For my last blog post (how bittersweet), I have to discuss how I would like my blog to be shared. Now I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t I already write a post on how I would want my blog to be (hypothetically) shared? Well, you’re half right. I wrote a post about how I would want it to be shared over social media. Is there a difference, you ask? Why yes, there is. Before, I described how if my blog were to be shared over social media, I would prefer that my blog be shared on Twitter, and you can see why here. So, if my blog were to be shared in a different manner, over the internet, I would like for it to be shared by teachers on the syllabus or homepage for this course. Since this class is a hybrid class, half of the class is conducted online, and including a link on the homepage would be very easy. And since technology allows professors to upload the syllabus online, a link could be easily copied and pasted into a new tab. Having my blog shared on a syllabus would then expose new students around my age, taking the same class I took, and doing the same assignments I did to my blog. They would see my struggles and successes, and would be able to relate to the assignments covered in the course. It could provide some insights and humor for future students, as well as provide a template for what they may want their blog to look like.
How I Fit In
(or do I?)
My website fits into the ~web~ with all the other sites like mine because it is me, ranting, to an unlimited amount of people! Though I don’t read many blogs, pretty much only the blogs of my classmates if we’re being honest, I do know that some people have personal blogs where all they do is talk about themselves and their life. Although our everyday lives may not be similar, we both fit into the category of a “diary”. My blog could also fit into other categories, such as summer intern, broke college kid, or people with a self-deprecating sense of humor trying to vent about their life to random strangers on the internet. What my website adds to “the conversation” isn’t really anything constructive, but rather just a snapshot of what life was like for a young person in 2017. Perhaps years from now someone will stumble upon it and laugh at how naive and carefree I really was, not knowing that Trump would send us into a nuclear war in a few months. Or maybe people will look back and laugh at how “archaic” life was before flying cars and teleporting. Though I’m not providing any groundbreaking opinions or providing any useful information on here, hopefully I’m giving people some comedic relief. That’s pretty much what I’ve decided my life is gonna be about anyway, providing some mediocre jokes to people and providing them with some entertainment.
Peanutize Yourself
Since I have a debilitating inability to ever make a decision, I did both the Peanutize and Powerpuff transformations. I felt like I was in elementary school again the way I got to make an avatar that looked like me. The Peanutize one came out pretty awful considering the faces of those characters are so plain. I think that’s also part of the reason I also did the Powerpuff avatar, because I knew it would probably come out a little cuter since those characters are just drawn to be cute. I definitely hated both of the outfit choices though. There was no option for just a plain t-shirt with jeans, which I wear probably every other day. Making these characters was kinda fun for a second but after I was done I literally thought “now what”. I get that it’s good advertising because it’s interactive, but what are you supposed to do with the image when you’re done? Make it your profile picture? If I saw a grown woman make a Peanutized version of herself her profile picture I would think “that person has way too much time on her hands”.
I don’t know why I just went off a hateful rant towards the Peanutize yourself website, but sorry I did. I really wasn’t as angry when I was doing it as I portrayed myself.
Fair Use Media
So, f
or my fair use media post, I chose a picture that relates to my blog because this is how me (and my coworkers) feel when it’s sunny and 95 degrees out, and we’re stuck in our office (with no windows). I love my internship and my coworkers, but whenever it’s a beautiful summer day out, I do get a twinge of regret. I regret that I decided to pursue my future and get an internship to help further my career, instead of not working and laying on the beach all summer long like a bum (just kidding, of course…but not really). I haven’t written about my internship yet, so I’m dedicating this post to what it’s like to work during the summer, when all your friends are out having fun, and you’re stuck living by yourself in good, ole New Brunswick. I saw this meme on Twitter that actually said “when you want to quit your job to have fun…but in order to have fun you, need the money you get from you job” with a look of someone in utter despair. That meme summed up my summer so well I wish I could make it the background image of my blog (but I would be infringing on copyright if I did that!).
Without further ado, I’m allowed to use this image of women in a jail because, according to the Fair Use Checklist:
- I am commenting on it, saying how it is like a metaphor for me at work. (Purpose)
- This is favored to educational objectives, I am writing a blog for class to learn about strategic presentation. (Nature)
- I only used a small quantity, one image from Flickr. (Amount)
- The amount is favored for educational use, one single image, no more no less. (Amount)
I could mention all the ways I am not opposing the justification for fair use, but it’s really late and I’m exhausted, and I already hit 200 words.
I got this image from Flickr
~*memes*~
The meme I chose for my website was the “conceited reaction” meme. This meme, according to Know Your Meme, is “a reaction image in which the rapper Conceited is shown looking off camera while pursing his lips, which is typically paired humorous captions to indicate feelings of anxiety or disapproval.” This is actually one of my favorite memes, and I picked it because it’s pretty much my (or life’s) reaction to a lot of things I plan out. For example:
me (at night): I’m gonna wake up early tomorrow morning and work out!
me in the morning: 
me planning out the day: I’m gonna get all my homework done early today!
me at night when I plop down on my bed and turn netflix on:
me: this guy I met is really nice and I think I really like him!
the universe, knowing it’s not gonna work out between us:
This meme is beneficial to my blog because hopefully it will give my followers insight on how I’m feeling when I post about how my day was or why my life is a mess. My summer has been FILLED with anxiety and disapproval so I think if I put this meme into my posts it’ll help the people reading this to visualize what was happening in my brain/ what I was thinking and feeling.
Promoting on Social Media
So, when I was thinking of what social media platforms or tools you guys (the wonderful people reading this) could do to promote my blog, the first thing that immediately came to mind was sharing it on Facebook. Pretty much everyone has a Facebook, so what better way to share it? I see people my age sharing links all the time, whether it’s to donate money or sharing funny articles. But then, on second thought, there are also a lot of parents on Facebook, and although I’m not posting anything inappropriate, I just wouldn’t want my parents or family members to somehow get ahold of my blog. Another reason why I had doubts about using Facebook to share my blog was because the audience that I’m targeting for my blog are people my age, and I feel I would be better able to reach more people my age, that I feel would enjoy it, on Twitter. It would be beneficial to my blog if it were shared on Twitter because the more people that view it, the more feedback I could get on how to make it better. For instance, people in the class have already critiqued my posts, and the more diverse input I get, the more I can enhance my blog and maybe even adjust my posts to engage a larger audience.
My Weekend
Though my summer has mostly consisted of me working, or driving (either home from work, or from home to work), I actually had a very busy weekend. My Friday consisted of me lounging around for the majority of the day, and then getting a haircut (which no one noticed, not even my mom), and buying some new running shoes. At night, I went out with two of my best friends who I had not seen in awhile which was really nice.
Since I have to live at school during the week for my internship, I barely see my friends anymore. It also doesn’t help that almost every single one of my friends lives away at school for their own internships as well. We are all together roughly once a month now, and although we’re used to being apart from each other at school, it sucks not being with your friends durning the summer.
On Saturday, I woke up to find that I was already running late that day. My dad bought my family tickets to go to a music festival this weekend, with Saturday’s bands being The Doobie Brothers (who?), Steely Dan (who??) and, my favorite band ever, The Eagles. I wanted to see them so badly I had been considering just buying a parking pass and listening to the concert from the parking lot. I was forced to get ready as quickly as possible (which is hard for me) and get ready to leave, even though the Eagles wouldn’t be coming on for roughly 6 hours...I hate that about concerts. After sitting through over 3 hours of songs I had never heard, the Eagles came on and I was literally so overcome with emotion that I started to cry. I have never been one of those people who cry at concerts, but I’m not even ashamed to admit I cried through probably the first half hour before I finally got it grip and pulled myself together. I mean I wasn’t sobbing, but tears were falling because I was just so happy, and thankful, and also emotional because they kept doing tributes to one of the members who had recently passed away. It was without a doubt the greatest concert I’ve ever been to and I can’t ever thank my parents enough for taking me. It felt like a blur and I feel like it didn’t even really happen.
On Sunday, I woke up only to find I was being rushed to get ready again, this time to go to a Yankee game with my brother and sister. Even though I live in North Jersey and have made it to the Bronx by driving in only 20 minutes, it usually takes at least an hour to get to Yankee stadium which is such a pain in the ass. I obviously took too long to get ready and made us miss our train, so we got to the game late. It was such a beautiful day to watch a game and I’m glad it wasn’t 70 degrees like it had been the day before. I wasn’t glad however at how much everything costs in the stadium. There is no reason a beer should be $11.50 and a hot dog should be $8. You literally have to take out a loan before you go there because you wind up spending so much money. Other than the fact that Yankees lost, and I spent half of my life’s savings at the game, I had a great time.
This was probably the most exciting weekend I’ll have all summer, which is why I decided to write about it. Don’t get excited, most of my weekends entail me laying out in the yard tanning for the whole weekend and sleeping.
Screen Casting
Thankfully, this assignment was pretty easy for me. The technology involved was really easy to use, especially since the professor showed us how to use it step by step during class. I never used to consider myself necessarily “bad” at technology, but I guess this class is showing me otherwise. I had no problem making the screencast, however I kept messing up what I was saying, or would lose my train of thought, so I had to keep redoing my screen cast which was a little annoying, especially since I hate hearing my own voice. Learning how to screen cast could actually be very helpful for me in the future. One reason why learning this skill might be helpful is for one I’m at work and need to send a presentation to my coworkers on how to use a website. My internship involves me using different social media platforms, and not all of my coworkers know how to use these said social media platforms. So, if I were to do a presentation on how to use the multiple platforms I analyze during work, I could use screen casting to show my older coworkers what pages to click, what numbers on the page are important, and how to upload content on their own. A creative project I could also use screen casting for is one of my many marketing projects. If I want to show off an advertisement, or an email campaign, or just a website, and what features I like or dislike, I can use screencasting to present this to my professor. For my classes, we look at different ways companies try to reach their audiences, like for instance commercials. If I wanted to refer to a specific part of a commercial, I could use screen casting to show the video, pause it, and refer to any details I need.
Pretending to be a DJ
Here we go again! With my hopes and dreams being crushed! So, as per usual, I expected myself to do this whole big thing and create something that was WELL out of my reach. By that, I mean I thought I was going to mix 2 (maybe even 3 if I was feeling it) songs together in GarageBand and totally nail this assignment. At least for this assignment, I knew that I should watch the tutorials first because I could NOT go in blindly. However, when I opened up GarageBand, it was a newer version so it was still a little hard figuring out where everything would be. I originally was going to crossfade Hotel California by The Eagles with One of These Nights, also by The Eagles. They are my favorite band, and I associate the majority of their music with summer since I always listen to them when I’m driving down the shore. So, I thought it would fit my theme to include songs that reminded me (and hopefully others) of summer. However, the first roadblock in my journey was that I didn’t even have One of These Nights in my computer music library; I only had it on my phone, and I was too lazy to upload it. So, I tried to crossfade it with another song, but nothing sounded good. So, I dropped Hotel California and was going to try to mix The Girl by City and Color with Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. However, I learned really quickly that crossfading two songs that are acoustic is a lot harder than you would think. The two guitars playing two different songs just sound like shit when crossfading, if we’re being honest. At least, it does when I try to do it…I’m sure some professional DJ could make it sound amazing. So, I figured doing two rap/hip hop/R&B songs would be easier since I hear DJ’s mash them up on the radio all the time. I decided to go with Countdown by Beyonce, one of my favorites, and crossfade it with Gold Digger by Kanye featuring Jamie Foxx, another favorite. When I finally nailed the crossfade I thought it sounded so good, but listening to it now – it’s alright. Next, I decided to splice Gold Digger because I thought it would be easier, and it kinda was. You can definitely tell where the splice is, but hey, I tried my best, professor. Splicing is really hard and the guy on the tutorial made it look really easy…it’s not. At least the hardest parts of the class are over, because once again, I’ve been taught I’m not made for any time of creativity/editing of work on the computers. If I do use GarageBand again, it will probably be to make some funny mash up of songs for my friends.
Enjoy!
(Also, I didn’t even realize I had the explicit version of Gold Digger until I was already like 70% done, because I was mostly working on crossfading the intro and recording my “About” page. Only when I had to make a music bed for my audio did I realize, and it caught me off guard, so, sorry if it did the same to anyone else!)
Creating A Header
One of the assignments for this week was to use photo editing software to create a header by layering 2 pictures, and playing around with contrast/brightness and filters. In my head, I imagined exactly what I wanted my photoshopped picture to look like. It was going to be a picture of a tropical beach (NOT the Jersey Shore, though I do love it) that slowly faded into a picture of an office desk, with a computer, phone and maybe a notebook on the desk. I planned it out in my head which pictures I was going to use and I was so confident I was going to do a really good job. How incredibly naive of me. I didn’t even watch the videos that were suggested for using Pixlr Editor, because I’m an idiot, and tried just diving into the site. I uploaded my background picture and that was as far as I got on my own. So, after going back and watching the videos, I was a lot more confident. However, I soon realized I couldn’t just fade two pictures together, I was probably not using software that could do that, or even if I was, I was not nearly skilled enough to figure out how to do that on my own. I tried my best to copy what the man did in the video, to delete the background of the second image I wanted to use on top of my background picture of a beach, but because so many stock photos I found of computers were a white computer on a white desk with a white keyboard, I couldn’t properly isolate just the white desk. So, I wound up being able to delete the background of the computer desk when it was already layered on top of the beach picture, but I unfortunately couldn’t delete all of it. So, as you’ll see, there’s some weird lines on the beach because some of the background was still left. (Also, now that I’m proofreading this post before I upload it, I realize I blurred out the background image of the beach, I don’t exactly remember why, but I remember it somehow looked better than when it wasn’t blurred.) When the professor said, “No offense, but you’re probably not going to do anything that will impress me” I took it as a challenge and thought, “No, I feel like I could actually be pretty good at this.” No, no…I was wrong. I definitely should not pursue a career in graphic design. As for where I can apply these newfound “skills”…I will honestly probably use them to create memes or funny pictures to send my friends, and that’s it. My work should not be displayed anywhere. So, without further ado, here is my less-than-subpar header I created!
My mediocre at BEST header image was borrowed and remixed images from Wikipedia and Pexels.
Rantings of a Bored 21 Year Old 