So I haven’t written a blog post since HSI pretty much, life can get busy! That doesn’t really matter though. I just found out like 10 minutes ago that today is world kindness day! I have never heard of this before so I went straight to Google and found out more about world kindness day, apparently world kindness day is a national holiday and recognized in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, probably some other places as well. Then I thought dang I wish I would have known so I could do something super nice for somebody. The next thing that came to my mind is why should I have to wait until some occasion like world kindness day to do something super nice and unexpected. So point is I am going to do something super nice and totally unexpected to somebody in the near future! Also the point is not all people think the same way I do, and how cool would it be to have world kindness day become an actual thing in the United States! I think that would be amazing and it is now on my bucket list!:)
HSI: Looking back
HSI was an amazing experience and I am so glad I got to go! I learned many things at HSI but I think the most important one is nobody is perfect. Everybody knows that right? You here that phase from the moment you are born til the moment you die. But I did’t really understand the deeper meaning of the saying was until HSI. Everybody has imperfections but imperfections aren’t necessarily a bad thing, without imperfections we would all be the same. For example, in cross-country we learn what correct running form is, to use the least energy possible while still creating maximum speed. One of the things wrong with my form is that when I run I tilt my head slightly to the right, when I am thinking about my form I can correct it. In a race when I are thinking about my strategy and I am really focused on getting to that person in front of me chances are that my head is tilted sightly to the right. It is imperfect but when I am running, spectators can tell it is me because of the way that my head tilts. HSI taught me that imperfections aren’t bad because without them you wouldn’t be you. So maybe instead of impossible struggle of striving for perfection we would all strive to be ourselves in our best form. ❤
HSI: The last day
It wouldn’t be right to say I made it to the end because ‘I’ didn’t make it to the end. We made it to the end, without my team I wouldn’t have made it. The breakfast club is the best team anybody could ask for!
In multimedia the top things that I am going to take away from this class, first of all the skills I have learned to become more tech savvy. I am mostly going to remember the multitasking lesson, I am I going to be aware of multitasking and how it makes you less smart. I’m also going to use how to take good pictures, because I have always been daunted by cameras, and now I won’t be afraid.
In my wilderness class we learned about things that, to be blunt, will kill you. I learned how to be safe in the wilderness, which is really important because I live in a super small place with lots of wilderness.
So to be honest I have so many good memories I’m not really sure how to pick one. My very favorite is probably when we went to the Snowies! The ride up there was super beautiful and it was so peaceful, and the music just made me happy. Then up there is was super pretty and I was with my favorite people from HSI and it was great a great day!
I think I have grown as a person but im not sure I can put a name to it. I was pretty friendly and outgoing before the camp so I don’t really think I grew that way, I might have lost responsiblity while here. I didn’t have to take care of sheep, or babysit my little sisters, which I would have had to do if I was at home.
As for my future career path, I don’t think HSI really had an effect on it, just because I am not super interested in the classes I got put into, they were really fun though and I learned so much!
If I had to do HSI again I would meet more people. It’s really hard though because I love my HSI experience as it was!
Of course I will tell my friends and family about HSI, and I will suggest it to everybody! It was such a great experience:)
P.S. yesterday we did a scavernger hunt that somes up my experience pretty well:
Gender media stereotype
I feel like the gender stereo types are the same, but less prominent. The women still cook and clean the men still work. I feel like this isn’t as big as it used to be at all but it still exists.
Racial stereotypes have got down dramatically. Most of the things I saw I haven’t really seen before, unless I am watching an old western with my dad.
I don’t really watch TV, but I haven’t seen any shows with GLBT people.
I also don’t really know and TV shows that have stereotypes. I just don’t watch TV that much.
Digital media & multitasking
Most teachers in my school don’t allow phones. It is rude to be looking on your phone while they are trying to teach. At the same time there is not many repercussions for using your phone during class, and the ones that we do have only seem to stop the honest people who actually want to learn. Some teachers take phones to the principal and then the parent of the student has to come pick the phone up. That doesn’t seem to be effective, from an annoyed students perspective, I hear these students that get their phones taken away complaining about how rude the teacher is for taking it away, then the next day the same student is using their phone in class, often in front of the same teacher. I’m not sure what the rules on laptops are because most kids don’t bring laptops to school. I think it would depend on the teacher and the class and the day. I have also heard that laptops are more common the more advanced the class is.
I do use media outside of school and I do multitask. I could be doing my homework and my phone will go off and I will answer it, and my mom always reprimand me for that, and i see her point now. I think my resolution for my junior year will be that when I am doing homework ABSOLUTELY NO PHONE! I not sure how long that can last though.
After watching the video I don’t think I am effective at multitasking. I would try to do my homework and it would take forever so I would get frustrated and now I think that I understand that it’s because I was using my phone and getting distracted.
I do not plan on multitasking during school because it doesn’t work. I am going to be more aware of things like this.
I feel like we as a society this is a huge problem, I’m not sure how to fix this problem and I wish that society would just become aware of it.
The dangers of MTV and other TV
A mook is a stereotyped male, who is silly, and very ‘masculine’ he has huge over sized muscles and a huge ego to go along with it. A midriff is a stereotyped teenage girl, she was sexual and proud of it, she will show anything to a guy.
I feel like in a way mooks are dead, I don’t watch TV often at all but I really have seen much of what they are describing on TV. I think midriffs are different, they still exist but they are older, maybe they start acting and modeling in the sexual way when they are in there late teens or early twenties, not 13.
Mooks and midriffs are definitely a creation by MTV and other TV networks. They really don’t portray our society well at all, I mean normal people don’t go out in public with almost nothing, like Brittney Spears did.
Since the video we watched is 13 years old, the content of MTV has changed. People get bored with things fast, and the companies know this so they are always coming out with newer, more exciting things to take place of the boring old things.
I think that MTV should move towards better things, like real empowerment, not the horrible kind of fake empowerment. I think that MTV and other TV shows should make teenagers feel actually good about themselves and not pressure them to do things like making their bodies sexual.
Generation LIKE
All of this kind of scares me, companies using all of our information to ‘target’ us as costumers. Everything in the virtal world is a lot more complex then I previously thought, it freaks me out and it bothers me. Also selling out can be a problem and people turn aa blind eye towards it. I didn’t even know about it before yesterday.
Sarah Conrad and her Cross Country story
“Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle… when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” -Thomas Friedman
Sarah Conrad knows that you don’t have to be a lion or a gazelle to be running! She has been running since she was in elementary school, and doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon!
At first Sarah did XC in high school just to stay in shape, soon she decided if she was going to do a sport she should try to do her best. She started getting good times and soon she found herself on the varsity squad. Her best experience is state.
“I wasn’t expecting to do very well, but I ended up getting my PR and it was a really good race!” Sarah explained.
Sarah enjoys being around her team, and they do much more than just run together, they play ultimate frisbee and they have pasta dinners before their races, for team bonding time. They are also really close as a team and everybody is best friends.
“Everyone on the team are like the weirdest people I have ever met, but I love them all to death and we are so close.” Sarah giggled.
Cross country isn’t all fun and games, it’s really hard work, and very runner probably thinks about quitting sometimes. Sarah thought about it at the beginning of her sophomore year.
“I wanted to quit actually last year during the first few weeks because we got a new coach and she was really hard on us. At the very beginning of the season it was really hot and the runs honestly just sucked. They were so bad. In the middle I was like why am I even doing this sport. This is so painful I really wanted to quit but at the end I was really glad I didn’t quit.”
Listen to her interview here:
The Way Media Portrays People
Media portrays woman very tall and disgustingly skinny. I think this a problem for most women because most women want to look their best. Magazines play on human insecurities making them worse not better so normal people like us will buy the magazines that are mostly full of useless junk.
I think it might make problems like eating disorders worse, because girls look at magazines and think they have to be that skinny. Or it makes girls more insecure because they see what they what they think they’re supposed to be like.
Maybe magazines should make things more real, not fake and airbrushed. I feel like that would help the problem the most. 🙂
Reflection on Interviews
For my self-expression with media class, also the class I write these posts for, we had to interview another person about things they like to do. I interviewed Sarah Conrad about her favorite sport, cross-country. The whole experience was good. I wish I was a bit more prepared for the interview because there was lots of wrinkles in my questions. As the person being interviewed I also talked about Cross-Country because XC is defiantly the best thing to talk about:). As the interviewee I also wish I had practiced more because there was lots of ums, ands, also just not having a clear direction of what i wanted to say next. But the good news is that practice makes perfect and in this day and age the magic of digital editing can fix that:)
momoyer 