Blog #9

Old Joe was going through the forest on an old game trail, he moved through the brush cautiously and slowly to not make more noise than needed. The soft rustle of his steps seemed to reverberate off the trees around him. Then off in the distance he hears something and stops to look around, at that moment he hears a gun shot and the proceeding bullet wiz by and impact into the tree next to him. Joe quickly hits the ground not knowing what the recent events meant other than he was shot at by another hunter. He hears the soft click of the metal as the other hunter reloads their weapon. Joe goes to call out to the other hunter and say friend I am not your prey, and as he screams out there was another -- deafening gunshot. This time the shot was right above his abdomen, and impacts the tree beside him. Now Joe knows that he wasn't being mistaken for a game animal but rather, he was being hunted by another hunter. Again Joe call’s out still hoping that the other hunter is mistaken. His yell was heard this time by the other hunter and in response he hears a cackle of laughter coming from the eerie darkness. Joe now realizes that this is no ordinary hunting accident waiting to happen but rather a man hunt and he was the hunted. Yet, another gunshot is heard and scrapes Joe’s leg this time, in pain he screams out letting his pursuer know that they have finally found the sweet spot of where Joe was hiding in the brush; the metallic clink is again heard, and Joe knows now that he has been found and needs to move, so Joe rolls sideways just as another shot is heard and impacts the ground right where he was previously. The chance was now. He slowly crawls along the brush careful not to break any twigs, to give away his movements. After he is further away and in a denser part of the wood he gets up and slowly crouching starts running for a higher ground, for more visibility. He had done this sort of thing before in the war, and was prepared for this kind of warfare; he hadn't shot at a living human for 30 years since his time in Nam. But he wasn't about to let some whelp take him out for sport was he? Getting to his position Joe carefully lies down without moving the brush around him and brings out his trusty rifle. It’s a sleek older Springfield that the military let him keep from his service and dedication. He quietly loads the bullet into the chamber and takes aim down his sight looking for his pursuer in the darkness of the trees, near where he was before on the game trail. His well-trained eyes from service as a rifle squad commander pay off and he finds the slight movement along the old game trail checking the shots and tracking the blood spots Joe had left. He looks into his scope and see’s that his pursuer isn't a whelp nor middle aged man, but rather a man of his own age, that’s wearing the uniform of a Gook. Joe was astonished; his past had finally come to haunt him in the wood at the darkest hour of the dawn. He leers down his scope and places his sights on the pursuer that had already shot at him 3 times and hit once. He breaths in to stabilize his shot and takes it as he exhales. His gunshot booms through the surrounding trees as his shot lands in a kill-zone, however the shot fails to hit but rather goes straight through his pursuer and decimates the tree behind. Truly horrified now Joe asks himself what is going on, who is this figure, and did he miss? He reloads and takes another shot, again the boom resonates around the dense trees but takes no rending of flesh sound, but rather the sound of the laughter is heard yet again in the distance from the pursuer; and then the pursuer makes eye contact with Joe, he has soulless eyes, filled with black death from a long past and yet has a fire burning of vengeance.  

His past had really come back to reclaim him, the bullets were real but the figure wasn't of this world (Standing up slowly Joe accepted his fate) deemed by the forest, the past was here to take him, just as he had taken all of those lives in the war; the figure bowed to his acceptance of fate and then took the shot that took Joe’s life -- and now in the darkest parts of dawn before the sun rises you can hear their shots blaze through the trees forever battling one another.

Blog #8

Today I’m asked to provide an answer to the question of; what examples I've seen personally of people tinkering, or known as the “right to tinker”? This is a difficult question to answer, people are able to only do what the technology allows them, in the Digital Technology and Culture major. This major is more specific to the Graphic designers, Web Designers, and creative people of technology. I think the real question we should be asking is; what are the limitations of technology on the creativeness of one designer?

To answer my question I would be tempted to point out that for all DTC majors, Web Design is a large portion of what we do. We design things for web pages or to be seen in a digital medium. The problem with Web Design is that no matter what you do the code is always a limitation, a hindrance, and doesn't provide people the freedom to tinker. In a way they can tinker with the code but because of the limitations they are only able to tinker with what is available on hand to try to create something more, out of the limited script they have. However this is still considered tinkering because people are finding easier ways to do things through code every day -- or finding a new waysto do something that makes it better or easier -- only because code is constantly evolving to the user base.

Then you have graphic designers who also have limitations creatively because their technology is limited. There are only so many graphic programs that designers can use these days, and much of the time people to stick to the same programs. Adobe Photoshop in itself was a limitation to graphic designers all over (the price and the recent changes and makings of the adobe cloud) making it more affordable and less of a limitation to many graphic designers that were freelance. But that being said the program itself is limiting to the designers that do work in it only because you can only do so much with Photoshop. Photoshop has its limits and they are clearly defined. But there are still ways that people in the DTC major can tinker with it to create some masterpieces.

This is a major problem with those that are creatively inclined to do work on the computer: itself being limited, just as artists on any other medium are limited. However I feel that artists on other mediums aren't limited as those that are using a computer. On paper there are always ways to create something new, or there are always new mediums that people create to make art on. But in the end I don’t think that the problem or the issue is the constraint applied to people from the “right to tinker” but I feel more like the limitations come from the medium people choose to use.

Blog #7

I have chosen to nominate Haleigh Miller for best Resident Advisor. I have chosen Haleigh because of all the hard work that you can see on a day to day basis. Because she contributes so much to our team and the amount she does for her peers. She shows her dedication in this job by being a full time student studying pharmacy. This major requires her to put an extreme amount of time into her already busy life for school work. This major also requires her to have as close as possible to a 4.0 grade point average. Haleigh is one of these few that hold a 4.0 grade point average; which is impressive as itself. But the amount of time she spends on her floor studying is only matched by the amount of work she puts into her floors community and her floor itself. She spends most if not all of her spare time on her floor building the community that makes up the fifth floor of Stephenson South at Washington State University Pullman. She has many community building Bulletin boards and Programs where her floor and herself get together and decorate the floor; and they did a program to decorate for Halloween, and that was a hit and to top it off even more; she had a program for Christmas Decorating and her floor put every floor in the Stephenson Complex to shame. The entire floor got together and wrapped doors in wrapping paper and they all decorated the halls with snowflakes and Snowmen. They also decorated the lounge with 3 Christmas trees and Christmas lights so that anyone one the floor studying could have some holiday cheers. Nor does she have one of the more challenging majors here at WSU but she makes room in her already insane schedule for her floor and her staff the same. She doesn’t just share holiday cheer but also shares that she knows when one of the staff members are hurt. She not too long ago gave me a gift bag for when I was feeling down after an exam, though she gave me this handmade gift bag that had pieces of candy and a feel better card. She doesn’t know it but this little act of caring made me feel extremely happy that she knew and she actually cared about me. She hasn’t started this just this year either but she started this way of being an RA last year when I was a freshman. She came onto our floor 2^nd semester and was great! She brought together that floor and made everything work how it should and made everyone happy to be there but because she has brought that skill to this year with her floor and extended it to her staff. She is an exceptional Resident Advisor and deserves recognition for being so.

Blog #6

The Fickle Mind of a Gamer

            This has been a fated argument throughout the entirety of the game World of Warcraft’s reign in the video game world. The argument is one that is both trivial and extremely important to how the game is played. This argument is of which damage per second, also known as DPS, specialization should I go on my druid. Should I become a stealthy cat that rips open its foes with bleeds and fast paced action? Or should I become a huge chicken bird thing that brings both the power of the sun and the moon down on its foes with devastating power? Both of these sound so fun you say and that each of these specific specializations sound like they have such a different play style that both parties should understand that they will in some way be equal, yet they have their own strengths and weaknesses. However there are some that disagree completely that each of the specializations are equal and believe that one or the other is hands down the best specialization period for any given time while choosing the role as DPS.

            In this skit that will not be performed by me or anyone I will direct they will come into the conversation with each other stating which form they prefer as a Druid whether it be Cat form or Boomkin Form. Each of these people will describe why they think their form is superior briefly; and then go about to argue with the other about some of the more trivial mechanics of the class’s specialization trees. The next person to come into the skit will be the neutral party that disagrees with both parties and states that there is no set best class specialization but rather one that works better for each individual fight and provides examples of his/her thoughts in a neutral way that both parties could somewhat agree with.

Sorry this was late, my internet was down briefly this morning.

Blog #5

School Slogan and You

            There are many opinions on the different views of Go Cougs. HAVING A NON-OFFICIAL SLOGAN DOESN’T GIVE OUR SCHOOL A GREAT PUBLISITY, AND THAT BEING SAID OPINIONS ARE NUMEROUS AND VARRY IN THE EYES OF DIFFERENT COUGS. Last week we looked at a typical dialog a mother and son could have over the phone discussing the slogan. According to a blog site The Brothers of Judea what makes an effective slogan is that it is short and to the point. It is something that people can chant and which can fit easily on a t-shirt. After this explanation I can easily say that I personally am against the Go Cougs slogan that WSU has developed over the years. This slogan doesn’t do our university justice and causes negative light to be spread on the school that is already seen as a party school.

            The way I most commonly disagree with the slogan is that the slogan Go Cougs is more of a greeting than anything else. As was said in the interview with Julia Jans that was done last week. Go Cougs is a greeting at the point of which it’s being used on campus because it has no definition and doesn’t tell us anything about the people in our community. This statement causes people to think of what it means rather than providing an acknowledge meaning to the slogan. This is very frustrating because people say that it’s building us into a community for which it really isn’t causing any more connection than the current slogan. IT’S FRUSTRATING BECAUSE PEOPLE SAY THAT THE SLOGAN IS BUILDING US INTO A COMMUNITY FOR WHICH IT REALLY ISN’T CAUSING ANY MORE CONNECTION THAN THE CURRENT SLOGAN, MY MOM WHO I INTERVIEWED ALSO QUOTED THAT THE SLOGAN DIDN’T O WHAT WE WANTED IT TO DO OR SHOW FOR OUR UNIVERSITY.

            Another thing is that the Go Cougs slogan is over used and many people don’t understand this slogan enough to use it properly. THE MAIN ISSUE WOULD HAVE TO BE THAT THE GO COUG SLOGAN IS OVER USED AND MANY PEOPLE DON’T UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE SLOGAN TO USE IT PROPERLY. The slogan is used to at sports activities like football games where the crowd will yell GO and then butch will point to the adult side which will respond COUGS or vice versa. This use of Go Cougs is totally fine because the connection is clear of what is the meaning which is cheering for our team, and will cause the connection we want. However some students choose to use Go Cougs in a negative light. An example of this negative light would be the students WHOM choose to partake in the activities on game weekends or any weekend in that sense that usually happens out on Greek row, in residence halls, Or in apartment land. These activities include but aren’t limited to: Drinking, Party hoping, Blacking out and Browning out, Public escapades, Smoking, etc. These students that partake in the listed activities commonly tell each other Go Cougs, which in this sense means, and I’m loosely paraphrasing here, “I’m so proud of you for blacking out” or “I’m so drunk this is awesome”. These uses are what the public eye sees the most coming from WSU. This is a small part of the life here on the WSU Pullman campus the Go Cougs is being seen this way. THIS SLOGAN IS A PART OF LIFE HERE ON THE WSU PULLMAN CAMPUS, BUT THE SLOGAN IS BEING SEEN IN A NEGITIVE LIGHT FROM THE PUBLIC.

            The last issue is that if this slogan is really building a community here at WSU, there still aren’t any values given in this quote. Where as you can look at our real slogan which is World class face to face, which has values and states that all the students at WSU value a face to face interaction while also depicting themselves in the best light or in a world class view. The problem about Go Cougs is that there isn’t any value to it unless you’re an “insider” or attending WSU. That this is more of an internal slogan of WSU rather than an external slogan that we should be using there for Go Cougs isn’t the right slogan for us.

            In conclusion this is all my opinion and brief information taken from an outside force WHO also agreed that the slogan was stupid. ALL OF THIS BEING SAID EVERYTHING IS MY OWN OPINION AND I KNOW THE INFORMAITION IS BRIEF AND TAKEN FROM AN OUTSIDE SOURCE WHO ALSO AGREEED WITH MY OWN STANDPOINT, BECAUSE THE SOURCE WAS MY MOM, AND GRANDMOM. So I’m sure I sound a little bias. The main issue I have with the slogan is that it doesn’t provide anything back to the community other than negative light because of the way that students at the institution use the slogan. Also that there is no sense of community that go with this other than the fact that when you see another Cougar out on the adventures they all say Go Cougs which just proves that its more inclusive then exclusive of a slogan. This brings me to more of my conclusion that it’s not the slogan for WSU; it has no meaning and isn’t used properly to make it even acceptable as a school slogan.

Dora #1

Dora Learns to Write

                The questions that have been brought up are; “What does the teacher do to help Dora learn how to correctly punctuate the end of sentence”, “What doesn't the teacher do”, and “Why does it take so long for Dora to apply the concept of sentence-end-marking”? So how do we really answer these questions without being there in the action ourselves? We work with what we know.

What we do know is that the teacher does many things for all of her students to help them learn the punctuation problem. One way that the teacher helps Dora and her classmates learn new things is through the small group work that she provides before the lesson where the kids get to experiment with their ideas and tell each other what they think is correct and that allows the children to create new material and use their creativity while peers are cheering them on. This way of helping is very positive to all the kids in the group and allows them to grow in the fashion of learning how to create connections to concepts.  The teacher also helps Dora’s class learn by providing the definition of the punctuation at the end of the group meeting time. She makes sure that they have the opportunity to learn in that fashion of a small group with minor supervision, but also provides the actual concept and provides the reason why that is so. Then later in the passage we read the Teacher does something even more for Dora’s writing. She tells Dora to read out loud how the passage she wrote should sound, similar to a story book. By doing so the teacher is creating connections for Dora that she didn't see before. Instead of regurgitating what the rule is Dora now understands that it sounds wrong and the whole point of the punctuation is so that others can understand your thoughts in a fluid sweep of the page, rather than a cut up story with periods between random words.

According to the passage we read about Dora learning to write, the teacher does many things to help. But she also doesn't do some things very well. She doesn't keep the small groups in check and keep them corrected all the time. What she doesn't do is provide negative feedback to the children that are doing it wrong, but she does help them in a different way. The teacher doesn't do any calling out on those that are wrong and she doesn't discriminate against those that understand and those that don’t. This teacher also doesn't reach all the kids the same with the different learning styles. Her method isn't great for some learners that only need definitions and memorize things that way but rather for those that are thinkers and that do their own thing. This teacher promotes creativity instead of giving the kids the definition straight out of the book and over loading their brains with information.

All in all I believe the teacher did a great job teaching her class and provided a diverse learning environment, but she didn't really get all the concepts hard in some of the students. Dora took a while to learn and apply the concepts of punctuation of the period or sentence-end-marking. I believe it took her so long because she wasn't ready for the different learning styles that the teacher provided and because the different learning style was more group oriented so she got confused because her peers would say “Yeah that sounds right”, when it was actually wrong.  But WHOSE fault is that other than the teachers you would ask? I think that the parents and previous teachers are to blame as well. Without the guidance of THEIRS the student will more likely be left behind.

So in conclusion the teacher did a great job but didn't reach out to those kids with different learning styles as well, but created a very creative learning classroom where the kids could experiment with the concepts and definitions before they were told what they really meant. That being said I believe how she taught the class was well suited for the children there and she didn't do anything wrong. She taught them the basics while also teaching them how to open their minds and learn on their own which is something many high school students don’t understand how to do. Now if you were in this situation you would believe the failure of the student was YOURS alone to bear but I would like to say that teaching is a team effort and this teacher did everything she could with what her teammate the kindergarten teacher had to bring to the plate.

[I realized that i don't really use apostrophes other than for contractions so i actually read through the paper and didn't see any.]

My Goals

Personal Problems

I find myself as a writer methodical, detailed, and extremely voiced. This is also one of my downfalls. I put so much detail into my writing even in my academic writing that the fluff starts adding up. In my career here at Washington State University I feel as if I've found a definite style that I use in my writing. In the past I could say that my writing paints pictures with the attributes listed above. But there are still many places of which I could work to improve my own writing; I think most of these places are more mechanical than grammatical to be completely honest but I have been wrong before. To which brings me the quote of that everyone is their worst critic of their own writing.

One of my larger problems or places that I could improve on is not giving sentences that don’t really add any context to my writing or sentences that are FILLER, EMPHASIS, ATTRIBUTE AND DESCRIBE NOTHING in particular of interest or value. These sentences aren't very helpful at all in my writing but they always seem to show up in the best places. A prime example; “To which brings me the quote of that everyone is their worst critic of their own writing”. The quote is actually from one paragraph up. I wasn't really paying attention to what I was writing and thus the nothing sentence appears.

Another of my problems is that I think I put too much of my voice into things, I put too much emphasis on some of my points and thus push others to the side because the way I write. This is something that is a little harder to show in my own writing and would take an entire paper to put it into perspective for you. But it does happen and I’m aware of it. I guess an example would be;

“In conclusion I would have to say the major points of my style as an arguer is that I like to listen to what other people have to say because sometimes, I’ll admit it, I’m wrong. But when I’m not wrong I do this that way I can also have the floor as well. It’s not so much how I do it but how it is seen as a token of respect to let them have their say and they should let you have your own. My other characteristic of being emotional or calm is the same. If the person I’m arguing against becomes very emotional I tend to become emotional as well just to fight back their incoming verbal assault. Then I’m also very calm and cold when arguing with people depending on my own personal relationship to them”.

In this short “half” paragraph of mine, I ended up shoving some of the other points in the paper aside feeling that they weren't as important to cover again in the conclusion.

            The last thing I really need to work on is my over use of commas. I use them so much in the first few drafts of a paper that my sentences become so LONG AND WITHOUT MEANING AND REPETITIVE that my readers loose interest or find it hard to understand what I was trying to convey. This over use leading onto run on sentences has been a work in progress since high school. I've been consistently getting better so the examples are harder to find but I do remember back in high school where my peer grader looked at the paper and gave it back saying that they couldn't read it because it was so hard to understand.

            My goal at this stage in my writing is to get better at not using filler sentences, to fix my voicing in my papers so that points don’t go to the wayside, and to continue to fix the problem of commas in my sentences.