Intentions

My Intentions for this course as in any other English class I take is to further myself as a writer. Knowing as many genres and styles as possible can help translate to success and by taking this class I hope to gain some practical knowledge that I can use out in the ‘real world.’ Be it writing for work purposes or setting up a blog and becoming known such as Diablo Cody was for her movie Juno.

Web 2.0

Something I’m coming more and more aware because of this class is Web 2.0 and how dominant it was in my life, without my knowledge. Like an internal organ working silently inside you, Web 2.0 worked without my understanding in the world of the internet that I (we all) use so much. Facebook, social networking of other sorts, search engines. Torrents for example are a web 2.0 program. Whenever I’m doing research on the internet different websites that I go to, such as the all important Wikipedia, are examples of web 2.0. A website that I frequent is Metal-archives.com a networking site where people come together and review, recommend, database different metal bands throughout the world. A truly great website if you’re into that sort of thing.

It’s really interesting that something this powerful, a collaboration of the minds, was all around me all this time without my knowledge. Sort of like electricity. It works, we don’t all understand it but every single person can use it. Which is the beauty of web 2.0 that it allows the internet to become more user-friendly and accessible to people. Also it’s a great outlet for people who want to get their two-cents in (check youtube). As this class progresses I hope to learn more about web 2.0 and how to use it successfully and professionally as this is becoming a more in more common part of our society skills in this area will naturally progress to a must. Be it for learning more in your field of study or work, knowing how to work web 2.0 will be nothing but beneficial.

Facebook

I first got a facebook account before my freshman year when a friend of mine keep telling me about how great it was and that every college student should have one. Eventually I gave in and listened to her and got myself a facebook account. Yeah! Social networking is cool. I enjoyed it thoroughly, the simplicity of keeping in contact with friends, the exchanging of notes and information on classes I happened to ‘miss’ or someone else missed and it was a convenient way to know what events or parties were going on. I loved my facebook. Then… Enter High Schoolers and the changes that soon followed…

Mark Zuckerberg discovered that he made a engine for potential profit. Advertisers got on facebook and facebook beacon was secretly instigated and began siphoning off information that people did not wish to be made public. Facebook is going down the drain daily. The instigation of applications and the fact that anyone who cares to write the code can put a program on facebook means that there’s been an onslaught of applications that I quite frankly don’t give a damn about. Zombies? Bumper Stickers? Super Wall? What’s wrong with my wall? Is it un-super? I’ve actually removed a few friends because they thought that applications were such an awesome idea that they had to get every single one they could and naturally send me several invites a day for each application they have. Bah! Before the applications, in the good ‘ol days (ugh…) the most annoying thing on facebook was change notes or messages, but that wasn’t a big deal. Now some people’s facebooks are so cluttered with stuff that you can skip finding the wall amidst the clutter.

connect the dots

I’m a huge fan of the band Ayreon. Not like the supreme race. A new album was released (more so leaked) recently by them and it’s phenomenal. I’m definitely buying it when it comes out. The special edition dvd set looks really awesome. Anyway two songs off of the album kind of tie in with class. The best ones I could find on youtube are here. For the first song Connect the Dots and the second is Web of Lies. I’m obsessed with Connect the Dots, it’s truly a masterpiece. I really like Web of Lies but I feel the song should be forty seconds longer so the characters could meet each other or have more interactions.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NQ_13k9f4a0

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3Vy735jNAyg

This one is simple

It's snowing outside, welcome to Missouri weather. Now for the long walk back to my car with just my simple hoodie...

Sitting in Class

Unfortunately writing for me without some sort of direction or inspiration usually becomes mundane complaining. Good thing this is just a blog! Welcome to it, I'm glad you're reading it. In the future along with the postings for this class I may add other things I've written that I care to show on this blog, but I'm not sure how this format will handle say, scripts? It'd probably just butcher the format and it'd be annoying to scroll down and past to get to any post that happens to be underneath.

A little about myself (though I think the first few sentences inveterately describe me rather well), I'm an English major, soon moving that to creative writing (officially). I'm unsure if I'll finish my time at MU or if I'll transfer to another school, time will tell. I'm the treasurer for the undergraduate Mock Trial team here at Mizzou and let me tell you, nothing on earth is dealing with ORG when it comes to getting funded. Nothing. I also co-host a political and whatever is going on in the world that we find funny talk show on KCOU with my friend John Dobson. I hope someday to land a job writing or make a living off of that because I detest real work.