Project 3 Reflection: Meh

I've recorded a podcast before, and let me tell you, it is only fun if you make it a little more silly.  I hate being constrained to the very tight lipped way of writing reports, let alone the fact that I felt like my natural way of talking felt more awkward.  My argument was alright, but quite frankly, I don't believe that it was as strong as it could have been because of the way I had to be more formal with my interviews.  The Tiki Luau isn't supposed to be all sharp and strict, it is supposed to be fun for the incoming students to enjoy. 

I guess that is probably what I struggled with.  I had such high hopes for this project being more fun than it turned out to be, and  it ruined mood for the whole thing.  I would have preferred to have had more room for fun, rather than be so serious.  Don't get me wrong, I understand that this was all supposed to be a report, but quite frankly I believe I could have written a report with a bit more voice to it.  On the other hand, I felt as if I did a good job with my editing; I chose the bits and pieces that I felt were more necessary than others, I took out my stumbling mistakes, as well as timed down the audio clips so that I would not go over the allotted time.  I wish I could have added pictures to the podcast (I know how to, so it could have been fun) but alas, the audience does not want to tire their eyes with pictures of students having fun and getting to know one another at the luau.

Going into my report, I already knew the answers to a lot of my questions.  I knew that RHA receives its funding from the housing fee students that live in the dorms pay, I know that programs are meant to be enjoyed by students, as well as that it is easy to make new friends at these events.  All I had to do was to write up questions that I already knew the answers to, and have my interviewees reiterate what I already knew.  If I were to have made this more interesting, I would have probably gone with a topic I don't know that much about, such as a club or organization that I myself was curious about.  As for what I would change with my writing process, probably coming up with a better script.  I am more of an in the moment kind of person; I like to come up with questions on the spot.  However, I understand the importance of a script, so as to allow me to better articulate my report and support my argument.

PewdiePie... You should  youtube hime :3

If I were to apply this work to outside of the university, I would probably just do a podcast series about random facts that relate to my major, or even relates to needling down to what I want my career to be.  Maybe I could apply it in the sense as to think more analytically when offered a job, or for when I do research on a possible company I may work for.  Both instances would be very helpful in guiding me towards my future.

I did my interviews, and here is what I will say in between them

Intro:  Rooming Hall Association, also known as RHA, hosts multiple events for students living on campus.  One of RHA's most well known programs is the Tiki Luau hosted at the very beginning of the school year.  The Tiki Luau is a great place to meet and befriend people, but it would not be possible without the proper funding and hard work on part of RHA.  Luckily enough, I was able to interview one of my friends that I made at the Tiki Luau, as well as my hall council's president, who has had previous experience as a programmer for RHA.

Interview with Diana

Segway: Friends are a vital part of the college experience.  It is very possible that the people you meet at the Tiki Luau will become your best friend forever.  Nick Rice even talks about how important this first true event is for these students for the process of going out and making friends.

Interview with Nick

Conclusion:  With that said, the Tiki Luau is an important event.  It is, in a way, the grand welcoming to first year students at ASU.  The Tiki Luau is also a very time consuming, as well as taxing event funded by the housing fee students pay.  All in all, this event is one of the biggest, and helps shape a student's first semester or year of college.

Katherine Broyles, PR and Marketing Coordinator of Center Hall Council.

Script Draft: Tiki Luau

Interview material, as well as a complete and persuasive argument about the tiki luau.

RHA, or Rooming Hall Association, is an organization that hosts events as well as programs for students living on campus.  One of their annual, and best known events is the Tiki Luau.  The Tiki Luau is hosted at the very beginning of the semester, when students have just moved into their dorms on campus, but have yet to go to a class.  The Tiki Luau is hosted as a free event, just like all of the programs hosted by RHA are, and it is usually for first year Arizona State University students.  With such an event like this, there is bound to have a large amount of attendees, and a lot of effort as well as spending put into it. 

As mentioned in the above flier, the event has a lot of fun activities in store for the students, along with free "swag" or items such as glasses, pens, as well as cups.  For some students, this is where they meet their best friends, and start their long list of college memories to follow in the next four years.  Take it from these students who probably would have never met, had it not been for meeting people at the Tiki Luau

(Interview Diana and John.  Remind them we probably would not have met had it not been for meeting Zach, Reece, and Ethan)
(Ask Leah if she made any friends at the Tiki Luau)
The goal with these interviews is to start having them all go into a conversation of how they would not have met some of the people they know now because of this program.

I probably wouldn't have made some of the friends I have now if I hadn't gotten to go to the Tiki Luau, and because of that experience, I have now made some of the best friends that I could ever imagine.  Do you guys think we would have all met, had it not been for the Tiki Luau that would result in the chain of events of us getting to become so close?

(more discussion amongst us all.  The actual podcast/npr style of report will actually be less formal most likely, as well as eventually resulting in us all gliding off track, but that should help prove how close we have all become, as well as how we have started creating our college memories.  How the podcast will be set up will help prove my point further, is what I'm getting at, I guess)

Now I wouldn't be a very good interviewer if I didn't get some information from the people who help put on the event.  Rooming Hall Association is one of Arizona State University's largest organizations.  RHA hosts multiple events all year around, as well as supply students living on campus with resources along with opportunities to be heard.  In some ways, it is sort of like a Student Council, only it is on the college level, and more stuff happens.  However, to have these events and opportunities open up for students living on campus, there must first be an idea of what should happen.

(Talk to Nick or Bri, maybe Ryan and Alen as well about how RHA comes up with what will be at the Tiki Luau, and what funds are used.)
This discussion, I presume, will take at least till the end of the allotted time.  I will have covered all the subjects necessary for my project, so, that Professor L may give me an A on the project (pretty please, with a cherry on top?)

Due to not knowing what the friends and peers will start discussing, I am incapable of filling this up to be a thousand words.  However, I could supply this post with a lot of pictures.  As you may be very well aware of, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Plus, with that being said, I should technically have over a thousand words.  I MAKE A VERY VALID POINT, do I not?  Heck!  I'll add another picture to make that 2500 some-odd words!

ASU Reacts: More Gibberish

In the NPR broadcast "It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something"  Adriano Celentano, an Italian songwriter, is interviewed about his song Prisencolinensinainciusol.  Celentano talks about how his song was meant to bring multiple cultures together, and help cross language barriers between multiple languages.  How did he plan on crossing the language barrier?  By writing the song so that it is made up of no real language.  When I presented this clip to my boyfriend, and he had response of intrigue and confusion.  I asked him what his take was on Celentano's purpose of the song, and what he came up with was this:

"The song is pointless.  If you really think about it, lyrics make the song, and if it is just gibberish then there is no point to it."

So you don't feel like the song has any purpose, even though its purpose is to show how we may not understand other languages, but that's alright because we can always get some point across?

"Yeah, no, there was no point at all."

No point at all?

"No point at all."

Though his reaction to the song was different to mine, I can understand his view.  He believes strongly in having a more visible purpose, rather than an abstract or symbolic meaning to a song.  It is understandable to want a more clear cut message in a song, and I can respect that.  However, I do feel as though the song's symbolism is rather unique, and it should be kept in mind to the listener Celentano's purpose of his song.

Genre Analysis: It's Gibberish, but Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

In the NPR report “It’s Gibberish, but Italian Pop Song Still Means Something” it is easy to say that this was just a simple piece of a news article.  It is informative, and it also includes has an interview with the creator of the song himself.  In a lot of ways, this style of giving information is somewhat similar to an annotated map, only it is just one of the many annotations.  I don’t think it is all that similar to an essay, because it is far more concise with presenting the thesis, facts, as well as formatting it down to something short, sweet, and to the point.

The NPR report draws the audience in with playing the song in the background.  Its catchy beat intrigues the reader, enticing them to sit and listen for a bit longer.  As the music fades ever so slightly, the reporter’s voice can be heard, as he introduces how the song is made up of no real words.  He gives some information about the song, such as that it was created by an Italian, and that its purpose was to show how language barriers need to be broken in order to communicate with other cultures.  After he explains the significance of the song, it gets louder in the background, and then tones down again.  This is then followed by the reporter introducing the songwriter, as well as the interpreter.  He interviews the songwriter, and learns more about the song.  Once the interview was over, so was the recording, as it faded away with the music.

Again, I believe the styles of writing to be similar to that of an annotated map.  Where as a subject is introduced, and then branches off into a more detailed line of information relating to a topic within the area the subject includes.  It is structured so that the audience has an idea of what will be discussed, which later expands with more sources of information being used, in order to support the thesis.  For example, in “It’s Gibberish, but Italian Pop Song Still Means Something” the reporter states that the song is of greater significance than the garbled nonsense the singers sing, and that the songwriter intended it to be about communication.  He helps prove himself by interviewing the songwriter firsthand, and actually having him state that the reporter’s thesis is correct.

I do not believe the report is similar at all to an essay, due to how swift the information is presented.  I feel as though an essay usually beats around the bush, while this recording gets right to the point when it comes to stating the thesis and the points that help support it.  An essay takes its time to build up the suspense of facts needed to prove one’s self, but this recording does all that in an extremely timely manner that does not bore the listener.

I might like to talk about the Tiki Luau that happens at the beginning of every school year.  The Tiki Luau is especially known as a way to welcome new students to ASU.  I would also like to look into possibly talking about Snowpacolypse, another event held by RHA, which is held near the end of the first semester.  Either way, I think I would like to discuss one of the big events that ASU hosts, and see what some of my friends think of it.

Project 2 Reflection: Organized Chaos

After the process of not knowing what in the world I should do for my project, and creating an incredibly disorganized rough draft, I do believe that my second project came out quite marvelously.  I had quite the bit of trouble of trying to organize my thoughts on not only how to write out about the dorms that underclassmen live in, but also about where I even wanted to begin!  That in itself, organization and brainstorming, were my main struggles with this project.  The way I solved that problem was with a little help from peer review, and sorting out my thoughts by talking to my friends and asking their opinions.  I even emailed Prof. L for some guidance as well.

I feel as though I did a really good job at relating each evaluation back to my thesis, even if I didn’t talk about each individual criteria applicable to the evaluation of the different dorms.  Not only do I feel confident in my evaluations, I also believe that I did a grand job at organizing my posts so that it goes from the introduction post with the map, to the evaluations of the dorms’, and finishing up with my works cited page.  However, the works cited page gave me problems when it came to formatting it, as in it would not allow me, for whatever reason, to invert the second line in any citations that were longer than one line.  Yet I just figure let it be bygones.  Regardless, my formatting is crisp and well organized, and it makes me squee in happiness.

I believe I crafted a fairly strong evaluation, and that I could possibly do a similar evaluation again in the future.  I could easily use this new experience to inspire me to become more thought provoking when it comes to evaluating movies, video games, as well as books and shows that I would like other people to check out.  Evaluations are already used everyday outside of the classroom, such as reviews for movies found on rotten tomatoes, or book reviews inside magazines.

If and when I use evaluative writing in the future, I am sure I will go about the same process.  However, I will think out what I will evaluate the topic or subject at hand, and what criteria it will be held up to.  I can see myself using this process, not only for the benefit of trying to sell a product to others, but also for the benefit of myself when it comes to determining if I want to buy something or not.  The process of evaluating helps lay out the pros and cons of situations, and helps to organize thoughts on what should be done in reaction to something.

Overall, this project started off as a pain in the arse, but in the end, I wound up really enjoying it.  I loved watching my project work its way together from chaos to beautiful organization.

Research Sources: Dorm Life

At first, I thought about writing about Hayden Lawn, as well as how there is so much around it.  It would have been a great topic, but there was one problem.  It is near impossible to find any kind of scholarly article about it!  I searched high as well as low, resorting to sources about lawn care, but I was not satisfied with what I found.  Instead, I will be talking about dorm life, the benefits of living on campus, as well as something that has far more interesting information on it than a plot of grass certainly does. 

I would like to explore more about dorm life, because I have heard about many studies done that speak about the benefits of living on campus.  Not to mention, seeing as how I myself am both a resident on campus as well as part of RHA, a student organization that is specifically for residents.  I believe that it would be very beneficial to not only myself, but possibly other members of RHA as well; to inspire them all to work even harder for the benefit of the residents.

The evaluation process will be related to the atmosphere within the dorms, as well as the functionality of the community.  Seeing as how there are more aspects to dorm life, the aforementioned two are the most basic, as well as necessary for determining the success of the students.  I could try and delve in deeper, into the interpersonal relations between roommates as well as suite mates, but that would only complicate the project, in addition to being rather unnecessary.

Some sources that I have found include the book Chic U by Christie Garton, pages 30 through 57, an article in the Arizona Republic by William Hermann titled Living Up the Dorm Life (665 words), Dorm Life With New Puprose (962) published by The Frederick News-Post is another article.  Lastly there is one last scholarly article, published in the New York Times, by Susan Jo Keller by the title of Dorm Life 101 (1438).  From these sources, I will learn more about the benefits to dorm living along with relations between dorm mates within one’s living community.

Rather than exhausting this topic further, I am just going to blather on about my day.  So far, I woke up, had breakfast, ate part of a giant Rice Krispie treat with this amazing guy.  My friend and I gave him a card and the monstrously giant sweet treat for his birthday.  It was quite delicious, but we all know that it most certainly is not nutritious.  I love my friends so much, they are the fucking shit.  If celebrities walk on the red carpet, we walk on toilet because we are the shit.