Project 3 Reflection: Tedious

                  Project 3 was definitely the most different or unusual English project I have ever encountered and accomplished. It not only has its own writing aspect, which I am accustomed to, but it also has an audio aspect, which I have never worked with. Also, the fact that interviews were used as evidence was very different from having actual written peer reviewed sources. The project proved to be easy in some ways as well as challenging in other parts of it.

Ultimately, I feel as if I did somewhat well in finding a good topic that maybe not too many students think about, but when prompted to think about my story had a lot of good opinions and personal emotions to share about the argument or situation. Additionally, I feel that I did a good job of showing some good back ground information on the topic and also finding links and connections to similar topics in history. Furthermore, I think my overall argument was solid with several interviews to back me up and link to it. 

I really struggled in a couple areas of this project. The first big part that I struggled in was how to effectively use the audio device or program Audacity. I understood the basics that I learned from attending workshop and watching several YouTube videos, but I have never used anything like it before, not even a little. It was like learning how to write for the first time and so the basics helped me complete the project but I was not even close to being efficient with it which meant that it took me a very long and tedious time creating that audio portion of the project. Thus, in the future if I ever decide to something with Audacity or any other recording program I will make sure I am somewhat efficient with it. Moreover, I somewhat struggled in finding good interviews that actually helped connect to my argument because some students did not have much to say, or failed to elaborate more on their answers, but in the end I ultimately found great interviews that went nicely together with my report. Also, I found it somewhat hard to maybe make a strong emotional connection to the students. I definitely had a connection but in my opinion maybe a not a very strong one that really made it so that it effected every aspect of the students.  Furthermore, in the future, it is very possible that I will have to apply this work that I used in this project maybe on some sort of podcast, if I had to be a voice in a documentary, or have an audio journal. When I do any one of these future projects, this project will definitely be a great deal of help.  

Script Draft:Protecting The A

Host: Jett Cattani

-Into Music

Jett: Hello, this is Jett Cattani enlightening you about ASU and some parts about it that not everyone thinks about very often.  ASU has always been a competitive school in athletics especially in the field of football. Relatively, ASU has had a pretty good record in winning football games but that fact does not matter.  Anybody living or taking classes or living on the Tempe campus will notice a huge A on a side of the mountain right next to the football stadium. What does this A represent. Some would say the school as whole, but more importantly it represents our athletics, especially the football team during their season. One could say that like an army or an empire the A symbolizes our strength and unity such as for the Roman Empire a golden eagle in their legions accomplished the same goal as our A. And just like the enemies of the Roman Empire so do our rivals want to demoralize us. One way to accomplish the task is to take away or twist our symbols. The A on A mountain has been coated with new paint multiple times every year. Sometimes it is the school itself or even rival schools before a big game. Reasons that the rivals paint our A are many reasons. Some say it is out of disrespect but ultimately the reason for doing so is to demoralize the student body and even the team its self.

As a student myself, when I see the A painted I feel a sense of loss and demoralization, so I went and asked other students and what they thought.

Student:  “Seeing the A on A mountain being painted a different color other than our own angers me. It’s just disrespectful and definitely demoralizing. Of our school cannot stop a few people painting our A what is going to stop their team from running all over us. This is our home and if we cannot have any sense to have a security system what makes me feel like I can take on the thieves”.

Jett: The very fact that we have no measures except for to paint over the A to its original color after the deed has been done is disheartening. Over the years the A has been painted by rival teams many times and it seems as if though ASU doing anything to protect it more effectively. There is supposed to be students camped out on the mountain to protect it but they don’t seem to be doing their job.

I asked another student about what she thinks about the A being painted by other teams.

Student: “Frankly, these pranks are annoying and I cannot believe the school does not take better measure to protect the A.  By not protecting the A I feel like the school is sending a message to any of the other teams, telling them we cannot protect our own home turf. When these other teams paint our team it feels like we lose the home field advantage, it’s like they brought a piece of their home to us or just took over our turf without much of fight. It basically makes me feel like we are probably just going to lose at the big game anyways”.

Jett: This students feeling was probably most felt at the ASU versus Oregon game when the big A was painted with the famous dark green color of Oregon. ASU ended up losing horribly to Oregon and some say it was Oregon’s awesome skills but some students blame the A being colored green that morning.

Student: “I definitely feel that having the A painted green lowered the moral of our school and team and it was that psychological or mental effect that came from that A being painted that just did not help us win during the game”.

Jett: Just through the Oregon game, depending on how you look at it, it can be seen that by painting the A it gives the rival team an advantage or cancels out the home field advantage of ASU.  This might be seen as not being a very big problem to some students but I think we have to put into consideration that anything and every little thing that is makes winning games that much more possible should be seen as important. When the Romans would lose their Eagle standards in a battle, they would go through great lengths trying to recover them and in the meantime take great lengths in protecting them.  ASU’s A on the mountain is our standard and we should cherish and hold on to it as much as the Romans did with their eagles.

People might be asking so what? Well ladies and gentlemen, the reason for why this story is so important is because the foot ball games and athletics here at ASU make up a very import part of the school. If academics were ASU’s brains then its athletics would be its sheer physical strength. It is important to account for every aspect of ASU’s body and this story about the A is something that hinders our foot ball team’s success and the student’s pride and morale. Maybe through this story people might understand why it is so important to protect the A and maybe take extra measures or precautions to have the A stay the color that school chooses it to be. This is our turf and we must take action to do anything in our power to protect it. A message needs to be sent to our rivals, that we are not push overs. That we fight to protect what is ours and the second they step on our field they should expect to lose and lose badly.  Maybe one day we will see cameras up at A mountain and at any moment’s notice students can be called to it to protect it. There is absolutely no need for our players or students that attend the games to be demoralized or disheartened by our rival teams especially before the game.

ASU Reacts:Jepp, Who Defied the Stars

Hello, this Jett Cattani bringing you a story about a tale of fate and history.

Host: It seems like there are new authors popping up every day, creating new fantasy novels but, not too many of them create fantastic stories about court dwarfs. Katherine Marsh was always fascinated with dwarfs as a young girl from seeing the numerous paintings by Diego Velazquez, who was famous for painting dwarfs. She even went on to study court dwarfs and how much a part of history they were, such being important to European, Chinese, and even Egyptian courts. From this obsession as a child she ended up writing a novel called Jepp, Who Defied the Stars. The story follows a dwarf named Jepp who is approached by a stranger that offers him work as a court dwarf for the Palace of Coudenberg. He then realizes how humiliating his job is because he is basically a freak show and entertainment for the court which causes him to then set out to find more in his life by going on an adventure to the see the world and to defy his fate of just being a court dwarf.

I asked a fellow student named Eric about what he thought of the story and what it could teach people such as himself.

Eric: “Well, it sounds like a really interesting story that has not really been done or told before. I’m pretty sure I have never heard anything ever about court dwarfs. But since they were a big part of history I think it is really important to have a story that maybe can relate to that history and even build awareness that there were such things as court dwarfs. The story does give a sense that it can teach myself to understand that I am not stranded by fate and if I can do anything if I put my mind to it”.

Host: Even though Marsh herself is not a dwarf she has made sure that the story is as accurate as possible by interviewing and allowing real people that have dwarfism to read her book and give her helpful hints to make it accurate. The story itself has a great message of defying fate, no matter how small you are in this world and is sure to be a hit this year.

Genre Analysis:A Tale Of Fate: From Astrology To Astronomy

In the NPR story, “A Tale Of Fate: From Astrology To Astronomy” from All Things Considered, it is easy to see that this is no normal news clip or report but instead more of an overall interview with just one important person and only focusing on one subject matter. Thus, this audio essay was basically an informative interview that focused on Katherine Marsh’s new novel, Jepp Who Defied the Stars. Aside from the audio portion of the story there is also informational text that goes along with the story as well as a picture of the book and highlights from or summery of the audio portion. Thus, from just listening and viewing this story form NPR it is revealed that an audio essay definitely has many differences and only some similarities to academic essay or annotated maps.

One of the biggest parts of an audio essay that is vastly different from the academic essay or annotated map is the audio part of it. Besides the audio essay neither of the other two other projects have any audio to it what so ever. Furthermore, the audio essay itself, involves having a script with many questions. There is also not really seems to be an argument that is trying to made in this audio essay. Its goal seems to be purely informative, ultimately revealing information on the storyline to this new novel and what inspired the author to write about it. Whereas, both the annotated map and academic essay are much more argumentative than informative than this NPR story. Ultimately, not all audio essays are probably informative essays there are ones that have to do with arguments thus making some cases of audio essays similar to that of the other two projects. Additionally, just like the other projects the audio essay requires evidence which is ultimately the interviews or other sounds that are used with the audio segments. Furthermore, the audio essay does not just start right into the interview, it starts with an intro, “when Katherine Marsh was a young girl, she was absolutely mesmerized by the dwarfs in the paintings by Diego Velazquez. Years later, that obsession became the inspiration for her latest young adult novel” (Raz). This sets up the story and then goes into the interview and finally comes to a conclusion by the end of it. There is also a script that goes along with the audio as well as a summarized area with text. In addition, it can be seen that the annotated map is similar to the audio essay because it also has its own annotated area and text.

            Conclusively, I might want to focus on or discuss maybe sport events that are held on the ASU campus such as basketball or football games. 

Project 2 Reflection: Frustrating

Overall, I do not believe I did too well on this project. Unlike the first project, I did not feel as confident in my work as I did when I turned it in in project one. Probably the reason for this is due to the fact that I have never really done any assignment that is like project two. In high school I was always assigned large essays with that involved an argument and then proving the argument, but unfortunately, I believe I was ill prepared or practiced in evaluations. But I do believe that I did Farley well in choosing a good topic for the project that many college students can relate to. In my opinion, I feel as if though I did a good job in creating criteria in which to relate to my topic of dorm life. The big problem was that I really struggled with finding outstanding evidence that could really back up my argument and evaluations. This could be due to the fact that maybe my topic was overall too broad and general thus if I had a more specific area of focus I may have found some good evidence  or maybe in general, my research skills are in need of great improvement. Moreover, I struggled a bit in the technological aspect of the project. For example, it took over an hour to figure out how to create a map and paste it into my blogger and then try to link my annotations to each area marked on the map. Ultimately, this is my fault though because if I had remembered to attend workshop that week I would have probably had no problem understanding how to use Blogger and Google maps efficiently. Furthermore, I feel as if I went somewhat off topic with some of my annotations. Due to the fact that there was a set amount of words needed I felt that it was somewhat hard meeting that word count amount with relevant information and evaluation. Ultimately, this is most likely my own fault for not maybe thinking deeper or broadening my imaginary scope of ideas. Additionally, I can improve my skills by probably doing more research related assignments and doing more assignments that involve evaluations. Furthermore, this assignment can be definitely be used outside the university. Evaluating areas, people, or products happen every day and not necessarily are all written down such as this project. Outside the campus I could use these skills to evaluate a game or food in order to tell other how good or bad it is. This skill is thusly very useful for functioning in every day society. By having this skill one will understand or know what products to have and how to ultimately compare that product to their ones. 

Research Sources: A students life on Campus

At first, I contemplated writing about the Sun Devil Canyon, which was what my first project was focused upon. The reason I am not going to focus upon it this time is due to the fact that the first time around I could not find much information on it. Moreover, I myself am a college student living on campus and I am interested in diving into and researching maybe what are some of the benefits of living on campus and what are some of the activities of some students that differ from my own. Thus, I will now focus project two on a particular student’s life, living on the ASU Tempe campus. I will be exploring and following what areas and places he usually spends his time in. Furthermore, the overall reason for my decision on following this particular student is to reveal a more concentrated perspective of living on a college campus such as Tempe. I will evaluate my topic by personally following him to his certain areas as well as questioning on his reasons for being in those areas. Then I will attempt to find the bigger meaning of what he does and find the out physical and mental benefits of his activities as they relate to academia and social life in a college atmosphere.

            My first source is form a scholarly article called “Quality of College Life (QCL) of Students: Developing and Validating a Measure of Well-Being” by M. Joseph Sirgy, Stephan Grzeskowiak and Don Rahtz. It is approximately twenty three pages in length. The article deals with exploring and researching students living on campus. It tries to find a relationship with the quality of life on campus and the student’s health, motivation in academics, and social life. There is a broad focus upon the college life as well as a individualistic focus on several students form different Universities. Furthermore, the reason I chose this article is due to the fact that I have similar interests into seeing the links in living on campus and school. Their research method is also similar to my own, when it comes to the part of studying individual students. This source ultimately has a large amount of information that can be learned and applied to my particular subject.

            My second source is “An Investigation of Broad and Narrow Personality Traits in Relation to General and Domain-Specific Life Satisfaction of College Students” by John W. Lounsbury, Richard A. Saudargas, Lucy W. Gibson and Frederick T. Leong. It is approximately twenty two pages in length. The article focuses upon the satisfaction and lives of college students. It dives into finding links between the campus atmosphere and experiences and how they relate to a student dropping out or doing well in their academics. Furthermore, the reason I chose this article is because it may reveal reasons for what area and activities the student that I am following does and how it my mentally affect him.

            My third source is a book titled, How Students Make Meaning of their Intentional Out-of-class Educational Experiences. The book is by Isett-Levett and Kerry Lynn. It is approximately 149 pages. This book has a focus on what students in college participate in on their free time. The authors find a links between college life and how well students do in school and participate socially. The reason for choosing this is once again because it closely relates to my project and goes along to with I will be researching.

http://jettcattaniproject2.blogspot.com/2012/10/one-students-life-on-campus-benefits.html

Evaluation: Borderlands 2

Evaluating a video game can be a very challenging task because what exactly makes a great game is highly debatable. My idea for an exceptional video game is that a game must pass five different criteria. Number one is good graphics. This is the category for the overall visuals of the game. Is the video game up to date on how games it should look in this day and age? Or is the game pushing and redefining what all new video games should look like. Then the second criteria I am looking for is the overall sound quality of the game. This would include any music and voice acting within the game. The third criteria would be how playable the game controls are. I am looking to see if the controls are too hard or too easy or just broken. The fourth is ultimately the entertainment of the game. This would include if the game is interesting, fun, and has a gratifying story line. Lastly, I am looking at the game for its replay value. Basically seeing whether or not a gamer plays the game one time and puts it down. Or instead keeps on playing it for months. Ultimately, I will evaluate Borderlands 2 through these criteria.

            On August 20, Borderlands 2 became available to purchase around the world in almost any video game or electronics store. This game was a sequel to the very successful  Borderlands that came out in 2009. I played much of the first the game and loved it. Thus, on the first day that Borderlands 2 was released I bought it right away and am still very addicted to it. I am pleased to find out that the sequel is not only as good at the prequel but in fact much better and improved. Furthermore, this game pretty much passes all my five of my criteria with an A+.  First of all, the graphics are beautiful and much improved. The hand drawn animated world of Pandora (a planet that the game is set in) is far more beautiful and diverse than ever before. The characters, humans, animals, and enemies of the game all have different and distinct looks to them. Instead of having generic looking enemies and allies from the first game, the artists have really made an effort to change that fact with this sequel and with ultimately great success. Moreover, the sound quality is great and even more improved. All the hilarious dialogue is delivered perfectly to the player. The sounds of explosions and gun fire make the game feel superbly realistic and the music goes great with the adrenaline fueled game. Furthermore, the controls are smooth and up to par with any other top FPS genre  to date. First time gamers will have little trouble mastering the controls to the game. I found this out by having to people who have never played or have very little experience with the FPS genre and it only took them less than a minute to learn the controls. Additionally, entertainment wise this game is hilarious, action packed, interesting, and one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had. Borderlands 2 actually has a specific story line and an antagonist. Just this fact about the game makes the game much better than its sequel, which lacked both a specific story line and a main antagonist. Lastly, this game will attract gamers to replay this game many times over. Because of its new classes and skill trees, it will entice players to try to create the best possible character or try to master a new ones.  Moreover, the cooperative multiplayer that Borderlands 2 has to offer will give gamers another reason to play this game again and again with their friends in this instance.

Source:http://gamefly2.gameflycdn.com/images/games/e/179990e.jpg

            Overall, this game is one of the best games I have ever played. It surpassed my expectations and met all of my criteria with flying colors. This is a must have for any Borderlands fans and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys first person shooters. If you want to have a funny, exciting, and an adrenaline pumped ride, then Borderlands 2 is the game to get. Dare I say that it should be the winner for the title of game of the year in this year’s Video Game Awards?