Week 9: Scramble With Friends

Scramble with friends is an app created by Zynga that gives you a block of letters and you have to make as many words as possible. I personally like this game because it keeps me thinking and it's also very fun to play! They have a chat that you can talk to people and interact with each other. It has options of getting helpers such as inspiration which picks out three words for you, freeze which stops time, and scramble which mixes the letters up. Overall I find the game very enjoyable! I even play against my grandma who lives in California! 

Screenshot From Scramble With Friends

Week 8: Whats on your mind?

Since we get to talk about whatever we want in this blog, I thought I would take time to promote a show I'm singing in on June 16. The show that I am singing in is called Skate For Hope. It is in Columbus, Ohio and I have been part of the show for 5 years now. Skate For Hope is a show at Nationwide Arena that raises money to help fun breast cancer research. Every year, skaters from different skating companies raise money for an opportunity to skate in the show at Nationwide Arena and meet different olympians who will be skating as well. In past years, olympic skaters such as Johnny Weir, Sarah Hughes, Rachel Flatt, etc. skate at this event to help the cause. To date, this show has raised $370,000 dollars for breast cancer research. 

Poster for Skate For Hope 2012 

How did I get involved you ask? My dad has been the behind the scenes director of this show for a while now, and about 5 years a go the lady who put it all together asked my dad if I would be willing to sing live for a skater while he skated. Of course I said yes and was extremely excited to be a part of something like this. Over the years I have sang for many different skaters and this year I get to sing during the Rose Dedication where the skaters bring roses to family members that have survived or are fighting breast cancer. 

Me singing for Parker Pennington at SFH 2008

It is a truly amazing experience and I am so happy that I get to be a part of it. Not only do I get to help out with breast cancer research, I get to sing as well! 


For more information you can go to www.skateforhope.org

Week 7 Blog: The Power of the Mind

Technology today has hit an ultimate high. There are things we can do now that people never could have imagined a hundred years a go. The biggest question we have today is, is it a good thing or a bad thing?

The technology we learned about in this video is a technology that can ultimately control other things with your mind. I feel like this could both help and hinder human connection. On one end, it gets a human to use their brain more and helps them gain control. But it can hinder the human connection to other people that we need so much. 

Technology like this can help people with disabilities better communicate or become more mobile. But it can also take an already lazy generation and make it lazier. But there is really no way of stopping the inevitable. I do believe that it could eventually turn out to be an isolating technology. Why would anyone want to do anything when they can control most things from the comfort of their own chair? 

Week 5: What's on my mind?

Ahh the age old question: What are you thinking? Most of the time I have a hard time answering this because I always have about a million things going on through my brain... and right now is no exception. The main thing I have on my mind right now is graduation... Even though I'm not graduating, it's been running through my mind over everything else. I am a senior right now and SHOULD be graduating, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do until about 2 months a go. So now I'm trying to get everything together as fast as I can so that I can be out of here within the next year and a half. I also don't want to rack up TOO many loans. It's extremely weird to me that I have been in the beautiful bubble of Athens for 4 years now (where does the time go?). It feels like only yesterday I was moving in to my dorm in the dirty south.
                                              


 Now as I look through pictures I see the same people that I graduated from high school with, in cap and gowns from their respective colleges. I have friends getting jobs in the real world and all I've been able to ask myself is, am I ready for that yet? and honestly the answer to that question is no. I have so many dreams and aspirations, and I feel like I have yet to achieve anything that I want to. I guess a lot of people's dreams are things that they can get a degree in. Mine however, is to be a successful musician which I did not want to go to college for. All I know right now is that after I graduate I want to move out to Nashville or Los Angeles to work in recording studios and eventually start a singing career. Imagine all the blank stares I get when I tell people that. I've even had someone ask me why I even went to college. If there's one thing I've learned from life in general it's not to let the doubters get you down. I was blessed with a gift and I intend to use it. 

Week 3 Part 2: Blogging Blog

The blog I decided to highlight is the blog "Undressed Skeleton". This blog is written by a girl names Taralynn who lost a lot of weight and she shows girls how she did it. Taralynn moved a lot growing up and gained a lot of weight as the result. She was unhappy with herself and one day decided to change it. When she was doing this, she blogged about what she ate, how she exercised, and made it fun. She has a bunch of recipes on her blog that are good and heathy. She even includes a section on what to get when you go out to eat. I would categorize this blog as a health blog. The blog is very organized and she has her blogs cut up in different categories such as lunch, dinner, snacks, etc. There is a lot going on in the blog and I think that there could be a little less but overall it is pretty easy to follow. I have used her blog many a time for healthy recipes to make!
http://undressedskeleton.tumblr.com/ <-- there is the link to the blog!

Week 3 Blog: Wikia

Wikis are tools that companies are using to get everyone in the office involved and making sure that people's voices are heard. It would be helpful for new employees as well because they can gain knowledge faster and easier and take other people's knowledge and apply it to their own. Overall i think wikis are very helpful because they hold a lot of information in one place. I do think that wikis are a good investment and are worth people spending time on. There are other ways to do things, but in this new age i think it is a good idea to incorporate wikis into the main workplace so that people get used to them and know how to use them to their full potential. 


The Wiki i decided to look at was the Spongebob Squarepants Wiki. I did this because it was the biggest one on the page AND who doesn't love Spongebob Squarepants?
The website was relatively easy to follow and very informative if you want to know more about Spongebob.
The wiki has a list of all of the episodes EVER made and a list of all the characters. There is even a calendar at the bottom of the page that says what happened on that very day a few years a go. The Wiki is a fun one but the page is kind of scattered. There is really no rhyme or reason as to how it is set up. 

Open- Sourcing

In class, we watched a video by Rheingold that talks about the Open Source movement and what is so special about it. He talks about collaboration and cooperation and how important they are. He states that they are something that help with open sourcing because many people can update/ help out with these concepts. Collaboration is the whole tool that helps build these softwares, etc. It requires cooperation because everything is constantly changing and people need to have patience in working with others.

I like the idea of open-sourcing. It gives people the opportunity to share their ideas and get their ideas out on the table. The one thing I do not like is the fact that things are constantly changing and it can mess up what you have going on. I do believe that it will be a success, however, I am not sure how the people that are doing this can be successful considering everything is free. If it is successful, it will not last very long without having some sort of a charge. Overall, proprietary companies will have the advantage over everyone else because they will end up with the software that lasts longer and does better. I think eventually I will buy into it but as of now I'm not so sure.