Christmas with Family

Mom said something to me on Sunday that I just can't stop thinking about. She said, "Autumn, make sure you soak everything in and enjoy this time, because you're not going to remember it. You'll think that you'll never forget, but it's all so busy that you will."

Of course she's right, because she's my mom and she's always right. December has been an absolute whirlwind with college graduation, Christmas, and the fast approaching wedding and honeymoon. I probably won't remember most of this stuff. It'll all just be a big, happy but vaguely stressed blur.

So this weekend while Logan and I visited family, I made sure to actually take pictures.

At the Smiths' we played the worst game ever -- Aggravation. Somehow I managed to win, but it was as frustrating as all get out

When we opened presents, we found out that Logan's mom accidentally bought his brother the same exact sweater she got him last year. Which he was wearing that day. Hilarity ensued.

At the Shulers' we played a super intense game of Settlers of Catan, which Logan got for Christmas from his parents. My parents had never even heard of the game, but both had a pretty good time and came very close to winning. Unfortunately for them, I was the champion.

Poor Logan had a terrible game, but made the most of a bad situation by recreating Stonehenge out of Catan bits.

All in all, it was a great Christmas weekend with family!

Final Wedding Plans and a Wedding Band

Yesterday was a blur of driving and wedding plans. I went back home to get all the final details for the ceremony and reception down, which was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying.

I'm getting married in a week!

I'm getting married in a week!?










The excited side is waaaaaay stronger than the scared side though. And Nola Ann at The Prizing House was super nice and made me feel assured that yes, everything was indeed taken care of, and no, I didn't forget anything huge and important.

Afterwards, Logan and I went to get his wedding band and to eat! That's a monkey off our back, because we weren't sure the ring was going to get here in time. But all is well, and we celebrated by going to The Pub.

It seems that we've been eating out a lot lately, but the end of November through now has been full of celebrations, and food is certainly how we celebrate.

Janelle Monae

Recently, my friend Emma showed me this video:



I fell in love with the song and the video as soon as I heard/saw it, but only today did it occur to me to look up Monae on Spotify.

I like all of her stuff.

I'm not one hundred percent sure what it is about her music that speaks to me so completely, but I am completely hooked. I'm especially digging The Electric Lady, her newest album, and the one that "Q.U.E.E.N." comes from.

The Electric Lady's radio show sound makes a great album even more interesting and rewards listening to the entire thing as a whole rather than just one or two songs at a time, which I appreciate. There's a cohesiveness there than really gets me going.

I'm so glad I heard Monae's music and I'm happy to have a new artist to get into. I sense a binge session of her music coming on.

Generational Fear Gap

Lenora's final presentation today was eye-opening for me. I had an epiphany.

Older people think I'm really good at technology. I'm not. I'm just not afraid of it like many of them are.

For example, my last boss and I started Twitter accounts at the same time. Neither one of us had any clue what we were doing, but he just assumed that because I was a twenty-something, I would "get" it and then could teach him. I was fighting off questions about what makes a "good" tweet, how to use a hashtag, and what the heck all the @s were.

Because he was worried about all this stuff, my boss wouldn't try anything. His Twitter account sat stagnant while mine started somehow gaining followers. The difference was that I just tried stuff to see what worked. My strategy with digital writing -- any writing really -- is just to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

I think this is a common theme between the generations. Older people that didn't grow up with ridiculous amount of technology are afraid they'll "mess it up" or "break" it, but my generation knows that it can always be wiped and started over.

Social Engagement

Today was my last meeting with my Writing for Social Change class in Over-the-Rhine, and I'm having very mixed feelings about it. I'm excited because that means I'm one step closer to graduation, but I'm also bummed. That class got me thinking about social issues in a way that I never would have before, and for that I'm grateful.

I'm aware that I could always go out and continue engaging myself in social issues outside of the class, but it was so nice to have some guidance. I feel like that's a big part of all the problems we have in the world. People want to fix them, but aren't sure how. It's overwhelming to tackle social injustice and not knowing where to start something can make you feel like you'd be no help at all. At least, that's how I often feel.

There's no real point to this story. I don't know what my next step is as a socially engaged citizen and I'm not 100% sure how to figure it out. I just wanted to share my feelings with you with the hope that maybe you can help me stay engaged. Leave me a comment and let me know.

Professionalism on the Internet

Katharine's final presentation in Writing in the Digital Age focused on professionalism in digital writing. This concept is one that both excites and terrifies me.

I mean, on the one hand, we're more visible than ever before, which means it's easier to connect with others and share our experiences. On the other hand, if an employer deems a topic that we've talked about unsavory, then that can be held against us in the workplace.

I'm not one that does much that anyone would deem inappropriate, but I still think about this stuff. For example, I don't curse on the Internet, I don't talk about alcohol on any of my social media sites, and I don't get political as often as I want to. All for the sake of professional appearance.

A common argument I hear against making these kind of changes is that you don't want to work for someone who would hold those types of things against you anyway, and that's a fairly good argument, but not one that can always be followed. Sometimes, an employer wouldn't want to hold something against you, but it isn't always up to them. Often there are official rules and protocol to follow for the sake of the company at large, and I can appreciate that.

What are your thoughts on professionalism on the Internet?

Practicality of Digital Writing

Abby's final presentation for Writing in the Digital Age was a redefined rubric for the class focused more on practicality of projects, and less on the theories and motivations behind digital writings.

While I'm inclined to agree with this sentiment, being a big fan of practicality myself, I enjoyed talking about the theory behind digital communication. I like knowing, or at least thinking about, how and why things work. Plus, the beauty behind so much of what we've been talking about is that it's best figured out by just doing it!

That being said, Abby's presentation was beautifully said and we agreed on a lot of what we liked about the class.

Twitter as a Discussion Board

It's funny how many of my digital writing classmates's final presentations have featured Twitter. Before this past summer I had only the vaguest ideas about how Twitter was supposed to work, and now I have enough knowledge about it to find myself able to debate about its use in our class and its potential use in future classes.

Marc's comments about live-tweeting a class particularly got me thinking about Twitter and its implications. He suggested that there be one class period held completely on Twitter, with no face-to-face meeting. I think that idea is interesting, but a little overwhelming. I don't like sitting and reading Twitter for long periods of time, and find discussions on the site are often hard to follow. The occasional lag between a point and people's reactions often causes confusion because other comments get thrown in and it's hard to follow who is talking about what.

But it would still be interesting to see, if only to get a feel for how Twitter functions as an actual discussion tool.

Link to the Past, Part 5: The End

Image from justpushstart.com

I beat it! After many, many fights against Ganon at the end and many curse words being slung around in the final few dungeons, I beat Link to the Past.

This actually happened a week or so ago, but I totally forgot to post about it because I started Ocarina of Time almost immediately after turning off the Super Nintendo. 

Overall, I liked the game a great deal, despite my belly-aching about the more difficult bits. It was challenging without making me feel like it was completely impossible, the story was ok, and it was quite charming. I understand why it's one of Logan's favorites, and I liked it enough that I might even play it again sometime in the future.

Video Game Writing

With the full onset of winter always comes the winter blues. Not having lots of sunlight makes me cranky and apathetic in equal measure, which is not a good combination for me or anyone that has to be around me. Lately I've noticed that Logan also seems to be getting the winter blues, despite his normal aversion to sunlight, and I made it a mission to figure out something that could cheer us both up.

I've always found that being creative gets me out of my funks, and suggested to Logan that he find something creative to do, either with or without me. After a few days of thinking about what he'd like to take on, he thought it would be cool to make a video game. He's made really short games before and had a good time, so I agreed that it was a great idea.

Then he asked me if I could write it.

And I was all like

.gif from imgur

Because of this recent occurrence, I found Nate's presentation on games as literature extra fascinating that I normally would have. Telling stories through video games is so different than what I'm used to, and I'm stoked to stretch myself in this new direction!

Kids and Reading

I've loved reading since I was very young, so I found Kathryn, Lexi, and Jenna's final project for class fascinating. They interviewed three sets of young kids about reading physical books vs. reading on a e-reader.

All the kids had read on an e-reader, which blew my mind a little bit, and all of them found reading "real" books and on a screen equally fun. In fact, they seemed to have trouble differentiating between the two. That got me thinking about my own reading experience and how I would have like to read off a screen growing up.

As a kid, I think I would have adored reading off of a reader. I was the type to look up every word I didn't know, make notes about passages I particularly liked, and carry around more than one book at a time. Heck, I'm still that type, which is why I love reading off my Kindle. It's all integrated right in one device, which is super portable to boot. Do I love the aesthetics of books? Of course. But I also love being able to do things with the story as I read, and e-readers make it almost obscenely easy.

What are your thoughts? Do you enjoy reading on a reader? Why or why not? Please, let me know in the comments!

Klout

Well, I created a Klout account. After hearing Kelsey and Ashley's presentation, I just had to try it out.

So far, nothing interesting has happened, since it's just updating to include my multitude of accounts. I hadn't realized how many things I'm involved in until I had to include them on my Klout profile. I was surprised that Pinterest isn't an option, and bummed that Ravelry isn't. Not that the Ravelry thing surprises me.

Speaking of, when adding topics to my list on there, I was sad to see that "yarn" wasn't an option. Knitting and crochet were represented, but not yarn. I love talking about yarn! Super bummer.

Whatever, Klout. Yarn is totally an awesome topic. Here's a picture to prove it. By the way, if anyone wanted to get me anything from the shop linked in the caption below, I'd love it.

I don't care if you work with yarn or not, this stuff is pretty! Image from Alcidina on Etsy.

Live-Tweeting -- Does It Have to Be New?

Even though I use it fairly regularly, I still don't 100% "get" Twitter. Of course, I don't think anyone really does. It's too new and different from everything else.

Something that I'm currently struggling with is the concept of live-tweeting, something that was explored by my classmates Ryan and Ranee during Writing for the Digital Age.  I get that it's tweeting about something in real time, but I'm having trouble putting it into practice.

Let me give you my example.

I'm currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. For those of you who don't know, I'm very late to the party on this, because the game came out a long time ago. Nevertheless, I'm currently playing it and I'd like to tweet about my reactions to it in real time, but I'm wondering if that's incorrect Twitter etiquette.

Is it ok to live-tweet something that isn't current to the world at large if it's current to me? This is not a rhetorical question -- please give me your thoughts/opinions/suggestions in the comments section!

The Emotional Significance of Pictures

My classmate Hannah Hearn's final presentation for Writing for the Digital Age was about emotions through drawings. She asked some people she knew to draw four pictures, one for happy, one for sad, one for angry, and one for neutral. She then gave the pictures to other people and asked them to tell her what emotion they thought the picture represented. It was interesting to see how some of the drawings were so perfect for their respective emotion that everyone guessed correctly, and how some were completely off the mark.

Hannah's presentation reminded me of a game I played a couple of years ago called Dixit. It's a tabletop game a lot like Apples to Apples except the cards are all pictures instead of words. One person comes up with a word or phrase for one of the cards in his/her hand, then everyone lays a card face-down on the table. The cards are shuffled, and everyone tries to guess which was the dealer's card.

The art is gorgeous and though it sometimes gets silly, I feel that Dixit can get surprisingly insightful. It's fascinating to see how people attach meaning to pictures and how that meaning changes once words are assigned to the pictures. I feel like it would be right up Hannah's alley!