WRD 111 Reflection Essay

I think the biggest struggle during this project was that our group lost most of the computer on a technology malfunction. We had  5 minutes of our documentary completed with plenty of more time to get more footage of what we thought we might need, and when the malfunction on the MAC computer happened it messed our entire project up.

What I am most proud of from this project is that the video turned out pretty good, and that I was able to go to Starbucks and interview and ask people questions that I really had no idea what I was talking about. Before this project I had never been to a Starbucks, and had never planned on going to a Starbucks. So I was proud of myself for going into that environment and being able to get interviews from customers.

The aspect of the documentary that I would have changed would probably have been the topic we did our project on. We all thought doing our documentary on Starbucks would give us a variety of topics to discuss, but I think we kind of hit a wall. Felt like we ran out of clip to get for the documentary and the customers in the interviews didn't like going in depth about some of the questions we were trying to ask. That would be the biggest aspect of the project that I think should have been changed after completing the project.

If I had 6 months to work on this project I would have tried to come up with a game plan on how, as a group we were going to try to handle this project. With the short time we had to complete the documentary during this semester, I think in 6 months we would have been able to get better interviews, complete a larger survey with more information on what people think of Starbucks, and had more time to work as a group instead of individuals.

In the project I was responsible for getting shots and interviews for the documentary. I mostly got interviews with customers, few different shots of what the atmosphere of Starbucks looked like.

Personally I thought our group was getting along great, until we lost most of our project, and then I think everybody just got overwhelmed and we all feel apart. We didn't have great communication outside of class once the video was lost. Before the malfunction I tried to see if we could meet during certain times and work on project together. I wish we were able to all work on the project together, and I think I could help with others tasks if I had been asked to. I was more than willing to, but I guess I didn't make that clear. I feel as if I contributed a well amount to the group during the entire project.

Documentary Homework

In the Royce White documentary, I noticed they appealed to the emotions of the audience. By showing us when he was struggling with his anxiety, but also by using sound as a big initiative to appeal to the emotions. Using heavy breathing and heartbeat noise to show the anxiety he was having. Another aspect in this documentary that wasn't used in the same way in the other two, was how light was captured. One point in the clip, it was almost completely dark when White was walking.

In the Archive documentary it was similar to other documentary's in that it tried to get you informed about a subject, in this case audio. This piece though was different, cause it used audio but it was pretty much just music. It also used subtitles though at times, and that confused me. I didn't know if they were trying to make the audience feel sorry for the man or what. It was different from White's documentary cause of the use of sound and lighting. Lighting wasn't a factor in this documentary, but in a different way. Most of the coloring was just yellowish, maybe showing the age of the records or something.

In the Korean Netiquette documentary you didn't have the use of lighting and sound to set moods like the other two documentary's. This was more an informative documentary that wasn't well made. Didn't appeal to emotions, just thought it was telling the audience what the children were learning and trying to do with the Internet.

Scene Depiction "A Thursday Night in College? We're Getting Drunk on God's" Word

A Thursday Night in College? We're Getting Drunk on God's Word

The moment you think of a Thursday Night at a big time University like Kentucky, you think of a wild and fun filled night. The assumption is that all kids are going to parties cause it's "Thirsty Thursday', and why would kids not want to do anything else while they are in college? But I wanted to see if every college kid thought this way, so on a Thursday Night I went to a late night organization to see if these people had the same idea of a college Thursday Night as everyone else.

The organization I had the privilege to go to was University of Christian Fellowship or UCF for short.

A shy, soft spoken, thin looking man walks toward the University of Kentucky Student Center, wearing a black north face. With him is a friend in a orange north face, wearing brown khakis. These two men are Chris and Jonathan, and they are the guys taking me to the University Christian Fellowship tonight. They each ask me what I'm expecting to see tonight as we walk toward the Student Center on a cold and windy February night.

"You can expect pretty much a church service tonight", Jonathan tells me, as Chris points us in the right direction, as he turns to head back to his house to study for his two exams that are coming up next week. I soon learn that Jonathan is a freshman just like me. "We always have services on Thursday night, cause we can get away from the party guys that live next door to us. Gives us time to come and praise our creator and give him the proper time he deserves." It was alarming to hear someone describe a college organization like he did, and be so open about Christianity as he was. "Think we need to always have time during the day to talk to our God," as he continued. "How is your life with God been since you have come to college?"

As we walked up the stairs of the student center, I noticed a big group of people standing outside a room mingling, holding guitars and some other instruments. I thought that was where Jonathan was taking me, but I was wrong. We walked into room 230 of the student center. The room was filled with hundreds of navy blue chairs, and a line of windows in the back of the room. Two tables lined up on the right side of the room by a yellowish wall. A mural of a lake on a sunny day in the fall on the left side of the wall. A projector screen lowered down with a picture of the three crosses in front of a the navy blue front wall. Closer to back of the room a man is laying on the floor on top of a back pack. This man lying down in the back is Joseph, the screen coordinator for the group. We have a brief discussion over global politics as people start to fill into the room, and I ask him and Jonathan what time most of the people get to the meeting. "Most people come in around 8:20 or so," Jonathan tells me. Joseph nods his head, "We hardly ever start a meeting on time," while laughing as he speaks.

I watch as people start to fill the student center room, noticing how girls grouping together having discussion's, and guys are grouping together talking together. I notice two guys bringing in a guitar and drum into the room. I turn to a man who just sat down in front of me, with brown beard, blue button up on tucked into his jeans, and a wedding ring on his finger. I ask Dan if we have music during this service, "Yea, we sing three or four songs before a speaker comes up and gives a message." Then notice the 50 or so people in the room head to get a set, so I head to the back of the room to take my seat for UCF.

The meeting starts with a tall, thin looking guy, with a blue and white button up on asking, "Can everyone take there seat please. Lets go to prayer and think our creator God for this time to gather here tonight and worship him." I ask Jonathan who this guy is, and he tells me his name is Matt. Matt then prays and you can tell my the sound of his voice and the passion with how he is speaking that this is a time he looks forward to every week. Being able to come together with his friends, and praise together the man that gave us life.

The music starts, and I notice how all 50 people stand up as a man with a short sleeve V-neck shirt on, with a guitar starts singing, "You are the everlasting God. You will not faint, you won't grow weary, you comfort those in need, you lift us up on wings like eagles." Joey leads the group as I watch everyone singing at the top of there lungs. I notice Dan, Matt, and Joseph lifting there hands praising God as they sing. "You are everlasting God, thank you." Dan says in front of me. The music is encouraging and grabs your attention. The words intoxicate you, and you feel the spirit through the song as everyone is singing. I see girls with their heads bowed and praying as Joey and the rest of the people continue to sing. I even notice myself singing at the top of my lungs, and talking to God as I sing. We sang for songs, and every song was the same way. I watched as almost everyone in the room had a moment with God. Either lifting their hands or praying out loud as we sing. At one point I really thought I was back home in Harrodsburg at church with my family and friends, it felt that close during the songs. "Thank you God for letting us lift up your praise tonight, and know that you are everlasting." Joey then introduces our speaker for the night.

A watch as a man in a blue polo shirt, untucked, walk up to the mic. He has a gohte and a very moderate speaking voice. He is our speaker for the night and his name is Ben. Ben is from Woodland Church in Lexington where Jonathan and Chris go to church. "Are there any new people here tonight? Who are you?" I'm shocked when he points at me and ask who I am. Rest of the crowd laughs as I tell them my name and why I am here. This makes me realize that this group must be close cause the speaker new everyone there instead of me. So they don't just come here every so often, this group of people come to UCF every Thursday night. "Tonight I want to talk about the flesh of God. We are going to be reading from the book of Timothy." I watched as everyone opened their bible. No one was talking, no one on a cell phone. Everyone focused and listening to Ben as he preaches the word. Ben preached a service that seemed to be directly to the topic I was trying to figure out. "In todays world do we live with the world we live in? Are we following the standards the world has set for us. Are we living for the world or God?" I turn to see Jonathan with his head bowed, and see him praying in the middle of the message. I look around and see others doing the same thing, and while I'm looking around I hear people saying Amen out loud as Ben keeps talking. "I want to draw you all a picture, and explain what I'm talking about. Going to show how physics can describe what I'm talking about." Ben puts the screen up, and underneath is a white board. He picks up a green marker and draws a big circle, with two little circles on the lines. He explains what he was doing in physics, but I don't remember what the term was called. "We are the first little circle, as we move around the world, we follow what is going on in the world. We soon begin to fall backwards as the world falls backwards. Most people believe what we see." Ben caught my attention when he said that, I realized he was explaining we follow people a lot as we go on our everyday life. Just like people think college students just party all the time, we believe what we see portrayed by the world. "We make a plan and life for how we see it. We go on our life thinking we are doing whats best for us. Shouldn't we ask God what is best for us, and then make a plan depending on what God has told us." Ben knows exactly what he is talking about, speaking from the heart and showing what he knows from the Bible. "Here is the question I want to ask you all this evening, are you planing your life from what God is planing for you, or you doing your own thing and asking if it approves for God?"

Matt walked up to the mic to end the worship service with a prayer. "If anyone wants to come up to the front and pray, or put your head down and pray at your seat. Anyone needs to talk to me or Ben, we will be up here." Joey started playing music softly in the background and I watched as Dan got down on his knees and began praying. I then felt like I needed to pray and stood up and prayed that I wouldn't follow the plan of the world, and that God would give me his plan. A opened my eyes to see a man in a brown flannel shirt walking up to the mic after everyone was done praying. "I just felt the need to say this. I work in construction and I get a lot of people coming up to me and asking what I think about their designs. After listening to Ben tonight I realize that they don't want my ideas, they want my opinion. But my opinion doesn't really matter. It's the same thing Ben was talking about tonight. I don't need to make a design and ask God his opinion, I need to ask God what type of design I need to make before I make a design." Phillip made got everyone to stand up and say amen after he was done. The passion in his voice, the heart felt cry in his story touched everyone in the room, including me. 

The meeting soon ended after Phillip touched everyones heart and closed us out with prayer. After the worshiping was over I realized that this group doesn't go out on Thursday night to party and get drunk, they go to UCF and get drunk and intoxicated in God's word. Even thought the meeting ended, the gathering had not. I watched as everyone got together and began talking, and mingling. Not just guys talking to guys, and girls to girls, but I saw everyone together having a good time. Some people left right after meeting, but most stayed and continue to worship together. I can say from the experience I had at University Christian Fellowship that a Thursday night in college isn't all about partying, but getting together with a close group and people and enjoying and worshiping together.

Review of Peer Review

As an author I introduced my paper by talking about what I expected to see in the organization and I went on through my paper feeding off that topic. I discussed what I saw at the organization and discussed how the experience went and how the people interacted. I gave a summary of what the main parts of my experience was. I chose to do it this way because I forgot to do a rough draft, so I had to explain to my partner what I planned to write and organize my paper. I think I contributed a little bit to the peer reviewers essay. With both of us not being able to read each others paper, we both just had to discuss what we where going to do. I told my partner kind of how to start her paper off. Giving her some ideas on how I was opening my paper, and we discussed that. All together our peer reviews for each other was more contributing about we were going to write our papers and what aspects of the experiences we were going to put into our scene.

As a whole I think peer review is very successful and contributing. This peer review would have been a lot better if I had done a rough draft. So next time I can make sure I get a rough draft written for peer review. As a professor I thought the way our class did peer review was very good. I liked having one on one time with a partner to discuss each others paper. I think that is the best way to do peer review.

The scene I have decided to depict is from the movie "Seven Pounds" starring Will Smith and Woody Harrelson. Scene starts out with a normal conversation with Ben Thomas (Will Smith) calling Ezra Turner (Harrelson) to order some meat. You can notice the colors in the background of each character. Smiths character looks like he is at the beach, with colorful surroundings and exotic animals like the jellyfish, while Harrelson's character is coped up in a cubicle and a dark surrounding. The colors could show how there lives are and the meaning of the scene. Smith's character is being very rude and trying to ask degrading questions to Ezra. Think his colorful setting could be ironic for what he is doing, being rude and very unpleasant. While Ezra seems to be very nice and polite. Even though he is blind his eye are as blue as the ocean. When I think of the color blue, I think of purity and respectfulness. The questions Ben Thomas is asking is alarming though, they are questions that will show Ezra's self esteem and looks like he is trying to see how he reacts. The two main details that seem to be the most important are the very beginning of the scene and the end. The emotional status of Ben Thomas. Beginning of scene he seems intrigued by looking at Ezra name on piece of paper, but at end he seems sad and hurt after what he has done to Ezra. The reaction seems to make the scene come together, cause it makes you think Ben Thomas was trying to prove something, even though the scene itself doesn't explain what.

Scene Depiction Project

I have a couple of groups in mind that I would like to observe. The Young Life Club and University Christian Fellowship Club. I have chosen these two clubs because they are ministry clubs, and I am interested in seeing how these Godly people interact. What is important about these groups is that they are a Christian organizations and are trying to spread the word of God throughout the university and community. Think these clubs would be interesting to the class because they are reaching out into the community. I have contacted both leaders of the club. I emailed Nathan Dilly, the president of Young Life this afternoon, and plan on emailing Chris Ratliff this evening after I give Mr. Dilly time to reply. Both of these clubs meet later this week according to schedules and I plan on going to one of these two clubs to do my project.

WRD 111 Speech Analysis

First and foremost I didn't want to watch this speech to begin with. Thought it would be odd seeing myself giving a speech, and it was. After watching it though I saw quite a few things I need to improve. From the beginning I could tell I was trying to over think what I was going to say instead of just saying the speech. This made me make all my mistakes. By over thinking I was trying not to mess up, instead of just giving a speech. Can make sure next time I don't wait to the last minute to come up with a speech, and that might help with over thinking what I'm going to say. Another area that I could improve on is making better eye contact with the audience. I noticed I looked at my slides often and also looked at the ceiling a time or two, instead of engaging with the audience. Believe I did that because I was again over thinking what I wanted to say. I also noticed my transitions in my speech weren't great. I ended up saying "um", "and", some during the transition showing that I was a little nervous, which I should not have been. Overall I thought it was a decent speech. Thought my content was well, and thought I spoke in a clear manner. Thought it connected well to the audience and showed a thread through the three aspects of my life. Think if I had put more time into the speech, I wouldn't have over thinked as much and done a better job at just delivering the speech I had prepared.