Blog 4 Podcasts

During the summer camp podcast they were interviewing a bunch of kids and counselors who all attended that summer camp.  The interviewers also got a chance to oversee everything that was going on.  The kids and counselors all shared their unique experiences at summer camp and what they liked most about summer camp.  I noticed that their stories were trying to make a bigger picture to help us understand things that can be applied into our own lives.  I believe that the summer camp podcast was based upon an ethnography or a study of a group of people/society.  The batman story was more of a profile based podcast where the podcast mainly focused on one person and interviewed them.  I noticed one thing that.  One quote that stuck out to me in summer camp was something about being apart of a team.  He talked about how summer camp was all about being part of a team and how the team not only accomplishes goals with each other but the team has fun together.  In the batman story the women relates blindness to social construction where we have beliefs about blind people and what they can and cannot do, and it is those beliefs that really limit the blind.  I think the summer camp podcast was organized by theme because it sounds more interesting that way than if you were to organize it by chronological order.  The batman podcast on the contrary was organized by chronological order talking about the life of this man in order of the events that took place.  I think they chose to do it chronologically to have it connect better and make more sense to the reader who is trying to understand the batman's life.  The idea that blindness is a social construction really struck me because if we really think about it its our ideas or beliefs about blind people that really limit to what they can do.

My critical question is "How weather affects society?"  Ive been thinking who I should study or interview and I am leaning more towards something to do with flying.  When flying airplanes or helicopters for that matter all you depend on or look out for is the weather.  I think I would like to do a profile, an interview on a pilot.  Ask them questions related to how weather affected not only him but other pilots as well.  I also want to get more of a story aspect from my interview because I think that will make the reader better understand how the weather has affected pilots.  I think it would be kind of interesting to hear whats the worse weather the have ever flown them and how that affected them.  I would also like to know if being a pilot has made them more aware of the weather present day.

Blog 5

My critical question for this course is "How does weather affect society?"  I want to study a person or a group of people that deal with weather on a day to day basis.  I'm hoping to be able to speak to a pilot or meteorologist and ask them how they think society deals with weather.  Either that or I'll find a community of people and ask them how they deal with weather in their daily lives.  I think I will interview a guy by the name of Ward Shires, he is a family friend that my dad mentioned and I'm not sure if I've ever met the guy.  He is a retired Navy and Air Force pilot who was awarded the flying cross for his actions in the Vietnam Conflict.  I will be studying how weather affected the daily life of this pilot.  My dad said he had his number so I plan to contact him via phone.

Interview questions:

• In what ways did the weather make you prepare on day to day flights?
• What weather would you consider the most concerning  when flying or preparing?
• What was the prime weather for flying?
• Whats the worst weather you have flown in?
• Has the weather made you a better pilot?
• Has the weather helped you in anyways as a pilot?
• In what ways does weather make it difficult for a pilot?
• Have you ever been in a dangerous situation while flying in bad weather?
• What was that situation like?
• What are the preflight checks on weather what are you looking for?
• What is the most difficult about flying in bad weather?
• Have you ever been caught in a weather phenomenon known as a micro burst?
• What are pilots looking for in bad weather, what really sticks out to them?
• How has weather changed you as a pilot?
• Has being a pilot made you more aware of the weather around you?

For this interview I will be using my phone to record the interview as well as I will be taking notes.

Blog 3 Question Draft 2 and Article Free Write

-I completed this on the day it was due but I made a mistake when I was finished, instead of publishing it I clicked save.  It wasn't until today when I noticed it wasn't on my page.  I decided to make a new post and just copied and pasted everything.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

Question Revision

In class yesterday I had a critical question that dealt with how dependent our economy is on our ecosystems. After some feedback from classmates I thought my question was not as good as I once thought.  Instead of sticking to the same topic I chose to move on to an entirely different one.  The question that I came up with now is "What is happiness?."  Through this question I can see myself being able find out what happiness might mean for me or a different culture.  Happiness is different for everyone and that's what I think makes this question so unique and great.  For project one I can use happiness through my experiences and tie in an artifact that will symbolize what happiness means to me.  Personal experiences might be a certain time when I was happy or certain things that make me happy.  For project to I can do some research on what does happiness mean to a different culture or society.  Happiness variates from all over the world so to compare and contrast would be a great way to go about this project.  For project three I will go further in depth into the word happiness exploring the psychological means of happiness.


Artifact

• Keys to my car
• CD disc for music
• Silverware for food
• Ice cream
• Cell Phone for friends
• Bike
• Backpack for hiking
• pillow for sleep
• dinner table representing family
• Running

For my artifact I am choosing the keys to my car.  The keys to my car is truly the key to my happiness.  Don't get me wrong its not the keys that make me happy but driving factor with no destination on a beautiful night with the windows down.  The high I get from this is no other, I can feel everything stress or worries just leave my body and fly out the window.  The fact that when the drive is over I walk out of the car still in the same happy mood, really driving is just a mood fix for me.  All of the things that go into driving with no destination just make it awesome I believe.  For me its like a math formula and your adding all of the factors and your overall answer is the level of happiness.  Factors such as windows being down, wind blowing into your face, wide open spaces driving down the highway, music turned up (preferably the Goo Goo Dolls), one hand on the steering wheel and the other hanging out the window.  All of these factors add up to just pure happiness for me.  The only down part is that this happiness is really expensive, but I think its worth it.  This connects back to my question by doing what makes you happy everyone is different so someone else will have something completely different perhaps opposite from me.  Say a person from New York City I bet the last thing they want to do is get in their car in that god forsaken traffic.  Why because the midwest has a different culture than from people who live big cities in general.  

Blog #2 Critical Thinking Question

1st Half
Critical Questions Brain Storming:

• How does our carbon footprint affect global warming?
• What are the principles of a good leader?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of a democracy?
• How does destroying ecosystems affect our economy?
• What assumptions exist that might influence negativity towards the United States?
• What points of view or perspectives are influencing the rise of racism in the police force?
• What caused the economic collapse in 2008?
• How does an U.S. presence in the Middle East affect families and citizens of those who reside in that region?
• What biases are present in the rising problem of ISIS?
• Has modern transportation affected how diseases are diffused?
• How does global warming affect weather patterns here in the U.S.?
• How does music affect the psychology of a human being?
• Does our behavior when we are alone affect how we may behave with others?

•        Looking around the room what catches your eye and why?

When looking around my room I find there are a lot of things that catch my eye.  I believe that the objects that catch my eye the most are the ones that have brighter colors.  Considering my room is painted in a darker color it would make sense if I see an object with brighter colors it would stick out more.  The same thing happens when you are anywhere else objects that seem different or unusual tend to stick out to the human mind.

•        What did you think about while you last showered?

When I last showered my mind jumps from thoughts to thought.  I really never focused on one thought and pondered about it for the time I was in the shower.  My thoughts varied from; getting all of my homework done, to what else do I need to do before I go to bed, and then something completely off that had to do with the process of washing my hair and how I should go about it to make it softer.  I can also think a handful of times where I actually stood in the shower pondering the meaning of life.

•        What were you thinking about as you fell asleep last night?

The thoughts that occur in my head when I take a shower and before I fall asleep are pretty similar.  Except sometimes I'll replay fun moments I had when I was in high school or embarrassing moments and I'll laugh at myself.  Last night I also had a hard time falling asleep so most of that time I stared at the clock taking note of each minute of sleep I'm loosing.

•        What was your favorite class in college/high school and why?

My favorite class in high school was astronomy because I found it very interesting and cool.  I enjoyed the deep thoughts in the class and the fact that the answer was never right in front of you you had to search for it. Even since I was a kid the 'space" subject has always caught my eye and wanted me to learn more.  Besides that I enjoyed team sports cause it was almost like a 90 minute break in your day where you can just hang out with your crew.

•        What was the most recent debate/argument you had with a friend or family member?

Like all students in the summer, when you aren't doing much its easy to loose track of the day.  My sister and I had an argument on which day of the week it was.  It was a Thursday and she thought it was Friday (poor girl), I settled the argument with a bet of ten dollars.  I made ten bucks with a click of a button, easiest money I've made in my life. 

•        What are you feeling/thinking about right now? Why or how might that be interesting?

I am thinking about how much time it will take to complete this assignment.  It is 9:25 right now and I'm guessing it will be around 10:00 when it is all said and done.  I'm not feeling stressed right now just tired and honestly really hungry, I just might eat before I go to bed.  This is interesting in a way that because I wasn't thinking about that before until I read the question, and without even thinking about it I looked at the clock.  After putting more thought into the question I found out that there is some room in my stomach for more food.

•        Imagine your home community. What does it look like? Who is there? What are the buildings and places you see? What questions emerge from that place or memory?

The perfect home community set for me would be set in the foothills of either Virginia or Colorado.  With trees surround a community of cabins each one for a friend of mine.  I can picture a creek running right through this community that runs passed this huge cabin where we get together to have some fun. Some questions that pop into my head are, "How big is the creek?'  "How big are the cabins"  "What does our community do about the winter snowstorms"  "How often does our community get together to party"

22nd Half

   For my critical thinking question I chose, "How does destroying ecosystems affect our economy?"  I recently listened to the podcast "Worth" on radiolab, on the podcast was a story about our ecosystems and how they affect our economy.  The podcast through some numbers out there on how much ecosystems contribute to todays economy and I found the numbers to be astonishing. 

 Personally I feel that ecosystems play a vital role in our lives on a day to day basis.  I found myself digging deeper as in asking more questions and it's something I'd like to learn more about.  My question is relevant to others in society by the circulation of money and really the global economy as well as our local economy.  

Keeping or destroying an ecosystem can play a big part in our economy whether all of it is negative I am not sure.  As a community the economy is at least the number one thing that keeps a society running.  I believe it is important to know how ecosystems affect our economy to not only better ourselves but our community as a whole.  Society as a whole needs to know how ecosystems affect the economy because it might not only benefit the farmer but it might benefit the business man who's trying to build a new parking garage on a wet land.

My critical question I chose I believe will fit in quite well with the three projects we will be given throughout the five week course.  For project one we will be asked to create a nonfiction essay based on our own personal experiences which, explores our relationship with our critical question and that questions relationship to some culture artifact.  I can use personal experiences to support the project such as seeing buildings put up on a wet land and the years to come it causes massive flooding for those buildings with collateral damage.  For project two we are asked to identify a group or individual whose story or personal experiences will give meaning to our critical question.  After doing some web surfing I am confident I can find a good solid story about a group or individual's experience based upon my critical question. For project three we are asked to create a text meant for a real world audience.  I am fairly confident that my critical question can be use to implicate how destroying ecosystems affects our economy to a real world audience.

When choosing my critical thinking question one concern that came into my head was that my question wasn't relevant enough to me because it more had to do with the relevance of a society or a community.  Another concern I had was over project three,  I am not sure what you mean by a real world audience but I'm sure we will go over it more when the time comes.

Personal Essay

Since the beginning of high school I have been involved in wide range of things but most of all my community.  I started getting involved in my community when I was a freshman in need some funding to go on a band trip with some friends of mine to Hawaii to play for the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  I came up with a deal with family friends and relatives that for every hour of community service that I'd do I would receive $10 in return.  It took about 8 months but in the end I raised $1000 along with 100 hours of community service.  

With my average grades and being okay in high school athletics, as a sophomore in high school college scholarships weren't in my near future.  I decided to volunteer as many hours as I could in hopes of receiving a scholarship based upon the amount of volunteer hours I put in.  I decided to join 4H late in my sophomore year to pursue more volunteer hours. Immediately I sank my feet in and went straight to work.  That summer I volunteered for a 4h summer camp which was about 2 weeks long 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  After that I began to look for anything to volunteer at whether it was helping to teach classes to elementary kids or dressing up as an otter for the Joshua Collingsworth Foundation.  I did it all.  By the end of my junior year I racked up over 900 hours of community service.  Applying and receiving huge honors such as the 4H National Leadership Award, Presidential Volunteer Service Award, and perhaps being involved in one of the greatest learning experience in my life Boys State.

My senior year I had a new goal in mind that still included volunteer service.  I wanted to receive the Diamond Clover Award, which is the highest award you could possibly receive in 4H.  Not very many people get it, since 4H was established in Lancaster County which has been around 80 years only a couple of guys have received it.  For my project I decided to build a Little Free Library which is like an over sized bird house filled with books that is outside.  I had the idea of placing it at a retirement facility and incorporating a daycare down the street to interact with the elderly while reading books.  In order for this to happen I had to arrange several meetings with the retirement facility Homes Lake Rehabilitation Center and the daycare Krayon Campus.  Long story short after about a year it all came together and their now sits a Little Free Library under the gazebo at the Holmes Lake Rehabilitation Center.  As for my Diamond Clover I had to type two seven page papers one on before the project and the other based upon after the project.  I eventually received the award and after about a year of work on it I was incredibly happy to be finished with it.

The most important thing that I have receiced from all of this, is not the awards or trips but honestly what I have learned through volunteering for my community.  It reminds me how fortunate I am and the high after helping someone in need is like no other.  The skills that I have attained through volunteering will forever remain with me in whatever I plan to do in life.