Firstly, I will discuss the postings of others. The blogs with my favorite comments are: Mystery Inspires Excitement…and Fear: A Pivotal Fork in the Brain by jmpierce7 and Softball always ruins my social life. by gymshortsandcowboyboots. I chose these posts because they were the two that I related most to and felt I had the most personal connection to, over the course of this semester. The most inspiring post was I Solemnly Swear That I Will Finish All My Homework by jmpierce7. This one I chose because of the extensive use of references to different areas of pop culture. It really sparked my interest and helped me want to push my project for the AUM students to new heights.
Now I will move on to the postings I, myself made. For the most part I chose the blogs that were either viewed the most or got the most interesting or frequent feedback. So, in a sense, I let the public choose. I felt that my strongest visual image posting was my post “Visual Reality”. I told stories and really tried to illustrate with words these places I called home. I was also proud when one commenter noticed y use of a more vintage style map as I related that to the progression of time. I believe my strongest analytical posting was “So I’m Blogging”. In this posting I discussed my views on blogging. It was my very first post and an experiment for the most part but I feel that it conveyed y character and my feelings rather well, while delving into many subjects. I felt that my dissection of this assignment was clear and concise and supported my view of the project. For my strongest exploratory posting and my most creative posting I chose “Fairly Stories” I felt this showed my compliance to the assignment while still remaining creative and engaging. I was my opinion that my hyperlink edited poem was both my “Strongest use of hyperlinks” What can compare to a raw first shot, when the feeling is fresh and easily followed? Finally, for my three strongest postings I chose “Opposed/Juxtaposed/Compared”, “There’s a Map for That”, and “Recollection”. These three were my most insightful and deep pieces, (and I chose “There’s a Map for That”, because I wanted to see what it felt like to retool my work to your specifications), I was proud of them and, because they either got the most views or the best feedback. I feel that with the editing and time, I have vastly improved their quality and am proud to present them for your judgment.
I hope my choices are to your liking. Happy Summer!
I estimate my semester word count to be: roughly 7 thousand words.
- My favorite comment posted to an OCU student’s blog:
Mystery Inspires Excitement…and Fear: A Pivotal Fork in the Brain by jmpierce7
- My favorite comment posted to an AUM student’s blog:
Softball always ruins my social life. by gymshortsandcowboyboots
- Most Inspiring posting by an OCU student:
I Solemnly Swear That I Will Finish All My Homework
http://pictureswespeak.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/i-solemnly-swear-that-i-will-finish-all-my-homework/
- My Strongest Visual Image:
Visual Reality
Today in class we were asked to map out our lives. We could map places of interest, travel destinations, special places of value. But how does one map a lifetime when one is only beginning to live it?
And so, as I often do, I took this assignment literally. I mapped my homes, not only places of residence, but places that act as the settings and stages for my last twenty years of existence. (The burgundy line shows my travel and the blue dots my residences.)
First the hospital I was born in, how could I leave out the place where the curtain rose? My family knew every member of the staff personally, from years of births and deaths and surgeries and friendships. We were on a first name basis with most everyone who clocked in. Except, of course the nurse who signed my mother in the morning she came in, two days past her due date. I’ll save you the details, (as the potential for eliminating your appetite for the foreseeable future is rather high), but my birth took 21 hours.
Yes, we do in fact dislike that nurse a bit, still. She doesn’t work there anymore. Thank goodness, as my brother and three younger cousins were all born in that hospital, in the same room as myself over the course of the next fourteen years.
Next was the house across from my paternal grandparents. I used to ride my pony down the hill of my driveway, across the gravel road and up the hill of their driveway to the house. The dairy farm crowned that hill. My collie-mix, Charlie, used to follow me around the barn, herding my away from the cattle like he had been trained to by my grandpa. My grandma panicked every time I hopped up on the fence rails of the corral to taunt the bulls. But how could I resist? They looked rather silly with their horns shaved down that way.
Next was the white brick out on the edge of town, with the big sweet gum tree. I climbed up into that tree the day I got my glasses and counted the leaves because I could see them all for the first time. I had not realized until a week earlier that had spent nine years of my life with a visual impairment. I just knew shapes were not so easy for me to define, colors were a little blurry and that I did not need to know a person’s face to recognize them, I learned their movements and voice to compensate. Being deemed legally blind was a little heartbreaking for my parents, but I adjusted as I had for the last decade.
Next was the two-story covered in ivy. We used to sled down the stair case on a mattress, my brothers and I, and when we got caught we simply took to climbing the sliding ladder on the bookcases, hopping onto the landing and leaping over the back of the couch. It was dangerous and foolish, and we terrified the cleaning lady a few times, I don’t think she ever told on us though. Rather kind of her, that was.
Last is my dorm room, I don’t know if I call that home. The library and the science building are more that than my bedroom. I spend just enough time there to sleep ad shower, living alone isn’t home to me, which is why I prefer the other areas of campus where I can interact with my fellows.
I wonder where my next home will be…
- My Strongest Analytical Posting:
“So I’m Blogging…”
So I’m blogging for the first time… In all honesty I’ve never been much a blog fan, it always seemed pretentious somehow, posting opinions, assuming others valued them as much as the author. It seems vain to me, venting to the universe that way.
But, I’ve never disregarded a class assignment before, so why start now?
I did not expect this to come up in my Honors Comp. II class Monday morning, but there it is. I like the class already, our professor made some great points and had some unexpected views and ideas. I’m excited to try something new for once, and hey, who’s going to argue when you get to post instead of compose an English paper? Don’t misunderstand me, words are my life, I read anything I can get my hands on, and always have. On more than one occasion I have been forbidden to bring books to class because I become so absorbed in them. I honestly cannot hear a single thing anyone says to me, I have to be shaken out of my trance.
Something my professor said yesterday keeps replaying in my head. I may be paraphrasing but it was something like “The way you present yourself is your argument to the world.” I identified with that somehow. Maybe because I believe in the value of appearance and its effect on those you come into contact with, however brief that contact may be. I believe in professionalism and conservative portrayals and the organized, trustworthy message they exude. As my friend pointed out a few short hours ago, business suits communicate confidence, they make the wearer someone you really want to know, someone from whom you would willingly take advice. Well maybe that’s just us… But you certainly don’t see politicians with gauges and gym shorts.
I’m anxious to be back in class tomorrow, we have all been assigned a poetic self-portrait. I’m rather afraid to hear the others, I feel like mine will be a bit “down-home” or “back woodsy” in comparison. I come from farmland and domesticated beasts of burden, tractors and barbed wire fences stretching out into the distance, not the most common lifestyle for my classmates, even those also from Oklahoma… Ah well, I am what I am, nothing more, nothing less. I am what I come from.
We are not a singular entity, this class. We are collaborating with Auburn University- Montgomery. This too is new for me; I am interested as to how we will proceed. They are coming to visit in April, so we will be building up to the event for a while.
I realize something as I type this: I have been spoiled by the luxury of Microsoft Word. For years that blessed system has autocorrected my spelling and grammar…perhaps my professor knew this and thought blogging would regain those like me their lost ability to spell and to relinquish the reliance on a nonliving unit? If so, this was a brilliant plan, if not? An unexpected bonus.
I’m done for the night, it’s time I finalized my poem anyway. This was easier than I expected…I cannot believe I wrote this much so quickly. I wonder what class will be like tomorrow…
- My Strongest Exploratory Posting/ My Most Creative Posting
Fairly Stories:
I chose the Exploration on making up magical stories about ordinary objects.
Saddle up y’all, I grew up on Disney. I could not be better prepared.
First is my lovely ornate red king chess piece:
He was not always like this you know. He was once brave and strong. Had great teeth too. He was the eldest son of a grand old king, a prince preparing for his throne. But he realized that he had not yet completed a noble quest as young heroes often do. And so, determined to be a worthy leader to his people, he rode off. As young seekers often do he found. What he found was a crumbling tower tucked away in the thick vegetation of a lush forest. The walls were consumed by twinning creepers. He dismounted from his noble steed and charged the walls. He gripped the vines and hauled himself up and over.
From here the details get shady. What we know we got from the steed. All we know is he was shipped back to us as a chess piece.
No return address was provided.
Next are my ostentatious gold heels:
Now we know why Cinderella lost one on those forty plus stairs. Boys, pretentious houses make it hard for the dream girls to escape.
And finally my blue tea cup:
It was once the vessel a rather lovely peppermint tea that caused a sleepy college student to drift off ever so peacefully before eight pm- oh, wait, that was last week.
Ah the heck with it, eleven straight hours of sleep in a fantasy in college.
- My Best Use of Hyperlinks
“I don’t know where you got it, but take it back.”- hyperlink edit
I am from a worn leather saddle, from Cannon and Pillsbury.
I am from the red mud tracked through the garage and black and silver appliances beyond the bright red front door.
I am from the sweet-gum tree in the front garden, the one I spent hours in the day I got my glasses because I could finally count the leaves.
I am from hand sewn baptismal gowns and blue eyes, from Marie and Kennedy and Jimmy (not James) Pearson.
I am from milking boots piled by the door and Grandma’s house stuffed to capacity on Sunday, from “don’t you dare take that four-wheeler above twenty-five” and “I don’t know where you got it, but take it back.”
I’m from incense wafting over the altar, white robes and stand up, sit down, kneel, repeat.
I’m from Ireland and Belgium and North America, from Grandma’s gingerbread and mashed potatoes.
From the time we found the scorpion in the bath tub when all my cousins came to stay, my Grandpa’s sweatpants clamped with banana clips because a certain five-year-old thought it made him look like a cowboy.
I am from the table behind the couch, the shot of Great-Mother hugging Mother Theresa, and the only image of the beautiful woman I never knew. From the smiles that can make me laugh. From the dust that hugs them, making me realize how much time has gone by.
- My 3 Strongest postings over-all.
Opposed/Juxtaposed/Compared
https://bpblogging.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/oppossedjuxtaposedcompared-5/
First and foremost, be patient with me. I am well aware that the body art image is not a map of a place. But in my opinion, it is a map of the soul. This person chose these images and organized them in this pattern for a reason. This is their way of communicating of who they are as a person to the rest of the world. These images meant enough to them that they chose to make them a permanent fixture of their body. They chose to forever inscribe this part of who they are onto their skin for the world to view and judge accordingly. This is their declaration of themselves, one they have chosen to stand by for the foreseeable future. Similarly the brain map shows the functioning parts of the brain, how they fit together and even how some cooperate. It shows the mental functions and pathways of the control center of a human being. Both maps are designed to convey messages to the world, clearly. The messages both say something about the mind, how it works, and the decisions made based upon internal communication.
There’s a Map for That
https://bpblogging.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/theres-a-map-for-that/
I was concerned about my post for this assignment, honestly I could not think of a time I had been aware that maps had lied to me -yes, I also realized I’m an unobservant sheep. Baa, to you too- then I glanced down at my iPhone. And the wheels began to turn.
Anyone familiar with these remarkable creations knows the many things they are capable of. And anyone driving to a new location with the aid of the Map app knows their darker tendencies. These infernal devices are supposed to provide you with a satellite update as to your location on the map, saving you unfathomable amounts of trouble and frustration! Just watch the blue dot and all will be taken care of!
Here is where disaster strikes: they tend to stall when checking your location, almost always RIGHT AT YOUR EXIT -not bitter, not at all- causing you to miss it, or spontaneously screech across multiple lanes of traffic to reach your goal. The fickle device puts unfathomable risks on the retention of your sanity, not to mention your survival.
It does not help when your passenger is doing the navigating with this contraption either. The most common phrases of the navigator when an iPhone is involved are “Oops..” “Oh. Wait, that was it…” “TURN! TURN NOW!!” and “Ok, don’t be mad but..”
If this were not frustrating enough, they also have a tendency to misplace the exact location of your destination. Never more than a block or so, but misplaced they are, regardless. I have learned to put the phone down when within a half mile of my next turn or the destination itself. Otherwise I get rather frustrated at the inaccuracy, and I tend to speak slowly and in all capital letters, often through my teeth and with hellfire in my eyes. My passengers tend to rather quiet at these times.
But back to the destination location, I do not know whom Apple or Verizon make deals with, but I think they have a small-scale conspiracy up and running. Ever notice how the Map app sends you twenty miles away for a Target when there happens to be one three blocks over? Or how they ignore four banks in your neighborhood for one way out in the ghetto? Who is pulling the strings with this?? Are they, as on page 58 of Mark Monmonier’s How to Lie with Maps, avoiding “graphic interference” to “serve the advertiser’s need to suppress and exaggerate”?
To my understanding, graphic interference is the highlighting of too many locations or landmarks on a map, making the image cluttered or hard to define as titles overlap and become impossible to read. Because of this some must be pushed aside in favor of others, causing some to obtain publicity and others to sit aside unnoticed. But who decides which landmarks and locations are left out? Who chooses the final layout?
I realize that though chain companies are related to one another, not all of those in an area are managed by the same people and pressure is put on each individual store to outperform the others, both in the immediate area and nation-wide. So my question is this, which ones are in good with the big corporations that are behind locating and providing directions to these places? What have they done to insure that their particular site is highlighted while others are overlooked or ignored altogether?
This may be something that deserves further investigation. This is, I now realize a rather dramatic example of how to lie with maps.
Recollection
https://bpblogging.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/blakes-blog-pic2.jpg
https://bpblogging.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/dsgadfg/
This may not look like much, but it was the catalyst to identification of a killer. This is the axle to the Ryder rental truck used by Timothy McVeigh on April 19, 1995 to destroy a third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. 168 people died in the attack.
Within 90 minutes of the explosion McVeigh was apprehended for driving without a license plate.
While he was in custody the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) and the remnants of the license plate that had been recovered from the site the bomb was linked to the specific Ryder truck and then to McVeigh.
This twisted piece of metal was the link to the discovery of a murderer of innocents. In a room full of memories and relics this stood out to me. Walled in glass at the center of organized chaos it seemed out of place. Why would a twisted fragment of a car be among the notable debris? More commonly the items were reconstructed rooms or articles of the martyrs of this tragedy. The plaque in the case is not attention grabbing. It is simple and understated, allowing the viewer to approach if they wish, making no demands on them. The axle itself is propped on a hand trolley, dominating the center of a room, it is impossible not to see, yet it does not at first appear remarkable.
Yet it brought justice by simply remaining intact. Such a legacy this plain piece of steel has.
What would have transpired had it been destroyed as well? Its destruction was almost inevitable. The bomb it sat beneath destroyed a third of a seven story building. Luck, or something like it was on the side of those left to pick up the pieces that day. How lucky that this piece was not missing.
thecyanofiles 
