my digital story

This is supposed to be about me and twin sister Marybeth. We have always been really close, but now are at colleges far away from each other. I hope this video, in the end, will convey the relationship I have with my sister.

Rooms

I recently decided that my dorm room looked too generic. So I had some friends come over to help me move my stuff around. They were great. They wanted to make sure I stayed safe, so they supervised to make sure nothing could fall on me. They helped, well one of my friends helped. The other two laughed a lot and gave directions. We got my room all switched around. And they decided it was too harsh, so they made me move the furniture around some more.

Now I have one of those big wardrobes that is not attached to anything, but when it is full of clothes, a little heavy. They decided that was what I needed to move, by myself. So I moved it, got it where they told me to, and they said that it didn't look good like that, I should turn it around.

In my room I have a box attached to the wall, I like it, it gives me more storage space. When trying to move my furniture around, it just gets in the way. Of course, I also rented a kit to loft my bed, high enough for my fridge to go under it and that is it. We had very limited choices of where to put my stuff. Yet we managed to make it so that my stuff had to keep getting moved.

I now have my furniture where I want it. Well, the furniture I have. I might have to get my chair up here, I have made it so that I can't watch movies with my roommate from anywhere... so much for careful planning. And the whole thing only took an hour. In my opinion that was a very well spent hour.

Images

So, we started work on our digital stories in class yesterday, and it got me to thinking. It got me thinking that images, actual pictures, are really powerful things. I brought with me to class a series of seemingly unconnected images, pictures of random things that I enjoy or that are just part of my life, and with a little thought I managed to put them together into a type of story, or maybe more accurately, a personal philosophy. Each image could carry so much meaning and be interpreted in more than one way. It seemed that almost every picture had a literal meaning (this is a picture of my car), and a figurative meaning (the car represents the freedom of being able to go wherever you want). Having these multiple meanings for each image, and various levels of comprehension and depth, I think, is what makes it possible to create a legitimate piece of literature based from a collection of nearly random images. 

There is something distinctly poetic about starting off with a pile of images and weaving a story around them. When looking at poetry the reader often starts off by noticing the images in the poem. If it is a particularly difficult piece of reading they do exactly what we did in class, by trying to figure out what the images mean when they are seen all together. The images are the main messages in a poem and it is the job of the poet to display them in a logical way to reach their audience and depart to them their message. In this way I feel as though we are creating our own type of poetry using images, sounds, voice, and the computer screen to display it all. It's pretty deep.

Good day.

Animals and Jobs

My family has always had a lot of pets, we seem to keep getting more as time goes by. We have 9 pets at my house now. All very special to us in their own way. For awhile after we moved in I was convinced that they had all forgotten me. Well maybe the goldfish didn't even know me to begin with but the other ones certainly did. I was so worried that they would not love me anymore when I went home. Luckily I went home and now realize that all of the pets will be happy and excited to see me each time I go home.

I have been missing being around animals ever since I moved in to the dorms. At my house we always have a ton of cats around, here there are none. Going to my sister's place to play with her cats is not nearly the same (especially as they would rather follow her around then play with me).

I decided that a remedy to that would be getting a job at a pet store, in particular Petco. I have been needing to get a job anyway and thought this would be the perfect way to solve my problems. I was so proud of myself for actually applying for a job, and not just talking about it, that I even went and told my mom about how I was applying at Petco.

My mom looked at me and reminded me that I was allergic to all the animals there and that because of that I should not get a there. I was a little crushed, I had managed to shove all thoughts of my annoying allergies away. I was planning on getting a job where I got to see fuzzy little animals every time I worked.

So now, against the wisdom of my mom (who is always right at moments like this), I am hoping to get a job at Petco. Who knows, maybe my allergies will just disappear one day. Stranger things have happened.

French ?!

I just got done with my first french test.. well it was supposedly a "quiz" but it took the full class and was pretty long. (this is  french 1) Some of it was translation, and some of it was answering questions. One part was confusing.. because we didn't really know the verbs in the sentence to understand what it was telling us to do in the instructions. i started off answering the questions, and then somebody asked if we were supposed to answer the questions, or translate. She said to just translate it. So i was like, oh thats easier, let me just cross this all out. Then there was some more confusion in the class and you heard some mumbling and shuffling of papers ... and another question was asked, when I heard her say, oh no no! don't translate it, answer it! AFTER i was done crossing out my answers, and translating instead, I had to cross that part out too and rewrite my answers I had written to begin with. She would not even give me a new paper to start fresh. Then on the next section, it was more clear that we were just supposed to translate because the question was english, and we had to write how to say it in french ... a few of them were never even covered in the class and she said to only study what we have covered so far.. hmm.. i see myself not doing too well in this class.

I don't know what came over me when I decided to drop the lifetime of spanish classes I was taking, just to learn french. because i wasn't sure of a major, i just applied to the college of arts and sciences. i should have went to the business school or education... those degrees would get me a job right after graduation... but i really had no clue what i wanted. so thrown into arts and sciences,  i have to take two semesters of a language as a requirement . the spanish placement test put me in an advanced level of spanish even though i haven't taken a spanish class in 2 years, and i did not want to be sitting in a class conducted entirely in spanish (did i mention french 1 is conducted in french?). I don't really want to become fluent in french, i'll just be taking my requirement and then dropping it. I could have continued spanish, I could have become fluent in that. But i didn't. I mean, none of my schools before ever offered french so I was always sort of just thrown into spanish.. I went to spain and was even able to speak spanish there.. so i figured, i want to go to france so why not try to learn french? I've taken spanish, i've taken italian.. I want to learn french! plus, why not be learn how to read the signs in montreal if you are going to be going there? 

um, because you are used to spanish pronunciations and a perfect way to start off a new language is NOT sitting in french 1 reciting the alphabet and accidentally pronouncing half the spanish alphabet  while getting dirty looks from your teacher, thats why... ugh, french ...

Honestly, I knew the first week of class that i wanted to drop french. But i had just spent 202 dollars on a brand new textbook, non returnable if opened. Of course, she assigned homework the first night in that 202 dollar textbook, so me being a good student and doing my homework = me being stuck in french = me being a bad student for doing poorly in class (like i will in french).

Theories

I have this theory. A random one. That the temperature I wake up in decides how I feel that day. For example if I wake up warm, the day seems warmer, and if I wake up cold, the day seems cooler. Even when the outside temp does not change. I recognize this does not always apply to my day, so I think of it more as a guideline.

Weird I know, but it got me thinking about how, as individuals, we come up with these theories to explain us to ourselves and soon start to base what we are going to do on these theories. So, we have to decided as individuals if we should keep our theories, knowing they may work for us but they may also limit us, or just go through life not trying to dig deep for the whys and accepting things as they happen. Maybe though the whys are what keep us interested in life. I don't know. 

Oh, Canada

Hello readers...

I just got back, earlier today, from a ramble up to the wide open spaces of our Northerly Neighbor, the great land of Canada. I traveled across the border in my friend's old red SUV, with 3 other people. We are all from the same home town, but we met up with some other people from UVM once we got to Montreal.

We drove up, found the hotel that we had made reservations at and then walked the city, in search of food... and drink. We found both of these necessities just a few blocks from our hotel and eventually we found our comrades in arms on the very same block as our hotel.

In my opinion, making a trip to Montreal is a worthwhile endeavor. I only stayed for one night, and I know that a lot of the people who go will stay for two, like a friday-saturday deal. Two nights may have been fun, but the one downside is that you have to spend a lot of money on food and the hotel room... All in all though, I didn't spend any more money than I thought I would, and if you split the cost of a hotel room with three or four other people it's not that expensive. I do recommend making a trip there, but it's probably not the type of thing that you would do very often (unless you are pretty affluent).

The trip only took about an hour and a half to get from the UVM campus to Montreal, which I didn't think was too bad at all. It was weird for me to think that it's between 3 and 4 times longer to get back to my home in Massachusetts than it is to get to the border of Canada. 

A word of advice:

If you do plan on making a trip up, and you want to get into the swanky, upscale, metrosexual-infested clubs, make sure that you are dressed at least semi-nice. At the very least, don't wear shorts... I was turned away from one of the downtown clubs because I didn't fit the dress code. Well, I don't wanna go to any club that doesn't think what I wear everyday is cool anyway!

~Just keep truckin'.

72ner and MSK Running

I interviewed 72ner. His favorite digital story was "MSK Running". Heres how our interview went.

My favorite story was the one MSK Running. 

So why did you like this story?

'Cuz it was interesting to see the different opinions of a South African kid... his education.. his visions of society. He has real good morals and seems pure. Like.. not corrupt like the 13 year old kids here, in America who aren't like that at all.

I forgot to ask you to summarize it first.

Well the kid is named Morn Solomon. He is 15 years old in South Africa. He was bitten by a snake.. and moved out.. well.. left his parents.. they were alcoholics. He goes to school and dreams to be a police officer to help South Africa. The story was kind of vague... He believes that if he studies and does his best he can make it. 

And what was your least favorite part??

The way he tells stories about his life makes the whole thing really vague. Details are important even though he probably knows English just as a second language. 

An interview with AKH

AKH's favorite digital story was Alan.

Alan and Albert are brothers, Albert is older. The narrator, Albert, talks about how different he and his brother are because of age and school, and the distance between them. Albert, through talking to his mom, finds out Alan has M.S. He talks about his brother and stuff they did together after he was diagnosed.

AKH feels that a lot of the times it seems with the health stories they get sappy and emotional, but with Alan the narrator was concise and subtle about his emotions. You can tell what he is feeling without him directly saying what he is feeling.

Unfortunately some of the pictures were not as effective as other stories were. A lot of the pictures were really similar.

Interviewers and interviewees...

-Introducing M Haji Bigman. You don't know him.

-Favorite video, M?
M.S.K. Running.

-Summary?
A thirteen year old kid, Morne Solomon, tells some of his life story. It starts with him being almost bitten by a snake, I think. He lived with his mother in South Africa, and she was a good mom, but she had an alcohol problem, so he moved in with his aunt, and he really liked spending time with her. He wants to be a cop where he lives, in South Africa, so that he can keep his community safe.

-Why was this one your favorite?
It was a touching story... the kid had been through a lot and still has this really positive outlook. He's not just a kid who wants to like help out, or just a kid who wants to be a cop, he really wants to be a cop so that he can help make his community better and safer.

-Did you have a least favorite part? What was it?
Uh... the drawings. The drawings of the kid were kinda hard to see and it was hard to tell what they were showing sometimes, because they were... less than perfect. Actual photos may have been better.

-This has been enlightening... thank you.

Family...

The videos from the center for digital story telling had a lot to offer. I thought that each section of the videos had something different to share, and when taken as a whole they were similar to a well written collection of poems. Each video had something interesting to say, and provided a different perspective on a host of different topics.

Of the six categories of stories the one that stood out the most to me was the Family section. The "Mama Bisrat" and "Ironing" stories really caught my attention as I watched these videos. I felt like they were not easy stories for these people to tell but they did so anyway, and they told them with poeticism and heart. Many of the other stories were also, no doubt, difficult to tell, and very heartfelt, but something about those two stories in particular really grabbed my attention.

Did anyone else feel the same way about those two stories? Or maybe you felt the same way... about some of the other videos. Feel free to comment, I won't mind if you disagree.

Books

I figure with this being an english class, even if it is mostly online forms of literature, it is suitable to write about books. Personally, I am a huge fan of books, can never get enough books to be fully satisfied. Lately though I have started to wonder. Is it possible for every single idea to have been used up? Is there a whirl pool of creativeness and once the creativeness is all used up that is it? In my constant search for new books I sometimes feel that I am only finding improved versions of an old story. Maybe this is because many people's lives have some base similarity to each other's and people tend to write what they know. (And even get criticized if they try to write about something they have not experienced.)

Don't get me wrong, I have my favorite books and favorite authors. Some authors I can read any of their books numerous times and still look forward to the next time I get to read that book. It is almost like a friend, reminding you of the places you have been when you have read the book previously. When almost all the books that I read seem to be similar it is not like a friend, it is more like a long hall of mirrors, where you see the same image reflected over and over, sometimes with a different angle, but always the same subject.

I have been worried about losing the written and printed book in the world of technology that we inhibit. I was convinced that I would fight against it with all my will power. I still love the books printed on paper that you can hold in your hand, I just am also starting to appreciate the online forms of literature available to us.

Slice

I have never really thought of myself as being very traditional. Now that I have read Slice, I am realizing I am. At least in one sense. I like a story to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I prefer the end to come very quickly after the middle, so you don't know until the last bit what truly happened or will happen.

Slice does not go along with the typical written story, at least compared to a traditional book. Typically in a written book I can become so immersed  in it, I do not even realize the end is there until the last page has been read. With Slice the option was not there to become that immersed. I became curious and did look at all the entries on both hers and her parents blogs.

Slice was a confusing story that engaged me as I went looking for some answers. Only when I was having no luck with finding these answers did I truly become disenchanted with the format of the story. I enjoyed the mystery of trying to figure out what the hare meant, and where the hole led. I just wish that I had been able to figure out on my own what it all did mean. Then again, maybe I would have become bored if I had found all the answers too quickly.

How 'Slice' was created. In my opinion...

Did anyone else get the impression that 'Slice' may have been written, or composed, while under the influence of Donnie Darko and Alice in Wonderland?

Here's what I think happened...

It all started on a rainy sunday afternoon, around one. It had been raining all day and there was little to do. Toby Litt, the author of 'Slice,' had been killing time all morning by reading Alice in Wonderland, and watching Donnie Darko. When he finished perusing his well-thumbed copy of Alice for the second time that day he put it down next to his laptop. Toby knew he had come across a good idea for a story with the help of his two influences, and maybe a couple others as well, but he was having trouble getting the story started.

Then an idea hit him. He'd wanted the story to be realistic and gripping, but he was having a lot of trouble with his own style. Should it be declarative and bold like Hemingway would have written it, or should it be ornate and gothic like a Bronte novel? After sufficient hemming and hawing and a little more outside influence and imagination Toby, or just Litt to his friends (as I imagine them) came up with the perfect style. He would write it in the most suspenseful, gripping way he knew. The good ole first person. With a twist.

Toby then proceeded to beast out this story of Slice, in multiple media, Jack Kerouac style, without once parting from his laptop. He finished all of the pieces of the story and then released them segment by segment, all the while creating a huge cult following. When the story finally ended, and he had nothing more to post, Toby fell back into his usual routine of 'just chillin' most of the time.

This has been my interpretation of how the story originated, and is in no way true, as far as I know. But then again, I also have no way of knowing that it isn't 100% correct either...

Slice

So I finally got around to reading the blogs on Slice... I liked that there was a blog from the girls view and then another from the parents. Each blog seemed to fit the writer, like how the girl skipped over any details she didn't want to write about and said to just go to the parents blog. Then on the parents blog, there were pictures of the house and links to the houses they were looking at... I found that parent-like, having a blog that shows off their new house, while the childrens blog just has pictures of the weird things she has found in her creepy old room.

On the other hand, I don't appreciate that they left me hanging. I mean, it is good that you are able to come up with your own ending since they both left off at the same spot, however if it were up to me : the parents went down into the hole, found the girl who just happened to be  sitting at a table for a tea party (haha) that hare brought her to ( I agree with some of the other bloggers that I read posts from, the story did  seem a little Alice in Wonderland-esque...) and then got her out of there. They packed up their bags and then got on a flight right on back the U.S. Maybe that is just a teenage reader's point of view, because I noticed on the parents blogs some of the older readers who commented had agreed with them on their move. I for one would not forgive my parents for a while if I were in her shoes, with "teen angst"  ( what non-angsty teenage girl actually likes Emily the Strange? ) levels at their highest, for moving me not even to a different state but a different continent. 

I noticed reading the comments on the blogs that some of the accounts were created the same time of the story being posted. Did they actually make a whole account just to comment on the story? Did the writer of the story even read the comments ?? I also noticed that the mother mixed up the car crash with a plane crash and covered it up saying that her husband was taking care of it all and she was just so distraught over the news, but when people commented her correcting her that it was a car accident and not a plane, she did not go back and edit the post but kept it the way it was originally posted. I wonder why the author made that mistake intentional? Also on the girl's blog she said her parents shut down her myspace, but for one thing the date of the last log in was in february when the blog was made in march, so it had to have been a while before they even moved..and it says she is from california but the story made it seem like she was from florida because that is where the other family went when they had a house swap... how did her parents get her passwords anyway?

Although I like reading complete stories... I enjoyed this one in the end anyway. I thought it was weird at first to write an actual story on a blog, but it seemed well put together how the author made both blogs, an actual myspace account for the girl, and an email account for us all to check out. I still don't understand the Twitter, it says they are text messages, but who were they texting?

the one where we introduce ourselves ...

Greetings from today's scribe... I am Melissa, here with my fellow bloggers Doug and Amira. Will post more later.