Reflecting on the Semester

Like pretty much anyone, if you asked me what I thought would be going on at the end of this semester, it definitely wouldn't have been this. At the start of Spring Break, I was making plans for a whole bunch of different stuff to do with my friends before the end of the semester. Since my boyfriend is graduating, I was going to try to make the most of being able to see him every day before we would have had to go home for the summer. Thankfully, everyone else in our friend group will be around for at least another year, so I'm lucky to have other friends to hang out with during my super senior year (if we're fortunate enough to resume college as normal next academic year). I guess I'm mostly just going to use this post as a place to dump my feelings about everything because why not? 😅

We've been doing classes from home for over a month now, and I think I adjusted to it as well as I could expect to. I procrastinated on way too much stuff, and as a result I didn't do as well as I'd have liked on some assignments. I'm sure that will continue into finals week. There really isn't anything I can do about it  now, though. One of my biggest frustrations with that is that I've always had a tendency to procrastinate, but this semester I was honestly doing a pretty good job of giving myself enough time to complete assignments and do other things. That all basically went out the window once online classes started. Hopefully when next semester rolls around, I'll get back into not procrastinating as much. Most of my professors were very receptive to the fact that most students were going to struggle with the shift to online learning, so that was nice. 

I wish we knew when we'd be able to go out without worrying again. I know that a vaccine is likely to take months (if not over a year), and without that, we're all susceptible to more big outbreaks. I'm not really vibing with this whole "living through a major historic event" thing. Ah well. Plus, I'm so worried about my friends and family. I have a lot of older and immunocompromised people that I really care about. Plus, this virus is hitting healthy young people hard sometimes, so it's not like anyone is really safe. This whole thing is a big exercise in trying not to worry about things I have no control over. And then I see soooo many people not taking it seriously, and I'm like 😐. Do they not realize or care that they're only making things worse? Sheesh. 

I've been trying to make the most of being at home. It's just my mom, our cats, and I, so it can feel a little lonely. We've been skyping and calling my brother, sister, and grams, so that helps. I come from a pretty big family that gets together a lot, so not seeing them is weird and sad. Plus I just reallllllllly miss my friends. I'm so thankful that this is happening during a time when there is so much technology for staying connected with people. 

Once I'm done with schoolwork and have more free time again, I'm going to work on rearranging my bedroom, getting rid of stuff that I no longer use, and getting back into some hobbies that have fallen to the wayside. Hopefully that'll mean singing more, learning another language, and playing the keyboard. One nice thing about not being able to go out is that I've been catching up on some show I've wanted to watch. My mom and I have been watching Stranger Things, and I've been watching a few different anime, so that's nice. 

Overall, I've just been trying to look on the bright side. Some days are definitely easier than others, though; in the past, I've been prone to depression, and this situation has been a big instigator for that.  This can't last forever,though, and I'm doing what I can to enjoy my life while it's happening. There's a quote from Lord of the Rings that sums things up pretty well, and I put a picture of it below. 

This is all pretty wild, and I'm still figuring out how I feel about it. I'm just thankful that most of my friends, family, and myself have stayed safe and healthy so far. I'm also thankful that the semester is almost over. I love learning, but I'm ready for a little break 😅

Reflecting on Wikipedia

Before a pandemic began spreading across the world, completely altering pretty much everyone's plans for the foreseeable future, the third unit of my Writing for Digital Media class was about Wikipedia. And in the spirit of both current events and the class topic at hand, here's a link to the Wikipedia article on COVID-19 (see how I tied that together... pretty good, huh?). In this Wikipedia unit, we primarily focused on how articles are edited. We also spent some time learning how to evaluate the quality of an article. 

We did learn a little bit of background info about Wikipedia before we got to the editing. One thing we learned was that Wikipedia has like 5 million articles on it (and more get added regularly). That's a crazy big number! It's kind of wild to think that there is sooo much publicly available information on Wikipedia-- but I guess it is the free encyclopedia. 

In school growing up, teachers routinely said that Wikipedia wasn't a reputable source because anyone can edit it. After engaging in the editing process and learning about it, I've learned that while anyone can make edits to Wikipedia, those edits are almost always heavily monitored and reviewed. On top of that, they require citations. There are some strict procedures in place to make sure that articles are of high quality. 

Here's a list of some of the major criteria for Wikipedia articles:

• Articles should be written from a neutral perspective, no personal bias. 
• There should be no original research, opinions, or ideas. None of your own conclusions and interpretations should be included in articles, just the facts. 
• Absolutely no plagiarism. Changing a couple words but keeping the structure of a sentence is still plagiarism. Short, clearly marked quotes are okay. 
• Citations must be provided for the included information, and those sources should be reliable. 

When we were selecting our article to edit for this unit, we were encouraged to pick a stub or class-c article in an area that we were knowledgeable of. If we picked something more well-developed, we could more easily run into the issue of not having anything substantial to add to the article. Plus, articles that are more popular or that have had more work put into them usually have a larger number of people already keeping an eye on and improving them. 

Originally, I picked a class-c article about Mark Zug, an illustrator who has done some artwork for Magic: The Gathering, one of my favorite card games. I couldn't find any sources to use to add more info to the article, though, so I scrapped that idea because of the time frame we were working on. Then I picked the article for stamp sands, course sand left over from stamp mills. I like geology, I went on a trip to Michigan last summer where I actually got to see and learn about some stamp sands, and there were a couple articles including info on them available through PittCat, so it seemed like a winner. 

Plus, we learned that articles can fall under different categories based on how complete they are. For example, an article that is just a couple of sentences without many or any citations will likely fall under the "stub" category, indicating that it needs some additional work to be considered a reputable article. Another category that we looked at is class-c. Class-c articles are more substantial than stubs and often have some good sources, but they still require some work. This work is usually either adding more information, adding more sources, or cleaning up existing material within the article. 


Alas, that pandemic I was talking about earlier came along and cut Unit 3 short by forcing all UPJ classes to go online. So, here I am at my house, wrapping up this article and getting ready for whatever comes next. And this has nothing to do with Unit 3, but let me tell ya, it is really hard to focus on school work at home. At least now I know how to edit Wikipedia articles in my free time. 😅

Reflecting on Social Media

The second unit of Writing for Digital Media was all about social media. It's positives, negatives, what it can be used for, and unconventional ways that it can be used in. There were also two projects in this unit: a group presentation on a social media platform and a storytelling project on a social media platform of our choice.


Before getting started with any of this, we learned that the interactive internet is often referred to as Web 2.0, focused on Web pages that allow use-generated content. Web 1.0 was the first iteration of the internet. Of course, Web 1.0 is a retronym, name given after the thing was created; how could anyone have known that the internet would one day become filled with interactive user-created content? In Web 1.0, most users are consumers of content. In Web 2.0, users are also often creators of content. All of those platforms that are popular today that allow things like likes, comments, and user-uploaded material are all examples of Web 2.0. Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter... the list goes on.

Next came our social media presentation projects. My group decided on Snapchat, everyone's favorite way to share quick pictures and videos with friends. Before diving in to this project, we discussed social media as a whole. We discussed why we have so many specialized representations of ourselves based on different platforms. To clarify, the way someone presents themselves on a platform like Facebook is likely different than how they do on Instagram (and likely wildly different from how they do on something like Tinder). The most prominent negative that we discussed was that people narrow themselves down based on the platform. It made us consider if this issue is exclusive to social media, though. Maybe it’s not the platforms, it might just be something we do naturally. For example, the way that someone presents themselves at church is often different than how they do at a party.

This then went into a discussion about when and how people should be held accountable for what they post online. Is a teacher getting fired for having a picture of herself in a bikini on Facebook appropriate? And how different is that from a teacher getting fired for using hateful slurs and language online? There was a general consensus that it's okay to be fired for using slurs and stuff online because that's reflective of one's character and thoughts, but that being fired for posting a picture in a bikini is unnecessary and harsh. The world of social media has presented so many new questions about how it is appropriate to conduct one's self online.

After considering all of this information on social media, our class split into groups and began working on our presentations. Each group picked a platform and did a short presentation on what it is, how it's used, who uses it, and some potential problems with it. Some of the platforms we used included Snapchat (what my group did), YouTube, Twitch, Webtoons, and several others. 

We jumped right into learning about our next project: telling a story through a social media platform. To prepare for this, we read several pieces where the user used a platform in an unconventional way to tell a story. For ours, we. had the option of "twisting" the platform's intended use or using it traditionally. For mine, I'm going to use Google Tours to tell a story based around the locations that inspired the Studio Ghibli movies. I'm still working on it, though, since it's due this upcoming Thursday. 

Reflection on Reading (and Writing) Online

These first few weeks in Writing For Digital Media have been off to a boppin' start. So far we've each started a blog, made memes about ourselves, and written listicles. In that time, we've also considered those methods of digital communication critically, thinking about their pros and cons and what makes them effective.

Surprisingly, the term meme  was first coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins--that word for all those funny internet pictures we send to our friends is over 40! It's original definition was "something that catches on and replicates," and even today, that's a pretty accurate definition. And that catchiness is what makes them stand out.

Here's a list of some of the pros and cons that we discussed as a class:

Pros:

• effective way of spreading a message
• can bring people together
• helps open conversation with low stakes
• avenue of creation
• relatable
• quick 

Cons:

• can contribute to people becoming desensitized from serious topics
• can be harmful to the actual people in them
• “corporatization” of memes by companies
• easy spread of misinformation
• easy to “steal” work without crediting the creator
• shallow (easy to make a meme about a problem, laugh, and move one without effecting change or making a meaningful contribution)

Despite all these cons, memes themselves are not inherently harmful, but the information spread with them can be, and that's why (like all forms of media), consumers must be careful to think critically about the content they're absorbing.

Ranking All 10 Naruto Chunin Exam Preliminary Fights

The Naruto series (including Shippuden and Boruto) is now well over 700 episodes long and counting. In a show this long, there are bound to be high points and lows. One of these highs occurs early on in the series in the form of the Chunin Exams, a series of tests where young ninjas from various villages compete to test their abilities and attempt to advance to the next rank: Chunin. The final test is a tournament of one-on-one battles, but when too many ninjas pass the previous tests, a series of preliminary rounds are held to narrow it down. This results in 22 episodes of some of the coolest (and also some of the lamest) fights in the Naruto series.

Here, I’ve ranked all ten from worst to best. The criteria I used are kinda loose, but I considered the following:

• Did the fight contribute to the plot
• Did the fight result in character development and/or revealing more about a character
• How cool was the fight to watch?

So, without further ado, here it is: all 10 Chunin Exam preliminary battles, ranked from worst to best as I see fit.

10. Tenten vs Temari 

Coming in last place is Tenten vs Temari. This is one of the shortest fights in the preliminaries because, well, nothing really happens. Tenten, who is talked up to be some great weapon master, throws some stuff at Temari, Temari uses her giant fan to blow it away before it even touches her, and Tenten goes, “Hey, maybe I should throw more weapons are her.” In the end, Tenten gets her butt handed to her and looks totally lame in the process. This fight really doesn’t do much except make Tenten look useless and Temari look like a ruthless jerk.

9. Misumi vs Kankuro

This one is ranked so low for pretty much the same reasons as the last one. It only does a little better because unlike Tenten, Misumi is just a random extra that we never see again, so making him look weak doesn’t go against the reputation of an already-established character. Plus, Kankuro’s puppet fighting style looks a lot cooler than Temari’s giant fan.

8. Dosu vs. Choji 

 This fight was the last one, and you can tell it was supposed to supply some comic relief after Gaara and Rock Lee’s battle. It was only a minute long, and Choji basically handed Dosu the victory.

7. Sasuke vs Yoroi

This is when it starts getting a little harder to rank them, and a lot of these middle ones just come down to my personal preference, because they all have their good and bad points. Sasuke was in pretty rough shape after the previous test, and this fight showed his ability to adapt to situations and learn quickly. Let’s be honest, though, viewers already knew that; he is the strongest rookie in his class. Yoroi is just a random extra character that doesn’t really bring a whole light to the fight, but hey, at least viewers get to watch Sasuke look cool.

6. Shikamaru vs Kin

 This fight isn’t particularly action-packed, but it’s the first time you get to see Shikamaru’s analytical skills in action. This one lands in the middle because of how it reveals more about his character.

5. Sakura vs Ino

This was a fight between childhood best friends turned rivals. There wasn’t much action, but the character development is top notch. And those flashbacks? Oh boy. We finally start to understand their rivalry.

4. Naruto vs Kiba

This is the first time Naruto, the main character, really holds his own in a fight. After being talked down to for  years, his character finally gets to prove how much he’s grown as a ninja. This one adds to the plot, shows off the main character, and is a pretty exciting fight to watch.

3. Zaku vs Shino

Neither of these characters got much screen time prior to this (heck, Zaku isn’t even a main character), but this is a cool fight. Shino basically stands there the whole time, barely even touches Zaku, and disables his arms by filling them with bugs. And it looks way cooler than it sounds.

2. Hinata vs Neji 

This fight is definitely a fan favorite, pitting the timid Hinata, a member of their clan’s main family, against her prodigy cousin Neji, an extremely bitter member of one of their clan’s branch families. The hatred Neji feels toward Hinata is palpable through the entire fight, but Hinata still loves her cousin, and it makes for an interesting dynamic.

1. Gaara vs Rock Lee

Is it really a surprise that this fight was #1? This was hands-down the best. I remember watching these episodes for the first time when I was 8 and being like “whoa” basically the whole time. I can’t begin to unpack all the things that made this showdown so great, but it checked pretty much all the boxes in my criteria. It added to the plot, revealed more about both Gaara and Rock Lee’s characters, and was just incredibly well-executed and gripping to watch.

An Introduction

Howdy readers!

My name is Rachel, and I'm a senior at UPJ. I'm dual majoring in Professional Writing and Multimedia and Digital Culture and minoring in Geology. This blog will be a place for me to reflect on some of the things I learn in my Writing for Digital Media class.

I guess I'll include a little bit about myself. I love music of all kinds, but my go-to genre is rock or metal (and we're supposed to slap a link in here somewhere, so here are some songs I like). I watch a lot of anime (I'm getting caught up on My Hero Academia right now and, boy oh boy, is it good). I love anything to do with the environment and sustainability. And last, but not least:

So, thanks for checking my page out. I'm really excited for this class!