L'Esquive

As a poor college student it has been very hard to find time to actually go down and sit to watch a movie in theatres. However, I didn't even realize that I got to watch french films for free all of the time in my french class! The film that I am going to be talking about today is called Games of Love and Chance or the french version, L'Esquive. This movie is filled with drama, love, violence, family matters, and friends who go to a whole different level. The story is focused on two friends named Krimo and Lydia. It starts off with Krimo and Lydia just being "homies" as they call it, in the beginning. Suddenly, Krimo begins to take a sudden interest in acting-- Lydia's favorite subject in school. He decides to try out for the school play, but is unfortunately really terrible (or is he?). He decides to take "lessons" from Lydia and asks for help after school. One thing leads to another and Krimo decides to kiss her spur-of-the-moment and asks her to be his girlfriend. Lydia not seeing these underlying intentions of their after school practice that Krimo had all along, she runs away scared. After Lydia evades Krimo for quite some time his friends begin to hassle her friends and it turns violent and they run into some legal trouble. How will the love story end? I can't tell you... because I HATE spoiler alerts! However, if you're into the whole teenage love thing, it may be something you like. As for me, I'd give it as a whole a B- , and that's because of the ending... which will not be stated ;)

Au Revoir !

photo by Patrick McConahay

EDDIE MONEY!

On Friday I got to go see musical sensation Eddie Money! In a way, I say this with sarcasm because I have never heard of this man, however, I surprisingly knew one of his songs! He came to Charles Town Races for a free concert and the place was packed with a WIDE variety of people rocking out like it was the 1980's again. The most popular songs (this being the only one I knew) that may be familiar to my viewing audience would be "Two Tickets to Paradise." In the picture above Eddie Money is singing his famous, "Take Me Home Tonight" in which I was shunned because this is a song I should have known, apparently. Overall, even though I did not know many of the songs, it was definitely a fun time and a blast from the past. Many people spoke about how old he was (60...? 70...? ) It seemed that the age guesstimate only continuously increased. However, no matter how old this man is, he was still up there playing the sax and his harmonica like a pro! Who knows what adventures will entail next...

Cultural Culture.

Hey guys! This past week I have experienced many fun things as far as culture and small town living goes:). On Thursday, I got the opportunity to go to the Capstone for the English and English Education department. There were six presentations that day on what each person chose for their final assignment. The one I enjoyed the most was from graduate Molly Rogers, an English Education major who spoke of her experiences with student teaching in both middle school and high school. She spoke of the day to day struggles, student to student conflict, grading papers, and her lesson plans. My favorite part is when she showed how the teacher she was working with randomly gave her a book and was asked to teach it to the students. The teacher said that these students had never passed a test and after Molly was there, they had amazing test scores that were ABOVE AVERAGE! It may be partially my passion for children that sparked this interest in hers more than others, but when one person is able to turn a negative into a positive and show substantial results because of it, I find that incredible and worth of mention. Anyway, that's my little blurb for the day... Oh yea! And here's my smiling face at the event:)!

ReCAP

So, Capstone was probably the most fun events (in my Comm Nerd brain) that has occurred in my Mass Communication career. Being able to see how everyone's project took off was actually a pretty amazing site considering most people still do not know what our major is or have much respect for it. Most people think that in Communication you just want to be a on a radio or you want to go work for a phone company-- NO. Mass Communication is so beautiful and expanded that you can take this degree and do whatever your heart desires. With that being said, that is one of the main reasons that I chose a path that is so broad leaving me with so many options on what to build on for my future and career. At Capstone you were able to see what type of skills everyone had learned as a whole, but more importantly, the passion behind it. You were able to see what specifically interested each person and what they were good at. Although we were there as a group, we were able to hold our own spotlight. Personally, as many know, my passion for children is something that will never change. To me, being able to do a project on a nonprofit organization that benefits the people around me was an honor to ME and no other way. My hope is that as this journey continues I can begin working with companies such as this or start one of my own. I am so excited for this next step in my life. So many amazing paths can be opened, and so many lives can be changed-- I'm ready to make it happen!

photo by fruitymonkey

A Storms'a Brewin'...!

photo by daspader

So presentation just passed and I feel like for the most part all is well. I have done a significant amount of work so far this semester and it is steadily coming along. I am definitely satisfied with the final project, however, it is your audience that truly matters and after getting some feedback I have realized some of the changes that need to be done. In general, these adjustments should not take too long, but as long as it took, I was hoping for a greater response. Anyhow, on the bright side, the company that I am working with is fairly satisfied with my work and I hope that that continues!

As for capstone, it seems like this is only the beginning as there is still so much to do as far as getting the poster together, business cards, so on and so forth. The build-up of the presentation is so coming sooner and quicker than seems possible! However, I am confident in what I can and WILL bring!

For now Frankenstorm has seemed to have put a pause to things... (on the virtual side, anyhow)

Until next time fellow Capstoners and world!

To Be... Or Not To Be...

So, I'm going to break it down like this... to be completely honest, there is not that much exciting stuff to blog about this week. I am incredibly stressed, but am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Although everything is pieced together, I am extremely picky with how my work looks, especially when it comes to sound design and video and I want it to be absolutely perfect. Every time I think I like it and don't want to touch it anymore, I go back and I start to fix something-- I am literally going to drive myself nuts! But, hey... a good project is never truly complete, right? (Not sure if Kevin, my professor, said that, or if I heard that somewhere along my life time, but it applies nonetheless). Basically I am becoming really paranoid and very frantic! That's all for now! *Key panicky scream* AAAHHHH!!!



It is either going To Be great Or Not To Be great-- and I'm just hoping that they are on my side!

Putting the Pieces Together...

photo by Bludgeoner

Let me start off by saying this past two weeks have been extremely exhausting. Doing home visits and getting video footage and recordings is very time consuming and repetitive...especially with children. Understandably, most children just want to do their own thing, so a lot of what I have done has been very "in the moment." My days have become increasingly longer with waking up earlier to meet deadlines, but I feel like its definitely going to be worth it. All of my recording and photography done and now the fun part can finally begin-- putting it all together:)!!

I didn't start out with having an exact idea of what I wanted in the video because honestly, you never know the type of magic that a child will bring into the picture. I felt that by writing something in stone would limit myself to what type of creativity could be produced. Thankfully, I went with my gut and already have an idea of what each video will look like.

My next step (besides creating the actual videos) will be to take before and after screenshots of the site to show how it has progressed and how I have improved it in a substantial way. I just can't wait to show 'em what I got!


Bring ittttt!

Lights, Camera, Action?

photo by potzuyoku

This past week I visited in Jefferson County with the Early Head Start program at TA Lowery. To be honest, stepping in I did not know what to expect. Last week was the first time that I felt that my project officially became hands on! I came in contact with the families face to face and was able to get some pretty amazing pictures, if I do say so myself. I'm still working on how I am going to incorporate the video as the sound was a little... well, off. The video that I took inside of the classroom was some of the better footage where I was able to capture more of the pure footage with the children at play. This week I will be meeting with more families one on one to get some clips to use for voice-overs in the two short videos I will be creating. 

If there is one thing that I learned this week, it is that MOST people are extremely awkward when a camera is around. It seemed like even the children knew that they were on tape! This week's helpful hint from Monica was to use a still image and do a voice-over since some people do not feel comfortable in front of a camera. I feel like this will probably work better over time because they will become more comfortable with a microphone present lying on a table opposed to a camera in their face.

I still have a LOT of work to do, but I'm ready! This week will conclude my filming, then it's on to the fun stuff-- putting it all together:)!

Until next time...

EHS!!!!!

UPDATE! Super super excited for things to come this week! Tomorrow is the beginning of what could possibly be something EXTREMELY huge for my future! I can officially say that I have the pleasure of working with West Virginia's Early Head Start program and will be helping to design a website for them. I have an extremely early meeting tomorrow and I could not be more excited.

Children are my absolute passion and the fact that I get to use my degree of designing a website and then with an incredibly great company makes me SO incredibly floored! To be honest, I will most likely be adding more or an additional post to my blog later about what all went on at the meeting. Right now I am just preparing to blow their minds away with some of the amazing ideas that I have come up with. Since I am meeting with them tomorrow to dive deeper into what they would like to see on their website, I have only been able to do the first ten basic pages for the site-- but you have to start somewhere, right? 

Monica has been so incredibly supportive in this and my hope is that I can produce something that will both please her and EHS-- I think I can do it! In addition, my information that I have researched and found on West Virginia's sexual activity and STD facts have been SUBSTANTIAL and SHOCKING! I believe that incorporating something like this into the website will help give people a better idea of what is going on in their surrounding area. I would ALSO like to design a USA map that Monica showed me how to do in Game Design (of all classes, didn't expect I would be using the skills from this one) to give people a visual understanding rather than a bunch of text to have to cypher through for information and quick facts.

SO PUMPED!

LET'S DO THIS!

TOMORROW-- Only The Beginning!

photo by mahalie

Progress Report - What's up!?

Alright, so here's the scoop. Basically I have broken my project down into two different elements. I am currently trying to work with a specific company in particular for this project, but if for some reason that does not work out, then I'm going to have to go a different route. It is not going to be a huge change, just a different way of approach. I have already contacted this company a few times, so if for some reason I do not receive a response by Monday, then I already have decided what direction I will go in because I will run out of time.

I have already decided that I am going to incorporate short clips into my website, so today I met with Multimedia producer and Independent filmmaker Will Sutherland to teach me a few tips on how to take some short clips and let me see some of his work. I now have the honor to  use one of his cameras to make things hopefully come out a little better than your average phone video camera:). I have also looked at many websites such as GYT.org and started reading up on sexual activity and any and every possible aspect of sex that is humanly possible.

Within the next week, I will conduct a survey to random students to collect data for my project. The following week, I plan to begin the clips so that I can shoot and edit them while the weather is still nice. In addition to all of the craziness going on in the background, I have already started on my outline and will soon be writing my first ten pages-- until next time! More information to come soon, can't wait:).


By chinogypsie

ResearchResearchResearch

So after doing some research, I have come to the conclusion that not only is my project awesome, but it's SUPER awesome :) . I say that because the more I brainstorm, the more ideas come to mind with what I would like to do. Although I have not specifically selected which adoption agency or child care center I would like to zero in on, my knowledge of not just statistics in the U.S., but WV is astounding! I do not want to give out all of the information here, because I would like to compare statistics and make sure that everything I'm putting out there is accurate-- plus, I want you to visit my site;)

All I can say that this moment in time is that I value children to a completely different level than myself, and I fully intend on representing them and giving THEM a voice because I believe that so many go unheard or cared for as they should.

In addition to my research, I recently have decided to sponsor a child in Honduras. This is something that I have wanted to do for an extremely long amount of time and was not always financially stable to do so. Right now, however, I feel that I can and have decided to make this commitment. Her name is Stefany and she is a beautiful little girl that is only one year old. For what seems like play money to some Americans allows her to eat, get school supplies, and clothes for a month and be able to be taken care of in her country. I believe that being able to provide this for her will be able to help me connect more with the development of my project (and even more in life) throughout the years as I get to see this little girl grow up. I am truly blessed.


Well! That's all for now:) ...until next time.


photo by ben.chaney

Honduras.

CAPSTONE: My Cornerstone

So this is it-- my FINAL year at Shepherd already and I can hardly believe it. I have pretty much been thinking about capstone since last year and have been going back and forth on what to choose. There were so many different projects that I saw and LOVED and so many different ideas. The best and worst part of it all is that Capstone is LIMITLESS (sort of). You are supposed to use everything that you have learned and focus your energy into ONE TRULY AMAZING THING to make you look like the WOman! Right now there is only one thing that is going through my mind that I know for a fact that my passion will not die down in (ever) and that is children! So this semester I am going to be gearing my focus on developing a website for them! I want to either find an adoption agency or something of the like in need of a webpage and then develop one for them! I also want to be able to include statistics about West Virginia and the amount of children that are in need of families, teen pregnancy, and success stories. I am SUUUPER excited about this and I CANNOT wait to start.

Until then... this is only the beginning:)

photo by HellN

Tattoos

Photo by JohnONolan

First off, I'd like to say that it has been a very long time since I've spoken to you world-- I've missed you! This semester I'm taking I will be learning how to build a website for the ground up and I am very excited to dive into this course! This semester I plan on focusing my website around tattoos! Everything tattoos-- from the history, the best to the worst, tattoo removal, tattoos gone wrong and much more! I cannot wait to see all of the many things that I can put into this site as well as the learning process that comes along with it as well. Tattoos have always been something that I have loved from the time that I was a child, and have followed through on to adulthood. When I was a child I would always use the rub-on tattoos and get scolded by my mother, but I don't think that she would thought I would actually get a real one when I got older.

Anyway, this was just a little taste of the fun and friskiness we will be stepping into soon! Stay updated on all of the fun that we will get into this year!