30 Minutes A Daymy sporadic blog takes a jounalistic turn

Estoy pensando de cerrar mi cuenta Facebook. Pero a la misma ves, me quedo con la duda: si cierro mi cuenta, que otra alternativa factible  habría para cultivar las amistades que he formado o formo a través de mis aventuras?

Chi lo sa quanto ho migliorato con l’italiano, ma riguardo il seguito prova del ciò.

Scrivendo un amico, ho scritto senza auito:

ciao amico! e pi`u di un anno che ci sentiamo. Allora, come vanno le cose?  Ma tu sei un attore? Bravo! Io avevo provato di esserlo, ma non ho tenuto e sempre per essere un attore anzi qualche persona fomosa, uno deve tenere allo sforzo! Oltre, ero troppo ingenue e non sapevo se mi facceva bene studiare drama. Adesso continue e sto per finire miei studi di giornalismo ma voglio sempre lavorare nella industria dei film. Forse facciare animatore (conosco di piu di quel maestiere) oppure facciare da sceneggiatore o meglio di piu un regista. Non so se queste siano irrialistici sogni ma sempre devo tenere, giusto.

E poi, rivedendo le cose ho fatto questa redatta usando Google Translate. Lo so, vergogna!  Ma volevo soltanto sapere se mi ero sbagliato o no.

Ciao amico! E stato più di un anno che ci abbiamo sentito. Come vanno le cose? Ma tu sei un attore? Bravo! Anch’io ho cercato di essere uno, ma non avevo la tenacia di diventare uno! Inoltre, ero troppo ingenuo quando studiavo da attore ed non avevo visto l’utilità di una laurea in dramma. Ora che sto per finire i miei studi in giornalismo, non so dopo cosa farò. Ho sempre desiderato lavorare nell’industria cinematografica. Forse come animatore (lo so che un sacco di quel mestiere) o come sceneggiatore, ma preferibilmente come regista. Magari questi sono sogni irrealistici, ma devo almeno provare, giusto? Ebbé spero che ci sentiamo dopo.

Poi, mi sono reso conto che non avevo sbagliato troppo, ma la mia prima versione meritava un’altra redatta per semplificare ci`o che volevo dire:

Ciao Amico! E’ stato più di un anno che ci abbiamo sentito. Come vanno le cose? Ma tu sei un attore? Bravo! Anch’io ho cercato di essere uno, ma non ho avuto la tenacia di diventare uno! Inoltre, ero troppo ingenuo quando stavo studiando per diventare un attore e non avevo visto l’utilità di una laurea in dramma. Ora sto per finire i miei studi in giornalismo, e non so cosa farò dopo. Ho sempre desiderato lavorare nell’industria cinematografica, sia come animatore (lo so che un sacco di quel mestiere) o come uno scrittore, ma ancora di più come regista. Forse questi sogni non sono realistiche, ma devo almeno provare, giusto? Spero di parlare con te presto.

Insomma, non bisognava di molte correzioni, quindi vado molto bene imparando l’italiano.

notare: se qualcuno di voi lettori per caso siano italiano, avvisatemi degli errori nella mia posta e di conseguenza aggiungerei presto le correzioni

Libel is one of the most common types of lawsuits affecting mass media. It occurs whenever a person makes any statement (proven to be false) that harms or defames the reputation, credibility or image of another being, corporation or business entity and the inflicted party issues for an injunction. To avoid being suit for libel, at the hint facing libel charges, newspapers immediately run a next-day apology letter to the public. Even then however, sometimes the damage is irreversible as in the case of UW student Amanda Knox who served four years in an Italian prison after being charged for the murder of her roommate. The media painted her as a guilty, evil and even malicious teenage-witch and although she has been acquitted for the charges, her image is completely compromised. On one half of the spectrum, people agree with the judges’ decision that she is innocent, while the other is adamant about her guilt. Since there’s no finite way of knowing what really happened the night Meredith Kercher was murdered, it leaves a lingering doubt, making it difficult for people to see Knox blemish free.

Don Pember’s Mass Media Law, reaffirmed what I knew about Libel and taught me the difficulty and muddiness that exist in cases dealing with the subject. Laws are not concretely defined when it comes to libel and much of the time, judges, lawyers and juries do have answers about what to do with a case. Typically, they’re expensive too. But as Pember states, if a newspaper is charged with libel, it’s better to settle on damages, since generally it’s the defendant who loses the case because (if a jury is involved) it gives a frustrated audience an outlet to express their quips against the media and “get back at them”, so to speak.

It’s very difficult to maintain a routine or schedule. Recently I set out to design something – it didn’t mater what it was – for a year, month, even week in order to keep me motivated. I thought it would also keep me working and to get my creative juices flowing.

I only lasted the week.

I then re-evaluated why I wasn’t designing anymore. It turns out what I wanted to do was too broad in scope. The possibilities were endless; I didn’t have any guidelines or restrictions.

Believe it or not, setting limitations are incredible to push your creativity. Without limitations, it’s a lot harder to start from nothing than if you were to have a clear set of rules to guide your goal.

In order to keep the momentum of designing something new every week, I decided to design or illustrate the successes I could count about my life thus far.  As it turns out it’s easier, when your hyper critical like I am, to count all the failures before the successes so I broadened the idea such that it would include the wants and the goals of my life. I reasoned this would be a way to interpret the concept and at the same time a revelation for what it was that I deemed successful about my life.

Those guidelines didn’t work either because I limited myself.  Sometimes the successes were really difficult to translate into designs other than converting them into literal translations.

The other routine I tried to establish and follow-through on was writing 2 short pages in Spanish every week.  I wanted to write the stories of my childhood in Spanish in order to develop and explore writing in my native tongue.

Along the same lines, I also bought a book called the 3.00 A.M. Epiphany that lists 100′s of writing examples to get the reader writing. In effect, I’ve followed one exercise thus far.

About the only routine I’ve maintained recently has been to read every morning before I do anything else. And in the last three days I’ve also been consistently going to the IMA and doing an hour of cardio without any pauses in between.

At any rate, I have to keep working on building more routines because it is through the act of doing something consistently, everyday, that we develop discipline, which consequently increases the successes rate of following through in anything we do.

After a long discussion, my friend Simon’s advise came in the form of a quote:

“Don’t try to be original, try to be good”. – Paul Rand paraphrasing Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s quote:

“I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be good.”

Recuerdo muy bien de mi primera lección de química, era un día como cualquier otro con la única diferencia de que me encontraba bajo un calor sofocante que no era muy común en mi país, de tal forma que mis ojos se empezaron a recor del tablero, al techo y las dos puertas alrededor mío. De repente mis ojos se enfocaron en algo familiar, algo que no llamaba mi atención, algo que me provocaba palpar que mis manitas se empezaron a deslizar sobre el objeto. Al poco rato al poder alcanzarlo comencé a tratar de aflojarlo pero este no cedía, de manera que seguí intentando destornillando pero sin alcanzar éxito algun, y así hasta que a la tercera vez de mi intento fallido decidí empujarlo en vez de sacar un botón negro que me hacía mucho recuerdo a un abrelatas, es así que empuje lo que según mi parecer era un simple botón haciendo que el aparato se levantara de su sitio.

En el instante en que pude darlo la vuelta en dirección a mí, me acorde de algo que mi papa nos había advertido sobre esos círculos rojos que se presentaban frente mío, según lo que nos dijo es que nunca lo tocáramos porque una vez que se pone color rojo podía quemarnos, pero si se mantenía en un color tenue no ocasionaba dicho efecto.

En ese momento mis padres se encontraban ausentes dentro del taller y mis hermanos estaban durmiendo en el asiento trasero, mientras que yo estaba sentado en el derecho del copiloto de manera que tenía la oportunidad de ver esos redondos que tanto llamaban mi atención.
Como me entretuve pensado en cuan atraído me sentía por estos objeto, no me percate que estos ya se habían tornado de color negro, de este modo una vez más introduje el aparato en el enchufe y nuevamente lo saque se su depósito, inmediatamente que gire el botón del aparato volví a observar que los redondos se convertían nuevamente en un color rojo ardiente. Era un rojo llamativo y envolvente, que se peleaba con el color naranja que al final se dejaba vencer con el color tenue, y al regresar nuevamente a su color neutral nuevamente volví a meterlo en su depósito y volví a sacarlo.

A la tercera vez, como no me sentía satisfecho solo con ver me decidí a tocar los redondos jamás esperando que me quemaran tan fuerte, así cuando dispuse tocarlos sentí un ardor en mis dedos que inmediatamente solté el encendedor, produciendo un ruido al golpearse provoco que mi hermano mayor de despierte y me regañara y me ordeno dejar de hacer lo que estaba haciendo, pero teniendo un poco de miedo por las tantas palizas que ha había recibido por parte suya me aventure a meter una vez más el aparato en su depósito, pero está vez cuando intente empujarlo dentro ya no entraba bien y parecía que había algo que impedía que se quedara puesto dentro del enchufe, así que esta vez con más fuerza que las anteriores intente que el aparato entrara dentro pero tampoco pude conseguirlo.

Así que creyendo que había roto el aparato tome la decisión de dejarlo tal como estaba y empecé a jugar con un tapiz de tela que alguien le había obsequiado a mi papa. Mis hermanos seguían dormidos hasta que empecé a gritar cuando se empezó a formar una nube de humo dentro del carro. El humo salida de los ventiladores de aire y rápidamente no se escuchaba nada más que las toses de mis hermanos, y el humo impedía que se viera mucho y nos provocaba un ardor en nuestros ojos.

En mi desesperación intente saltar de mi asiento al de atrás donde se encontraban mis hermanos pero uno de ellos Stephen me empujó hacia delante y por detrás de él estaba Jonathan cargando y cubriendo el rostro de mi hermanito menor Chay, así fue cuando Stephen dio una patada para poder romper el vidrio de la ventana del lado del conductor y empezó a sacarnos uno por uno.

Una vez que los cuatro por fin habíamos conseguido salir, nos percatamos de las llamas que derritieron todo lo que se encontraba dentro de la camioneta, de repente vimos a nuestros padres que salían corriendo desesperadamente hacia nosotros viendo que sus cuatro hijos habían salido con pequeñas cortaduras.

Pues bien, fue ese el día que descubrí que un aparato no tiene que estar conectado ni en llamas para quemar y por otro más que mis papas no se volvieron arriesgar en dejarnos solos sin supervisión dentro del coche.

NOTE: The the final revision copy was not saved to my computer so I cannot update this version with the highly improved final version, not until I get back my paper. Let’s hope all goes next week!

I explored the relationships of gender, age or group-size on environmentally conscious attitudes at the flagship REI store, which is considered to be the Northwest’s leading retailer for outdoor equipment. Although I collected data for all concepts, my report primarily focuses on whether or not gender had an effect on REI customers’ to make the eco-conscious decision to leave the store without a bag.

In order to control my findings, I established a few guidelines at the outset of my observation. First, in order for the shopper to be considered a valid subject he or she had to be purchasing a minimum of 1 or maximum of 6 items. Based on previous observations, 6 items seemed a reasonable number of items not requiring the use of a bag. Conversely, anyone whose purchases exceeded 6 items would not be considered in the study. Second, the cashier had to objectively offer each customer the option of a bag. Since I would be acting as the cashier, I also needed to develop a method of shorthand to quickly jot down my notes in a discreet manner. Finally none of the subjects involved would be made aware of the study. I would neither present myself as a researcher nor would I bring any attention to my work.

Through my study, beyond the curiosity to learn if it is possible to profile customers based on gender, age or group size, I wanted to discover if my results, about a specific gender choosing to leave the store without a bag, would hint to the greater notion of gender having an effect on whether males or females considered the environment more in their decision-making.

Our society has been accustomed to accept a bag with each made purchase. Although there’s the possibility that some may re-use the bag for other purposes, the reality is most bags are misused or end up accumulating for no purpose. This wasteful and unnecessary problem of extraneous bags create a problem in our landfills and my study sought to explore the cause behind the problem and understand if there’s a way to prevent it from happening.

To undertake the observation, I penciled in as much information I could deduce from each subject carrying the aforementioned qualifying items. Although I developed a shorthand system where a number signified age, m or f was used to illustrate gender type and the proximity of my notes would hint to the group size, my notes were rushed in order to not bring any attention to what I was doing and to acknowledge the subject as casually as possible so my behavior would not influence the study.

However the problem lied in my note taking as the cashier. The more problem obvious problem I can think of is that my note taking influenced the reliability of my study. While I tried to write as many notes of the customers that came by, there’s the possibility that I may have confused faces, or written incomplete or inaccurate information. In fact this is the consideration for why I chose to report on my findings of gender affecting environmental conscious decisions over age or group size for I felt my notes on gender were more accurate than the other two.

Another problem in my study was not anticipating that REI as a setting to undertake this observation would influence my research. As I mentioned, REI is a leader of camping and outdoor sport equipment. That said, a large percentage of the clients at REI are very eco-conscious, which may be the reason why after an 8-hour observation period, my results were inconclusive: Both numbers of men and women who chose to either leave without or with a bag were relatively the same.

The strengths however in conducting my field observation at the Seattle REI was that since it is considered to be the second most touristic spots in the city, I knew I would get a good sampling of people to observe to legitimize my observations. I also di not have to worry about a lack of subjects shopping at REI.

This also brings me to the problem of the day I chose to conduct my study. I conducted my study the Friday before the Seattle to Portland 2-day bike ride. While this meant that the store would be packed with many shoppers completing their last purchases before the big race, it also meant that more ‘hardcore’ REI fans would be shopping at this time. Therefore the sampling of my subjects was not valid population to deduce any valid generalizations of my research. Also the STP event could signal to the cause of internal validity where some other reason besides an environmentally driven decision influenced a person’s decision to leave REI without a bag.

If I were to conduct this study again, I would choose a different store and test for different variables or redesign my study to accurately represent genders better since my observations yielded unsubstantiated results. My observation found that more women shopped alone at REI then, which means that I couldn’t really juxtapose men and women in my study since men usually came in groups than women. That finding would be interesting to undertake again and see if it yields similar results. Several other things I would do differently is solely observe the interactions. I am not confident with my results because I played both the cashier and the note taker in the study. I would also prolong the study to more than one day since I have no doubt that STP influenced the study and it would be less bias to compare the results I would have given that I tested my hypothesis on a normal day.

Appendix:
Observation Notes
Bag No bag
Couple 1 7
Father & Son 1 3
Two Women 2
Groups of 3 or more 1
Male (alone) 12 15
Woman (alone) 2 4
17 31

In 1930’s president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposed the New Deal as a way to restore the America’s belief in Capitalism and get people back to work. While the plan helped bring the U.S. out of the Depression, the underlying message of the future belonging to working-people, promoted fascist ideologies and inspired the Popular Front movement in the U.S.
The New Deal established work programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Project Administration (WPA) to help young men find work in unskilled labor, it also however employed artists who used their post as a way to insert populist views in WPA commissioned murals. Harry Sternberg’s mural in the Post Office at Irving Park Rd. & Southport Avenue shows the reversal of mythologies seen in populist views: the working-class is depicted as the central figures in the mural rather than the bankers and government institutions.
Even though people associated the fascism to dictators like Franco, Hitler and Mussolini at the time, WPA artists as well as many other Americans with populist views became ‘fellow travelers’ or even advocates of the political movement due to its emphasis in civil rights. In Waiting For Lefty, Denning describes the phenomenon of culture or shared beliefs and ideas traveling through a cultural apparatus or institution. In this case, FDR’s New Deal allowed populist ideas widely disseminate through literature, music and film.
Writers such as John Steinbeck, Richard Wright and Dashiell Hammet championed Popular Front ideologies by making the laborer the hero and the banker or institution the antagonists of their stories. Folk songwriters such as Woody Guthrie promoted leftist views with songs such as “This Land is Your Land” – as song who’s message aimed at the American working class and derided by many as un-American. But no other cultural apparatus from the New Deal help spread populist ideas to the masses more than Hollywood films.
Hollywood films ability to represent the anxieties of a society in a given time helped reimage America. The bourgeois were no longer the subjects the audience rooted for, but rather the working class. Orson Well’s Citizen Kane depicted tycoons as megalomaniacs or oppressors just as Sam Wood did in The Devil in Miss Jones. Besides uplifting the working class, film inspired entirely new genres that defied capitalistic ideals.
Film Noir which emerged this time period showed the seedier and deviant aspects of human behavior including, moral corruption, eroticism and murder. Unlike Frank Capra’s wholesome films that epitomized people’s faith in institutions, Noir found ways to corrupt even the safest institutions. As one book critic described Hammet’s Black Mask – the first example of Noir literature – Dashiell Hammet took murder out the parlor and put it back on the streets where it belongs.
In Noir, dark and dimly lit images created not only visual stark contrasts but also contextual. Protagonists roamed with prostitutes or drug users, traditional law institutions were corrupt, and the hard-working, hard-boiled detective who had his own ‘code’ of right and wrong (albeit unlawful at times) was seen as the only reliable and sane character. Even gender roles were challenged; the women in the films were not only open about their sexuality, but flaunted it as well. And finally the home – with the help of the use of light and shadow was depicted as barring or entrapping space.
Movies in this era help convince people going to war was necessary.

“Lisa, i vampiri non esistono, proprio come gli gnomi, i gremlin e gli eschimesi!” Da Homer, puntata La Paura fa Novanta IV

Published 6/14/2011 9:32:00 PM in the north seattle herald-outlook, print and online.

http://www.northseattleherald-outlook.com/main.asp?SectionID=5&SubSectionID=259&ArticleID=28994

By MARIO DE LA ROSA
UW News Lab

From the inside with its cubby drawers and child-sized worktables, Ellen Kyono’s classroom seems like any other one at Laurelhurst Elementary School.

The outside tells a different story.

Three years ago, when Laurelhurst faced overenrollment, Kyono volunteered to move her second-grade group to a portable classroom off to the side of the main building.

Having taught for 33 years, including at the former Jefferson and Sand Point schools as well as Laurelhurst, Kyono welcomed the change. An inexperienced teacher might have viewed such a move as almost a career death sentence since it could have meant segregating the children from the rest of the school.

However, Kyono’s students never questioned their role in the community, because she spent all summer fixing the portable so that it would resemble a typical classroom. “She turned a used portable into a vibrant learning environment,” remembers Kathy Jolly, the principal at Laurelhurst.

Kyono lined one wall with an illustrative alphabet, which helped revamp the décor of the classroom. However, displaying her students’ artwork and projects in the school building’s hallways had a greater impact. They reminded everyone how equally important her second graders were to Laurelhurst.

In the 25 years Kyono has taught about a third of the students at Laurelhurst and parents line up to make sure their children are included. But lately parents and colleagues alike feel bittersweet because Kyono is retiring.

“Nobody deserves to retire more than she does,” said Lynn Hubbard, one of the administrative assistants at Laurelhurst.

At the same time, her extraordinary work ethic attests to why so many can’t let her go. The most recent example happened while she taught about the Wampanoag tribe for a Native American teaching unit. As part of the lesson, all second graders had to prepare a poem about the unit and present a school play.

“She worked with each child and helped develop [his or her] strengths,” said Grace Youn, mother of one of Kyono’s students. “She cares deeply about her students and it shows by the work she’s made in the classwork.”

Even with her rich teaching history, Kyono invited change and attended professional development seminars and even hosted some herself. But Kyono is too modest to go on talking about herself.

On the other hand, others can’t stop raving about her: Her colleagues describe her as polite, calm, thoughtful and an excellent communicator. Susan Sandt, an assistant administrator, will miss Kyono’s creativity. “She sews bandanas for field day at the end of the year and it makes it easy to recognize [her] students because she does that.”

The administration also appreciates the long hours Kyono put in to make sure everything was in readiness for the next day or for whenever she required a substitute. Sandt said parents were confident when children were in her care.

Kyono even gained a reputation for sewing baby clothes whenever a staff member was expecting a child.

Parents add that she’s very observant. “She’s going to be remembered for years and years because of the investment she has made in the lives of hundreds of students,” said Youn.

This past Monday, June 13th, Youn and several other parents organized a retirement party in Kyono’s honor. Among the things she received was a memory book, which included pages of her former students with before and after photos, as well as a line or two about the impact Kyono made in each of their lives.

Due to the many returning students at Laurelhurst, she won’t have to worry about remembering who the students are in the photos.

There’s no milestone in Kyono’s decision to retire. Primarily she wants more time to herself to pursue other interests including digging into her stash of fabric to sew craft projects from the many books she’s collected over the years. She also hopes to spend her free time gardening, reading, smelting and clamming. And she may even to try relearning how to play the piano.

Kyono always wanted to be a teacher; even when she was little, she played dolls on the condition that they would be going to school and she would be the teacher. She said she will miss the kids.

“Being around children helps keep you young at heart,” said Kyono. “They bring joy to each day with their smiles, infectious laughs, curiosity, enthusiasm and creativity.”

She will also miss her colleagues and feels fortunate to have been surrounded by people she respected and admired.

As Kyono moves around her classroom and sees lips pursed in concentration designing octopus-themed cards, she makes a final comment: “This year’s class is really mellow – they go with the flow, so it’s a nice way to end.”

The differences between her classroom and those at Laurelhurst are few because the summer prior to moving into portable, she worked hard at remodeling the space so that students wouldn’t feel any different from being in the portable or in the main building.