Follow my progress and slow descent into madness throughout this semester on a week to week basis! See as I grow and deal with the challenges of being a english student in the feel good coming of age story of the year. There was love, betrayal, failure and triumph and in the end the world was forever changed. Battles were won and lost but at the end of it all…. I’m just kidding it is mostly me writing about typing essays. Enjoy!

 

Labor Log #1

This week I watched the videos that were assigned and took some notes on them. It really had some great points about marxism and capitalism and the effect they have today about the way modern businesses influence the consumer with clever marketing that has evolved over time. The second video especially had points about inequality of wealth disruption in the economy that really stood out to me and peaked my interests because I have a lot of my own concerns about how the world economy is built right now and weather or not it’s sustainable. So overall the videos were amusing. I struggled to find an example of an online story that uses visual elements within the article but after awhile I did find some examples that definitely enhanced my immersion into the story (Full reflection below). I also spent some time looking through other classmates labor logs from the last two weeks and it got me thinking about changing the way I format my own but for the time being this seems like a productive way to get my thoughts out but labor log #3 could be a good opportunity to experiment with something new.

 

Time Spent this week: 2 hours

 

Group work: None yet assigned

Reflection to Inception Explained: http://www.inception-explained.com/

This website does a great job at compressing a complex movie with a lot of moving parts and themes into an easy to understand, frankly fun experience. The website uses little bubbles and images that correspond with characters and memorable parts of the film to rip away everything unnecessary to understanding the core elements that were hard for some to follow in the theater and for some even after multiple viewings. The author of this page boils down the movie to only the essentials and presents them in a manner incredibly easy to understand. I think something like this is a great way to show how effective visual storytelling is in a learning environment. It was difficult for me to find an interesting example of visual storytelling for this assignment but ended up finding this gem and enjoying what creator Matt Dempsey is contributing to the visual storytelling movement.

 

Labor Log #2

This week I watched the videos that were assigned and took some notes on them. They really had some great points about marxism and capitalism and the effect they have today about the way modern businesses influences the consumer with clever marketing and how that has evolved over time. The second video especially had some interesting points about inequality of wealth disruption in the economy that really stood out to me and peaked my curiosities because I have a lot of my own concerns about how the world economy is built right now and weather or not it’s sustainable. So overall the videos were amusing. I struggled to find an example of an online story that uses visual elements within the article but after awhile I did find something special that I would recommend everyone check out that definitely enhanced my comprehension of a movie I hadn’t thought about since its release into the story (Full reflection below). I also spent some time looking through other classmates labor logs from the last two weeks and it got me thinking about changing the way I format my own but for the time being this seems like a productive way to get my thoughts out but labor log #3 could be a good opportunity to experiment with something new.

 

Labor Log #3

I spent this week working on project #1. It was a topic I enjoyed writing about and it gave me the opportunity to do some deeper research into an author I really enjoy. Before submitting my work I took some time to read other classmates, mostly to make sure I was doing the project correctly and saw that a lot of people wrote about interesting people, poems and other works of art. All and all I probably spent around an hour researching, an hour getting the time stamps for the episodes as well as an interesting essay piece I needed to properly cite my paper and 3-4 hours on the actual writing. It took me a little while longer than I had hoped to do the project but I was having a hard time getting my thoughts and arguments to come out exactly how I wanted but I hope it came out pretty good. Finally I wrote this labor log after submitting the paper.

 

Labor Log #4 (Getting personal Edition)

This week I read through the assigned articles, watched the episode of Black Mirror and completed the week 4 assignment. It didn’t take a long time to do all of that, under 2 hours. It did get me thinking a lot about the effect social media has on all of us but thats a rabbit hole I’d rather not dive down on a Sunday night labor log. Finally I researched a couple potential articles for the upcoming essay. Not a bad week for assignments, in personal news I have bedbugs (I think from the couches a nice older couple was kind enough to give me) and it has been a real pain 0/10 would not recommend.

 

Labor Log #5

I started off the week by watching the episode of Black Mirror.

I had watched this episode when it was released last year and had a good time revisiting it, overall I think the episode is good but way too long coming in at almost an hour and half when I think it could have been cut in half and had the same weight.

Next up I read the articles

I thought they were pretty interested but I never really enjoy reading people’s opinions about social media because I think most of us know exactly the effect is having because we live with it everyday but nevertheless the articles were solid and I saw the connection with the Black Mirror episode.

 

Then I began writing the week #5 assignment

It was pretty easy to come up with the connection between the online virtual world of social media in the articles and the virtual reality game in the Black Mirror episode.

 

Finally I wrote this labor log. Solid week and no class tomorrow!

 

Labor Log #7

Assignment: Respond to group’s post with at least 100 words of constructive criticism. Anastasia Khaye’s pre-writing is the assignment I responded to. Watch Lemonade, read What Do the Teens Know about This Tweet That We Don’t? and How Instagram Threads Became the WikiHow for Gen Z.

Intensity: In terms of intensity the entire assignment took me less than an hour and were relatively easy.

Anastasia’s outline on her Web 2.0  essay really caught my interest. I thought it was well organized and had an interesting argument.

Feedback: Punctuality was a lacking factor in this labor log as well as… well actually that’s it. The assignments weren’t very difficult at all.

 

Labor Log #9

This week was mostly dominated by working on project 2. I became very invested in the subject of weather or not video games were making people more violent but in the end I feel I reached a very solid conclusion. In the midst of working on it I decided to watch Her to get a jump on next weeks assignment and really liked it. When Samantha reviled how many people she was in love with my heart sank for the main character. Very good movie.

 

Labor Log #10

So this week the main assignment was to watch the movie Her, to write a response to it, how it relates to our lives, and to make a meme.  I watched the movie last week and wrote about it in that labor log if you want to see my review.  In summary I thought the movie did an excellent job of showing a coldness of living in the virtual world.  In my response I mostly wrote about how social media isolates us when we should be together.  My meme is horrible, but I gave it a shot.  I don’t think I’ll have a meme page anytime soon.  Until next week!!!

 

Labor Log #11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmTA0vs_nnY&feature=youtu.be

 

That link is all that needs to be said about the content of week 11. I had much grander ideas going into the project but I was limited by time and getting reacquainted with editing in movie maker. However I do think this process has given me a lot of good ideas for project 3 and I am very excited to get the ball rolling on that as well as start building out the website for project 4. The next few weeks is going to go quick but I have a good feeling my projects are going to deliver enough laughs to secure the A. Feel free to watch this too its another project I did but that I’m hoping to bring a much higher production value to project 3.

 

Labor Log #12

This week was light on actual assignments outside of the self reflection for last weeks assignment. So I used some of the down time to revisit project’s 1 and 2. Project 1 is mostly revisions making the essay fail more inline with rhetoric instead of exploring the underlying themes which I got into in the original. I did much less to project 2 more just punched up the wording and adding some additional sentences to make my points more cohesive. Not a bad week at all.

 

Labor Lob #13

I didn’t see where to post this labor log so I figured here was the place.

 

This week we did not have a regular assignment so I continued working on project #3 and revising the first two projects. I spent a few hours story boarding exactly how I want to shoot my “anti” video game commercial. I think this has the potential to be something really funny but the actual filming part is going to be the most challenging. As far as revising the first two projects goes it has remained mostly the same since I mentioned it in last weeks labor log but I am going to continue touching them up until its time to submit the final portfolio. Finally I read the email that class is canceled this week which is nice after this very draining weekend.

Plan for this week is just to continue working and revising. The semester is winding down quickly and I’m feeling good for the final project.

 

Labor Log #14

And so my road came to end. Here on the 14th week I began work on the final portfolio and my epic saga of english homework was concluded, for now.