Stranger Danger

I've decided to go back and look over all that I've written in my daybook for class. For some reason, I'm reflecting on many different things in my life. I've actually noticed that I do this every once in a while (maybe this is how I keep my ego in check). However, I chose the entry that I titled "Stranger Danger" which is about an event in my childhood that changed my life.

When I was seven years-old, I was playing in the driveway of my house. I then noticed a man taking pictures of houses just on the other side of the street. Out of curiosity, I approached him and asked him what he was doing. In response, he said that he was a photographer and he's trying to find the construction area that is further into our neighborhood (I am seven so that didn't sound weird at the time).

I chose to help him out and show him where the construction area was.

The walk itself isn't far from my house, it's just down the road and to the left. I took him to the corner just before someone would take a left and pointed out the construction area. He then asked me if I wanted to join him on exploring.

This is the part where I thank god for instincts. All that I knew at the time was that something was wrong. So, I told him the most convincing lie I have ever spoken to this day. I said to this man that I had to get back and eat lunch otherwise my parents get the neighbors to help look for me. Therefore, after saying goodbye to him, we went our separate ways.

Immediately, I went home and told my dad about him because I knew that he was acting strange. My dad called an officer who then came down to take my statement. The stress I was under and the fear that I was in the wrong caused me to tell the officer that he took a picture of me and ran off (He did ask for a picture of me before we went our separate ways, by the way). I think if I said what really happened then the officer would have done a patrol of the neighborhood or something. Instead, he left and I never heard anything about this man again.

All that I heard were rumors that my friend at the time told me. Rumors suck, just so you know.

I was told that they caught the same guy taking pictures of little kids at a pool just down the street. I decided not to think about it at the time. Yet, it all came back to me during middle school when another friend of mine described a scary event that took place just a few days prior.

He told me about how this little girl, that looked exactly the way I did when I was seven, was following him around the neighborhood. They came across this homeless man that fit the description of the man who I remember. This homeless man (which I now believe isn't the same person) had seen the little girl and started to come towards them. They called the police once they got away and there was nothing else.

However, when my friend told me this, I had a near panic attack. All those thoughts and memories of the close call I had came back and I was left with a large puddle of confusion, guilt, and much more. At the time, I felt as if I put a guilty man away or that the man was guilty and went after someone who looked like me. I was so confused and I didn't know what to do. I had an anger management problem at the time and that got worse because of all of this.

Now, however, I know better than to doubt that this stranger from my past wasn't in the wrong and was, in fact, up to no good.

I had to figure out if I had to live with the thought of putting an innocent man in trouble with the police or not. I had to figure out if I was a good person and where I stand in life, morally. I had to figure all of this out in middle school because leaving it alone would have caused me to become an emotional wreck. It was one of the most difficult things I've ever gone through.

The good that came out of this though was that I came out stronger, more mature, and wiser. I know better now and that shows in everything I do. The confusion and guilt I went through are remembered but I don't experience that at all anymore. It has made me stronger but I always am amazed at how close I came to having something really bad happen to me.

To think all of these thoughts and emotions were caused just by a close call. I am so glad that nothing else happened because I think that I wouldn't have been able to handle the aftermath as well as I had.

I had to get this out because I'm in one of my reflecting moods once again and I like to see what will make me into a better person. I also want to tell you all my short story on this traumatic event (for a seven year-old). It's incredible how short events that really don't physically harm you can have such an impact on your lives. Especially when those events occur during your childhood.

My Ethnography Project Drawing Board

To all of those in our class reading this post, I am writing this out of dire need for organizing my thoughts involving my part in my group's project. I have a basic understanding of what my part will be like. Yet, I am lost to the point where I feel uncertain of my every move. I know that I need to focus on how music is important for the literacy underlife instead of just music itself. When I wrote my annotated bibliography, I didn't understand that. Now, I believe I can cross off the radio website in that other post and also put the calendar I found to the side. I can also add an interview I've completed since that post.

What else am I supposed to do? I have to do some type of reflection and I have to organize some type of video with the audio recording(s) I have. Is that all? Is this all I'm supposed to do or am I missing something. Or maybe I'm overthinking it. I dislike this project currently for making me so uneasy about my entire process. Also, how is someone, who doesn't even know their way through a computer that well, supposed to create a video? I have a website that may help but I feel unsure about whether or not it's the right thing to do.... Joy....

Well here's my interview that I'm citing:

JAMS. Personal interview. 7 Nov. 2012.

This interview involved the Anime sing-a-longs this club has done.  As of now, I'm making the sound better but I don't know what to do next.

Sincerely,
The freaked out student

Annotated Bibliography

For our homework assignment over the weekend, our class had to find three primary sources for our Ethnography project and then write a paragraph explaining the importance on each of these sources. After some thinking and digging, I finally found three sources that I believe will be primary in my Ethnography project.


Lambla, Ken, and UNC Charlotte College of Arts and Architecture, comps. The Arts
     at UNC Charlotte 2012:13 Calendar. Charlotte: UNC Charlotte College of Arts
     and Architecture, 2012. Print.

This source is actually a calendar of musical events that was handed out to many students at the beginning of the year like a pamphlet.  This calendar has events of many types of concerts: jazz, symphony, and even wind and percussion ensembles. This calendar also had events for dance concerts, plays, and art galleries as well. Even though there are many events that occur on campus, it's surprisingly difficult to find some of these events - especially for a freshmen. This calendar has the dates, times, and locations of each event and also places the average price of the events in the front of the pamphlet. This calendar locates all of the events that the school helps organize and run on campus.


Radio Free Charlotte. UNC Charlotte, n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012.
     <http://radiofreecharlotte.uncc.edu/index.html>.

This is another source that the school helps organize. There is a link on 49er Express that leads any student to the website. Even though the website itself doesn't play any music, from what I'm able to see since it never plays anything, it does have information on where to listen (itunes) and when the radio is playing music. This fits the lifestyle of the students and is free for any who listen. The office is located on campus and they ask for anyone who would want to volunteer to play some music on the radio. A valuable source to anyone who wants to play the music instead of being a listener.


LightningXBlade2. Jormungand OST - Time to Attack. YouTube. Sony Pictures;
     Universal Music Group, 2005. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/
     watch?v=wf-pqcTa5xg>.

This is the only primary source I've found that the school does not organize. In our school's anime club, the member sing along to the opening and closings of anime shows we watch. This gives the club a sense of community even if the singing isn't planned and the members just do it. The members only sing to the songs that are catchy and interesting like the one I've chosen. The actual version is shortened than the one I found since it's the ending for a show. Also, the members only sing a few lyrics in this one unlike other songs where members sing the entire time. The sense of community when the members do this is strong and fun. It's a way to relax and lighten our stress level.

Ethnography Fieldwork

Earlier today my group and I met up outside the classroom for some fieldwork we have to complete for our Ethnography project. For a few minutes, we had absolutely no idea where to start. But then, we figured out how we were going to do this fieldwork. We knew that we had to go to certain places on campus to gather the data required. So, we planned the easiest route and headed of to the first destination.

The first place we headed was inside the building where our college's campus is held (I'm not placing the name here to keep the identity of the college a secret. A clue though is that there is a piece of architecture outside that lights up at night and half of it is in another language and it is also right next to the building we have our English class in.). More specifically, we headed to the downstairs lobby where I already have very fond memories involving literacy underlife that has to deal with music.

The reason why we couldn't head into the room where our school's anime club is held is because there was a class going on and anime club is later in the week and later in the day. In fact, most of what we knew as underlife involving music happens when it's warmer and later in the day. Though there was the anime opening and closing sing-a-longs and the music or music videos being shown on youtube in the lobby as well as the name-that-anime-tune contest.

We then visited the large tower where people are free to speak their minds (*cough* Crazy Preacher *cough*). There we saw nothing, nobody's crazy enough to stay outside too long in this weather, but on other days there are public music displays, people playing their guitar and such.

However, there was one thing that we thought up of that we haven't really discussed before for our musical topic: the ("robin") building where concerts are located. Yet, we couldn't get in since you need special access to the building at this time... for some reason. So we kind of people-watched to see who was going inside. I've seen a lot of musicians go inside and since class already started it was only the stragglers that rushed into the building.

Finally, we headed over to the S. Union where random people can play on the piano there. I've already had a lot happen there and I know it is a hotspot. The S. Union was crowded as always and I can remember the songs I've heard being played on that beautiful instrument which echos all over the building.

Those are the main locations on campus where music happens. We've noticed how people react to music at different times in the day, and with the weather. I also noticed there was a lot of people listening to their ipods and such on the way to class. One of my favorite past times, personally. This information will really help us once we get rolling with this project.

Reflective Blog Post On Literacy Narrative - Final

I have to say that this was probably the most difficult paper I've had in a very long time.

For the past few years, I had reached what I thought was a vertical wall in my potential as a writer whenever I had English school assignments. Now I know that this is not the case. The wall was just really steep. Took me a while to notice this too.

Everything was going fine for my rough draft. I was used to it - this was a process that's almost automatic for me now. Write a complete draft for the first due date and make sure the essay has only the grammatical errors that I missed. You see, I was taught for 5 years to get rid of as many mistakes as possible before the rough draft is even finished. Now, after that amount of time, I do a lot of this in my head. Again, the first due date was easy for me: automatic.

Then I was thrown for a loop. At first, I had no idea what our teacher was talking about when she gave us our revision homework. As a matter of fact, I didn't even touch on that at all. I edited my rough draft. The reason? I, for a while and still sometimes, consider revision and editing to be the same thing.

I did both revision and editing at the same time and also mainly in my head... before I even wrote it down on the rough draft. I always thought they were the one and the same. Hence, the very confused student in the 2nd row for 3 days of class.

Finally, I started to understand what I needed to do. So I tried it. I took the most general idea that I had in my narrative and I took another experience I've had with it and wrote my second draft. Yet, I was so unsure that I couldn't even bring myself to finish that draft. Also, I do consider this the first time that I've ever really done this deep of revision. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Therefore, I went back into my comfort zone. My rough draft. After all, if you had the choice of comfort zone or shaky land, wouldn't you choose the same thing? This time I did more revision than I originally did on it.

I then reached another issue. My rough draft was already close to the page limit.

Oh, thank you previous teachers for giving me the experience of rewording sentences so that my paper always fits the page limit. Trust me, I had to do a lot of this and it's always very difficult to figure it out. You have to think one way and then do a complete 180 the next second. It gives you a real headache by the end of the process.

Anyways, I finally got room to add only a small amount of the revision that I wanted to add. But then, I reached the limit again and I couldn't even reword my sentences to get more room. So, all that revision that I finally figured out, I couldn't put a lot of my new material into it. I couldn't add what this identity searching for me was like during high school and what I found to help me through it. I could only add a small amount about my video game experience and then I was out of room! It was a real bummer.

I've learned a lot through this paper, mainly the difference between revision and editing, and it's going to be real helpful for future papers. Still, I did not enjoy how difficult this was. I also was dead set against the revision we had to do before grudgingly accepting it as neutral territory.... Doesn't mean that I ended up liking it. At. All.

I'm willing to bet that there's a fair amount of students out there that have always considered revision and editing as one and the same. This could really hold them back as it did me (it was a total of a week and half for me to finally get it) and really stress them if they didn't have a complete rough draft by the first due date. I think that for my generation, hope I'm right on this theory, we need some more explanation on the differences between revision and editing. Other than that, throw them to the sharks. They'll swim. They might not like it (like me) but they'll get it.

Mapping Campus

Today we were given a homework assignment to find an area on campus that has a lot of objects or areas which literacy underlife events thrive. I chose the building where our school's anime club meet. Specifically, I chose the downstairs floor.

The stairs wind down, once you got used to the weird smell of the building which I have absolutely no idea how to describe, and you're met with the sight of people sitting in an open area which I refer to as a lobby. Chairs are placed everywhere in that small square area. People sit and work on homework, relax, or play strategic card games.

Once you sit down, you notice the vending machines that only come across as one thing: energy. Then you see the art on the walls, the elevators, the classrooms with their doors open, and the Anime Club chilling in the lobby area until a specific classroom opens up.

There is a cafe that people can sit in if they prefer that type of atmosphere with the coffee and the food. A nice area to go to relax at to think and have a great time for a small amount of time when life is busy and hectic.

Reflective Blog Post - Rants

A few days ago, I woke up and struggled to get out of bed for my last day of classes (for the week, at least) at 8:30 am. Since I stayed up late the night before like any foolish student, I was exhausted. My body and mind were so tired that when we were given the chance to rant about anything, I literally did not want to think about it. You would think I would start complaining about waking up early or talk about wanting some more sleep. But, no - I just wanted to sit there in a state of nothingness.

Finally, I decided to rant about the most general idea I could think of in an attempt to stay in the sleepy haze I was in. I chose to rant about ranting. Predictable, yeah? However, that was a bad choice I made. Sometimes the most general topics can be the most thought-out ideas. I found that this was the case with ranting. Thankfully, I only wrote a paragraph so what I've thought about this topic was after 12 o'clock in the afternoon. Happy, happy day.

The first thought I had was about the stereotypes we place on ranting. Mainly, how most people should swallow their issues with something and how ranting is always seen in a negative light. I found, through my own experience, that any issue or complaints I had with something is the most important thing I should keep to myself. If I really, really don't like steak, suck it up - it's for dinner. If I'm throwing up, go to school and don't whine about it. Oh, I passed out again? Don't let the teachers make me go home - it's not worth it.

What I've figured out is that pressure from others to keep our complaints, and especially our rants, to ourselves soon evolves into our own selves telling us to stay quiet. Then I realized something else, I'm grouping rants and complaints as the same thing. This negative light we've placed on rants has actually begun to label a rant as a complaint. Yet, rants are so much longer and unorganized than one-sentenced or one-paragraphed complaints.

I find that real rants are the ones that take minutes to finish. They're the ones that have people throwing their arms all over the place. The energy and time are caused by one emotion: passion. I'm passionate about Harry Potter (it's detailed writing style more than anything else), creative writing, economic features found inside video games and much more. These topics have led me to rant, argue, and debate with someone else over the issue. it takes me ten minutes to really let the topic go.

that is the main difference from a complaint and a rant. A rant you just don't want to let go of while a complaint is easily forgotten. Now that I've finished my rant involving more than just ranting, I want to show you how funny rants can be.

Pachelbel Rant