What’s up, fellow ds106er’s?
This week, I am again scrambling around last minute. But hey, before you judge, I had a very busy week! Earlier this week, I celebrated my 21st birthday three different times: once with my friends before my birthday, once with my immediate family on my birthday, and once with my boyfriend after my birthday. So aside from driving a total of three hours the past week and nursing multiple hangovers from people buying me my “first” legal drinks, I didn’t really have time to sit on my laptop and do the assignments with a clear mindset.
Anyways, there’s that, and here’s what I did this week:
Summary of Videos
Ira Glass on Storytelling (Part 1)
For this video, Ira Glass discusses how stories consist of an anecdote (the story in its purest form) and the moment of reflection. While listening to this, my inner English major self is reminded of Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.” This book is just like every other modernist text in that the plot is boring and at some points, completely unnecessary. The story of “Mrs. Dalloway,” in its purest form, is essentially a woman going to town to get flowers and throwing a party. That’s pretty much it. Exciting, right? However, what makes “Mrs. Dalloway” so interesting and worth reading is the analysis and interpretation of the text, such as Woolf’s criticism of British society and social norms, how the individual is imprisoned by society, etc. etc. Our thoughts on the text is what makes the story much more interesting and relatable, even if it is just about a middle-aged woman getting flowers.
Ira Glass on Storytelling (Part 2)
In part 2, Glass discusses how a bulk of time goes into finding a good story rather than producing a good story. Way back when I wanted to be a journalist (oh gee, that was like what, freshmen year?), I wrote for the sports section of the Bullet. I remember I had so many stories I had to kill because of several reasons that were beyond my control. One big reason was because the athletes were awful at interviews. I would ask open-ended questions, such as “How do you think you guys played?” or “What would you change before your next game?”, and they would just answer with a simple “Oh, good,” or “We need to work on conditioning.” Um, REALLY??? This is why I strongly, STRONGLY believe everyone needs to take Public Speaking. Anyways, because of factors such as those, I would have to go get more interviews, or attack the story from a different angle. This just shows how getting the building blocks for a good story is hard… but once you have all the pieces, fitting them together to make a good story is relatively easy.
Jad Abumrad “How Radio Creates Empathy”
In this video, Jad Abumrad makes an interesting point about the difference between radio and television. While watching T.V, the audience is given everything they really need to know to create an overall picture (such as audio and visual elements); however, with the radio, the audience is only given audio with no visual. This gives room for the audience to use their imagination to interpret the speaker in their own ways that they would not be able to with the television.
Listening to Stories
The story I chose to listen to this week was This American Life’s Episode 484 Dobblegangers.
I know we’re not supposed to comment on the story content, but let me just get this out of the way first. EW. EW. EW. EW. EW. In Act One, they talk about how hog rectum or bung was supposedly being used as imitation calamari. Um, what? Thank goodness my mama knows how to make calamari because I will never order calamari from a restaurant every every again.
Okay, end of rant.
Anyways, besides being extremely grossed out, I actually enjoyed the story. I liked how they incorporated the telephone convo audio clips in Act One, when Ben Calhoun was interviewing people. It made me as a member of the audience imagine a telephone conversation between two people, with one guy taking notes on a notepad. I also liked how the person used music as a way to indicate the tone of what Calhoun was talking about at the moment. When Calhoun was just blabbering about the anecdotal part of his story, they used slow-tempo, slow rock music, and when Calhoun was talking about something reflective, they would use more serious music or just have it silent during and after he was done talking (which made it more dramatic). This reminded me of when I used to watch Jaws when I was little. That theme song would tell me that something scary was going to happen and made me cover my eyes.
Music, although subtle, can reveal a lot to the audience.
Now, onto Act Two. I thought that having a single person (Alex Kotlowitz) introduce the two guys and then have them tell their own stories was more effective than just having Kotlowitz narrate everything. I also think having a variety of voices might make it easier for the audience to stay tuned in instead of having one person just rambling.
ds106 Radio Listening Experience
So my first ds106 Radio experience was not exactly great… I got off to a rough start by forgetting that I needed to listen to something live (whoops!) Since this is an online class, I kinda forget there are some time-sensitive things besides the weekly summaries that I need to do during the week. Therefore, Sunday night, I am frantically trying to figure out how to tune into ds106 radio. The first issue I had was finding the stream. I tried a link that was on the Week 4 post but it would just keep sending me to this screen:
So, frustrated ol’ me went onto Twitter and asked around for help. I got a lot of responses from Nancy, but I think I was just technologically challenged because I still couldn’t figure it out. Even Grant Potter was trying to help me, but it kept going back to the screen above. Then @cogdog came to the rescue and sent me another link:
@sarahhpark2 you might not be using right URL to listen in browser – try bit.ly/11KOeaP
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) February 10, 2013
TA-DA! I was listening to ds106 Radio! Unfortunately, I don’t think I was listening to anything live, but I did hear a lot of interesting stories. There was one song that came on (I think it was in Italian?) but it sounded really weird and funny. I was listening to it with my boyfriend and tweeted his comments:
“This sounds like the Kill Bill soundtrack” what my boyfriend thinks of #ds106radio right now
— Sarah Park (@sarahhpark2) February 10, 2013
I’m really bummed I wasn’t able to catch anything live since I feel like it would be an interesting experience to interact with people on twitter while listening to the same thing (oh social media, you). So next week, I’m going to try again to tune into something live. Wish me luck!
Audio Assignments
Okay, so this assignment wasn’t too difficult for me (probably because I already kind of got the hang of Audacity from the Sound Effects Story assignment). For this bumper, I was able to successfully place the clips where I wanted them to go; however, I had a little difficultly figuring out how to adjust the sound level. So, I went ahead and googled it again and came across this handy Youtube video:
Taking some of the tips I learned from there, I was able split the music clip at the section I wanted to place my speaking audio, and then take that new clip and turn it down a little. Then I took the beginning two seconds and ending two seconds from this new slightly-softer clip, and put in the fade in-out effects so the music didn’t suddenly just get quieter. Por fin, I split the last two seconds and faded it out, so my entire bumper didn’t just abruptly ended. I definitely had to clip/split the audio clips for this assignment more than I did for the Sound Effects one; however, I think for this assignment it was more necessary.
(Update: Eckkk I should have read the assignment instructions more because I just realized that my bumper is shorter than the time requirement >_< To be fair, I would have made it longer if the instrumental section of the song I chose was longer… Whoops! But that being said, I still think my bumper is pretty good. It’s short and sweet, and there’s nothing wrong with that in my book!)
Out of our audio assignments, this was the toughest one for me… I think it’s because I tackled this one first and had no idea how to use Audacity. I actually was able to get the programs and sound files okay, but my main issue was figuring out how to move the clips and layer them to make one continuous sound. So after 20-30 minutes of trying by myself (and slamming my head against my desk), I decided to turn towards Youtube to figure out how to use this confusing program. I found this video, which actually turned out to be useful (even though it was meant for making song mash-ups):
Now, I have no problems combining sound clips (and maybe even making some song mash-ups in the future?)
Daily Creates
- February 7, 2013 “Create an acrostic poem that includes item of clothing you’re currently wearing.”
For this daily create, I legit was about to use the song from Parent Trap (you know, “‘L’ is for the way you look at meeee~”) but I decided to be a little bit more creative (and also because of that thing called the honor code…). That day was cold like no other, so I was wearing my most loved and hated item in my wardrobe: my UGGS. Yes, they are not exactly the cutest pair of shoes I own, but they are definitely the warmest. - February 8, 2013 “Hum your first musical memory.”
This song is a simple lullaby that my Grandmama used to sing to me all the time when I was little. It would instantly put me to sleep when I was being fussy. Now, I use it on my little baby boy; however, it’s not as effective on him as it would be on me T_T Guess I need to find a new lullaby!
- June 14, 2012 “Take a picture that reminds you of your childhood.”
So, I didn’t really want to do the daily create that was for Saturday, so I decided to use the randomizer! I got TDC158. I wasn’t sure what to take a picture of, so I went out and did some errands, hoping inspiration would strike me. Lord and behold, while I was at Target, I found a section of Hello Kitty items! When I was little, I pretty much had everything Hello Kitty from socks and shirts to pencils and cups. So I snapped a picture before heading to checkout.
Comment Group Feedback/Experience
Not going to lie, I love my comment group. Everyone’s been super helpful and great at giving feedback. Miss Amber was distraught over the broken iPhone screen I posted for one of my daily creates (sorry!) while Miss Jennifer and Miss Kelsie made me feel a lot better by saying that my ds106 work isn’t crap and that I shouldn’t compare it to other people (thanks guys!)
One interesting thing I saw in someone else’s blog was actually a daily create by Miss Kelsie on a broken ring. For some reason, I thought this picture was really sad. Not just because it’s broken (and it’s jewelry! I hope it wasn’t expensive!) but also because rings are supposed to signify eternity (since it’s a circle shape/continuous). I also thought it was interesting because the daily create was to take a picture of something broken literally or figuratively and this photo could be interpreted both ways (broken in the literal sense and also could signify a broken relationship in the figurative sense). So cool!
Week 4 Reflection
I am going to give myself an intervention and say that I need to stop procrastinating on my ds106 work until Sunday night. I know I was better this week about doing some of the work earlier during the week, such as watching the videos and the audio stories, but I wish I did my audio projects and listened to ds106 Radio earlier during the week. So, for next week, I’m going to try to start earlier on the harder stuff! And I’m going to listen to something live on ds106 Radio since I feel like it’s an amazing experience I missed out on ): Anyways, we’re 1/4 done with the semester (crazy, huh?), only 12 more weeks to go, guys!
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