed up the requirements a little bit. I also came up with a final project for my made up class (as a final project for my real life class, of course) that I’m pretty excited about explaining. Overall, I feel like this class I created is one I would be pretty excited about taking.

No more spoilers! I’ll see y’all Thursday when I will blow you away with my presentations.

[neversettle101]

Digital Skills- blog I forgot about

Digital Skills that have helped me out:

1. Premiere Video Editing - Learning this program has helped me a great deal within my EMB major and just being able to have a skill that allows for me to edit basic and complex videos together.

2. Web Coding- Not the Myspace kind where you edited your profile using the codes you learned but actually knowing basic HTML and codes to create a functioning website.

3. Branding Myself- I mean making sure that when I search myself companies don’t find anything I posted drunk, slanderous, ECT.  Making sure that if an employer is able to find me they won’t find anything I wouldn't want my mom to see.

4. online portfolio’s- I make a lot of media and content and instead of printing them off and having a physical portfolio you can now upload your content to the web and create different folders and pages for the content you are creating.

5. Creating Content- being able to create different graphics, writings, using platforms and using your voice along all media platforms.

These are my top 5 digital skills that I have that have helped me become more successful in my work and studies. 

[friendzonecaptain]

Natalie’s “Writing for the Digital Age”

I loved Natalie’s idea for the “re-imagining” of the class. I never thought of the class having its own website, but it makes so much sense to do it that way. The class is all about the digital age, so we should base everything on some type of technology, right?

I thought the website looked great, and the slight changes she made to the course sounded really great to me. Blogging three times a week has been a serious struggle for me, so cutting it down to twice a week sounded great to me. The only thing I would have changed that she didn’t is the word count. To be honest, I don’t feel like our blogs should have to reach a certain word count. Sometimes, it takes 500 words and sometimes it only takes 50 to get a point across. I know not having a word minimum would cause a lot of students to take advantage and only write a few words, but I believe the blogs should be graded on quality, not quantity. 

I think a website would have been an awesome addition to this (already pretty awesome) class. We could’ve had all our blogs linked into it, with a place for discussion or a place to post things we found cool (like the stuff we used for our individual presentations). It would feel like we are really implementing our discourse on the digital age. The only issue I could think of is having to actually create the website... that would probably be a hassle.

All in all, I really liked what Natalie had to say and how she would change the class. I would definitely take a class created by her, that’s for sure.

[friendzonecaptain]

Dear Freshman...

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably extremely overwhelmed. Coming to college is scary and amazing and partially sickening and awesome. It’s a lot of emotions all at once, but trust, me, 99% of the other freshman are feeling the exact same way, so you aren’t alone. 

So, if for some reason, you are wondering, “what should I learn about writing while I’m at NKU?” then boy, do I have some news for you.

Everything!

I don’t mean everything as in everything you could ever possibly learn about writing, like every inkling of knowledge about writing in the entire universe. That would be difficult to attain, and let’s be honest, ain’t nobody got time for that. 

What you should learn about writing at NKU is everything that you want to and are willing to learn. Some English professors here have a passion for writing that they want to share with their students and I want you to experience that passion. Learn about what style of writing you love, what styles you hate, what gives you the best story ideas, where you like to write most, everything. Writing is something you can never fully know everything about, and there is always something more to learn - especially when you’re learning about yourself as a writer. You will never stop learning, never stop growing as a writer once you start on the journey. 

Perhaps the most important thing to learn and realize and truly understand is that you are a writer. No matter what type of writing you do, how many people tell you you’re good or bad, or how confident you are in your writing, you are a writer. (This most important lesson is one I’m still working on myself, so don’t stress out about getting it right your first try.) 

So write. Write when you want to and write about what you want to. Write even when you don’t feel like writing and try writing about things you have never tried writing about, because sometimes those turn out to be the pieces you’re most proud of. The most important thing you could possibly do as a writer is write, and the best way to learn about yourself and your writing, is to just write.

[friendzonecaptain]

Black Box

For reference: for anyone who wants to read the story I’m ranting about (AND PLEASE DO BECAUSE IT’S FANTASTIC!!!!!) here is a pretty little link to it. 

I just want to start this by saying I was extremely skeptical about a short story being written entirely through tweets. I don’t know why the fact that it was tweeted instead of typed/edited/published in a physical print book made me dubious towards the quality of it, but it did. Such is the life of living with a constant stream of technology but also having unconscious prejudices towards that technology. 

Anyway, I WAS SO INCREDIBLY WRONG. This story was fantastic (and I actually immediately ordered A Visit from the Goon Squad by the same author when I was finished reading because the short story captured me so well). This story is not only well-written, but it being published through tweets gives it so much more depth and suspense than if it were just in a book. I can’t imagine watching Egan’s twitter, day by day, waiting for the 60 tweets to update the story, because it was hard enough reading it fast enough when it was all right in front of me. (It’s this problem I have with instant gratification. For instance, I will very rarely watch a show until I have at least a few seasons at my fingertips, because I know that once I start watching I will not want to wait for another episode). 

This story felt different but also the same as reading a “traditional” book. It’s difficult to explain, but it was almost as if the way it was written (through tweets) gave it more mystery than if it were written with the same words, but in regular paragraphs. The tweet method made me feel like even though I was getting all this information about the main character and what she was doing, I never truly understood completely what was happening or what was going to happen (which is a great aspect for a spy story to possess!). I’m usually pretty good as guessing the endings of stories, movies, shows, etc. but this story had me constantly guessing as to what was going to happen. One minute, I would be sure I knew where it was heading, then something would happen and I would change my mind completely. I love being surprised with stories. 

I feel like this changes the dynamic of Twitter in my mind completely. Sure, sometimes people post multiply tweets in a row that are meant to be read in that particular order, like when they’re ranting or something. But this was different - this was telling a story, a beautiful story, but also the fact that it was written in tweets means someone could have come in the middle of the story, or almost to the very end, and start the story there because those were the first tweets they saw. It’s interesting because I went back to look and it seems like you could start this story from multiple places and it still make sense, and it even may change the story slightly for the reader. 

Basically, long story short, Jennifer Egan is fantastic and everyone should go read this story right this second right now at this exact moment. 10/10 stars would read again

[friendzonecaptain]

The Cloud

Oh, the infamous cloud. The thing that has scared people into not taking naked selfies ever since the first celebrity nude got leaked. The mysterious, all-knowing technological cloud hanging above our heads at every moment... it’s beautiful, really.

You know how you always hear “whatever you put on the Internet stays there forever?” Well, that’s because everything that is ever posted/sent over using data or an Internet connection immediately becomes part of the cloud. The cloud is a little hard to explain, but Hua Hsu says that it’s where our data is stored, “somewhere in the ether, floating, drifting and wireless, available wherever and whenever we need it.” It has no beginning and no end, it can’t physically be seen or touched, and there isn’t much we can do to remove something once it enters the cloud. Kind of scary, huh? All those embarrassing things on Myspace (like that weird gif I made when I was ~12, of me in weird pigtails and weird makeup that looked like I was punching the camera. What the hell was up with that?), all the statuses you made on Facebook before you became fully literate, every single picture you’ve ever taken (whether or not you sent them anywhere or not)... it’s all out there. Even if you sought out these entries and deleted them yourself, the cloud would still have copies of them out there somewhere, just waiting for your future soulmate or employer to see and decide you’re too weird to love/hire. 

I’m terrified of the cloud, even though it’s a really interesting and, probably in some ways, helpful technological tool. But sometimes, when you delete something, you want it deleted FOR GOOD and this weird cloud thing makes it super difficult. Technology gives me conflicted feelings.

P.S. LEAKING PEOPLE’S NUDES IS SO RUDE AND INAPPROPRIATE AND YOU SHOULD NEVER PUBLISH PRIVATE PICTURES THAT WERE NEVER MEANT FOR THE PUBLIC TO SEE. DON’T BE A DICK ABOUT PEOPLE’S PRIVACY!!!!!

this has been a PSA

[friendzonecaptain]

Everyone’s an Author... except me, right?

Baron claims, through a chapter title in A Better Pencil, that everyone is an author. And this chapter title doesn’t have an asterisk beside it, it doesn’t have an exclusions or fine print - Baron literally means everyone. This is kind of a hard concept to wrap my head around since obviously (to me), not everyone is an author. JK Rowling, Cormac McCarthy, Scott Westerfield - they are authors. I’m not an author, am I? What exactly defines being an author? If it’s just anyone that writes, then sure, I’m an author. Do you have to write a certain amount? Do you have to fill a quota of works before you’re a real author? Baron says no. Especially in this age of more and more digital writing, everyone has the ability and access to be an author. Hell, just writing this blog entry makes me an author! I’m creating my own content and putting it out for the world to see - what’s the difference between that and publishing a book (besides the fact that this blog entry won’t be able to help me pay my bills)?

Something else Baron mentions is how in educational systems, reading is oftentimes much more focused on than writing. This used to be somewhat practical, as it was obvious that there was a lot more media to be consumed/read than there was people creating the media. But now, with almost everyone having access to the Internet, there are endless places to put your own work out there. I remember when I first realized that writing isn’t just something I’m forced to do at school - when I realized it’s something I actually enjoy doing and want to do. Living in the digital age has been a huge help with the development of my writing and I’m so happy to have a place I can confidently submit my own work... no matter how bad I think it is.

[friendzonecaptain]

Being scared and confused and unsure but also confident in one aspect of my future

Reading over Tayler’s blog made me even more freaked out about my future (thanks a lot!!). She wrote about constantly hearing that her degree is useless and as an English major, I can definitely agree on that sentiment. It’s annoying as hell to have someone constantly belittle your choice of study and it doesn’t make making a decision about my future any easier. I used to be in a field of study that would have been easier in which to find a job/would have provided a more reliable source for making money, but I always knew it wasn’t something I would enjoy doing for the rest of my life, and that was a very sobering thought. Would I be okay doing something I would potentially hate just for a decent paycheck? I decided that no, I don’t think I would be okay with that. Sure, I would have money, but if I hated what I did ~40 hours a week, I don’t think it would be even remotely worth it. 

So I decided to switch my major to the only subject of school I’ve ever enjoyed - English. I liked it, I was good at it, and I could see myself doing something in the field for the rest of my life and not hating myself for it. And it didn’t even really matter what it was - everything sounded like something I would like. Publishing, editing, writing, studying literature, even going to law school like many English majors do. All of them sounded like something I could do and be happy with myself, regardless of how much money I was making (although, making money would be... nice). 

All in all, I’m happy with the major I’ve chosen, regardless of how many people tell me daily that I’m never going to find a job. Screw you guys, I can do anything I want.