Project Report

So I really enjoyed watching everyone's videos on Monday. It was cool to see what everyone came up with in the last two weeks. And I loved how each group had a unique subject. A man living with HIV/AIDS, a young girl overcoming OCD, and the lady at Bill's Market, all three of these videos illustrated a person who is making a difference in our society.

There are a lot of little technical mistakes that can be fixed in all the videos though. I know my group and I still have a lot of progress in perfecting our video. I know and hope we will, as Brit Keesling worked as a great profile to subject. Overall, my favorite part of the project so far was filming the interview with Kees and her friend, and listening to her story. I learned a lot of myself, and see Brit as such a huge inspiration to get off my butt do something! Maybe not go to Kenya, but something!

Diversity

So we're asked to write a blog entry on diversity. Where do I start? Diversity...it's such a broad and "diverse" topic in itself.

Tomorrow I leave for the Apppalachian Experience. So I'm getting antsy. It's kind of all I can think about. For the entire week, me and a group of students from St. Joe's wll be headed to Roanoke, Va to do some good ol' community service.

This is the third year I'm participating. The other two experiences I have been on were so rewarding and life changing for so many reasons. One of the great things about these two trips was immersing myself in the culture in the southern Appalachian region, and getting to know the people in the town. Both trips were almost culture shocks for me, someone who grew up in Philadelphia her whole life. Traveling down south, personally for me, is like going to a different country. Yet these places aren't too far from where I live, there's still such a diversity between our ways of life.

I can't wait to go to Roanoke tomorrow, and hopefully meet and help a whole new group of people, and I know will learn so much.

Neon, Kentucky


Alleghany Highlands, Virginia

Make yourself feel like crap in one easy step!

Beauty magazines. I admit it...I read them...often. I've been reading them as long as I can remember actually. Growing up in my awkward teen years I looked to all these magazines for solutions to all my problems. These magazines promised to make me beatiful and to make guys fall in love with me because guys love it when you're beautiful. But what these magazines define as beautiful is impossible and almost out of every girl's reach.

I've come to realize that every beauty magazine usually follows the same format:
1. First couple of pages are about gorgeous celebrities that I'll never look like.
2. Another section of pages of expensive beauty products that promise to buy you happiness.
3. Ways to please your man. How to make guys like you. Quotes from random guys saying, "I hate when my girlfriend does this...", etc.
4. "Health" section aka what kind of salads to make to lose weight. Because losing weight=happiness.
5. Skinny airbrushed model shoots.
6. Horoscopes. (I like horoscopes.)

I always buy and read these magazines, but I always feel like *crap* afterwards. I don't have money to buy all these clothes or buy all this makeup, so I will never be happy and guys won't like me.

As I grow up I realize that beauty magazines are a complete illusion and they rely entirely on false advertising. Just because I buy the clothes in the maagzine, this won't make me happy. Keeping guys do's and don't's of what they like in girls will only make me more insecure and not be myself around someone I like.

I just think it's kind of funny. We read these magazines and read to see what supposedly all guys like and try to change our ways. What do guys read? Playboy. Guys don't read magazines on changing their personalities and looks to get us to like them. They just look at naked pictures of us. It doesn't make sense, really.

*End rant.

He thought he could, and he did.

DETERMINATION

TED Talk

A preview or review? I may be a little late on this. Anywho...

Kaitlin, a senior English major at Saint Joseph's University, discusses the film genre that has stood the test of time, musicals. She reveals her love for musicals and begs the question why these films are so popular. She discusses how musicals can communicate and tell a story in a way that no other film genre can.

Meaning in Musicals and All that Jazz...

SO...I think I finally landed upon an idea for my Final TED Talk.

I decided to talk about one of my favorite film genres of all time: musicals!

Musicals have so much more depth to them than what appears on the surface. The stories and songs have so much value and meaning to them, and I would love to share this with class in a 5 minute presentation. I figured one of the main components of any TED Talk is passion, and I am most certainly passionate about musicals. I am not passionate about public speaking in the least bit, but I always found it easier to talk in front of a group of people when it's something you actually care about.

Not too sure on the specifics of my talk yet, I'm still working out the kinks. But I can tell you that I am excited!

Case Study: Twitter

Here check out my slide presentation on Twitter:

Kaitlin Twitter Presentation

View more presentations from ksouth24.

So for the past month I have started using and experimenting with Twitter. Before I didn't really understand Twitter...at all. What's the point of having a total seperate site with Facebook statuses, when you can get that on Facebook? But alas I was proven wrong...Twitter ain't too bad. I've learned by writing my own little blurbs under 140 character or less for my classmates to read turned out to be kind of fun. Then again, I'm easily amused. Following my classmates as well celebrities ranging from Britney Spears to Mindy Kaling can actually be pretty entertaining. Also it's yet another website that will help me procrastinate and distract me from doing anything sort of productive.

Celebrities especially love to use Twitter and I emphasized that in my presentation. It's such an easy form of promotion! And I'm all of it, because it's kind of honest in a way. For the most part these promotions come from the celebrities themselves, and plus I choose to follow them in the first place. Nothing's shoved down my throat.

But Twitter can hold more value than just a form of entertainment. This is another point I stressed in my presentation. Twitter is becoming a whole news source in itself. Anyone can be a reporter through the use of the internet and I find that amazing. People can protest Prop 8 or Iranian elections. Victims of the 2008 earthquake in China can warn others quick and fast.

So is Twitter successful? Yes! Very much so. In fact, Twitter's success only continues to grow day by day. And honestly? If Twitter became the new Facebook like Facebook became the new Myspace, I don't think I would mind too much. After all, the only reason why I even go on Facebook nowadays is to read other people's statuses. I could do without the constant invitations to Farmville and the notifications of people being tagged in photo albums that I won't look at. Oh this girl I went to grade school with got drunk this weekend and took over 500 pictures of herself? I don't care. I've had my fair share of Facebook stalking, and I'm pretty over it by now. Twitter seems to be a more healthy and convienent way to stay in contact with other people.

And the only way to have fun on Twitter is to follow others and have others follow you! This is what I tried to illustate in my visual map.