Camera Freak's Blog

Hypertext Reflections

2011-05-04T16:06:00.001-07:00

This hypertext assignment was kind of fun, but trying to figure out how to publish it was a headache in and of itself. I spent half an hour trying to figure it out on my own and using the help bar to figure it out. I did eventually get it to work, but I'm still not really sure how I got it to work. Overall this was an interesting assignment and a fun learning experience.

Reflections on Research Paper

2011-05-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

I'm glad that I chose reincarnation in Buddhism and Hinduism as my topic for this research paper. It was a topic that I was always interested in and never got around to doing research for it. This research paper gave me a chance to do all that and to think over the topic again and whether I still believed in reincarnation. I feel that this paper made me into more of a believer than I was before this paper. Some of the stories that I came across are just impossible without reincarnation. So I'm really glad that I chose the topic I did.

Comments on Research Matters

2011-05-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

This book Research Matters was helpful to me in this class when it came to figuring out a lot of the things that I needed to know for this class. This book was being used constantly while i was working on my annotated bibliography for this research paper. It was probably my best tool, besides the internet of course.

9.1

2011-05-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

I took the quiz "How to Recognize Plagiarism" and i got 8 out of 10 answers right.

Reconsidering Title

2011-05-03T21:34:00.000-07:00

The title I chose for my paper was "Reincarnation in Buddhism and Hinduism." This is the original title that I chose for my paper and after thinking about it and trying to come up with a new or better title, I have decided that this title is probably the best way to sum up this research paper.

Subcultures

2011-05-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

-Goth

-Preppy

-Emo

-Hippie

-Cosplayers

-Gamers

-BDSM

-Fandom

Teacher Review

2011-05-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Reading the comments from my rough draft and talking with the teacher really helped me to figure out how to continue with my paper and how to wrap it up.

Peer Review

2011-05-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

I had my friend read my paper for me and review it because I was unable to print the rough draft in class. But he was able to help me reform my thesis and give it more stability than it originally had. This was very helpful to me since I have never been very good at starting papers or writing a thesis.

VARK

2011-05-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

The results that I received from the Vark survey surprised me. It said that I have a mild Kinesthetic learning preference. The last time I took a test like this I was in middle school and the test said that I was a visual learner. Now that I think about it it makes sense that I'm a kinesthetic learner. In my Intro to Digital Photo class the whole class was centered around learning how to use photoshop. I took notes and wrote down everything that I did as I went, but I would never have been able to learn those techniques if I hadn't done them in class with the teacher first. But I never would have been able to remember those techniques if I hadn't written them down, which is why it also makes sense to me that my second best way of learning was through reading and writing.

Hypertext Options

2011-04-27T17:15:00.001-07:00

The option that I like most for the hypertext project is Hillary Clinton. She's a well educated political figure that I've always admired. She's a great public speaker and I think she would have made and excellent president for this country. I think she'll be a good topic for this hypertext project.

List of public intellectuals

2011-04-27T17:05:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of public intellectuals for the final:

Stephen Colbet
Takashi Nurakami
Hugh Hefner
Quintin Tarentino
George Lucas
Steven Spielberg
Steve Jobs
Scott McCloud
Bill Gates
Al Gore
Frank Miller
Art Spiegalman
Paul Krueger
Steven Hawking
Hillary Clinton

Should a student be considered a "customer"?

2011-04-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

I never really considered the question, but I guess that I am a customer to Edinboro University. I pay the school money to come to class and to get an education. Everyone who goes to college is really only going for one thing though: to get that little piece of paper called a diploma. Yes, the journey of college is important, but the end result is the only reason we pay to be here. One of my roommates mother loves to chastise me on facebook about things that I post about school. For example, when a professor cancels a class I'll post a status about it. She never fails to comment and make a snide comment about how I'm paying to miss that class. This is true that I'm paying for it, but at the end of the day (or the end of the four years) I'm still going to get that piece of paper whether that class was canceled for one day or not.

I guess I do go to college for more than the diploma though. Since I'm a photo major I do need to know more about that field. Since I have started in the photo program at Edinboro University I have learned a lot about the subject and my photos have improved dramatically! I am very grateful for that and I've worked very hard on it. So if for some terrible reason I am unable to get that wonderful piece of paper that I have worked so hard for, at least I'll be able to know that I got something for all that money that I spent on school.

Thesis

2011-04-02T22:59:00.000-07:00

I think reincarnation in Buddhism and Hinduism show a lot of similarities because they share many similar views and they both believe in karma, but they also have their differing opinions.

Summary of College: A Time of Wonder

2011-03-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

A time of wonder, or a time of fear? This article was about how colleges highlight the dangers of being in college instead of the wonders of being in college. Colleges give presentations on trying to protect yourself from the dangers or being raped or attacked on campus, the dangers of not being able to handle the work load, and just showing off the very worst of college life in general. Basically they want you to know that there's a possibility that you will not survive college. I agree and disagree with the author. Colleges should put a more positive spin on continuing your education, the friendships you forge, the experience you gain, and the sense of freedom and accomplishment that nothing else can give you. But I'm glad that colleges don't try to hide or sugar coat the hard facts: college is hard! It's not easy and it's no cake walk. You spend four or more years being completely sleep deprived and you have almost no time for yourself. When you're not working on papers or projects or cramming for a test, you're working a part time job to support yourself and the things you have to pay for for school. And most of the professors have the opinion that their class is the only class that you should care about whether it's your major or not. It's a very stressful four years (give or take) of a person's life. So I disagree with the author when he says that colleges shouldn't make people aware of this.

Converting Bibliographic Data

2011-03-01T17:59:00.000-08:00

Reincarnation : the hope of the world

Authors:

Cooper, Irving S.

Source:

Edinboro University Library

Document Type:

Book

Subject Terms:

Reincarnation

Call Number:

BP573.R5 C6 1951

Database:

Edinboro University Library

Cooper, Irving S. "Reincarnation: the hope of the world." Wheaton, III. : Theosophical Press, 1951. Tuesday, March 1, 2011.

Research Topic Ideas

2011-02-02T16:26:00.000-08:00

I'm tempted to write about photography for this research paper, but that's a topic that I've used too many times and I want to do a topic that is new and fresh to me. So here are my three topic ideas:

Scary Movies: I love watching them and re-watching them and studying them and how they make people react. I don't know what's so alluring about watching a scary movie. Maybe it's the sense of safety you get while watching a scary movie from the safety of your home or a movie theater. Or maybe it's the thrill of watching a scary movie that has possibilities of happening.

Dreams: A topic that's always a mystery and that I've been curious about. I'm always having strange and vivid dreams. I'm curious about what kind of research I can dig up on it. I've taken psychology classes that have said that dreams are just sporadic bursts of thoughts that the brain has during sleep, thoughts about your day, what's happening in your life, or subconscious feelings. And there is of course the theory that dreams can be a symbol for something in your life. For example, dreaming of dogs means loyalty, protection, and intuition. I actually dreamed about having a dog last night but yesterday I was talking to my roommate about getting a dog. Both theories seem to have some kind of validity.

Reincarnation: One of my favorite topics of all time. The idea of reincarnation completely fascinates me. I think the whole idea of having past lives and having known people I know now in a past life. I've heard and read a lot of stories on reincarnation and I would really like to have an excuse to do more research on this topic and to be able to write about it. I think I might even be able to tie in the topic of dreams into this topic.

Substantive Magazines

2011-01-27T19:40:00.000-08:00

I read articles from the magazines Failure, Psychology Today, and Skeptic. From Failure I read an article about the Dead Sea slowly drying out. The article was interesting; one way that they're trying to solve the problem of the dead sea drying out is by taking water from the Red Sea and moving it to the Dead Sea.

The article I read from Psychology Today really fascinated me and made me think about decisions that I and many other people make in life. The article was "Comfot Kills." Just the title sounds interesting. But the main point of the article was that people that live comfortable lives also live boring lives. People that live poor, uncomfortable lives tend to have less boring lives. In the short run comfortable is nice, but in the long run and the big picture of life a boring, comfortable life is a waste.

For the third magazine, Skeptic, I watched a 14 minute video instead of reading an article. The video was about peoples' strange beliefs and debunking them. The video was very amusing and made the supernatural seem fickle and definitely fake. One part of the video the speaker played "Stairway to Heaven" backwards and it's supposed satanic lyrics. You only hear it if you know what to listen for.

Exercise 1.1

2011-01-26T15:48:00.000-08:00

A list of my interests:

-Photography
-Fashion
-Reading
-Scary Movies
-Music
-Art
-Walking
-Cooking
-Writing
-Octopi

Back Again!

2011-01-19T17:09:00.000-08:00

So, two years later I'm back in this class. This blog is about my previous experience with research papers. Like I said, I took this class two years ago, and I had a lot of experience with research papers in that class, but I don't remember too much about it. So this semester is a fresh start for me when it comes to that area. I'm going to forget what I thought I knew last time and try to relearn this stuff with a fresh mind and a fresh attitude. My goal for this semester is to improve my writing and to do more of it. I'm going to try to come up with new topics to write about this year as well, but I might end up writing about photography again. That subject just comes to me so easily and researching it for a writing class would have a dual purpose because you can never do enough research for that field when your in it. Just today my photo teacher told my class that the photo field is a constantly changing and shifting field, and that we always need to be updating ourselves on the new technologies and the new programs. For example just ten years ago the majority of us were using film cameras and today the art of film photography is pretty much extinct!
I didn't mean to get so side tracked with that subject, but as I said I'll try to bring new topics to the table this semester. This week I plan on going home and writing up a list of other things that interest me. I'm sure it won't be too hard. :)

Interview

2009-03-31T19:27:00.000-07:00

For my ethnography on photography I plan on interviewing my friend Jessica who is also a photography major and my friend Katy who takes pictures for fun. I'm also planning on interviewing my sister who enjoys photography as a hobby. Jessica is into fashion photography and Katy is into nature photography. I think that between those two sources I can get different views on photography.

More Sources

2009-02-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

General Accounting Office Washington DC National Security and International Affairs DIV. "Foreign Affairs: Federal Response to International Parental Child Abductions." Ft. Belvoir Defense Technical Information Center 12 p. (1999). 11 Feb. 2009 http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA370069

Sources

2009-02-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

Photography article source: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=107&sid=62656368-58b5-4a99-b679-34c9a5086d5b%40sessionmgr109&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=a9h&AN=36300007

Subject Sources

2009-01-30T10:39:00.000-08:00

One of the sources that I found on my topic was an article titled "Child custody made simple: understanding the laws of child custody and child support." (http://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSFETCH?fetchtype=fullrecord:sessionid=fsapp13-56197-fql7177q-deguze:entitypagenum=10:0:recno=8:resultset=21:format=FI:next=html/record.html:bad=error/badfetch.html:entitytoprecno=8:entitycurrecno=8:numrecs=1)
This article is about understanding the laws of child custody during a divorce, which is a huge contributing factor to my topic and the angle that I'm writing from, which is parents kidnapping their own children.

3 Topics of Interest

2009-01-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

Three topics that I have considered for my paper are child kidnappings, depression, and being the child of an alcoholic.

My first choice, child kidnappings, is a topic of interest to me because when I was in kindergarten one day my father came to the school and said that my mother was at a doctor's appointment and asked him to pick me up from school early, which she had not. At the time my parents were going through a nasty divorce and my mom was fighting to get full custody of me. So my dad kidnapped me and wouldn't let me go home or go to school. He kept me for two weeks. I missed the last days of kindergarten. The angle that I'd like to write from is that it's the school's responsibility to step up and be more careful with whose hands they put children in. This situation could have been a lot worse than it was.

My second topic of choice is being the child of an alcoholic. This is yet again another experience that I dealt with growing up. From the time I was eight until the year that I turned sixteen my mother was a heavy drinker. I practically raised my little brother as well as myself. The years that I had to deal with this problem were the worst of my life. They left me with few happy childhood memories and there are things that I will never forget from this time. I'm not really sure what angle I would write from on this topic, so I probably won't use it.

My third and final topic choice is depression. I struggled with depression and thoughts of suicide from the time i was ten to the time that I was seventeen. I lacked the ability to be happy with myself and my life. I saw no reason in being here and I cried every day. As awful as it was and considering how obvious I was about being depressed, nobody tried to get help for me. I had to deal with my depression myself which was one of the hardest things that I will probably ever have had to do. But I was one of the lucky ones that was able to try to look past that depression and recognize the fact that there was something beyond the pain and that someday there would be happiness. Not many can look to this though and this is where suicide takes place. People need to learn to recognize the signs of depression and how to get help for their friends, family, and loved ones. If everyone was aware of the signs, so many lives would be saved.

Those are my three topics that I am considering writing about. I haven't made my final decision yet, but I'll most likely choose my first topic of choice about child kidnappings.

Experience in Research Writing

2009-01-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

In high school I had to do a lot of research papers for my classes, especially for my english classes. But when I got to college I had so even more research writing than I had before. The main classes that I used research writing for was english, public speaking, american stories, and my beginning reporting class. This semester I won't be needing to use so much research writing because I switched my major and now I have mostly studio classes and they don't really care about research writing that much. I don't really mind research writing, though it can be dull, but it's not the worst thing in the world.