What is the best thing about Autumn?

The best this about autumn is crunching on leaves. I go out of my way to step on them. There's a tree two houses away from me that has really crunchy leaves. I hope leaves can't feel pain, or I'd fell pretty bad about myself.

Actually, the best thing about autumn is all the new smells in Bath and Body Works and Coffee Shops. They always come out with some delicious pumpkin-smelling candle or some fancy Spiced Apple Cider Latee Frappucinno Capucinno Iced Autumncinno Awesomecinno...

Let me take that back - the best this about autumn is getting ready for halloween. I feel that you're never too old to dress up for halloween, and getting ready is the best part. Trick or treating with friends and then trading candy is just the absolute best feeling. But sometimes you tend to feel a little bit sick the day after...

The best this about autumn is still being able to wear tshirts without freezing to death, because it's not too cold yet. You still have some opportunities to wear your summer-y clothing before bringing out the parka and snowpants.

The actual best this about autumn is the changing leaves. Or the pumpkin carving.

No, the true best thing about Autumn is that all of the fall cliches don't actually bother me. I get completely caught up in scented candles and leaves and sweaters.

Well, there's school too.

Nah.  Sweaters are the bomb.

What is your plan for your future?

What is my plan? I have a basic sketch, though I know that life has many twists and turns and my direction could change quickly. Basically, I want my life to involve my favorite things: music, art, children, fashion, etc.


I plan to attend college, which will probably be American University. My mom recently started working full-time for WAMU, which is owned by AU. Because of the job, I'll be able to go there tuition-free. I really love the school, and it's probably the college I'll end up attending. If I don't go to AU, my other top colleges are UNC at Chapel Hill, NYU, Stanford,and Claremont McKenna. I want to major in Elementary Education, though I'm also considering Women's Studies, PR, General Education, Drama, and/or Sociology.

After college, I plan to travel for a few years. I want to live in Italy for a year of two, and I want to visit my family in Japan and my Aunt's village in Cameroon. I want to become an elementary school teacher, but I might have a career in theater or high fashion, depending on how the tables turn. I'm certain that I want to be a mother, and I want to start a family. We might stay in the US and live somewhere on the east coast or we might live in France. I've always been obsessed with France, ever since I was a little girl, and I really appreciate their education system, maternity leave, and quality of life.



Who knows where I'll end up? I'll be happy as long as I have family around. I'm glad that I have this much figured out at this point of my life, though I'm open to and accept the change that will come.


Have a splendiforous day!
Laura

Questions

I'm not sure if I'd classify this as a full blog post, it's more of an announcement. After we were given the freedom to post about whatever interests us, I was very excited to be able to post freely. I thought of coming up with a theme, then realized that it's very hard to classify myself.

I don't fit into a certain "type" of person, I have varying interests and I can't be labeled as part of any group. It's hard for me to describe myself or my hobbies, so I thought of this theme as a way to express all of the sides of me.

My blog's new theme is: questions. We're surrounded by so many questions in our lives, some that we can't answer. I'm planning on using this blog to go into detailed answers to questions I think up, whether that means blogs titled "Why are babies just so cute?" to "Who are you?". Maybe I'll just answer a bunch of short questions, or I'll go into detail on a more retrospective one.

I think that we all have voices in our communities and we should take advantages of the modes of communication given to us.  I'm going to attempt to do this with my blog. I apologise in advance for my love affair with commas and for my lack of te letter "h" which sticks on my keyboard and doesn't always appear in my text. I try to add it in later, but one might be lost every once in a while.

Have a nice day!

Scriptwriter

My group's script for the trailer "The Condemned" is progressing well, as we've gotten rid of many extraneous scenes. We started out with almost 4 scenes involving dialogue between the same characters. Through editing, we've gotten rid of many of them and shortened our movie-esque trailer into a trailer-esque trailer. 
Some of the elements of a dystopia our script incorporates are: 

• Propaganda is used to control the citizens of the society - Leia is confused by Cade's talk that the world is far from perfect, and says that she doesn't know what to think.  
• Fear of the outside world/Natural world banished/mistrusted -In the narration, Leia talks about how they're told there's not a world out there, and we see archival footage of a mushroom cloud explosion.  
• Citizens live in a dehumanized state - In the narration, Leia talks about how some people are taken away and killed if they don't score high enough on the test. We have several shots of people being taken away, and a mother hugging her son goodbye.   
• Citizens conform to uniform expectations - This is shown by having all the citizens wearing the same uniform: gray shirts and black bottoms. 
  

We're using voiceover and sound from the actual scene. There are 6 total scenes on our script. We first learn about Leia's world and her relationship with Cade. Then, we see her nightmare about losing her brother. We then learn that Cade's not satisfied with their world and that some teachers rig the scores. Then Cade and Leia search through the files on the top floor, and are chased by guards. Leia finally escapes into the field.

5x5 Video Project

1. wide shot of clearing
2. deer walking away
3. ripples in stream
4. pan of deer tracks
5. view under leaves

I created my 5x5 video using the camera on my mom's iPhone, and I used wevideo to edit it. I had problems with wevideo's exporting process, which took overnight. I'll need to allocate extra time for that in future.

I am pleased with how my 5x5 turned out. I like the different shots that I got and I like how they flow together.

I think that our next video challenge should be a "mood" video, where we have a certain amount of time to create a modd setting, such as "sad" or "angry" in our video.

V for Vendetta

 

Title: V for Vendetta
Director: James Mcteigue
Rating: R
Release date:  March 17, 2006 

Synopsis: A freedom fighter known as "V" fights against his totalitarian society usint terrorist tactics. He rescues a woman named Evey from the thought police and uses her as an ally in his attack on the government.

V for Vendetta's trailer in an exemplary trailer because of the information given, the images used, and the musical accompaniment. The trailer gives just enough away to get the viewer excited to see the rest of the film, because they know about how V is trying to bring down the government. There are several motifs used, such as the symbol for V, his mask, flashlights, and the cross of the party. The music adds tension with its military beat and dramatic strings. They also show violent scenes, to add action and suspense to the trailer. THe only text seen is when they say "An uncompromising vision of the future" which, in turn, adds more theatricality. 

We will try to use the aspects from the V for Vendetta trailer in our own. We will add dramatic tracks to add suspense, use motifs, and give just enough information away t make the audiences eager to see the rest. We want them to know who our character is, what her society is like, and why there is something terribly wrong with it. We will use fewer colors in ours, however, because our society is, for all intents and purposes, black-and-white.

Laura

World Without Walls

"Welcome to the Collaboration Age, where even the youngest among us are on the Web, tapping into what are without question some of the most transformative connecting technologies the world has ever seen."

 I read "World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others", which was about the new generation of communication and how online tools for group collaboration are changing education and the learning process. There are many programs used for collaboration, such as YouTube, GoogleDocs, Wikipedia, etc.

Will Richardson writes about the access youth today has to internet communications, and how that can be taken advantage of in our ability to share and receive data. As Richardson writes, "Anyone with a passion for something can connect to others with that same passion -- and begin to co-create and colearn the same way many of our students already do." An example he gives is Laura Stockman, an 11 year old girl who, through her blog, has connected with people all over the world to share their experiences in community service. I was surprised that she was able to do this all at age 11, and it inspires me.

 People with shared interests can collaborate on websites - "weapons of mass collaboration" - to learn and grow from each others' help. "These tools are allowing us not only to mine the wisdom and experiences of the more than one billion people now online but also to connect with them to further our understanding of the global experience and do good work together." 

The article also discusses the need for teachers and adults to help kids navigate these sites and guide them. Kids are already navigating these sites, to he argues that help from adults would only help them learn online more constructively. Also, our public education system, he believes, needs to put more emphasis on these collaboration sites in their programs. 


The new age of communication is dawning, and we're just getting started.

LINK HERE