Blog 9 Engage #1

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Alright, so here is what I accomplished this past week. I finally created a Twitter so that I could cooperate more efficiently and decided to tweet about an article about the refugee crisis. I did this, because I couldn’t really find that article in many places and I wanted to get my idea out there. However, since I am a new Twitter user, I haven’t gotten any replies or retweets or anything unfortunately. Sad day.

I also commented on a Facebook post about that same article. There were so many great ideas about the article and the boy in it. Most of them were praising the child for his emotional intellect and strength. I liked over 10 comments, because they were so great to see people connect over the article, and share such kind words for the child. One person said, “Alison Hodgeheg–What an intelligent and articulate young man. He echoes the thoughts of many-to solve this crisis we need to stop the violent war in Syria.” This child explains that he never wanted to leave his country, and that he feels that many of his countrymen and country women feel like that as well. Powerful words coming from a young child. 

I will continue to get more involved with this process. I continue to find that social media is the most powerful tool right now for people to connect. It increases community, cooperation, and collaboration (just like the netspeak chapter says for video games). Twitter is constantly used as a tool for people to donate to any cause that they see fit. For instance, I just donated to a cause from UNHCR. The image below is powerful. There is this adorable child, who is in obvious distress in his situation. Most refugees that have had to come over water have had a troubling time. There have been many people that have gone missing as a result from these tragic waters, and it also leads to dehydration and famine. Instead of having to search for this myself, or having to leave the comfort of my dorm to go out and donate, I was able to find this via twitter in 30 seconds, and was then able to donate a minute later.

I know I’ve reiterated this multiple times, and I’m sure y’all will get tired of my repetition, but doing these challenges continue to drive home this point in my mind. Social Media is on hell of a tool, and it is awesome. I used to think that social media was simply for my friends, and ways for my girlfriends to stalk me. That is not the case. I think people never really realize how useful social media can be if it is used the correct way. Sure, social media can spawn hate and its a tool for people to be cruel to others. But I wholeheartedly believe that there are more positives than negatives. Studies show that volunteering has gone up and donations have gone up since the creation and addition of social media. Everything is so simple to do now because of it, and I think it creates good will in others. If I see my bestie post a link to a place he donated to, and I believe it is a good cause, you are darn right that I will donate to it as well. And I’ve definitely seen people follow this form of thinking and action through Twitter and Facebook.

Thanks for reading. :)

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Self Branding Project

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When it came time to create a brand for myself, I took into consideration what my overall aesthetic was. For my name’s sake, I wanted to stay true to the colors of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, and it is a common theme throughout my body of work. I utilize my love for the great outdoors as a platform for the of inspiration for everything I do, whether it be the use of natural textures (wood, grass, rock, etc), or from the high resolution photos I take on my travels. I tend to use all the colors I see in nature, for example the sienna brown which is the color of the dirt found in Northern California. Olive greens to mimic the redwood trees I grew up around and blue-green colors to parallel the ocean side, to where I feel most at home. I look at branding projects as an extension of the core essence of the soul. When I collaborate with a client on projects such as these, my first and main priority is to capture the true identity of who they are as a person, and take off from there.

 

 

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End of Life Care

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End of life care is a subject that is difficult for me to ponder. Although I know that death will certainly be part of my career as a nurse, I have never been one of those people who speak glibly about death. I have always seen it as a very serious and rather frightening topic.

 

The few times I have pondered the possibility of my own death, I would want my husband to be the person to make decisions for me. I know that he and my parents and siblings are close and would work together to make the best decision for my well-being. Being a young adult, I would want everything possible done to keep me going as long as possible and I know that my husband and family members would certainly agree to that.

 

I haven’t had any discussions about this topic with my family members except to tell them that I would never want to be cremated, I find the thought of being burned after death rather grotesque. Other than that, my family and I don’t discuss my after-death wishes, mainly because they do not expect to be around for that time and because I have not made any advance directives. As stated before, it’s not a topic I relish talking or thinking about. Thinking more about it, I suppose I should make one despite being 29 years old. I do participate in sports and activities such as horseback riding that could potentially cause harm and/or fatalities. It’s just very hard to think about.

 

My peers are of a similar mindset due to our age and general good health. I do think culture plays a role here. In this affluent town here in the U.S., we expect to live long healthy lives. If we are seriously injured, we expect to survive thanks to the healthcare system here.

 

I found an article from the UK’s The Telegraph that reflects my attitude. It states that more than half of Brits in relationships don’t know their partner’s end of life wishes, which interestingly enough, was something that was openly talked about in the Victorian era. This makes sense to me because back then, people were only expected to live into their 40s.

 

As the author notes, more open discussions about death are needed. This could inspire more people to sign up for things such as organ donation and assist those whoare still in the living world .EndofLife-logo-Right_tcm7-82995

24 Hour Disconnect

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My 24 hour disconnect began at 0930 on Saturday, October 24th. This day began with a surfing session out at Leadbetter beach in Santa Barbara. In the ocean, no one can be on their cell phone. Other surfers and paddle boarders were enjoying the beautiful day catching waves and chatting and smiling between sets. There is no need for technology (besides the use of photography to capture the beauty).

From there I went to enjoy a cinnamon roll and coffee with my boyfriend, Jason. Sitting there at the cafe, my boyfriend and the owner got into a conversation regarding a movie and Australia, in which neither of them could remember the name of the movie nor the location in Australia that it took place.  So how did they figure it out you ask? Google of course! What did we do before technology to solve these sort of problems?

After our coffee and cinnamon rolls, we took the bikes to the beach for Open Streets festival in Santa Barbara. Along Castillo street, the roads had been blocked off and vendors lined the streets. People were mostly engaged in the festivities at hand, but of course people everywhere were disengaged and focused on texting or connecting with others via cell phone. Whether or not this took away from their experience or not is tough to say. Probably depended upon how long they were engaged with their phone, and how often it posed as a distraction.

From the festival, we continued our adventure out into Solvang, where we  embarked into a corn maze at the Solvang Pumpkin Patch. Here, it was essential to take pictures because how often does one partake in a corn maze. Although I did not use my phone to take pictures, I was photographed using Jason’s phone.

Later, we went to the movies. To look up movie times, we once again used a telephone. Sure we could have used a newspaper or gone to an actual theater, but a particular movie might not be playing at a certain theater or finding a newspaper at 9 o’clock at night can be difficult. Overall, it is a difficult task to completely disconnect in this day and age. Technology enables the ease of information and documenting the present moment, although it can also take away from the present and be a constant distraction.

Disconnect

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During school, it is easy for me to disconnect from my phone. My friends and family know I’m in school so they don’t bother me with texts or calls. However, just because it is easy for me to not need my phone it is hard for me to not want to use it. I spent most of my morning in the library reading and doing homework but found that I would get bored and distracted easily so I would subconsciously go online. I had back to back classes from 12-6 so again, it was easy to not need my phone during those ours. While walking to my classes, I noticed some people had their earphones on and I did not see many people in groups. Because I was observing others, I purposefully tried to make eye contact with people but noticed that many either look down or just have a glazed look on their face. I believe technology has taken over our generation and a lot of what we do involves our phones or computers. Because I did this on a day when I had class, I found it kind of easy but if I had done this on a weekend, it would’ve been hard for me.

Challenge #5 Part 1

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Hello everyone! This week I will present you the different levels I have escalated in order to become engage with the social issue my group is focusing on, college tuition rising. The process of lurking gave me valuable and essential weapons in order to obtain the social perspectives high college tuition. The experience for engaging was a little difficult. College tuition is an issue that affects a large amount of our population; however, not a lot of people expose it on the social media. I was really amazed to find posts like these on twitter. Although I never visited twitter, I was not able to find much information on different social websites. It was really interesting observing that political candidates like Bernie Sanders were addressing the topic through social media. I have gain so many perspectives throughout this amazing process of researching a topic through social media. I have gain a new way of viewing social media. My generation is so use to just using media as a form of entertainment; however, I have learn how media has revolutionized our way of changing the way we utilized social media and the purpose for it. Using media as a source to research a specific topic has provide me with a different perspective about social media. It is amazing how people is able to communicate with different individuals in order to expose a specific social issue or idea that is affecting a big portion of society. I will continue to engage myself in different posts about my social topic in order to accumulate important information from social media.

 

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disconnect

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I realized in this exercise that it is nearly impossible for me to disconnect completely. I blame this on my kid. I am not with her all the time and if I am not with her I always make sure that my phone is accessible. That being said I did spend 24 hours with more conciseness around the idea of technology and disconnecting. I actually do this quite regularly. I blame this on my kid too. When I am with her I try to make sure that I am present and not staring at a computer screen finishing homework, texting, or obsessively checking my email. I do a couple simple things to help me with this. I never bring my phone anymore when I walker her to school, try to leave it in the car when I bring her to her extracurricular activities, and when we are home I put my phone on silent. I am not always successful but i try.

 

Changing Families, Chapter 7/ Sexualization of Girls

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This chapter wasn’t too shocking for me.   I don’t think that TV shows or movies have to do with teenagers or unmarried women getting pregnant.  I think the TV shows Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant are focused on educating girls about why birth control is so important if they want to become sexually active.  Back then, they didn’t have TV shows like these, but numerous teens ended up getting pregnant. Also,  women and girls today have a lot more freedom now than 50 years ago.  This is because of birth control becoming legal and women don’t necessarily have to rely on a man anymore for an income.  Additionally, weddings have become immensely expensive; as a result, people are opting out of marriage to save money and just want to start having kids.

The sexualization of girls article was interesting.  I have noticed that young girls clothing stores today have a lot more revealing clothing, than when I was that age.  I think they believe it is okay to dress revealing because many stores they go to sell that type of clothing.  In my opinion, social media like snap chat and Instagram have escalated girls attitudes to want to dress sexy.  Many girls want to pose in revealing clothing in order to get as many “likes” on their pictures as they can.  I don’t even have those forms of social media because I don’t necessarily agree with what it is doing to young girls, or even young boys for that matter.

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There’s no such thing as individuality

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During the weekend we spent at Santa Rosa Island, I personallyfelt that I learned a lot of things. The experience as a whole was extraordinary to go through, the fact that we went through it together made it a little more special. There are so many things that are linked together as a whole and without one another they wouldn’t be the same. For example, plants and animals they co-exist because they need each other. One lives so the other can survive.

During our stay at the Island we got to see the way the faculty at the Island view Santa Rosa. What I really enjoyed was that they see the Island as their home and that they treat the Island with care. One of the thing I could truely see a deep connection was the plants and the animals. We learned a lot about the plants that grow on the Island with Cause. he took us to the nursery on the Island and we got to meet some people who were working on a very important enviromental project to help perserve many of the plants that have been dying because of the conditions humans had forced the Island to go through over the years. From what I could see they were really dedicated to their project and helping the Island grow more purple grass and to grow more pine trees because they’re going extinct on the Island were before there were so many pine trees and a lot of grass all over the Island. It’s really important for them to be successful in their project which is one of the reasons why they are giving it there all, since the drought hit the Island things have been getting worse and they’re trying their best to help restore the Island to it’s natural beauty that has been slowly fading away over the years. These to plants are very essential for the animals in the Island to survive. Most of the animals that live on the Island are birds, rodents, horses and foxes since all the other animals that have lived on the Island were brought purposely on the Island and have died and left their mark on the Island slowly destroying it over the years. The animals that remain aren’t destroying the Island they’re restoring it, for this to continue and for the Island to naturally change these animal need to remain on the Island to help contribute on the restoration of the Island. The birds need the trees, because that’s where they usually make there nests. And the horses need the grass to eat as well as the rodents that the birds usually feed on. The foxes on the Island are not predators they usually just eat plants, so plants are also essential for their survival.

Overall, even if we don’t see it at first there’s connections everywhere we go. We’re all connected to each other in ways we can’t even imagine because our connections are so deep that we usually don’t go looking for them. This trip really helped me open my eyes on how there’s more to ife than individuality because nothing is really an individual because we’re all connected to everything in some way whether it’s a small connection or a big one.