So when I was reading the Weekly Assignments, I saw that we had to listen to the radio show and I was honestly a little worried. I thought it might be cheesy and maybe a little boring and man was I wrong! (and happy to be too!) I really liked listening to the stories and … Continue reading "I Tried DS106 Radio and I Liked It"

So for this assignment, while it might be cheesy, I chose Hall & Oates song You Make My Dream Come True Listen here about why I love the song so much! I had a lot of fun choosing a song, but in the end it came down to this one just because of how it … Continue reading "You Make My Dreams Come True"

So for this assignment, we had to create a story using ONLY sound effects. At first, I was a little worried about it, but once I started thinking about it, I had a pretty good time. My original idea was kind of a horror but I adapted it to fit into my character Marlene’s story. … Continue reading "Marlene’s Bad Day"

So I’ve listened to Moon Graffiti and a few other examples of audio storytelling from previous weeks to get a better idea of how I feel about audio and storytelling. I’ve taken a couple film classes so I’ve thought about this quite a few times, though that usually involved a picture to go with the audio. … Continue reading "Storytelling Through Audio"

So this week the daily creates were pretty fun, even if the last one was a little challenging because I was not sure what stop motion was. For my first daily create, we had to decide whether or not something was half empty or half full. I chose half full, of course! I even played … Continue reading "Creating Daily"

So this week was overall pretty good! I thought it was a fun week. I really liked the Photoblitz assignment! I thought it was really cool that it generates a random list of things and you take photos and put them together. I also really enjoyed reflecting on cinematography and photography as well. In terms of … Continue reading "Photography Madness"

So we all know and love The Shining Here’s a picture from the original and the one my boyfriend and I recreated for the assignment  

So in Marlene’s bag are quite a few interesting items… scissors – because you never know when you’ll need a pair of these shot glass – bartenders must always be prepared, even when they aren’t on the job keys – to the saloon of course! pistol – in case someone gets too rowdy at the … Continue reading "Marlene’s Prepared for Anything"

So here are the photos for my photoblitz! I think I had a pretty simple one, but I enjoyed doing it! A fork in the road. Casting a ballot. Buying bread. Choices abound.Take a photo of a choice a photo of my closet, trying to decide what to wear Take a photo of an object … Continue reading "Photoblitzing 2k16"

So as many of my friends are aware, I absolutely adore my cat Zeke. He’s a bengal and honestly just a beautiful cat – even when he’s destroying the house and knocking everything over. Here are a few photos of him doing all the things he loves. For the assignment, I’m basically choosing some of … Continue reading "And the most beautiful cat is…"

So for this assignment, I decided to take a close up picture of something Marlene would keep in the saloon. It’s something that almost everyone coming in would use. I took the picture on a surface similar to one you would find in a saloon and tried to darken the lighting as it would be … Continue reading "Guess What?"

So I’ve seen Dances With Wolves before and decided why not watch it again for this assignment. As I was watching and looking for different cinematic aspects, I noticed a few things. The beginning half or so of the movie does not have a ton of dialogue or anything which I think adds a lot … Continue reading "I Danced With the Wolves and it Was Pretty Cool"

Meet Sara and Jacob, a beautiful couple who are happily married. Sara and Jacob went to middle school together and quickly became best friends. In high school, Jacob asked her out and you know the rest (hint: they fall in love). They attended college in different states and while it was hard, they made it … Continue reading ""

Happy 4th week everyone! So I’m thinking back on all the photographs I’ve ever taken (and there are TONS) and realizing how much I am not a photographer. I generally take pictures on vacation and, if I think about it, on birthdays or special occasions with friends. I actually wish I took more photos just … Continue reading "Definitely Not A Pro Photographer"

So this week was pretty fun, I thought! I enjoyed watching and listening to more westerns. As mentioned in my post, So You Think You Understand Westerns I have definitely learned a lot about the western genre already. I really enjoyed reading Crane’s short story The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky; I thought it was very well … Continue reading "The Making of a Western Genre Expert"

I decided to apply Vonnegut’s Shape of Stories to The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane. The beginning of the story starts off a little above the ‘B’ axis, because clearly the couple is newly married and seems to have just come in to some money (based on the brides excitement and concern over the … Continue reading "Shape of The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"

Iowa is preparing for presidential candidates to pass through the state and has decided the overcrowded GOP field forces them to create massive town hall stadium. Clinton’s campaign is the first to pass through the state, followed by Jeb, Sanders and Trump. The retreating Clinton campaign torched Iowa town to slow advance of Sanders volunteers. Meanwhile, across … Continue reading "Today, In America…"

Kelly Hendricks is a world famous bakery owner. She attended University of Mary Washington from 2012 to 2016 and went on to become a financial analyst. During her time at UMW, Kelly was a part of Sigma Beta Delta and Omicron Epsilon, the business and economics honor societies. She was also the Game Night committee chair … Continue reading "Bakery Owner"

Hello 16 year old self! So we are 22 now and about to graduate from the University of Mary Washington! I have some things I want to tell you about high school: don’t stress out so much! You spent a lot of time studying and stressing about classes and getting into a good school. Guess … Continue reading "Hey You, It’s Me in 6 Years"

Marlene owns a saloon in Puggville, a small town in Texas that has been mostly deserted until recently. She inherited The White Mule from her parents, who died in a tragic horse carriage accident. Now that the railroad is finished, all sorts of new folks have been showing up in her bar along with her few regulars. Business … Continue reading "Meet Marlene!"

So I’ve been reading a few of the suggested Old West Legends, Wisdom, insults and slang and I realized there is a lot more to Westerns than people think. If you asked me before this class what I thought the main themes of westerns are I would’ve said cowboys, gun fights, tumbleweed. After doing some … Continue reading "So You Think You Understand Westerns?"

Happy week two everyone! This week was a lot better than last for me, I played around with WordPress some and got the lay of the land figured out (I think). I had a lot of fun with the Daily Creates on Twitter (check them out, here!) Sorry you all had to experience my artistic … Continue reading "The Week Full of Exploring and Creating"

4 years ago, I moved into Bushnell Hall for my first year at UMW (wow, I’m getting old) It was a surprisingly pretty day outside besides being extremely warm. My dad, stepmom and sisters dropped me off and helped me unpack the cars and get everything in the room. My roommate and friend, Valeria had ... [Read more...]

This week, we also started using the DS106 assignment bank, which I think is amazing! I love that the assignments are made by students and rated based on their difficulty. I chose to do a visual assignment, a web assignment and a writing assignment (which is it’s own post)   For my visual assignment, I ... [Read more...]

So this week I had to use daily create for the first time! Using Twitter, I found a couple cool ones. I forgot to tweet at them for the first one, because I got too excited. These are the daily creates I chose!   Obviously, I have horrible artistic skills when it comes to drawing… #tdc1472 ... [Read more...]

So this week was pretty interesting. I thought I was fairly computer savvy but I definitely had some trouble with embedding the links. I am pretty excited to get more into the class though; I had friends that took it last semester and loved it. I learned how to use YouTube and Soundcloud – two ... [Read more...]

Here are some multi-modal introductions! Twitter: hello fellow #ds106 classmates! — Kelly (@its_kellbell) January 15, 2016 A couple pictures describing my life:   UMW at its prettiest: a beautiful waterfall from a hike with my best friend Holly: Soundcloud: [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/242173399?secret_token=s-CUzak” params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /] Youtube: <iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/mR_oGs1SDFY” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>     ... [Read more...]