As part of an assignment for a college course, I was required to begin a blog and make seven entries throughout the 15-week course. This week marks the end of that course, and I have learned a great deal about Digital Storytelling.
I learned how to Twitter (didn't really care for it, though it can be useful at times) how to understand the planning process in creating a digital story (love animoto.com and will sign up for my own personal account when my 180-day account expires).
This blog is something I also intend to maintain after the course ends; it's similar to a journal/diary which I used to keep as a teenager. I journaled sporadically throughout my adult life, but parted from maintaining a consistent account of my life after my punks were born.
Punks. I picked up that term after learning about a blog called Confession of a Pioneer Woman via one of my classmates who highly recommended it. I became obsessed with Ree Drummond's life via her blog and signed up for her blog e-mails. I wished my husband was like Marlboro Man and .... *sigh*. She calls her kiddos punks and I liked that term.
Blogging is an activity I suggested to a friend who had recently learned she'd recently been diagnosed with Lyme Disease after nearly 24 years. Because I am a news editor for http://www.northcentralpa.com/, I also believed her blog would help others in this LD-riddled region, and added the rss feed from her blog to the news website. (http://illwelladventures.blogspot.com/)
And the neat thing is this: I never, ever would have learned about digital storytelling, and Joe Lambert and punks and Daniel Weinshenker and storyboards and how much I missed journaling if it were not for this college course. Thank you Tom Mackey!
Monday, April 25, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Cee is for Charleston! Charleston!
We are spending Easter weekend in South Carolina, near the "lowcountry" area, of which Charleston is the capital. Relatives live just north of Charleston, and for a period of six years, my husband and I forged a new life apart from everything familiar to us.
It was in South Carolina where we learned how to become adults, even though we were in our late 20s at the time we moved from Pennsylvania. It was an exciting, yet frightening time for us, as we learned another culture ("the Southern way"), secured jobs and began anew. My husband's aunts, uncles and a set of grandparents also lived there, and they helped ease us during the transition of north versus south.
It was in South Carolina where I became pregnant for the first time, and then the second time, birthing a boy and girl whose heritage will always be southern.
There is something that calls to my spirit about Charleston, the birthplace of the Civil War (Sumter). Perhaps it is the defiant "you aren't telling me how to live" attitude which was pervasive 150 years ago. Or perhaps it is the sweet southern drawl genteel natives use in everyday expressions, such as "That's so good, it'll make your tongue slap your teeth right outside your mouth!" and "Pass those cathead biscuits" that bring an instant chuckle. Or perhaps it is the survivor spirit which remains rooted in the soil when battered about by hurricane winds and other adversaries howl defeat. I always felt welcome, even though I am clearly a Yankee through and through.
While James Taylor was specifically thinking of North Carolina when he wrote this song, I can't help but wistfully think of the other Carolina. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXmgkvIgc0w
It was in South Carolina where we learned how to become adults, even though we were in our late 20s at the time we moved from Pennsylvania. It was an exciting, yet frightening time for us, as we learned another culture ("the Southern way"), secured jobs and began anew. My husband's aunts, uncles and a set of grandparents also lived there, and they helped ease us during the transition of north versus south.
It was in South Carolina where I became pregnant for the first time, and then the second time, birthing a boy and girl whose heritage will always be southern.
There is something that calls to my spirit about Charleston, the birthplace of the Civil War (Sumter). Perhaps it is the defiant "you aren't telling me how to live" attitude which was pervasive 150 years ago. Or perhaps it is the sweet southern drawl genteel natives use in everyday expressions, such as "That's so good, it'll make your tongue slap your teeth right outside your mouth!" and "Pass those cathead biscuits" that bring an instant chuckle. Or perhaps it is the survivor spirit which remains rooted in the soil when battered about by hurricane winds and other adversaries howl defeat. I always felt welcome, even though I am clearly a Yankee through and through.
While James Taylor was specifically thinking of North Carolina when he wrote this song, I can't help but wistfully think of the other Carolina. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXmgkvIgc0w
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