Even though I have finished this week, I feel somewhat unaccomplished. Good news though...my story I wrote is being considered for the paper next week. Always a good thing I suppose.
Time is running out. School is coming to a close and I'm heavily looking forward to the break. I need to cleanse myself of journalism for a bit and re-vamp my goals.
It is good to remind yourself that it is ok to fail. We can't excel at everything. Trust me, it is a good experience as much as I hate it. It is dangerous when humans excel in every aspect they set their mind to.
When I was young, I thought failure was the worst possible thing to happen to me. Looking back now, I take it in stride, so I can do better next time.
Ruth is at work till 4 today. I'm at home watching Fresh Prince Season 2 and listening to music. I feel like going somewhere fun today. I have this obsessive desire to constantly be doing something. I need to learn to relax.
Currently listening to - The Normals, "Best I Can". Here's some lyrics from the song that I enjoy.
"I sometimes hide behind my words
Sometimes I’m round the corner from these songs
But words are only words
Like days are only days"
I'm also reminded of a great quote that every Christian should read.
"The best thing that could possibly happen in your life, literally the best thing, is that your biggest, deepest darkest sin, the one you try the hardest to hide, would be exposed on the 5 o'clock news. That way you have nothing to cling to but Jesus, because He's all you've got anyway. Don't try to convince yourself that your sin isn't real, take joy in the fact that your Saviour is real."
- Derek Webb (House Show)
I love it when people get in my face about my faith.
Merry Christmas everyone. Don't work too hard today.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
A couple weeks ago...
I arrived early to the event. It was the African International Social put on by African Loyalist student. I went to the cafeteria and sat down, patienly waiting for the night to begin. I started taking my notepad and pen out of my bag to begin writing about the night. I took out my camera to get some photographs of the people setting up. I realized I shoud probably help them set up as opposed to being the creepy guy watching them with a camera. Always create trust with the people in your story.
Students slowly started piling in. I was concentrated on meeting with one man, William Reech, a broadcast journalism student. He is a refugee from Kenya and he came to Canada five years ago. I met with him and introduced myself as a journalist and how I would like to ask him a few questions. We chatted for about seven minutes, talking about his experience in the Sudan (that's where he was originally from) and how the country is complety ravaged by the war. He spoke about the process it takes to come here and how difficult it is. They sit you down and attack you with hard questions about why you want to go and what you'll do here. After we stopped talking, I was glad that he came here because he is a very friendly man. He seemed genuine.
The night continued on. Another man played the congos and sang. Photographers stood around and shot their pictures and so did I. But it was more enjoyable to listen to him play his music. There were little children happily dancing away to the beat of the drums. I think I tapped my foot. I'm not a dancer.
They served us various types of beans and rice which I chose not to eat. I had already eaten beforehand. But the food looked delicious.
Shortly after, four girls began to dance to African music. They were quite talented and danced better than any person I know! Then disaster struck. The man who had been playing the congos earlier started to play again so I went to take some better pictures. I turned on my camera and it said, "ERR 99". I lost all my pictures and my CF card was fried. I left the event early and drove back home, extremely depressed and sad.
And now to make a long story short, the card was replaced for free with a better one, and thanks to photo recovery software, I was able to salvage most of my photos.
I am now in the process of writing my second major assignment for my "Reporting and Newswriting" class. I'll need a lot of coffee to get me through this next couple days. I probably won't blog until then.
Students slowly started piling in. I was concentrated on meeting with one man, William Reech, a broadcast journalism student. He is a refugee from Kenya and he came to Canada five years ago. I met with him and introduced myself as a journalist and how I would like to ask him a few questions. We chatted for about seven minutes, talking about his experience in the Sudan (that's where he was originally from) and how the country is complety ravaged by the war. He spoke about the process it takes to come here and how difficult it is. They sit you down and attack you with hard questions about why you want to go and what you'll do here. After we stopped talking, I was glad that he came here because he is a very friendly man. He seemed genuine.
The night continued on. Another man played the congos and sang. Photographers stood around and shot their pictures and so did I. But it was more enjoyable to listen to him play his music. There were little children happily dancing away to the beat of the drums. I think I tapped my foot. I'm not a dancer.
They served us various types of beans and rice which I chose not to eat. I had already eaten beforehand. But the food looked delicious.
Shortly after, four girls began to dance to African music. They were quite talented and danced better than any person I know! Then disaster struck. The man who had been playing the congos earlier started to play again so I went to take some better pictures. I turned on my camera and it said, "ERR 99". I lost all my pictures and my CF card was fried. I left the event early and drove back home, extremely depressed and sad.
And now to make a long story short, the card was replaced for free with a better one, and thanks to photo recovery software, I was able to salvage most of my photos.
I am now in the process of writing my second major assignment for my "Reporting and Newswriting" class. I'll need a lot of coffee to get me through this next couple days. I probably won't blog until then.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
friends come and go just like the snow
A good friend of ours, Luke Bruce, left for my home province of Nova Scotia on Monday. We spent the weekend together with our close friends Nicki Chapman and Jason Premseler.We went to Starbucks, Chumleighs, and the mall. We jammed, played Star Wars Lego and stayed up super late every night. But with the extravagant night life comes the early morning sickness. My wife got the flu and I suffered from over-tiredness.
On another note, it snowed a lot last night in Belleville. And a word of advice: Always carry a snowbrush. It makes your time so much easier. By the way, this is a picture I took. I thought that snow on top of berries would make for a neat photograph.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
isn't it unoriginal to post lyrics to the song you love?
Derek Webb - Faith My Eyes
As I survey the ground for ants
Looking for a place to sit and read
I'm reminded of the streets of my hometown
How they're much like this concrete that's warm beneath my feet
And how I'm all wrapped up in my mother's face
With a touch of my father just up around the eyes
And the sound of my brother's laugh
But more wrapped up in what binds our ever distant lives
But if I must go
Things I trust will be better off without me
But I don't want to know
Life is better off a mystery
So keep'em coming these lines on the road
And keep me responsible be it a light or heavy load
And keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise
And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes
Hometown weather is on TV
I imagine the lives of the people living there
And I'm curious if they imagine me
Cause they just wanna leave; I wish that I could stay
And to visit places from my past
But only for an hour or so
Which is long enough to smell the air
To tell the tale and find the door
But I get turned around
I mistake some happiness for blessing
But I'm blessed as the poor
Still I judge success by how I'm dressing
So I'll sing a song of my hometown
I'll breathe the air and walk the streets
Maybe find a place to sit and read
And the ants are welcome company
And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes.
As I survey the ground for ants
Looking for a place to sit and read
I'm reminded of the streets of my hometown
How they're much like this concrete that's warm beneath my feet
And how I'm all wrapped up in my mother's face
With a touch of my father just up around the eyes
And the sound of my brother's laugh
But more wrapped up in what binds our ever distant lives
But if I must go
Things I trust will be better off without me
But I don't want to know
Life is better off a mystery
So keep'em coming these lines on the road
And keep me responsible be it a light or heavy load
And keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise
And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes
Hometown weather is on TV
I imagine the lives of the people living there
And I'm curious if they imagine me
Cause they just wanna leave; I wish that I could stay
And to visit places from my past
But only for an hour or so
Which is long enough to smell the air
To tell the tale and find the door
But I get turned around
I mistake some happiness for blessing
But I'm blessed as the poor
Still I judge success by how I'm dressing
So I'll sing a song of my hometown
I'll breathe the air and walk the streets
Maybe find a place to sit and read
And the ants are welcome company
And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes.
Friday, December 01, 2006
YouTube on your cellphone?
Missed last night’s episode of Conan O’Brian? Care to watch the Michael Richards incident at a comedy club? Want to relive those old episodes of Boy Meets World? If your life is frantic and you don’t have time to watch those videos on your computer via YouTube, you can now watch them on your cellphone.
Verizon Wireless struck a deal with YouTube making their consumers eligible to watch YouTube videos on their phones or upload videos directly to the website. The service will be launched December and will cost $15 a month. YouTube will be a feature through the Verizon’s V Cast service. It will be easy to navigate through the site, just as if you were on a computer.
Uploading the video will be the same as uploading a picture and sending to friends and family. And to send it toward YouTube, you need to enter a small numeric code so your video can be posted. The videos will go through a monitoring process, filtering out any questionable videos such as pornography or copyrighted material.
Verizon sees this as a huge draw to attract people towards purchasing their phones. Their reason for this is that things happen all the time and almost everyone today carries a cellphone. Thus, they realized it would be a good idea to combine the technologies. The world is now literally at your fingertips. With the touch of a few buttons, you can watch any clip you desire on YouTube, provided they carry it.
This is a remarkable plan. It really shows where technology is heading and this partnership is only the first step. YouTube is already a great vehicle for uploading almost anything you want. Now that it is combined with a cellphone, there’s no telling what people will post on the site. We could see footage of protest rallies in different parts of the world or see what it looks like from the top of a mountain.
Video cameras are no longer the only tool making it possible to record events in action. A cellphone is easier to carry around due to its size and shape. Now the industry hasn’t arrived in creating superior video quality for cellphone videos but in time, we’ll see it happen.
I wonder how this will change the face of journalism. There are only so many journalists and we can’t be everywhere at once to cover speeches or events. Any person with a Verizon cellphone can tape what he or she sees happening. Some people might be in the right place at the right time and expose a big secret! And in this day and age, people can post videos right onto their blog, provided it’s not copyrighted material.
The news does not come from newspapers or radio anymore. It is entering the hands of the everyday people. It doesn’t mean we should believe everything we watch because videos can be manipulated and twisted like a picture. We need to verify the information with trusted sources. We need to apply critical thinking to everything.
Verizon Wireless struck a deal with YouTube making their consumers eligible to watch YouTube videos on their phones or upload videos directly to the website. The service will be launched December and will cost $15 a month. YouTube will be a feature through the Verizon’s V Cast service. It will be easy to navigate through the site, just as if you were on a computer.
Uploading the video will be the same as uploading a picture and sending to friends and family. And to send it toward YouTube, you need to enter a small numeric code so your video can be posted. The videos will go through a monitoring process, filtering out any questionable videos such as pornography or copyrighted material.
Verizon sees this as a huge draw to attract people towards purchasing their phones. Their reason for this is that things happen all the time and almost everyone today carries a cellphone. Thus, they realized it would be a good idea to combine the technologies. The world is now literally at your fingertips. With the touch of a few buttons, you can watch any clip you desire on YouTube, provided they carry it.
This is a remarkable plan. It really shows where technology is heading and this partnership is only the first step. YouTube is already a great vehicle for uploading almost anything you want. Now that it is combined with a cellphone, there’s no telling what people will post on the site. We could see footage of protest rallies in different parts of the world or see what it looks like from the top of a mountain.
Video cameras are no longer the only tool making it possible to record events in action. A cellphone is easier to carry around due to its size and shape. Now the industry hasn’t arrived in creating superior video quality for cellphone videos but in time, we’ll see it happen.
I wonder how this will change the face of journalism. There are only so many journalists and we can’t be everywhere at once to cover speeches or events. Any person with a Verizon cellphone can tape what he or she sees happening. Some people might be in the right place at the right time and expose a big secret! And in this day and age, people can post videos right onto their blog, provided it’s not copyrighted material.
The news does not come from newspapers or radio anymore. It is entering the hands of the everyday people. It doesn’t mean we should believe everything we watch because videos can be manipulated and twisted like a picture. We need to verify the information with trusted sources. We need to apply critical thinking to everything.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
