COM 117/4: Multimedia Storytelling

Spring Break/St.Patrick's Day

Over Spring Break I had a lot of fun celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. I got to see my friend Kristen who goes to SUNY Oswego and reunite with many of my other friends who left Syracuse for college. The break was the perfect opportunity for me to get together with people that I had not been able to see this semester. You don’t realize how much you miss seeing someone until you are reunited with them after a long period of time. If anything, Spring Break made me very eager for Summer so I can relax again and see all of my friends and family from out of town!

     My spring break didn’t involve going to anywhere tropical or exciting, or even back home to Dallas. I stayed in town for my break and just wanted to take the week to relax. I got to sleep in, had no pressing things to do, no siblings to chauffer… it was really nice.
     A couple friends from my pledge class were also in town, so I spent a lot of time with them. It was with them that I got my first taste of a Syracuse restaurant’s attempt at Mexican food. If you haven’t been to The Mission, and like Mexican food, I highly recommend it. We also went to both of the lacrosse games that went on last week, against Albany Tuesday night and Johns Hopkins Saturday. The Albany game really wasn’t as close as the 18-13 score suggests, and the Johns Hopkins game was a real nailbiter, let me tell you. Double Overtime win for the orange. “Intense” is the best word I have to describe it.
     The best part of the night came after the win, though, when my friends and I got to meet some of the players, get autographs, and take pictures.

Gairet Myers, #47

Joel White, #11

Now, this next picture is my favorite:

John Galloway, #15

     Meeting John Galloway was so cool! I’ve seen him play for years, he’s one of my favorites, and kind of a hero of mine. When I got into Newhouse last year, I told my mom, “Now I just need to meet John Galloway. If I just get to shake his hand, I’d be happy.” And I got a picture with him, so much better. Of course he probably thinks I’m half insane because once it was over I was jumping up and down like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning. But I was too excited to care at the moment. It was definitely a great, very exciting end to a nice, relaxing break.

Bad Blood by Marilyn Ness was a heart-wrenching tale of Hemophiliacs and their contraction of HIV through blood supply during the AIDS epidemic. Since this was a sensitive topic, I felt Ness was successful in presenting a well-developed plot where the audience could grasp the facts on the issue and attain an emotional connection to the character’s stories. Facts where presented through text, copies of old newspapers/documents, and verbal statements given by primary sources of the time period such as, doctors, families, and victims. It was important to know what was going on in the time period, who was to be held responsible, and what was the public’s reaction. One could see Ness put effort into translating the correct story because she stated it was ten years in the making. She described she had struggled with money and permission to the rights of key documents. When she finally did get permission, she had to go to a warehouse to dig up all the Hemophiliacs health files during the time period.
Ness also caught my attention when she mentioned in the question and answer section that she changed the story from focusing on one hemophiliac with HIV to sharing other family’s stories. Again this was an issue that had a major impact on our nation and our healthcare system, it was important to show the unimaginable results from the epidemic. The audience needs to see it affected all not one. By the end of the lecture I was captivated by the documentary’s purpose and the courage Ness had for achieving it.

Over spring break I went back home to Texas.  One of my favorite things every year about spring break is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which goes from the end of February to the middle of march.  Usually I go with my dad and sister, but this year I went with my mom and my step-dad’s family because they had never been before.  It was so much fun! They have a huge carnival and the whole Astrodome is filled with animals.  I like the actual rodeo part the best because it’s really exciting to see all of the different events, like bull riding and team roping.  It’s super intense in Texas.  The funniest part about the whole rodeo this year though was the petting zoo.  There was this llama in there that was just sitting there like a statue while baby goats and were climbing all over it and little kids were poking it.  It just wouldn’t move and I thought it was hilarious, so I took a picture with it.  Overall, my spring break was just a much needed break from school.  Not really that exciting minus the rodeo.

Llamas are so funny looking.

I went back home to Southern California for my spring break. It was nice to leave wintry Syracuse to enjoy some Orange County sunshine. Granted, it was raining and cold towards the end of break, but it was a much-needed break anyway. I spent a lot of time hanging out with friends and just lounging around home, playing with my dogs and reading books. The most rewarding part was probably the opportunity to eat food outside of the dining hall, a.k.a. some real food.

The picture above is from when I visited a friend at Pepperdine University on the Monday of break, which was incidentally the warmest day of my break and the same day that I was on the beach.

For spring break, I had the opportunity to go home with my roommate, who lives in sunny Florida! It was so much fun and a great break from Syracuse. The highlight of the trip was definitely Saint Patrick’s Day. My roommate lives about 40 minutes from Miami, so we drove down in the morning to go swimming with dolphins! It was so much fun and an experience I will probably never have again. We got to touch the dolphins, play with them, and even swim across the pool on their backs! I had no idea that dolphins could get to be so big, the largest male was over 500 pounds. The experience overall was awesome, and if given the opportunity I would highly recommend it! We got to learn about the dolphins and have an awesome time with them. It was so disappointing to come back to this cold weather and I can’t believe how badly it is snowing right now!

I went home to Boston over spring break. It was very relaxing and it was great to see all of my friends. I did not do anything very eventful, mostly just hanging out. I went into the city a few times and visited my friends at Holy Cross College and Bryant University. For what seems like a boring break, being able to see my friends and family made it worth it because I had a lot of fun.

On Tuesday March 22, Karen Tse, founder International Bridges of Justice spoke in Hendrix Chapel as a part of the University Lecture series about her experiences of legal battle all over the world.  International Bridges of Justice (IBJ) is a group that fights for basic human rights all over the world.  Foremost, they strive to guarantee all people the protection from torture and right to competent legal representation.

In her presentation, Karen Tse told many touching stories of her experiences.  One of the most touching was about a four year old boy in a Cambodian jail that she met when visiting a jail in the country.  The boy was born in the prison of a woman sentenced to prison for stealing two diapers.  As the boy was seen as innocent by the guards, they enjoyed his presence and company in the jail.  In addition, he was allowed to squeeze through the bars and given free roam of the prison.  He would visit all of the other prisoners and give them the only thing he could offer them.  His pinky.  The boy held his pinky out to the people in prison and allowed them to grab it.  Karen said that for prisoners that lived in cells with very little light, the boy was the highlight of their day.  Karen told the story as a metaphor of hope.  She explained that if everyone offered the things they had to others, the world could be much improved.  Even if they could only offer their little finger.

At the end of her speech, Karen led  the audience in a song.  She explained that the song was sung by many attorneys all over the world to inspire courage when faced by the adversity of fighting for human rights against federal governments.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSHgmSPGVzo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Karen Tse is a wonderful example of the power of storytelling.  Her ability to take her own experiences and share them in such an effective manner is truly inspiring.  Her experiences, goals and hopes are inspiring in themselves.  When told through such inspiring anecdotes, their meaning is amplified and resonates especially with the audience.  For more information about Karen and her cause visit http://www.ibj.org/

Over spring break I had the privilege of traveling with the men’s basketball team to the Big East Tournament in New York City and to the second and third rounds of the NCAA Tournament in Cleveland, Ohio. Although we traveled by bus to both places, the trips we’re still very enjoyable. Two of my friends and I spent a lot of time shopping and eating in New York City. We also managed to find the best Chinese food place in the world called “The Main Noodle.”
In between the two tournament trips, I went to my friend’s house in Rochester because I didn’t have enough time to travel home to Virginia. We spent the week doing absolutely nothing except watch movies and eat at the best places in her town.
When the weekend rolled around, my friend and I had to travel back to Syracuse to catch the team bus to Cleveland. The bus ride was about six hours long. When we finally arrived we were very impressed with the hotel, but not so much with the city of Cleveland. The area we were staying in was pretty depressed–not a lot of restaurants were around the hotel, and the shopping was pretty slim.
Overall, my spring break was eventful, but relaxing at the same time. Everything was great except for the ending–losing in the third round of the NCAA Tournament. :(

My spring break was unfortunately too boring to bother writing about. I spent the majority of it watching the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which is now a sore point. So instead, I want to talk about something I noticed yesterday.

My friend had the luck to go to Mexico over spring break. We were catching up and I mentioned Rebecca Black’s now infamous video, Friday. He had zero idea what I was talking about. I had no idea how he could not know, unless he was literally living under a rock. I mean, the video currently has over 38 MILLION views. Then I realized how it happened. Before he left, the video only had a thousand or so hits. Then, in a couple of days, it skyrocketed and the internet went wild. Since last Friday, things have calmed down a little bit. As he got back Sunday, he had no knowledge the video ever went viral.

I find it fascinating that a phenomenon like this can happen where something becomes so immensely popular within a period of a few days, and dies down almost as quickly. In this world where social media news spreads fast, almost literally if you blink, you could miss it.

Also, I just wanted an excuse to post the video on the blog. Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0[/youtube]