Ignite Talk

I apologize for my stuttering and shakyness. I'm not much of a speaker but here is my video of my Ignite talk! It was fun to make but a bit terrifying to do.

My Blog Reflection

When given this assignment, I thought about it a lot. It was hard for me not to do the typical "I was once lost but now I am found". I feel that over time we are conditioned to look at learning as a very linear, where you have to pass one test and go on to the next to be adequately prepared for anything, especially pertaining to schooling. When looking at the picture in class it was a rude awakening to me because it showed me how close minded the school system is. When preparing for college there was a long list of things that had to be completed before being able to apply. There were many tests and preparation for tests that would build on themselves. I then thought about my learning in my English class and tried to think about it in a way other than a linear fashion. For a while, I couldn't come up with it. I looked back at my reaction to the picture in class and it seemed that I still didn't understand it. I looked back through my blog posts and all I could think was how linear it seemed my learning was. Over time my posts become longer and in more detail and with documentation with pictures. But then I thought about individual projects and realized my learning is very all over that place and in some ways may not always be productive. But I would look at what I had to do and would sit and think about what I wanted to do the project on. I would then do the work given to me and go over it. Then usually realize in the end that I want to do it another way or something completely different so I would go back and change it and through out the entire process it seemed I would do this back and forth motion with my learning in almost a zig zag pattern until I would get to the end product. This to me is very evident in my "Behind My Words" post which was about one of my call for papers I did. I remember I would come up with an idea to document my process then scrap it and try something different. I didn't really show where I got the idea on the topic in the first place. We were told to write on a third paper and I chose the "What is Perfection?" paper. I just documented my writing because at the time I already had an opinion on the whole subject, but what I didn't add was that throughout my adolescence, I have on many cases struggled with eating disorders and unhealthy relationships a lot of the time pertaining to my body. I have seen therapist and psychiatrists and since have over come my issues. But when I really decided my stance on the subject was about the time of my sophomore year in high school. I was at the gym and passed out. I hadn't eaten all day and had been working out for 2 hours. When I came to all I could think about was how annoying and unfair it is that I have to feel the need to look a certain way for others and how hungry I was haha. Since then I my perspective pertaining to beauty in any way has related to that.

REvising

This is a screen shot showing the editing I did to my paper on "Beauty these Days", in class.

This is a screen shot of the revising I did with my paper on "Education". In this revision I didn't really do too much but add things to it.

The last draft I have revised was "What is Perfect?" This is just a small section of what was edited. I used many different colors for each of my pieces, all of which showing that different things I have done to each paper. Such as deleting, adding, replacing, and reordering


 I found that following the steps on REvision paper she gave us really helped in taking the revision one step at a time to be able to really pick my paper apart to see what needed to be taken out or added or re-ordered or replaced. I've also noticed that when I revise a paper it's a lot like the way I create a drawing. I always start with a rough idea of what I want the picture to look like then I go on and find areas that need to be reshaped or changes and this process is like a domino effect. Once I see one area that needs tweaking, I then see another that needs help until it resembles the original but it is also another picture in it's self. This class has taught me that becoming a good writer isn't something you are necessarily born with. Writers start out with their rough ideas and put them down and then revise them and then go back and add things and take out others, sometimes replacing ideas with new ones. All while toying with new ways to convey their thinking so that things will flow in a poetic and intelligent way.

Old News

This is old information but I made a screen cast of my writing process from my other drafts for the call for papers and finally figured out how to share it.

Behind my words

I began revising my paper that I had written one of the call for papers that I have written. In it we were tasked with adding an anecdote to the paper. So I thought I'd just share each detail of my process. I don't any pictures because I don't like to write by hand.

I opened my computer. Pulled up Google Chrome. Sat there thinking about what I have to do today. Pulled up my email and moodle account. Checked both. Made notes on what I have to do for each class. Closed out of both. Opened tab. Typed in Google. Pulled up drive. Clicked on Shared with me. Clicked on English 1103 Fall 2013. Clicked on Day by Day schedule. Scrolled down to November 6th and 7th. Read everything in the box. Wrote down what I needed to do. Went back to drive to open collaborative writing. Choose Beauty these days. Clicked on my document. Read my paper. Re-read parts of it. Sat back in my chair to think about what I thought was beautiful. Realized I had put that in the paper. Thought some more about the history of my view on beauty. Looked around the room. Saw a Barbie. Thought about the billions of Barbie's I have at home in my attic. Thought about when did I get my first Barbie. Couldn't remember. Realized they had always been there because of my older sister. Thought about me playing with them. Thought about how I saw them. Thought about how I saw other things. Wrote about my childhood and it's relation to Barbie's. Finished my paragraph. Re-read again the rest of my paper. Sat and thought. Thought about how my view of beauty changed. Thought about when it changed. Wrote some more on my childhood but mostly on my middle school years. Re-read my paper again but all together. Saved it.

I also wrote another draft on "What is Perfect?" So here is my process.

Pulled up Revised call for papers drive. Found the one I chose which is "What is Perfect?". Read what the writes put for us to write about. Thought about it. Re-read it. Opened a new document. Wrote name and title of paper "Perfection". Stretched. Sat and thought about a picture to look at. Thought, "where in the world should I look for one?". Wondered if I have a magazine in my dorm. I don't. Decided to type perfection into Google to see what images would come up. The first image comes up and is this.

I sat and stared at the caption for a while. At first I thought it was directed to men but I then realized it was directed at women and our need for physical perfection. I opened up my document. I wrote my process on finding the image. I then wrote my reaction and then pasted the picture in the document. I thought about women's self-image. I thought about how often we are reminded about it. I wrote about how often we see images of women and the type of women in them. I thought about if there is diversity in the images. I realized that real women were rarely shown and never seen as beautiful. I wrote down my realization. I wrote on the need for a change. I wrote on how this image is an example of how things are starting to change but aren't changing fast enough. I read over my paper. I thought about what we could do to change things. I wrote them down. I re-read my document the saved it.

This process of typing out every action has really helped me get my thoughts together and to monitor my productivity. I think that from now on I'm going to do a step by step documentation of my writing to see where my thoughts go and how I collect them. This helped me think a bit more about what I was writing.

Playing with Toys

For the third make cycle we did a toy hack. A toy hack is when you take an average toy and do something with it to convey an idea. This can go in many directions but for us we had to convey a scientific issue that touched us. I choose to do mine on the psychological effect of our society's view on women particularly in media. We see over 2000 advertisements a day. On clothing, billboards, magazines, commercials, virtually everywhere. Most of which are depicting tall slender women who have been put through hours of make up and hair and then edited to the point that the pictures don't even look like the actual models. Young girls grow up thinking that they have to look like this to be beautiful. This has caused an overwhelming number of girls to develop eating disorders and other psychological issues. For my make I decided to use a Barbie doll. Just about every little girl in the U.S. owns one. She is the first thing that comes to most peoples mind when they think of beauty. For my make I decided to us one to depict the psychological effects many girls have to deal with every day by showing her standing in front of an image of herself. This image has been distorted to what she sees in her mind that is completely false. I did this by taking a picture of her and using IWarp in the picture editing program Gimp. I am not photographer or editor so this was really hard. I had to restart many times because sometimes she would come out looking like a blob. When I finally go the image distorted to the extent I wanted it I printed the picture off and taped it up so that it would be at about the height of the actual Barbie. I then stood her up and took a picture of her looking at the image trying to show the extreme difference between what she sees and what we see. I hope I conveyed my idea clearly for someone to interpret it without reading my explanation.

A Reflection of a Reflection.

So for our midterm we have to reflect on our progress in our class and what we have written in our blogs. We are suppose to look back and see how we portrayed ourselves as writers and scientists and what we left out. So far in our class we have been exposed to a lot of scientific and philosophical information. She has encouraged us to look deeper into things and to try and come up with our own questions to everyday science that we tend to over look. With all of this we were first presented with the obstacle of trying to figure out how all of this science is related to writing. But it soon became evident that the two are highly related. Not only do scientists write their findings but they also have to relate them to the general population so that we can understand what importance it has on us all. We also found that science isn't just in the natural world but in our thinking and putting our thoughts down on paper is crucial to not only expand ones thoughts but to also influence others. Writing helps develop you and can help you discover a little more about yourself as you go.

Looking over my past blog posts I have noticed a trend. I didn't really think out what I wanted to convey to my audience. I just wrote to complete the assignment and move on. I also didn't know what to say. I just wrote down what I thought she wanted to hear. But I didn't think about what I had to write to figure out where I was even suppose to go with the ideas she gave us. I have found that my thoughts develop as I go and at first my thoughts seem like a short jumbled up mess but soon as I figure out where I want to go I begin to revise and go in to detail of what I'm trying to say. I've came off as clueless and unmotivated when I really was just lost. As a scientist and writer I can be very intrigued but it takes a bit more out of me to sit down and truly think about how I feel about a topic and to put things into my own words.

I've learned a lot in this class so far and it's already half over. I'm sure we have much more to learn and many more reflections. I've learned to look at the world much more closely and to think about what I have to say before I act on it.