Monthly Archives: December 2020

Talk about Meshes of the Afternoon(1943)

Maya Deren, a multimedia artist who was a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer, and photographer. She was regarded as an important experimental film maker who promote avant-garde in the 1940s to 1950s with her revolutionary concept about time and space and movement. Her representative experimental films includes her first film Meshes of the Afternoon(1943), The Witch’s Cradle(1944), At Land(1946), A Study in Choreography for Camera(1946), Ritual in Transfigured Time(1946) and so on.

Her films are created in an unconstrained environment, she destroyed the stereotype of time, space and movement in film and create her own definition for them. In Maya Deren’s films, she creates a totally new world with her own definition of time, space and movement.

Screenshot from Meshes of the Afternoon(1943)

   At the beginning of the film Meshes of the Afternoon(1943), at the moment the woman enters the house, she sees a person wearing all black running toward the end of the road till that person disappears. After the woman enters the house and falls asleep in the chair, the same scene repeated in which there is another woman who looks exactly the same as she enters into the same house as she did before. And this second woman also sees the black person as the first woman did. In the later scene, the third same woman does the exactly same thing as the last two did. In these scenes, time seems like has been duplicated by Maya Deren to create a sense of infinity or parallel time and space. Even until the end of the film, Maya Deren did not give an explanation of the overlapping and parallel and duplicated time and space, the time structure was left as “incomplete”.

Screenshot from At Land(1964)

In the film At Land(1964), at the beginning there is a scene of a sea wave pushing the woman to the beach then the time flashes back and the sea wave flows back to the sea. Breaking the traditional thinking of film timeline, the time is not always linear in Maya Deren’s film that time can go both forward and backward. Refer to Keller Sarah’s “Frustrated Climaxes: On Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon and Witch’s Cradle” she points out that “incompletion is one of the guiding stars of her aesthetic.” And she describes Maya’s time in the film as “a circuit that builds meaning through resonances rather than resolutions”. The incompletion and distorted time in Maya Deren’s film allow the audience to have different interpretations about her film and it also helps Maya Deren to create the reality which can be only shown on screen and in her films.

 

 

 

ESSAY 2: My Experiences As An Online Publisher

This has been an interesting semester, to say the least. That said, is it strange that I can describe one of my courses as pleasantly surreal? Because, really, Publishing 101 has been bizarre in the best kind of way. Where else can you spend a whole semester trying out online publication, almost entirely independently? In many ways it’s odd running a blog for school, and there are more than a few things I would do differently now, but it was a remarkable experience. 

Before this course, most of my content creation took place over some sort of host site or another. I post writing and music on, for example, my Instagram and similar sites. The thing about existing platforms is they often have rules in place. On Instagram, you post images and minute-long videos. Tiktok, meanwhile, is for minute-long videos or less, but not images. Twitter is for anything you can fit in about 200 characters.

Starting a blog meant I had none of these foundations to build on. One of the first things I said to my professor was that it felt like my blog was an open field, completely barren of outside influence, and that this was terrifying. She said that was a good thing. So, I swallowed my fear and got to work. Truthfully, I used my experience on social media as a bit of a crutch. A couple of weeks back, we had Andrew McLuhan, grandson of Marshall McLuhan, come give a guest lecture. He said there were two big questions for a creator’s process: who the intended audience was, and what effect the creator intended to give them.  

When I say I used my existing platforms as a crutch, I mean that I didn’t think about these questions as much as I should have. I told myself, “My audience will just be the kind of people I draw in already, and this blog will give them a look into what else I do.” 

This proved to be a mistake. Someone watching your sixty-second covers does not mean they’ll read through your blog every week. I retooled accordingly after some peer reviews pointed this out, and went from a clunky format of whatever I was obsessed with to a more solid skeleton for every entry: a tip for the creative process, a trial I had undertaken, and a recommendation of a show or series I was invested in as a cute little bonus. That way, it was more for artists in general than people who already knew me, and people had a reason to click without being invested in me as an individual. It broadened my audience and my effect.

Really, making your own platform is an insane amount of trial and error like this. Besides my message and audience, I even struggled with my blog design. Working through the nooks and crannies of my blog’s theme proved tedious. Menus were reordered, the home page underwent several incarnations, and I struggled with finding good images to separate walls of text. Besides that, it turned out the Dark Mode extension I have on my browser meant the colours I had chosen weren’t accurate to what people saw, so that was a whole struggle I had to unravel. 

The result today is a quiet blog that spent maybe half the semester overcoming its own confusion. I am okay with that. This was my first foray into blogging, after all. It isn’t the most common way to make online content these days, what with the power and convenience of social media. We actually read about that in our course, going over a Hossein Derakhshan article about it (Derakhshan, 2015). Derakhshan, who went to jail for what his blog said, spoke of a bygone era where “blogs were gold and bloggers were rockstars.” It was a decentralized world where everyone had their own platform, interlaced with each other via hyperlinks. I have foggy childhood memories of such a thing: old walkthrough blogs for video games I liked, archives of fan reactions to their favourite shows. And now, I had the opportunity to create as they had. And for school, no less.

Again, the freedom was initially daunting. And again, my professor said this was good. When I remember these earlier classes, I think of our reading about how the Internet disinhibits us (Suler, 2004). I know I definitely put on different conduct in class, and I wondered where on the spectrum my blog would fall. We read all about the minimizing of authority, and how everyone feels like an equal peer, and how that makes individuals less afraid of expressing themselves. Of course, it is harder to invoke in this scenario because of the existence of a clear authority: this is for class, and I am getting graded for it. 

That said, the sense of authority was minimized compared to other classes. I never forgot that I was doing schoolwork, but it did not feel like schoolwork. In class, we read about digital gardens (Basu, 2020). That phrase really sums up the experience, even if this site probably doesn’t qualify, being a more traditional blog than the artistic, introspective ways described. That said, my blog was something I cultivated, shaped, and grew to my desires. It was my own space, but others could come by and admire it if they wanted. 

Finally, I want to look at what I would do differently. As I said, my blog has already changed a lot. I struggled to find a topic and a way to express it. Part of this was because I struggle with OCD. Because of how my disorder works, I often feel a need to spread myself evenly about even the smallest things. If I wrote a blog about music, for example, some voice in my head would tell me I was giving up on being an author. And if my blog had been about writing and literature, my mind would have said I was giving up on music. But over this semester, I realized that my blog is not the end-all-be-all of who I am and what I do. 

My professor said our blog was like a house, but the way I see it, it is not a house we have to live in. Maybe this blog is mine, but it is more an open house than anything. I invite people in, show them around. I get to choose what they see, which is a good thing. 

I don’t know if I’ll keep blogging after this semester. If I do, though, I want to try a new topic. Maybe books and writing, maybe mental health, maybe album reviews. Who knows? 

Whatever the case, this course has gotten me to think about the online self in a whole new way, and a much healthier way at that. When I use other platforms, I will do so with a new perspective. Overall, this whole course was a one of a kind experience. Again, it’s really made me rethink how our online selves and platforms function, and our relations to the things we create. I would not have explored any of this on my own, so it was truly a wonderful opportunity. 

As with my previous essay, citations issues mean my citations page is on Google Docs. Access it here!

Process Prompt #9

Talking about analytics they are a very good tool to have at one’s disposal as they are one of the key elements in the success or failure of your website, to my understanding this can be viewed as another way of connecting and interacting with your audience and finding out how they interact with your content, finding out what draws them and keeps them on your website. it can help with knowing what the best content to put up maybe … I found out that posts with pictures draw attention, as well as my poems, have traffic

Week 12 Process Post: Website Guidelines

See the source image

with trying to come up with some guidelines for my website the best ones I though of would be to send me movies or anything like that to me so I could review and leave comments on my post of how I could do better in them or what to add. But most important be respectful on my website with no hate comments or bullying. I feel like these guidelines are pretty basic but is the best for what my website is and can rally hep my audience engage with me better and with other audience members. I would implement this by making my contact page more advanced with easier ways to just email me or easier ways to put comments on my post to be more like a reddit page basically.

Week 11 Process Post: Transmedia

See the source image

within this eek I’ve been trying to figure out what type of outside media i should be adding to my website. I’ve been trying to figure out what would fir best for my movie reviews and the one I’ve been thinking is to bring in Red Letter Media vid into my site more. they are a site on YouTube that do almost the same thing i do but make a video while doing the reviews and make it very funny and talk about every part of the movie they are reviewing. I think they would be a great part of my website as there content can fit mine really well and my audience would appreciate some of there videos on movies haven’t reviewed yet

Process Prompt #8

All bottled up inside 

Matters filling inside me 

Abruptly I shatter 

Into a million pieces 

Hit the ground with a loud clatter 

I can’t take it anymore

I can’t shake it anymore

I’m rattled 

sweat dripping down my face

A look of despair in my eyes

keeping secrets no one should have to hide

crushing under the pressure

i can’t take it anymore

Not The Original

Equality 

Telling me I’m different based on the color of my skin 

The texture of my hair 

The breast on my chest 

A lecture on perfection 

Constantly told I’m nothing but the lesser 

And I need to be taught the lesson 

To be prim and proper and to tie my hair 

Holding my dreams back 

To suppress myself

For the comfort of my 

oppressor

Constantly told I’m nothing but the lesser 

That I am gold but not the original 

Forced to fit a mold That im nothing special

The Black Female form

The black female form 

Wanting to be free

The black female form

Needing to find me 

The black female form 

They think they can see 

What’s really behind the concept of she 

The black female form 

Her body the speck of perfection 

The black female form 

Above the standard

Slave to her 

Essay #2

My Experience with Online Publishing

I created this blog three months ago, and it has been a great journey since I began. Before beginning this blog, I worked with blogging through Instagram, and found that I liked blogging my thoughts on what I read. My experience has been very positive on this platform, and I was able to build my blog from not having anything into being my own space to share what I think. When I began my blog, I had difficulty with learning how to add different features and drop-down menus. I had to watch tutorials and ask people how they learned to do certain things on WordPress, too. Creating my publication took a couple weeks, but I was able to build content that I really loved, and also that I thought others would be able to relate to. I did this by writing updates for my progress and writing reviews on books from different genres. I began this blog to share my love of books with others and have found that it is a wonderful outlet to have.

            I have learned a lot through creating my own blog, and I have also grown in how I review books. As the article, “Publics and Counterpublics” by Michael Warner, mentions, every publication has an aimed public (Warner 1). My imagined public for this blog is anyone who loves to read or is looking for book recommendations. My goal for this blog is to reach more bookworms, and provide them with quality content on books, which may result in them gaining a recommendation. I always appreciate having book review blogs and websites to visit, and one of my favourite bookish websites is Epic Reads. Personally, I always feel welcome and happy when I visit their website because of everything they feature and the fun colours they use. This became my goal when I began this blog, to make my audience feel welcome when they visit. I attempted to do this by using light colours, a simple background, and also inserting Autumn themed photos I took of books. In addressing my audience, I made the blog easy to navigate with a search bar, drop-down menus, and also a sidebar with recent posts linked. Many bookworms also have a Goodreads account or access Goodreads regularly for synopsis’, so this is one additional thing I added to my book reviews. By inserting hyperlinks for my audience to visit the book on Goodreads, it allows people to easily check it on Goodreads, if they would like, and then return to the review. I attempted to make my website easy for people to find things on, and access different sections.

            Google Analytics was a feature that I used in order to help me understand how many people were visiting my blog and how it grew throughout the past three months. Using Google Analytics, I discovered that my audience members were staying on my blog, on average, for about two minutes, but recently that increased to around 9 minutes. I also learned that a lot of my audience visited my blog in the afternoon or during mid-day. Using this information, I have a better insight for what times would be best to post, and how I have improved with creating my content. I have not been receiving comments, yet, but I am hoping to gain them in the future, as I continue to grow my blog. I have received inspiration, throughout these past months, from a few blogs, including Bag Full of Books (Arpita 2015). From these blogs, I was able to take away what I enjoyed from them and apply some of those aspects into my own blog. I have found that I have grown a lot since I began blogging, but I also know that there is more growth to achieve for my blog.

            My thinking has changed regarding my blog since I began it. When I first started writing on my blog, there were times when I wasn’t sure how to blog or what to write about. I had to brainstorm ideas and thought it might not be successful. As I continued working on my blog, I began to forget about the success it had, and instead focused on the content I enjoyed creating. As I began to enjoy creating content more, my content became better, and I was able to work towards my goal of creating a welcoming space. Looking forward, I would love to continue this blog. I really enjoy having this blog as a place to talk about books and create content that I love. I will be taking a break from it for a little while, during the holidays, but hopefully I will be continuing my blog in the new year. In doing so, I will most likely connect more social media aspects to it, and also feature more colourful photos. Overall, this has been a very useful learning experience, and I look forward to continuing my work with blogging.

Works Cited

“Young Adult (YA) Books & Books for Teens.” Epic Reads, Harper Collins, www.epicreads.com/.

Warner, Michael. “Publics and Counterpublics.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 88, no. 4, Nov. 2002.

Arpita. Bag Full Of Books, 15 Mar. 2020, bagfullofbooks.com/.

Semester Reflections

Habits for Contentment Is a website that started as a hope I had for the semester. During the pandemic, I had been feeling everything but content, and I wanted to use this blog as an opportunity to build healthy habits into my life. This essay will cover why I created this blog, and what I have learned over the course of the semester.

What is it about and who is it for?

Habits for Contentment is all about building healthy habits into your everyday life. This is demonstrated through blog posts about thankfulness, generosity, staying active or building a morning routine. While this blog can be for anyone that is looking for ways to find peace during the pandemic, it is mainly for students who are also struggling through the hardships of completing a semester online.

One blog I have taken inspiration from is Andi Anne. She writes about nutrition, health, and messy stories from motherhood. I love this website because of its neutral tonal pallet and clean organization. She creates a sense of order in an occasionally chaotic cyberspace. In my website, I hope to use a similar sense of design and layout to engage with my audience. Check out her blog here.

Who is your public image?

The public image I am hoping to create is one that values vulnerability and honesty. One resource I used when I was first building my public image was Creating your Online Persona by Jack Canfield (n.d.). Canfield talks about how first you must decide who you are, then you can begin building your website and advancing your brand with content (n.d.). This article helped me to focus on understanding who I am as a writer and then decide what to post and how to present myself.

I want to use my blog posts to explore new ways of finding contentment in my life, but I do not want to paint an unrealistic picture of myself having a perfectly content life. I will share the success I have in running and painting, but I will also share my frustrations when I sleep through my alarm or cheat on my morning routine. I want to create a public image that is relatable, accessible, and joyful.  

Something I want to try and counter in my writing is the Online Disinhibition Effect which describes how when there is anonymity, people are more likely to shed their usual restraints or integrity (Konnikova, 2013). This can promote engagement and risk taking, but in my website, I want to promote honesty and vulnerability, so I hope to create a different style of engagement with my audience.

This infographic I created talks more deeply about the values of Habits for Contentment. The core values I want to represent through this blog are people centered, vulnerable, honest, and fun loving. Read more about my values here.

How are you addressing your audience through editorial, design, content?

Once I had decided on the purpose of my blog and the online image I wanted to portray, I put together a vision board to help guide my posts, design choice and voice. Take a look at my vision board here.

I want to capture a feeling in my vision board. I want readers to look at my website and feel a sigh of relief like when you take a refreshing walk outside or see a beautiful sunset. My goal is to create a blissful feeling throughout my entire blog.  On my homepage I do this by using a clean font and leaving lots of white space. Additionally, I have a picture of wildflowers as a banner on every page of my website to begin curating a feeling of refreshment and peace. My colour pallet has deep greens to symbolize trees with deep root and consistent growth and includes some light pinks to symbolize fun and curiosity.

This article published by Blogging Explorer discussed the importance of understanding your target audience and how to cater your content online (Mikke, 2020). Two points he made were about how your target audience will help you create better content, and have great post ideas (Mikke, 2020). Understanding your audience will help you to know their needs and desires, and understand what they might be looking for in their digital content. This will help to increase reader engagement and build my audience.

One blog post that highlights the purpose and design of my website is Being Thankful for Rain. In this blog post I wrote about how being thankful for the small things in your life can help you to get through hard days. Making thankfulness lists is one way I try to find contentment in my life and is reiterated throughout almost all my blog posts. The design of this post incorporates lots of white space separated by curated pictures that I took of a recent thankfulness list I had made. Being Thankful for Rain is a post that highlights the values of my blog and captures the design aesthetic I hope to maintain throughout my website.

What value are you providing and to whom?

My hope is that through these blog posts I can provide value by offering practical tips and advice on how to live with contentment and joy amidst a pandemic. Some blog posts that do this are 5 Reasons to Try Running and Morning Mishaps & Daily Routines. Both blog posts offer a glimpse into one habit I have tried to implement in my life, and some practical ways they could be applied to my readers lives. Both posts contain external research into how these habits have been proven to improve your health or decrease stress levels.

In the future, I may build monetizing features into my posts such as product promotions or specific collaborations with other bloggers, but these must be directly relevant to my core values and not be misleading to my readers.

What have you learned through Google Analytics?

Google Analytics has been a very fun tool to learn how people are interacting with my website. The most helpful thing I learned was that I had a very high bounce rate, meaning that people would quickly leave my website after visiting the first page. As I was investigating this, I noticed that my home page did not give the reader somewhere to go after reading the introduction. To address this, I linked some of my favourite blog posts to my home page, and my bounce rate has decreased by 15%. There is still lots to learn from Google Analytics, and I have so much to benefit from understanding my audience more and learning how people are interacting with my blog.

Blogging has been an incredible experience in learning about writing, creativity and finding contentment during a pandemic. I look forward to continuing this blog in the future and building my brand image.

Works Cited

Anne, A. (2020, December 02). Andi Anne: About. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://andianne.com/about/

Campbell, G. (2009). A Personal Cyberinfrastructure. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure

Canfield, J. (2019, November 26). Online Branding: 5 Steps to Create Your Online Persona. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.jackcanfield.com/blog/online-branding/

Konnikova, M. (2013). The Psychology of Online Comments. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psychology-of-online-comments

Mikke. (2020, July 24). How to Find Your Blog Target Audience in 2020: The Ultimate Guide. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://bloggingexplorer.com/blog-target-audience/

Reflecting on my Experience as an Online Publisher

This website has gone through a lot of changes since September. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to share my work on a blog since I feel that I best express myself through writing. However, I had never created a website before, so I had to learn quickly. It has taken me a lot of research to figure out everything from changing fonts to using plugins, but I am finally satisfied with what I have.

Masked Retail has been my way of sharing my personal experiences working in a retail environment during the time of Covid-19. Since I started working in retail 2 ½ years ago, I noticed that I would leave every shift with a new story to tell. Through blogging, I have been able to unload some of my frustrations by sharing stories that combine the difficult parts of retail and the pandemic. There is a lot of misinformation that is spread by people who don’t believe in the pandemic or think that wearing a mask represents relinquishing freedom. Masked Retail is my way of countering that illogical narrative by supporting scientific evidence with real experiences in the hopes that people become more conscientious about the way they behave during this time.

Initially, I used this website to rant about how inconsiderate some customers are. After a few weeks, I started to recognize that my peers would be reading my posts and wanted to ensure that the content I provided would be useful to them. I started adding posts that offered advice, such as my post, “When Should I Shop?- Covid Holiday Edition” to help my readers stay safe (Masked Retail, 2020). Other than my peers, my imagined audience comes from a younger demographic looking to learn more about consumerism during the pandemic. Using Google Analytics, I came to the conclusion that the members of my audience are young (under 30 for the most part), which supports the idea that my audience is made up of people who may be experiencing similar things in their work environments. Through Google Analytics, I learned that while there are a lot of bots out there (I assume that I don’t have legitimate readers in China), there are people outside of this class who have viewed my work, including some legitimate viewers from the USA. I’ve learned that most of my audience comes to my page between 10am and 4pm between Tuesday and Friday, which gave me the idea of posting primarily during those days and times. I have also learned that linking back to my other posts when blogging keeps people on my site for longer, as they are inclined to click a link and see where it takes them.

In terms of editorial, I address my audience by being clear about the purposes of this site and by considering their thoughts and feelings when writing my posts. I am constantly aware of the fact that people will view this site, so I ensure that I make things as easy as possible for them. For example, I write all my posts in Microsoft Word so that I can spell-check my work prior to posting. The design of my site is centred around usability. To make my site easy for everybody to use, I use a grid layout for my posts, which includes a picture and an excerpt of the post. As the article “Should the Block Editor Have a Grid System?” points out, grid layouts are great for creating a clean, visually appealing page (Tadlock, 2020). I wanted something that was simple but structured, so this was a good choice for me. The menu and my posts are easy to access, and I have created ways for the audience to interact with me and the site. For instance, I have a contact page, I allow comments on posts, and I use a plugin to allow users to share my posts on social media. By doing so, I encourage my audience to get involved with Masked Retail. As described in the article, “Why We Need Social Paper”, a good public will create space for discourse that can continue even as the audience changes (Glass, 2015). Hopefully, I will have time to keep blogging even when the semester ends, and in doing so I will encourage new types of discourse with my ever-evolving audience. Overall, my content addresses the audience by answering questions that I would ask someone in my position.

I feel like the value Masked Retail provides is insight. Not many people get the opportunity to share their work experiences with the internet, and I am glad that I get to show what working in retail is like from all angles. I try to make relatable content and empathize with how people may be reacting to what is happening in the world. There are things included in my blog that I would never have thought about before I started working in retail. For example, I used to be shy and would never ask for or accept help from a retail employee. Looking back, I know that I had nothing to be afraid of, and I am more conscientious now with how I approach and treat retail workers when I am the customer. I hope that this blog does a similar thing for my readers by providing industry knowledge and tips for success during the time of Covid-19.

So far, I have not received any comments on my posts, so I cannot say that comments have really influenced me. Based on the article, “The Psychology of Online Comments”, I think that if I were to receive hate via an anonymous comment, I wouldn’t be too hurt (Konnikova, 2013) and I would simply delete the comment. Even if an anonymous comment were positive, I doubt I would be very affected because the sentiment of the comment seems less real without a name or face attached to it. Comments that are attached to a name would have a bigger impact on me, whether that be good or bad.

Prior to this class, I had a very outdated perception of what publication was. All that I really considered was book publication and notable companies. I never would have imagined that I could run my own publication from my computer! Now, I see that there are so many ways to be a publisher, and that there is no correct way that it must be done. Though the semester is ending soon, I am optimistic that I will continue to blog. This pandemic and my job are not going away anytime soon, so I am sure that I will have plenty of material to draw upon. Years from now, I would love to be able to look back at my posts and remember who I was and what I experienced in 2020. Ultimately, my hope is that even once the topic of Covid-19 is no longer relevant, I will be able to use the knowledge and skills learned in this course to establish some other online presence.

References

Masked Glass, E. (2015, December 11). Why We Need Social Paper. CUNY Academic Commons. Retrieved from https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/papers/45249/

Konnikova, M. (2013, October 23). The Psychology of Online Comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psychology-of-online-comments

Masked Retail. (2020, November 10). When Should I Shop? – Covid Holiday Edition [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://maskedretail.com/blog/when-should-i-shop-covid-holiday-edition/

Tadlock, J. (2020, April 27). Should the Block Editor Have a Grid System? WordPress Tavern. Retrieved from https://wptavern.com/should-the-block-editor-have-a-grid-system

(Featured Image by Pepe Reyes on Unsplash)

Community Guidelines and Online Bullying

Community Guidelines for my Blog:

  • Be kind in the comments you post
  • Respect other perspectives and points of view that you may not agree with
  • Do not use hate speech
  • Do not bully or harass anyone in the comments section
  • Do not copy or use the content on this blog without permission
  • Do not pass off any content on this blog as your own

Please follow these guidelines on my blog. This is a safe space for everyone to access fun bookish content, and share their love of books. As a result, we do not want any negative comments or bullying to occur.

I have seen many cases when people have been bullied, cancelled, or harassed on the internet. This is very sad and should not be happening anymore, to the extent that it is right now. I, personally, have not had this problem with my blog or website, which I am very glad about. I know that social media is a common platform where this usually occurs, and have seen many people behave negatively on them. An example of this is on Instagram, people often find accounts who take their content, create fake profiles under different names, or post negative things about others. In these cases, it is always important to report bullying or harassment you see online. If you ever see bullying or harassment being done, make sure you report it, and spread awareness that this is happening. We live in a generation where screens are constantly within our reach, and technology is always being used within schools, worksites, and in our homes. As a result of this, it almost becomes impossible to escape the constant ongoing world of technology.

I have seen many people speak about social media breaks, and the benefits they have on people’s minds. Click here to visit an article explaining why social media breaks are necessary. Social media breaks help us focus on the present moments in front of us, as opposed to constantly texting or checking the news. With social media breaks, our minds are able to rest from staring at screens, we are able to spend more valuable time with our friends and/or family, and we can also achieve goals we have set for ourselves that do not include screen time. For example, I can only achieve my reading goals if I set my phone aside to pick up my book. Another example of this is gardening. So many people love to garden and spend time outside, but this cannot be possible if they are constantly on their phones or tablets.

It is important, especially in this generation, to spread awareness of the toxic effects technology can have on us, and to spread kindness as opposed to bullying online. One way to do this is by creating community guidelines, and I have posted community guidelines above, at the beginning of this post, for my blog.

Let’s Talk About: Athlete A

2020 Netflix documentary Athlete A is a must watch. It’s one thing for a documentary to re-tell the story of a serial criminal, but Athlete A goes beyond this. 

Athlete A looks past what was essentially the “main story” of the arrest, trial, and conviction of Larry Nassar. Instead it digs into the systems and people that allowed for such a criminal to abuse young girls for nearly 20 years (at minimum).  

Ever since I started watching the Olympics back in 2010, I became fascinated with certain sports. Gymnastics was the first that I began to follow consistently, starting with the London ggames in 2012. Canada, at the time, was not really a medal contender at the Olympics for women’s team gymnastics, so I was neutral at the start, but it didn’t take long for me to become a true ‘fierce five fan’ (the women’s gymnastics team from the USA). 

I basically immersed myself in the ‘fandom’, if you were to call it that. From following the girls social medias to live streaming or finding each event on youtube, I was fully invested in the gold medal run that the USA made that year. 

Looking back on that time now isn’t how I always thought it’d be. 

In 2017, I first heard about the sexual abuse scandal. I think I found out through social media, as I follow Aly Raisman (Olympian from 2012 and 2016) who was and has remained a vocal leader in both the testimonies and the aftermath of the conviction. I can’t really remember what I thought about it, or how I came to fully understand the situation, but I eventually stumbled upon several videos of victim impact statements from the trial on Youtube. Beyond moving, heart-breaking, and anger-inducing, just a few words to summarize it. If you have the time, I recommend listening to a few. 

The reason why events like the 2012 and 2016 Olympics will never look or feel the same, is because as an innocent bystander you would never be able to tell what was happening behind the scenes. Re-watching the insane routines that lead to record-breaking scores and legendary dynasty team golds will never have the same awe. As instead of seeing these un-human-like athletes  complete tasks that are unfathomable to a regular human, you can for once think about them as real people that were put in harms way by the very institutions that were supposedly leading them to achieve their olympic dreams.

During the time of the testimonies, and eventually all the way through to the sentencing, I never really knew the full-scope of the situation, which is the story that Athlete A tells. 

The reason why this documentary hooked me in was simply because it wasn’t going to re-tell a story that has been told on Youtube, on Twitter, in Instagram posts and in news articles. It wasn’t going to dwell on the trial and conviction that happened years ago. Athlete A digs in and tells us why this was able to happen, who enabled it, and the leaps and bounds that systems and institutions need to take to ensure this never happens again. 

The story-line that the documentary centres itself on, is one that was never told until now. Athlete A, the first victim to come forward, wasn’t named to the public until recently (Maggie Nichols). By following this untold story, Athlete A is able to reveal so many other sides to the overall picture that were never examined during the trial. 

While many of the survivors remain active and vocal about the lack of accountability held by the systems and individuals who perpetuated this abuse, this documentary has definitely helped spread the facts that so many levels of power essentially let, and continue to let, children filter through a system that holds their ultimate olympic dream over their heads while letting them suffer unnecessarily.

Process Post #12: Today’s Cancel Culture

As we talked about in lecture and tutorials this week, we came to a consensus that the cancel culture of today is far different than it ever has been. Although the press, prior to social media, has long been full of gossip and rumours (see: The Crown on Netflix), social media has fuelled a whole new league of directed harassment, rumour feeding, disinformation spread, and more. 

The example brought up in class about the recent “cancelling” of Chris Pratt is telling of the situation. Chris was dutifully being held accountable for his partaking in a openly homophobic church and the fact he likely voted for Trump in 2016 and likely did so again in 2020. While at the same time, this discourse was met with the “you can only have 3 Hollywood Chrises tweet” where Pine, Hemsworth and Evans beat out Pratt (by a lot) in a series of threads and quote tweets. 

While this “battle of the Chrises” has long been a joke online and in the media and press junkets, many celebrities took this “cyberbullying” of Pratt to heart. 

Sure, I can get on board with the fact that pitting anyone against each other just because they have the same first name is a bit ridiculous and no one should get bullied for it; HOWEVER, when you’re also being held accountable for homophobic actions of your church and not actively not supporting a racist xenophobe, then the criticism you face might be a little more valid. 

I found it very disheartening and frustrating to see some of my favourite actors come out in droves to support Pratt. Robert Downey Junior and Mark Ruffalo being just two to name. I like to think that RDJ and Ruffalo simply didn’t know what Chris was actually being “cancelled” for, but we’ll never know. Either way, it doesn’t matter. When you have anything over a couple thousand followers, you have a platform. They very well know that their fanbase ranges from young children to full adults. Going online and making big shiny statements about a friend of yours when they’re in hot steaming water should be pre-empted with some good ol’ research. 

If Chris was being bullied for his name, sure you can call him a class act. But, should Chris be fairly called out for his church and political associations when it involves human rights? Yes. Should you defend him for that publicly when you have millions of followers criticizing Pratt for homophobia? Probably not.

Had people like RDJ and Ruffalo done their research prior to tweeting and instagramming, this situation would have likely just blown over and their public profiles not been harmed. There really was no need for them to publicly defend Pratt for a little Twitter joke and then get mistaken for being homophobe defenders. It’s times like these where I seriously question if those guys have anyone helping them with social media, because when you have nearly 50 million followers you really should have a second opinion on everything you post… 

Now let’s talk about why this was a short, 24 hour news cycle cancel event that will never provoke real change. 

Will Chris lose his millions of dollars being raked in every time he steps foot onto a Marvel set? No. Maybe one day but certainly not because of this cancel event. In fact, most influencers who actually should have their platforms taken away never do. I could list 10+ people who have more than 10 million followers or subscribers on various platforms who have done illegal and/or highly immoral things. Have they had their name thrown into a  #__isoverparty trend on Twitter? Yes. Did that change anything? Maybe a few people stopped supporting them but a few out of 10+ million only results in a few less pennies in their paycheque next month. 

Nearly everyday some celebrity or influencer is in hot water. In most situations, accountability is necessary and not something I think we should shy away from. However, at the same time, I believe the only thing social media cancel culture really does right now is severely cyberbully the individual being cancelled but never really takes away their platform, the thing that gives them the power and influence they have in the world. Which in some cases, is the thing they can do the most harm with.

The Importance of Mental Health Awareness

This photo was taken back in 2018. It’s crazy to think about how much has changed and how that rollercoaster seems to resemble a bit of what life feels like at the moment. A constant yet unsteady flow of ups and downs contributing to what feels like a never-ending ride. Throughout the years, I’ve dealt with anxiety and seen the ways it has affected various aspects of my life. Whether it involved me being constantly worried about what I was saying, having anxious thoughts about the small/mundane decisions of life, or even experiencing panic attacks when thinking about the future. There’s no lever that stops the ride, it just keeps going.

To be honest, I’ve spent a large part of my past in fear of the future and failing. Social media has made the act of comparing so easy when we are presented a highlight reel of the best moments of someone else’s life. Oftentimes we don’t share our struggle until we’ve actually gone through it because we are worried about being a bother or a burden. But if you’re reading this please know that you aren’t. Please reach out to those around you or a professional who is prepared to help guide you through your difficult seasons. To those reading this with loved ones struggling, please stay informed on ways you can support and love them through challenging times.

I, alongside my friends over at @sanctuarymentalhealth want to help tear down walls of stigma through sharing stories/experiences while informing others and helping those who are hurting know that they aren’t alone. Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries is a Christian non-profit that equips the Church to support mental health and wellbeing. I have partnered with them to share a few of the many resources they have to prepare communities of faith around the world to raise awareness, reduce stigma, support mental health and promote mental wellbeing. The primary tool that Sanctuary offers is The Sanctuary Course, an eight-week study guide for small groups and anyone who wants to learn about faith and mental health. You can access the course for free on their website or visit @sanctuarymentalhealth for more info!

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Life In Quarantine

It sucks being confined within four walls — not just physically but also mentally. When I came back from San Diego at the beginning of November, I had to isolate myself in my room for 2 weeks. This meant I couldn’t go out for walks or even to the kitchen to get some midnight snacks. It didn’t help that both my mom and sister work/study in the essential work-field of the hospital so they were extra cautious to stay away from me.

To summarize, this is what my days consisted of:

  • sleeping
  • crying
  • doing school work
  • crying again
  • watching Netflix/school
  • sleeping

I think many of us take the freedom of roaming around our homes for granted. In my room thoughts were contained and chaotic. I would argue that I’m the type of person who likes to stay busy and having things planned out day-to-day. With all that extra time on my hands, I found it difficult to focus and stay on-task. I spoke with various friends who expressed their feelings of stress, anxiety and mastering the art of procrastination. Due to the current circumstances, I don’t blame anyone for wanting to take a break or take time away from social media for awhile.

Since being out of quarantine, I’m embraced and have incorporating a few important things into my life. This includes:

  • daily walks
  • morning devotionals to get my head & heart ready for the day
  • half a glass of kombucha in the morning
  • telling my family and friends how thankful I am to have them

As difficult as it is to be apart from certain friends and family, I’m grateful for the advancements made in technology that have allowed me to stay connected while being apart. Although this isn’t how I would have expected to spend my last semester of university, I’m thankful for the skills it has taught me. I think I have finally found my rhythm and learned to use my time-management skills to stay organized and on-top of deadlines and exams.

I am super thankful that after the 2 weeks I was fine and covid-free but wouldn’t recommend travelling out of the country during a global pandemic. Also wouldn’t recommend long-distance relationships (but I’ll save that story for another blog post).

God bless and take care!

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Mini Assignment #6: Create a Gif

This week I was tasked with creating a gif. I used a mobile app to put together pictures I had taken of myself during my 14-day quarantine to document my beard growth to create this gif.

Oddly enough I start to look slimmer towards the end of my quarantine

PUB 101: Process Post (Week 12)

In this week’s lecture, we discussed the idea of the commentariat. In today’s day and age, we see how social media has allowed for almost anyone to comment and share their thoughts on a post. We were shown a TedTalk titled “Empathy is not Endorsement” by Dylan Marron who described his experience of how he turned negative comments into positive interactions. I resonated with what he described while dealing with hate comments online. There’s a longing of wanting to just hear the reason and purpose behind their hurtful comments. Although I will never be able to fully understand what he has experienced and gone through, I admire his strength and ability to share and inspire others through his story.

Speaking from personal experience, I started sharing my music on YouTube back in 2012. At the time, I was an awkward 14-year-old girl who just wanted a way to be able to sing to her grandma that lived in the Philippines. Ultimately, I can admit that being on the internet is an intimidating thing. You place yourself in a position to be looked upon and judged by others and the world is full of different opinions, good and bad. However, you must never forget that there is something so special about what you are creating/sharing and no one should ever be given the power to speak into what you love to do. Over the years, I have encountered comments and direct messages from people saying horrible, degrading words. Words I almost let get into my head until I remembered that you should never let other people’s opinions matter so much to you. If there’s anything I took away from sharing my music and stories online, it’s that you should always be careful about the words you allow to sink into your heart. In case you forgot, you’re amazing and you’re doing great things.

Take care & God bless.

The post PUB 101: Process Post (Week 12) appeared first on Marylou Villegas.

Delivery Services

As the Covid-19 situation begins or worsen in the province of BC, many restaurants are once again, turning to delivery services to generate income to stay afloat. From UberEats, Skipthedishes, DoorDash, Fantuan, etc., there are so many choices but which one is the best?

UberEats is one that most people think of first when they want to order delivery. They often have deals and free delivery over a certain amount of orders and are often very reliable with good customer service. 5/5

Skipthedishes is one that has been around for quite a long time but I find that the delivery fees are very high no matter how much your order total is. There is also less variety of restaurants so I don’t use it that often. 3/5

DoorDash was a platform I used to heavily use before UberEats came about in Vancouver. Again, the delivery fees are moderately high but is a little better than Skipthedishes as it offers deals from time to time. 3/5

Fantuan is a platform that I have had the worst experience with. The delivery is by km so sometimes deliveries can be as high as $20 which is insane! The prices are also jacked up around 20%-30%. Every time I have called customer service, I have to contact them at least 1 or 2 times after again as they never fix the issue initially. I have even had them hang up on me as I asked for someone who speaks English as they are a Chinese based company and many workers speak little English. I have also heard that people have been charged multiple times on their orders but cannot get a refund as customer service has been no help. 0/5

TIP: In order to support such establishments, if it is possible, try your best to order directly from the restaurant as many of these services charge the restaurants anywhere from 20%-35% commission from each order.

What is your most preferred food delivery platform?

Online Hate

This week, we discussed the issues around online hate. I am very grateful that I have not experienced much online hate towards myself online.

When thinking about this topic, one event came into mind which was the incident which took place in 2018 where a Vancouver restaurant was under fire for a whole rat found in a bowl of soup served to a customer! I have heard many opinions about this incident. Some say it was set up, where a worker may have been unhappy with the boss/owners and sabotaged the business. Some say the customer themselves set it up in order to ruin the company. This could have been plotted in hopes of online hate towards the restaurant or certain individuals involved in this business. Still, no one really knows the truth but unfortunately, the establishment has closed down due to lack of business after news broke out.

The article by Maria Konnikova, explains how online hate comments can not only influence the opinions of others but as well as psychologically and mentally. In fact, after reading the news about the rat in the bowl of soup, I was hesitant to return to the restaurant to eat despite all the opinions on whether the kitchen was actually unsanitary or it was plotted against them. I was in fact influenced by comments online from others.

Oh Geez It’s December

Y’know, some part of me never expected this to happen. Not in the morbid “I didn’t think I’d survive this long,” but in the sense of, “Wow, this year might actually end.”

If I’m crunching my numbers right, this is my last Outward Post. My last Process Post will also come out sometime this week, and that’s an essay. And from there, who knows? I sure don’t.

But at least it’s almost time for the holidays, right? I have a chocolate advent calendar, our tree is up, and I’m in my coziest flannel. Despite everything, the Holly Jollies have hit me.

Let’s get into it.

TIP: Daily Minimums

Wow, how did I never get to talking about daily minimums? This wacky little trick is a genuine godsend.

So, as some of you know, I’ve spent a lot of this year getting involved in my local art scene. And like any good person from Surrey, when I say local, I mean Vancouver.

While I definitely got to be more involved after COVID struck, in the beginning, I had two mentorships. One was for protest art, and the other was for poetry and playwriting.

In the latter, one of my mentors shared a little trick that’d gotten them through even their rougher periods: a daily minimum.

It’s exactly what it sounds like: every day, my mentor would try to get at least 100 words written down or typed. Even on the worst kind of day, when everything was going wrong and they had no energy, 100 words. Because really, 100 words isn’t that much. Not in the grand scheme of things. I’ve already written about 200 about this topic alone.

Give it a shot. You’ll surprise yourself by how often you go over that rule.

TRIAL: Making Things For Others

So, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here, but I’m an artist.

That was sarcasm.

But in all sincerity, one thing I love about art is how collaborative it can be. Again, I’ve spent a lot of this year in workshops and mentorships with my fellow creatives. And it’s genuinely, like, healing. There’s something so organic and refreshing about sharing a space with people who love art as much as you do.

And with the semester almost over, I’m opening up to working with other people again. It’s both a step out of my comfort zone, and honestly really beneficial to my practice. All of this summer and fall, I’ve been insistent on working on my own. At first, it was because I was worried about my work being up to the standards of my peers. Then, well, COVID happened, and that was its own excuse.

But this fall, I’ve gotten myself wrapped up in a few more openly collaborative projects. Musical stuff, mostly. It’s fun. Sometimes I’ll be the one writing lyrics, sometimes I’ll send in a beat and see what people do with it… I genuinely think creative collaboration is a love language.

That’s sappy, but I mean it! What’s a bigger sign of trust than pouring your heart into something and then letting someone else do the same? It’s beautiful.

We can’t LEGALLY look like this yet, but maybe someday.

REC: I’ve Got Nothing, I’m Just Watching The Nutcracker Suite In Fantasia

It’s finals week, y’all. You think I’m consuming media that’s NOT related to my exams or final projects? Hah. Nice try.

I’m sorry, I really am.

The only thing my mind really has space for right now is the Nutcracker Suite from Fantasia. I watch it at least once every December, because it really gets me in the mood. Nothing like a bunch of winter fairies dancing on snowflakes, right? Also, as a kid, I was OBSESSED with the whole movie. I would watch it on the regular, and every time I did, I had these intricate rituals with all of my stuffed animals, where I’d try to play along. It was insane.

I’m beginning to wonder how it took me so long to realize I’m neurodivergent.

Whatever the case, great news, that particular sequence is on YouTube.

I know what I’m doing today.

Until next time.