Personal Obituaries

Alan Potter Dies at 23

Always full of life, with an adventurous spirit, Alan Potter faced and early death tragically, while climbing a palm tree, he was hit in the head with a coconut and fell to the ground. It was reported that Alan’s last words were “Hey, check this out!” It will be the last time any person watches anything Alan does. Alan lived his life the fullest. He was always looking for something new to try. He loved this earth and all the things within it; from the ocean to the mountains. Alan’s love of animals brought him home at the end of the day, and his love of life encouraged his thirst for traveling. He surely will be missed. January 28th 1985- May 21, 2008.

Coffee Shop Observations

A few weeks back our class was given the assignment to head to a coffee shop and pay attention. I went with a couple classmates to the 4th Street Coffee shop because it is attached to the MLK library. Once in the coffee shop I notices a few things right off the back: people on laptops, people chatting, people talking/texting on cell phones, and a line of people waiting to order a drink or food item. Once we sat down at one of the small round tables I noticed how sunny the place was. The about three quarters of the walls were made of glass, and since it is on the corner of the building, you have a pretty nice view of the street. After sitting for a little while, I noticed that something was happening in the street. There was a long pack of people on bicycles taking up the lanes of San Fernando street. I was not sure the occasion but since my friends and I do a similar thing every month, I took a video. I was looking around at the counter, listening to the grinding and hissing sounds, smelling the aroma of coffee and steamed milk. I started to get hungry. The line of the Coffee shop, I noticed, would go from long to short. The line was at about a mid-range so I got up to wait in the line. As I was getting up to head to the line a group of students went strait to the back of the line, making it a long line again. I sat back down. I waited for the line to die down again, and once it did, I got a croissant. It was interesting to observe the coffee shop and the small patterns within it. I could like to do it again some time.

video test

Individual Blog Post #3

On April 1st, a new YouTube video came out. It was the legend of Zelda movie trailer, and it looked like it was going to be an awesome movie. I am a big movie buff and so I was excited to see the movie. I would assume that, since I am not a huge video game person and I was still excited about it, that a person that was into video games would be doubly excited. A few days later I was talking to my friend Aaron about the trailer and he let me know that it was just an April fools joke. He understandably was bummed since he is the biggest Zelda fan I have ever met. I was bummed as I said because I like movies. I understand that the people responsible for making the trailer just wanted to mess with people, but I think that is the wrong way of doing it. Aaron said "this would be the greatest movie of all time..." maybe the joke will be on the people who made the trailer, when they realise how much money they could have made on the movie. Perhaps, since it was such a big hit the trailer will become a real movie. Until them we can only hope.

Individual Blog Post #2

Talk about a temper. In Allentown Pa. a man was charged with pushing a friend down a 500 foot coal mine! That is not the type of friend that I want to have. The kicker about it was the friend that got pushed, survived the fall! Richard D. George was the pusher and the friend that got pushed was Nathan Bowman. The two 23 year olds had gotten into an argument and then that’s when the push accrued. George called 911 after pushing his friend. Later while questioned told a story that made little sense and then finally admitted to the crime. George was charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and other offenses. Bowman, the friend that got pushed came out with a broken collarbone, broken tailbone, and suffered injuries to his ankle and writs. Talk about getting off easy. I mean out of context those injuries would be a total bummer but after a 500 foot fall, I would be very happy to be alive.

Enterprise Article

Today I will be writing from the perspective of a struggling college student. I am not struggling to pay for the school, or necessarily with the work, though working close to full time at the beginning of the semester did bring me behind in my school work. I am struggling with, what many other student are struggling with. I am struggling to find what I want to do for the rest of my life.
What I am talking about more specifically is I have been struggling with the idea, if the major that I chose is the one for me. I am currently an advertising student. I chose that major because I wanted to do something relating to making commercials. Before deciding to going into advertising, I wanted to go into film.
The problem with going into film was, I have friends that got their film degree and they don’t use it for what they had intended. I did not want to go down that same path, I wanted to use my major. There is always need of advertising so I thought I would give it a shot. Now that I am an advertising student I am not taking the types of classes that I thought I would be taking.
Most of the classes I am taking are mass communication, mostly in the field of journalism. I have no interest in journalism. I don’t see myself writing for the news, or becoming part of broadcasting. I got into advertising because I expected the classes to be more hands on, more projects making short films, and storyboards. I enjoy my MCom 63 class because most of the work that we do, is hands on. In that class we get the opportunity to use programs like Photoshop, InDesign, and Imovie to created/edit videos and pictures.
For the most part I enjoy most of my classes, but some of the work I don’t feel motivated to do because I don’t see the relevance to what I want to do for a living. I have discussed this with many of my fellow advertising students and they agree with me. They also feel that it is not what they had in mind, they don’t want to go into journalism either and so they feel burnt out with much of the work. This is why I want to propose an Idea, combine the film and advertising into one major.
I feel if a program is restructured to set up the major then students will enjoy what they put into the time spent on school work and feel more motivated to complete it. Perhaps a new advertising program, not with the emphasis on journalism but instead on film and commercials. That is a major I would enjoy majoring in.

Japanese Internment Memorial

The other day our class took a field trip to the Japanese Internment memorial. Though I had passed it by quite often I had never taken the time to inspect the memorial before that day. We were told to choose a piece of the memorial that stood out to us and write about it. For me the thing that stood out the most was what seemed to the most out of place. I noticed on the south side of the wall to the top right of the guard tower was a paper airplane.
The entier memorial was quite intense. There were famlies being seperated, people placed on trains, and packed onto buses. Everything seemed so serious, so naturaly a paper plane caught my eye. I was not sure what it symbolises though a number of reasons popped into my head. Perhaps the guard was board and made it and then set it to the air, maybe it was a note being sent over the walls by one of the prisoners, maybe the aritist had a soft spot of paper airplanes. I wanted to know more soI went on the internet to inspect about the paper airplane. According to the web site, the paper airplane was symbolic of only thing free enough to leave the camps.
I am glad I had the chance to check out the memorial. Had I not known about it, I may have just passed it by again with out my knowing.