Not Your Average First Kiss

"I was on vacation during the summer, and we were at a hotel, and there was a guy that I thought was pretty attractive... So, I later found out that he was from Minnesota like me, and we became 'friends'. We would hang out at the pool and the hot tub. One of the nights that we hung out, we went back inside the hotel and were hanging out in the halls and in the hotel room, it was like two in the morning and we decided we should go to bed," descibed a slow to tell, very anxious about her experience, anonymous student.

This was just where the story got interesting and sort of funny though.

"His room was actually across the hall [from her room], so I went over into his hotel room, and I was super awkward because I kind of knew what was happening and I was like 'Oohh, where is everyone it's also like two in the morning' and then I turned around and he grabbed my face and that's it, end of story. Then I was like 'I probably should go to bed now' then I left and the next morning we were leaving and it was kind of awkward because I didn't really know what happened [...] I came back across the hall, and my roomates slammed the door and they were jumping up and down screaming and we were all just having a little party  I got up with my friend the next morning to go get breakfast and he was coming in from a run so it was just awkward timing. He messaged me because we didn't have eachothers numbers yet, he apologized because he didn't know if that was what I wanted. I was like 'oh no, you don't have to apologize about it'," she said.

Despite the greatest probability that your first kiss won't end up outside of a movie theater, an old car, or a truth or dare game, her first kiss was completely random and very unlikely. I mean, your first kiss happening on vacation, and you still remaining in contact with the person almost a year later, that must be special. Even if her first kiss did not mean "true love" or it did not promise an intimate relationship, her first kiss has a story, her vacation that she took will always remain in her mind because of her first experiences with a boy.

Design

Design is a beautiful thing, it is so simple yet it can change so many things. It can make something feel a certain way, design has the power to make something appear to be very beautiful on the outside but end up being very dark and disturbing on the inside or it can work in the opposite way. The power that design has, lies in appearance and exhibition that can be produced to impact a certain desire or feeling of a consumer, fellow colleague, or any other inhabitant.

The very first thing you might think of when you hear design, might be a magazine, poster, or a rooms decor, but design isn't as simple as that. It could be a way that somebody organizes their actions or even the way that they present themselves. Adam Swaan, a writer for Forbes, suggests that " there’s a new, mass expectation of good design: that products and services will be better thought through, simplified, made more intuitive, elegant and more enjoyable to use." He is suggesting that we are turning to something that is designed in all aspects to provide answers for a question that we have, or to create a place that a consumer can look to that is a trustworthy place.

In order to have a feeling of trust, we look for patterns of organization. Forms of organization are brutally important to design because without organization, there would no longer be any resemblance or anything that unites a reoccurring concept together. Richard Branson, the founder of  the Virgin Group believes that this organization and development in design is key in promoting a business. He claims that "A well-designed space immediately says that you care about the details and that you want to contribute something fun and meaningful to your customers' lives -- it will help them to relax and talk about what they're looking for. " He suggests that something as simple as the way that a room is organized can completely change the overall feeling of a company, and the feelings of consumers.

We find design everywhere that we look, when we pick up our cell phones, log on to the internet, enter a classroom, or even make the decision to obey our justice system. Design isn't always based around a consumer, it is based on importance. If something is necessary, such as the laws that are DESIGNED to enforce respect among other people, it will be created in a fashion that promotes the overall goal. It might cause controversy, but the overall design is created for the benefit of the public. In 2012, the United Nations issued a statement saying that "human rights, the rule of law and democracy are interlinked and mutually reinforcing and that they belong to the universal and indivisible core values and principles of the United Nations". They are establishing a new standard of the promotion of democracy and the core values of government, the United Nations designed a new format to represent the people of the world.

Design can be as simple as a magazine though, over the course of the month, the Journalism 2 class that I am a part of have, has been looking at design throughout journalism and we have created our own designs. As an Editor for the Hoofprint, our school newspaper, I have continually learned ways to improve the designs that I have published.

      

The design above, was created in 50 Minutes in a challenge that we did as a class. I've tried the design previous times, but I think the format works for a story like this. 

The Generating Wins design was the first design that I have made that utilized 3D objects and such. There are a lot of things that I would like to change on the design, such as implementing the blue and green colors, and increasing font size for interesting details.

Everything has design because everything that is created has a purpose. Humans appreciate design and have learned to admire and despise the way that certain things are designed. The design of something has the capability to 'make or break' anything that it is involved in. Portraying the desired outlook of a concept has become so important because of the impact that design has on consumers. 

Choice

People have a desire to be in control of their lives. I think that as a species, we have this desire for control. We may desire to control people, personal actions, or simply a factor in our lives that impacts us. I think that when we cannot control an aspect of our lives, it feels like we have lost control. When we lose control, we look to blame some sort of a control: we look for people or things to blame. By saying that it was the fault of someone else, we can no longer say that it was in the control of ourselves.

 "The choices we think we are making, expressions of our freedom, are being made subconsciously, without our explicit control." 

The quote above was published by Marcelo Gleiser in a blog post published by NPR about the concept of The Fate of Free Will. He made this conclusion after observing the results of many scientific studies done regarding the decision making processes of the brain. The idea that the decisions that I make being out of my control makes me very scared of what could happen to our society if people buy into this scientific concept. If people begin to buy into this concept, they may begin to recognize that declared freedoms are being diminished by their own brain, I believe that people will think that the consequences of their decisions are inadequate. 

Philosophers all over believe that the choices that we make are the things that we latch to and take responsibility for. They also believe that anything that is done to stop us from a goal or from success (no matter how small or large), is generally presumed as something that is out of our control and something that is not our responsibility. Timothy O'Connor describes this in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he said that "The presence or absence of these conditions(external factors) and constraints are not (usually) our responsibility, it is plausible that the central loci of our responsibility are our choices."

If we lose the ability to make choices, we also lose the sense of control in our lives. In a study done by the University of Texas, Austin, researchers came to the realization that there is a predictable pattern of brain activity when we are faced with the opportunity to take a risk. Sarah Helfinstein, a postdoctoral researcher on this case sums their research up by suggesting that “We all have these desires [to take risks], but whether we act on them is a function of control.”

Whether the choices that we make are really being overturned by our brain activity or not, we must recognize the desires that we have and the choices that we make because of these desires. With new research being introduced about the brain, it is up to the general public to decide how we will react to this new information.

The Future of Journalism

As Journalism as we know it begins to change, in order to stay ahead of the continually changing consumer economy, we must be innovative in order to create a successful company/news channel. To create a news company or system, we must look at current trends that represent what our consumers want. Then, we must create an idea or prototype that will display our thoughts about how the company will distribute its information.

Paper publishing has slowly but surely faded away in the rank of occurring journalism. The internet has taken over publishing. Online journalism has allowed access to information at any given time and it has allowed us to "choose" the stories that we pay for and the stories that we read. At almost any given data search base, you are required to pay for an article once you past the abstract. Some will allow you to pay for a single article, while others will require you to subscribe to the company. This is becoming more prominent in journalistic companies as well.

Journalism is turning to the internet and the internet is being placed into cars. Google is creating a self-driving car which could allow for a completely new mode of transportation and the amount of things that could be accomplished while "driving" in your car. During Journalism class, a group of students and I were put to the challenge of creating a new system to display journalistic news to consumers. We immediately thought of the the self-driving car. We began to experiment with ideas on how we could display news in the cars and how it is displayed currently. Together, we made small changes to the traditional entertainment system in a car and that led to a very new operating system.

At first, we recognized that we could display information on the windshield of the car because it would not be necessary to see the road ahead. This information helped us to create a panel of options that would appear on the windshield that would be large, at eye level, and extremely accessible. The "screen" would be operated much like a television. It is controlled by the center counsel which is a touch screen. By pressing the silver arrows, you are able to "thumbs up (show me more) or thumbs down (show me less)". By pressing the side arrows, the news that is being displayed will switch.

We then looked at how important social media is becoming to America. We decided that in order to satisfy the wants of consumers we would need to create an "applications" program. In this program, you are able to use the arrows to navigate through the sites. By using the side arrows, you are able to access multiple sites and by using the up/down arrows, you are able to scroll through the news feeds. This program would also allow you to play games on your counsel which would then appear on your windshield.

Could this be the future of journalism? I'm not really sure, but I do know that journalism is changing and that in order for it to survive, journalists must create new ways for it to live. Whether this is the way that journalism can survive, it still does not change the fact that journalism is constantly changing and adapting to consumer wants and needs.

Journalism is passion.

Journalism is not simply reporting. It is what you begin your day hearing or looking at, and it is what you see as you close the page of a newspaper or turn off the news channel for the night. I believe journalism is more than news though, because I believe that news can be so microscopic and meaningless, but still be passionate. As consumers of a first world country, passion drives our economy.

Without passion, there is no meaning to anything. There would be no purpose to picking up a magazine if the publisher decided to invest 2 minutes of a 1400 minute day to writing an article about something. It would most likely be a story that would be comparable to one that was written by a kindergartner. Maybe there could be one argument in it, but it would probably be a mess of a story. When we do things so mechanically (without any investment) and without thought, there is not any emotion.

Emotion is extremely meaningful in publications, we see it in the news almost everyday. It is evident that emotion is used in publications because it is used in commercials, public apologies, and through storytelling. As journalists, we write in a way that will have an impact on another person or a group of people. We share details that will make our audience feel. Whether they feel awful after learning about it or they feel compelled, this feeling is so important to maintaining a supporter.

The commercial above was published by the ASPCA, its use of music and pictures are used to draw attention to the company and to make you feel bad about what is happening in the world while you are sitting on your couch snuggling your dog and not doing anything to help other animals. It uses pictures of beaten animals that you stop to think "what if that were my pet?"

UNICEF does a very similar thing to what the ASPCA does in this informative video. It uses general knowledge to show you how high our quality of life is compared to the other 14% of the world who does not know when their next meal will be. It displays pictures that are so focused on how terribly these people live. Almost every picture shown in the video is of a child crying, yet it uses such simple phrases to tell the general public what is happening across the world.

People need find a passion for something and to run with it. The creators of these videos that bring tears to our eyes, have a passion for what they do. Because they are so passionate about their ideals, they are so convincing. They are well educated on what they want the public to know have found a way to bring their opinions to the public eye in a very dramatic way. I believe that this dramatic appearance is what is what journalism is. Whether we show this through storytelling, an article, a picture, or a video, journalism uses emotion to be informative.

Truth #2

"If the answer matters, you have your answer"

-Tim O'Brien

Truth, for a five letter word, is extremely complex. It is definitely not a simply defined word, but instead, it is extremely unique. I wrote a blog about truth two years ago and as I reflect on it now, I have come to realize how differently I feel about the word. I define it completely differently as I used to. For example, I have come to think of it as a simple reality.

As I have matured, I have learned more about the world and established different morals that define me as a person. I have discovered that there are such a great number of beliefs and that it has personally become harder to categorize or classify people based upon their beliefs. People have different morals that make up their own reality. Everyone holds a separate book full of knowledge of their own memories. Whether it be things that they have heard, things that they have seen, or the way that they have lived everyone is completely different. Just because we share a similar genetic code, does not mean that we are the same. Tim O'Brien shares this in How to Tell a True War Story by stating that "If the answer matters, you have your answer." I think that this is his way of telling us that every person has a different perspective, and that each person's unique perspective is true to them.

We can look at different perspectives just by looking at our bipartisan government system. We vote people into office because we believe in them. We might have trust in their beliefs or we might believe that they will benefit us in some way or another. This being said, many people look for a mutual connection between our morals and a politicians morals. I think that the reason we have more than one political party is because we are not all the same, we have different things that are true to certain individuals. Democracy would be impossible if there were only one right answer to every political issue.

Truth is anything that touches home. I think there is more to the word than its traditional definition of something factual. I believe truth is about your own reality, and there can be more than one reality. The truth is not something that is cut and dry, we argue about different truths because we have different truths.

Affirmative Action

Throughout America's history, we have experienced problems through discrimination. Although as a government, we have overcome legal boundaries into ensuring equality in our country. Slowly but surely, we are securing equality for minorities, for female, and for those who have grown up in a lesser environment. As we have struggled to form equality, different laws and restrictions have acquired an argument of one of today's norms; the affirmative process.

Affirmative process has stirred controversy in America over the last few years. Colleges search for diversity during admissions processes. Many colleges use the affirmative process to accommodate and provide relief for the less fortunate, ethnically diverse, and even those with poorer hometown locations. Although this has provided America to help educate people from different experiences, it is now becoming controversial because we have began to accept more people as equals. An article done by the Huffington Post, suggests that overall, approximately 63% of Americans still believe in this process.

An author educated on this cause, Sheryll Cashin published the book Place, Not Race which discusses the problems in our current affirmative action process but then goes on to suggest that we should focus on the applicants background rather than their ethnicity. Personally, I agree with her very much. I believe that if we are offering special consideration to students, they should be students who have overcome challenges that many others have not needed to face.

Affirmative action is something that will remain controversial. As our country changes, viewpoints on it will change along with the opinions of the time.