Entry #11 - May the force be with you, future blogger

So you're thinking about starting up a blog? Maybe you want to write about politics, food, fashion, or maybe you just need something to vent to. Perhaps you got suckered into starting one by enrolling in a hybrid English class. Whatever the case may be, it's not as hard as you think.

I am no blogging master, but I did just complete an English course so you might want to take the time to learn a thing or two.

Rule #1- Choose your topic (if not given one) and do your research! 
It may be hard to find inspiration to write (trust me, I know). That is why you must research. This goes for anything. Take a few minutes, or hours, to read up on the given subject. It will really help you understand what's going on. You don't have to read a 54-page essay on astrophysics, skim through it! Start by looking at the Wikipedia! A simple google search will take you a long way. Look at other people's blogs if you have to!

Rule #2- Jot ideas down and make connections
You don't necessarily have to start writing just yet. Build an outline. Copy and paste interesting tidbits of information as references to your writing. Look at infographics, include them in the blog if you want! Bridge ideas together and make connections between relevant information.

Rule #3 (THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE)- Just. start. writing. 
This is where it gets tough. Sometimes I find myself just staring at a blank screen for hours on end. Just write. Write anything. If you can't think of anything to start, think of how you want to end the paper and start there. As you're writing you will eventually start to think of more ideas- jot them down and save them for later! Work around the tidbits of information you began with.

Rule #4 (THE HARDEST RULE TO ABIDE BY)- Do not procrastinate. 

Don't listen to this guy!

This should be rule #1, take it from me, a blogging master. It's pretty self-explanatory. If you procrastinate, your writing will only get worse, and people can tell.

Rule #5 ????

Rule #6 Profit
After all the blood sweat and tears, you get to sit back and watch the comments roll in. Shortly after that, you will receive an A in your course. And if you didn't- you didn't get this information from me.

Blogging may seem intimidating at first. Not only are you writing (which is already a challenge in itself to some) but you're sharing it with other people who have the ability to criticize your work (scary, I know). But hey, if you take the time to do the work there should be no reason for you to be intimidated by anyone. Everyone is different. Everyone has their own opinions and a little constructive criticism won't hurt. You will be given plenty of that by the teacher. And whether you are in a class or not, you must always expect someone to say something, whether it is positive or negative. Such is life. It's just a blog. You're not writing for the Wall Street Journal, and if you are, congrats, you probably wouldn't be reading this anyway.

Overall, I really enjoyed writing my blog because of how informal it was. In the blogosphere, your work is as serious as you make it. Enjoy the freedom, because when you're writing your formal papers you will wish it was as easy as writing a blog. It is a battle, I know, but it is a learning experience.

You might hate it at first, but in the end, it is truly rewarding. You learn to have a voice, YOUR voice. And if you don't like your voice, or your work, or your blog, or your class, or your teacher, YOU TRIED. And that is the most important aspect of it all.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. 

Entry #10 - A friendly reminder

With all of my speculation on cell phone conspiracies, I think it's time we take a step in a different direction. I'd like to remind everyone who is "internet stricken" to take the time to put your phone away here and there. Step away from technology and do something different. Step outside, go for a walk, hike a trail, enjoy the beauty of the outdoors. Not your thing? Learn to cook a new dish, heck, learn to cook in general, I know I still am. There are so many things to do and so many things to learn. Can't let go of your phone? Use it to learn something new! Do something DIFFERENT with it. Call your Mom, tell her you love her, or anyone, really. Send a meaningful text to someone. Talk to someone you haven't spoken to in a while. Be independent. Think independently. Start by looking into the hobby you've always wanted to pick up.  Let us not fall victim to the ant colony! 

Don't waste away the hours on social media, seize the day! Carpe diem! Learn a dead language! Learn any language! Learn ALL of the languages! I know I'm starting to sound like a self-help page on instagram or a cliche quote meme but really- challenge yourself. Become the better you. 

If you're young you (we) still have plenty of time to accomplish whatever you want to accomplish. If you're old it's never too late. Just put your Nikes on and just do it!

We can all start together by typing in the hashtag #hikearizona

...

...

...

Entry #9 - The Hivemind

As I was doing research for a paper, I came across this video and it hit the nail on the head on how I feel about being immersed in social media. In the video, James Surowiecki gives a talk on the positive, and negative nature of online crowds. He describes the nature of the "blogosphere" as a network, and later draws comparisons to an ant colony.

I would love to paraphrase what James discusses but I'm afraid I will do so horribly and let all substance of the talk escape... Here is the transcript of the video. It's an interesting read! Trust me!


If you hate reading you can follow along here

"But what the blogosphere offers is the possibility of getting at the kind of collective, distributive intelligence that is out there, and that we know is available to us if we can just figure out a way of accessing it. 

Each blog post, each blog commentary may not, in and of itself, be exactly what we're looking for, but collectively the judgment of those people posting, those people linking, more often than not is going to give you a very interesting and enormously valuable picture of what's going on. 

So, that's the positive side of it. We are giving people who have never been able to talk before a voice, and we're able to access information that has always been there but has essentially gone untapped. 

But there is a dark side to this- One of the things that happens if you spend a lot of time on the Internet, and you spend a lot of time thinking about the Internet, is that it is very easy to fall in love with the Internet. It is very easy to fall in love with the decentralized, bottom-up structure of the Internet. It is very easy to think that networks are necessarily good things -- that being linked from one place to another, that being tightly linked in a group, is a very good thing. And much of the time it is. 

But there's also a downside to this -- a kind of dark side, in fact -- and that is that the more tightly linked we've become to each other, the harder it is for each of us to remain independent. One of the fundamental characteristics of a network is that, once you are linked in the network, the network starts to shape your views and starts to shape your interactions with everybody else. That's one of the things that defines what a network is. A network is not just the product of its component parts. It is something more than that. It is, as Steven Johnson has talked about, an emergent phenomenon. 

Now, this has all these benefits: it's very beneficial in terms of the efficiency of communicating information; it gives you access to a whole host of people; it allows people to coordinate their activities in very good ways. But the problem is that groups are only smart when the people in them are as independent as possible. This is the paradox of the wisdom of crowds, or the paradox of collective intelligence, that what it requires is actually a form of independent thinking. And networks make it harder for people to do that, because they drive attention to the things that the network values. So, one of the phenomena that's very clear in the blogosphere is that once a meme, once an idea gets going, it is very easy for people to just sort of pile on, because other people have, say, a link."

He then continues on with the ant colony:

"the ant colony is the classic metaphor, because, no individual ant knows what it's doing, but collectively ants are able to reach incredibly intelligent decisions. 

They're able to guide their traffic with remarkable speed. So, the ant colony is a great model: you have all these little parts that collectively add up to a great thing. 

But we know that occasionally ants go astray, and what happens is that, if army ants are wandering around and they get lost, they start to follow a simple rule -- just do what the ant in front of you does. And what happens is that the ants eventually end up in a circle. And there's this famous example of one that was 1,200 feet long and lasted for two days, and the ants just kept marching around and around in a circle until they died. 

And that, I think, is a sort of thing to watch out for. That's the thing we have to fear -- is that we're just going to keep marching around and around until we die."

Beautiful.

This is exactly how I was feeling about 4 blog posts ago. Sometimes I feel like our cell phones, and media in general, encapsulate us and we just feed off of whatever is being thrown at us. Yes, you have the power to put your device down, but knowledge is very addicting. The speed of information keeps users on edge. Yes, I'm guilty of being internet stricken, but the problem is that I see it spreading at an unhealthy pace. I see small children on cell phones, tablets, etc., who knows what kind of information they're taking in. Whenever I have a moment of free time, chances are I'm looking at my phone. I look at my phone even after looking at my phone 5 minutes before! Is this phenomena getting out of hand? 

Entry #8 - Egyptian emojis

I found this very interesting excerpt from tintup.com when reading up on hashtags on our last go: "the written word and the spoken word have always influenced each other in their formality. In the past, we spoke more formally because of how formally we wrote. In the present, we write less formally because of how informally we speak. Speech and writing influence each other, and always have.
This idea is supported by science. In a recent paper, six computer scientists from Brazil found “not only qualitative, but also quantitative similarities between offline and online speech communities.” In other words, the way language trends develop and words become popular IRL (in real life) is mimicked on Twitter. We really are writing how we talk."
http://www.tintup.com/blog/how-hashtags-changed-the-way-we-talk/

It then occurred to me- Sometimes I communicate with my friends just by sending emojis on our phones. We can have full blown conversations using just symbols! Not a word is said (or typed) and I know exactly what they're trying to say or what emotions they are trying to convey. Pretty fascinating if you ask me.


Well, continuing on with my life, because that's just what I do, I was fiddling around on my phone and saw a post on Instagram depicting a guy pointing to a symbol on his shirt. 

In the picture the guy is obviously a tourist (sombrero is usually a sure sign, trust me I know), asking a local  patron for directions.
"Hmmm, that's a clever idea, lazy, but clever" I thought. I mean with a smartphone you can just pop up Google translate and you can attempt to butcher any language you choose. But the shirt gives you the convenience of pointing to exactly what you need. 
The company is called ICONSPEAK and this is how they intend on making an impact: 
"Simplicity was always a trait that unites us in many forms, call it lazy or genius, but we like to keep it simple. And hence follows our starting point of how to bridge the language barriers of our world: a shirt. Through a shirt you can – in the most rudimentary ways – combine gestures, vocals and mimics to create interaction. A shirt does not need to be recharged and still, you can have it on as long as you please. Furthermore you won’t have to worry that we will send you software updates to your shirt which will make it uncomfortable to wear, slow to wash or any such thing. It’s a shirt. This is where we start, but not where we will stop – the challenges on our way to bridge the language barriers of our world are manifold and will lead us to platforms and mediums other than textile as well…"

Interesting.

So let's put 2 and 2 together...what does it mean if we can communicate through emojis, and get directions by pointing to pictures on a shirt? Are we really that lazy? Just kidding. Really though. 
What direction is language headed if we are able to have full on conversations using only symbols?
Were the Egyptians way ahead of their time using hieroglyphics? Is a universal language going to be developed with symbols being the core of communication? Has a universal language ALREADY been developed?

I have no idea what this means. But from the looks of it maybe they're giving away free ice cream at McDonald's?

Entry #7 - I scream for hashtags

To hashtag? Or not to hashtag? That is the question. I remember a few years back when it seemed to start off as a joke. I had no idea where it came from, but it had to have been related to something on the internet. People saying things like "hashtag awkward" or "hashtag yolo" (you only live once). I'd see hashtags in facebook posts and would start to question my friendship with that person. Whenever I heard someone say it aloud I would cringe. Then as years started to pass it kind of just settled in and now, surprisingly enough, hashtags are everywhere! Well, let's take a step back first. What is a hashtag? According to the dictionary, (you know it's official when it's in the dictionary) "a hashtag is a word or preceded by the symbol # that classifies or categorizes the accompanying text (such as a tweet)" (Merriam-Webster). 
Here is a great infographic on hashtags

It can be used to show emotions: "The ice cream machine is out of order at McDonald's" #heartbroken

It can be used for promotional use: "I went to McDonald's for free ice cream but they said the machine is down" #mcdonalds #freeicecreamfridays #whyme #theresoneacrossthestreet #notlovinit

Those really are some #firstworldproblems ...
Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, I know, pretty #corny if you ask me. 

But let's get serious here! The hashtag is a great tool for finding out more information on a certain topic. If you need coverage, opinions, or some sort of context, a hashtag is a great start. If a catastrophic event were to occur the first thing news outlets do is look to social media. They use a hashtag to keep others informed, to shed light on the situation, to show grievance. There are a variety of ways they can be used. Impactful? Sort of. You can keep up and stay informed, yes, but does posting a hashtag showing grievance for tsunami victims make an impact? Probably not. 
Sometimes I even find myself clicking on hashtags to stay current on certain things like the Presidential Election, the Panama Papers, or any sort of McDonald's promotions. 

Extra Credit Entry - Is it a Love Story?

Watching the highly controversial film by Micheal Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story, I definitely felt that he expressed many thoughts young people may have today. He effectively explained some of the issues that a lot of Americans are currently facing. His explanations were great at simplifying the intricate conflicts our economy is facing. While currently taking an economics class at GCC, I have been able to look at how our free enterprise economy is doing. Theoretically, it's a great system for everyone, but what we read in textbooks and the examples that our economy has been run by are not real life. The issues are much too complex to be summed up to a simple supply and demand factor. People need regulations that are meant to look out for everyone and not just corporate businesses. A great line from the movie stated that everyone had "bought" into the "American Dream." That definitely hit home for me, especially now that I look around at the price of housing while considering wages of most of the population. It makes you wonder, is this really achievable? As a freshman in college looking around my options definitely seem limited. I have to think twice about if I'm really going to spend $53,000 dollars on one year of tuition alone (not including books or anything else that'll be required). A lifetime commitment all in the name of the American Dream, or will I drop out and begin my journey earning $10 per hour (which is above minimum wage) and working overtime without the possibility of independently owning my own home. I'm not trying to say nobody can make it in America without all the strings attached but it definitely doesn't seem that there are opportunities for the average joe left and right. The lack of abundance when it comes to "success" in our current economic system is a problem. A problem that needs to be addressed by the country as a whole and that citizens need to be aware of and know how to handle.

Entry #6 - Phone for thought

Today I had a very interesting conversation with my boyfriend about becoming "someone" in life. Yes, we've all heard the cliche sayings like "The world is yours" or "you can do anything you set your mind to" and these are all true, to a point. There are so many things in life that one can achieve.  So much to see, so much to experience, so much to become, a plethora of every emotion around every corner. But what if one just wants to be lazy? Lol. Really though. Maybe not lazy, but why can't people just take life at their own pace? Reading that question back out loud sounds really dumb, I know. (Because you CAN take life at your own pace) But I feel like society thrusts so many people into so many things and at the end of the day so much is expected.

Do I think this way just because I am an American? I'm sure that has a great impact on me and how I view the world. I just feel like I'm being rushed into something that I'm not.

Do you guys feel the same way or is it just me being paranoid? I mean, I'm glad I can see outside of the box, but still I find it very bothersome. I know that sometimes you just need to take a step back, and take a breather.
I asked my boyfriend what he thinks and he agreed. "I think it definitely is because of our American lifestyle. Everything we see on the media, all that our parents and different parents alike have instilled in us and their children. We live in the city, and I'm sure that also has an impact. I'm sure people on the countryside view life differently." He also added, "if I could move away from the hustle and bustle of this American life, I'd be more than happy. I'd be at peace."



I realized that there really is no rush, but even still I still feel like there is! I feel like it's just a big race to build your resume, and become someone important. I'm currently studying to become a pharmacist, but what if that changes? I guess I just need to learn how to better regulate my thoughts and feelings.
My boyfriend has always told me, "everything is going to be alright" but IS IT?!?! Lol. I'm sorry guys. I'm just in a sort of agitated, pondering mood tonight.

BUT, I wanted to futher elaborate the being lazy thing. I feel like all the technological advancements we interact with everyday make us lazy! 

Think about it- 50 years ago, if someone needed more information on a certain topic, they had to get up and find it. Nowadays you pull your phone out of your pocket, google astrophysics, and wa-la you're now a self-proclaimed Neil deGrasse Tyson... all while laying in bed! Not really, but just the fact that you can research anything you wanted with a few certain movements of your fingers is... terrifying. Don't get me wrong it's amazing, but it takes the LIFE factor out of things. Back in the day you had to physically get up, take yourself to the library, find what you're looking for, flip pages in an encyclopedia, read, and walk back. But you're already at the library so you might as well go the extra mile! Do you see where I'm trying to go with this? Just the fact that you had to do all the extra work makes you active and more prone to... achieving?

Don't get me wrong- you can do everything you could back then today, if not easier and more efficiently, but do you want to? Someone has already done it! What else is left to do? Why do I feel this way? All that I can point my fingers to is technology..

All I've gotta say is- Remember, you can do anything you want in this life. I guess I'll just go back to being lazy.

/endrant