Week 5 Reading (excerpt from Eearth)

The biggest thing I noticed about this reading is that the author was so repetitive. He never really said the exact same thing but he did just keep spouting off statistics and basically saying that the future of the world is pretty much hopeless. I actually kind of like the beginning and the story about the astronaut seeing taking a picture of the Earth, but that's just about it. The author couldn't really keep my attention because his repetition was so annoying to read, which really kept me from caring to even think about what his point might be, although it was pretty obvious anyways.

Week 4 Reading (Northern lights)

I love the imagery in the beginning of this. The author starts of with a very broad view of movement that, as he gets farther down to where he's standing by the ice, is very similar to the movement and imagery of the ice. Of course, the ice and the lights have different feels to them but he describes both as never ceasing and never the same, which gradually gives the overall setting for the scene and brings the reader deeper and closer to what the author is about to do. The similarity between the lights and the ice soon becomes important as the author uses the imagery he created at the beginning to merge himself, the ice, and the lights together to communicate to the reader effectively what the experience felt like to him. That also makes it easier to understand his references to more similar experiences he has had. Even the exhausted exhilaration the author feels laying down on the ice is explained well by his choice to ramble on about science that just makes me want to read it fast but excitedly, like he probably was writing it. As the author gets into more specific examples about the paintings and the Chippewas, the previous experience the reader has had with the earlier descriptions helps with understanding the examples that probably otherwise would have seemed more like cliche northern lights descriptions. This is where the author can really start to persuade the reader of his views of the northern lights as a mystical and not scientific occurrence. The author comes back to some of his previous imagery at the end, but without the lights, which gives the reader the feeling that the experience was a special one that not many people get a chance to have. The reader, however, after reading this has had that privilege and leaves with the same mindset as the author.

Week 3 Reading (Is this Kansas)

This reading seemed to start off very clearly and simply. The author was disturbed by how college towns have a certain disregard for the laws and norms of behavior that the rest of society must abide by, and she used descriptive language and specific example to relate to her audience and illustrate her point. She briefly mentioned that the hope was for the students to grow into perfectly reasonable members of society like the other midwestern adults and I thought that was going to be one of her main points.Then I was quite surprised to find that one of her examples that seemed just like the others turned out to reverse that idea and surprisingly turn the situation around and regrasp my attention. The reading now seemed to be focused on the naivety of the students which came from the area they live. Then there seemed to be random racial references that I didn't really understand the point of  and the point the whole reading just became unclear with the Katrina references. With the storm coming to the college, however, came back the idea that the students had a way of life that was different and naive with the disregard shown in the beginning of the reading. This time the student's reactions to the Katrina provided a good background to make that point.

This is the beauty of campus that most people look past in order to get a bigger picture. Last year I started a habit of taking fairly long walks whenever life just got too busy of frustrating, or not busy enough. It gave me the chance to think and relax in my favorite kind of environment, the outdoors. A nice little side effect of these walks was the fact that I never planned out where I was going, but I didn't take the exact same route each time either, so I got to know the campus very well. One thing I learned from these walks, though, is that no matter how much I thought I'd seen it all, there were always little surprises here and there. My favorites were the animals that seemed to pop up everywhere, but I loved all the simple natural sights as well. With this photo project I tried to show a little bit of these experiences and the beauty I see in simple, unexpected places. For each picture except the last day there were animals I tried to get pictures of but after the first failure at that I learned that wasn't going to happen. Like I said previously, though, I consider the pictures I ended up with just as good. So far I haven't really learned anything about visual communication because communication is a two way process and no one's seen these yet. I do know that visual communication can be tough, especially without explanation, because two people can look at the same thing but see something different. I think the main goal is to try to show things the way I see them and maybe someone else will see them that way too, or just that it will make an impact in a positive way.