It was another great weekend out on the island, unfortunately most of my data from the weekend was lost but it was a beautiful weekend with an unusually low amount of wind. It made for quite a hot weekend but the views were still magnificent. By the end of my next trip I should be mostly done counting trees on the hillside I am currently working on and be moving down into the canyon.
This chapter about teens being sexually active and promiscuous was very interesting to me. The media and certain adults claim that teens are becoming sexually active at younger ages. However, teens having sex was common years ago. I remember that my grandmother married my grandfather at fifteen and she had her first baby at the age of sixteen. I think if that happened today, people would think that wasn’t an okay thing to do. I also found it interesting that numerous teens don’t “sext” each other. It is mainly adults that converse back and forth by “sexting.” In addition, many teens today dress a lot differently, for example, short shorts and revealing their stomachs. As a result, I can see why individuals would assume a teen is having sex by the way they dress, even though they may not be. Ultimately, I don’t think that pop culture is the reason for people engaging in sex; I believe it just depends on the person.
Hi All, Here is one more event going on this week at CI. The Writing & Multiliteracy Center is hosting a National Day of Writing event on Facebook. Details are below. This link should take you to the FB site, if not search for Celebrate National Day of Writing with Stories of Writing on Facebook. Details for Twitter in the announcement below. You have until midnight on Tuesday to share your story. Feel free to use our hashtag to let us know you participated, #univ349DC.
October 20 is National Day of Writing. CI: Tell us a brief story (in a few sentences) how you learned to write and your name will be put in a drawing for a $50 Bookstore Gift Card! Participants can also Tweet their “writing” story for $25 Bookstore Gift Card (@csuci_wmc)! Best posts will be highlighted on the WMC website.
RULES: Please, one entry for Facebook and one entry for Twitter. You may submit on both Facebook and Twitter.
All faculty, staff, and students at CI are encouraged to submit their story.
We accept stories on this event page starting on Monday, October 19th. Entry deadline is midnight, Tuesday October 20th. Prizes are drawn on Wednesday October 21st. Prizes are gift cards and cannot be substituted for cash.
One resource that has been instrumental in my success thus far at the university has been Google Drive. In high school, I struggled with completing…
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Our research team has been gaining more and more attention at Cal State Channel Islands in recent months, leading to interesting and unique opportunities popping up all over! Most recently, the president of our University, Dr. Richard Rush, asked the team to teach him how to fly a drone for a recent photo/video shoot. Team leader Paul Spaur and technician Tim Holcombe spent the morning with the President Rush and the school mascot Ecko. The flying took place in Malibu Hall, one of the indoor locations where Dr. Sean Anderson’s first Introduction to Remotely Piloted Systems course was taught last semester. Dr. Rush used our DJI Inspire, while Ecko piloted a Blade 180QX as the university’s media team recorded the fun. The video will be released in the next few weeks!
First off, I can’t believe it is already week 9 and the semester is half way over. Time flies when you’re taking 20 units! Slash having fun.
Last weekend (Oct. 9-12) I went to SRI with Dr. Steele’s conservation biology class and a few other capstone students to perform my first set of marine debris surveys. Luckily, a few of the cons bio students came with me to do these surveys, and I couldn’t have done it without them!
Saturday October 10,2015
Arlington Canyon
Saturday afternoon Dr. Steele, Cause, Dorothy, Patrick, Sean, and I went to Arlington Cany
on beach. It took us about two hours to survey the whole beach, we were getting the protocol down and this beach also ended up having the most trash. There were more lobster trap fragments on this beach than any other beach we surveyed! It was beautiful though, and Arlington Canyon is a really amazing area.
We ended up removing 4 huge bags of trash from the beach. I also found a plastic aquarium plant, a luggage tag thing from Korea, and several items with Asian writing on it.
Sunday October 11, 2015
Sandy Point
This day was very long, but awesome. Cause, Dorothy, Patrick, Alex, Holly and I left for Sandy Point at 7 am. This was my first time to this part of the island and it was beautiful. The day was really clear and San Miguel looked so close.
We parked out in Pocket Field and walked down to the beach, it was a pretty far walk but luckily for us the weather was perfect. Luckily, this beach didn’t have as much trash as Arlington Canyon did, and we didn’t have to haul too much back up the hill. This beach had a random collection of debris, I found a suitcase, a pair of roller blades, several shoes, and a container filled with gasoline buried in the sand.
Cluster Point
After Sandy Point next on our list was Cluster Point. Cluster Point is on the south side of the island, and you have to go down China Camp Road to get there.
China Camp road is closed and you need permission from the Superintendent of the park to get there, so we walked. The walk was tough, it took about an hour and a half to get to our spot when we discovered the presence of some elephant seals, so we walked some more to get around them and not disturb them. This beach was relatively clean in some spots, I did find a fragment of a drone though which was interesting. The walk back was tough, it was the end of the day and we were all tired. It took us about 2 hours to hike back up to the Polaris thing, and we all ran out of water but we made it! I am very thankful for all the help and support I got from everyone on this day also.
We got back to the research station, relaxed for a few and ate dinner with some NPS folks and after dinner Dorothy and I hit the lab til about midnight, it was a long day indeed!
Monday October 12, 2015
Skunk Point
Today was our last day on the island and I still needed to get Skunk Point done, so Cause dropped off Dr. Steele, Dorothy, Patrick, Alex, and me off there. It only took us about an hour to do the actual survey, but it was a very high tide and I think that’s why there wasn’t much debris deposited on the shoreline. After that we cleaned up the research station and made our way back to the mainland.
This week, we continued to lurk on social websites for our social issues. I continued my lurking in the “#lgbt representation” tags of Tumblr and Twitter this week, and found pretty much the same results as my last week’s lurking. Because I was finding similar things this week, my lurking time per day went down to 5 minutes. However, I did notice that both websites had gone into more detail for either their satirical views of LGBT representation or the information they find about new representation.
Here are two screenshots from the Tumblr tag on the issueof LGBT representation. You can see in the first image the way that the humorous attitude works around still addressing the problem. The poster will talk with high amounts of sarcasm while still eloquently talking about their opinion on the subject.
On the other side of some of the Tumblr posts, users will post about how more people should watch a certain movie or TV shows because they have more representation that one would originally think. The users of Tumblr know that if a show has high ratings and is watched by many people (and it must be watched when it airs, not streamed online), then there is a higher chance that the show will be renewed after its season ends. The more season a quality show receives, the greater possibility the show has to spread positive representation.
Some of the other users will continue to share links of well-known celebrities that positively represent the LGBT community. These users understand the importance of “big names” in media and their opinion on the subject. A user on Tumblr shared this article about Ellen Page speaking about LGBT roles being called “brave” when they are cast: http://worldofwonder.net/ellen-page-stop-calling-straight-actors-playing-lgbt-characters-brave-its-borderline-offensive/ . When LGBT roles are labeled as “brave” for actors to be in, it puts these roles into a sort of light that can be intimidating and only for courageous actors. But in reality, TV should really normalize LGBT roles and not call them “brave” so that they can be more accessible to actors of all expertise.
Twitter had another example of the satirical attitude about LGBT representation. Users of both social medias are tired of TV shows not properly representing the sexual orientations, but at the same time, this has gone on for so long that people are used to this mistreatment. This Twitter user clearly shares that he has had enough of the lack of representation in TV.
Twitter users also share links because of the character limits: videos sometimes can encompass what a user wishes to say but doesn’t have the word count to do so. This Twitter user shared this panel interview from NYCC that showed actors talking about the LGBT community and the need for representation. (Here is a link to that video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3L7VhC78hY&feature=youtu.be ).
My lurking this week showed many more results for up and coming TV shows. I believe that because it is the fall season, more shows are airing their new seasons and some shows are even premiering. As new TV shows air and as more episodes of a show air, everyone becomes a critic. The shows are then eyed by the eyes of many and gauged on the effectiveness of their representation.
The demographic for Tumblr and Twitter users is mainly teenagers and young adults, and this new generation seems to all be comprised of people who are all for LGBT rights (myself included). But I feel that this creates a biased view inside social media. So I turned to Facebook for a day.
Facebook is a site that is used by people of all ages (my grandparents even have an account), and I figured that this would give more diversity. I was glad to see that even Facebook had its fair share of LGBT representation talk within the search. For example, a page on Facebook provided a link to an article that talks about the best networks to watch for representation. (Here is that link: http://www.out.com/entertainment/2015/9/03/which-network-best-lgbt-representation-and-visibility ). Facebook allows for fanpages on any and every subject — including LGBT representation. This feature is not available on Tumblr or Twitter. Facebook has many LGBT representation and community pages that users can connect on.
These three sites that I lurked on seemed to have different varieties of content on the social issue I am researching, and it is refreshing to see that this issue is still a hot topic. When topics are still keenly monitored and talked about, it allows for opportunities for changes to be made. When topics simmer down, there is a chance for the subject to become just a part of life. If we want change to truly happen, we must not let this topic die down in its importance.
The ereserve article “Marketing Violence: The Special Toll on Children of Color” had several interesting points. For one it talked about “glamorized violence” in video games and that entertainment violence affects different children in different ways. The article talked a lot about the mindset children have at this time, but did not speak so much about parental involvement which many of our other posts say is vital to the future behavior of a child. The article said that children are vulnerable and cannot make logical connection which proves the point that parents need to be there during those times of vulnerability. A part of the article I liked the most didn’t deal with racial depictions or the negative impacts violence has on low income family children. The part that interested me the most was when the author started to speak about encouraging creative play and a more constructive learning environment. Unstructured toys like blocks, legos, playdough etc. cause a child to look at something that looks like nothing, and create it into something new. It’s the imitating of the violence that can lead to further issues especially if parental involvement is absent.
Part of the requirements in this transfer class is to attend three different events at the campus! I went to my first event a week or so ago and spent time with therapy dogs!
There were about 10 different dogs and their owners in the group. I got to spend time with all the dogs and speak with their owners, and I got to learn a lot about the organization that the dogs were with! Love On a Leash is comprised of people who volunteer their own dogs into the program. I thought that it was very cool and also very generous for them to share the love of their dogs with people! The dogs must be registered and trained in obedience and also have the proper temperament to be a therapy dog. Love On A Leash takes groups of owners and their dogs to colleges with students under stress about school, libraries where kids can read to them, and to old people homes where eye contact with the dogs is very calming to them. I’m sure that they go to many other places, but I liked hearing that they visit people of all ages.
I really enjoyed this first event I attended at the campus; I can’t wait for the next event I can attend!
Violence has declined as media culture has expanded was an interesting part of chapter five for me. We all know media has drastically changed over the decades, but it’s interesting to read and put into perspective what Sternheimer’s discussing. She touches on how “traditional media like television has grown from a handful of channels to hundreds,” and are available through an array of online sites. Additionally, she discusses how media culture has expanded, and Jenna also mentioned it in her post how young teen crime rates in the United States have been declining.
Moreover, In the article Marketing Violence: The Special Toll on Young Children of Color was interesting and made me wonder about my video game usage when i was an adolescent. Additionally, i found it interesting when Diane mentioned “the regulation of children’s television, marketing violence to children through the media has become increasingly prevalent.” In addition, she elaborates on how the programs themselves, toys, video games, and other products are linked to violence, undermine play, and how they depict racial stereotypes. Moreover, Diane discusses how marketing violence to children has increased on television. For example, she uses GIJoe, TeenageMutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, and pro-wrestling. In addition, she continues to elaborate on how “the number of acts of violence steadily increased in the most popular children’s shows.” For example, she cited Lisosky which stated that a Power Ranger show episode “averages about 100 acts of violence, twice as many acts as in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was the previously most successful show.”
Lastly, in reading Sternheimer and Diane’s article, both are similarly intertwined. Both Sternheimer and Diane provoked thinking and led me to question the intentions of all the video games i played back when i was young. Additionally, i as i try and remember the television episodes, i can see the marketing violence throughout the media.
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