To Blog or To Blog…not even a question…

How long has it been since I have posted something here? A while right? However it is not like I haven’t been thinking about bloggable subjects. Even this post has been drafted a while ago…i just have not posted it. Surprisingly, the though of blogging about a subject has been in my mind A LOT, I see/read something and the first thought is: “I should blog about that,” but I end up not doing it. It is not like I don’t have the time. Technically speaking I do have more time since I am done with my classes and now I am “only” working on my dissertation proposal, but still…blogging seems to be such a cumbersome activity…Especially since I have recently adopted twitter for how convenient it is (I tweet from my phone often and I am almost breaking the 1,000 tweet mark). However, I have been thinking a lot about the benefits of blogging. For instance, I now don’t have to write any more papers for class (for grade), I am not required to read any more books so what am I going to do with myself if not force myself to write something that is thoughtful and meaningful? I can’t tweet that! So blogging is the way! From now on (and I know this should have started a while ago) I will reflect about my dissertation readings, fun readings, and other fun mind growing activities that I partake on a regular basis. I will also be fully redoing this blog site, and by that I mean that my online identity will be completely be overhauled. I plan on combining both my portfolio website with my blog, and adding other pages, and all of those will be located at the domain that I already own: addysdesigns.com. This might be a lot of work, and maybe this will only be up by next year, but I am very excited about it.

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Protected: A weekend at the Lake

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Are you a poop stepper?

So…the other day I was leaving work, and just as I stepped foot outside my office I grabbed my phone and checked if anyone had called me. No one had . Then, instead of putting my amazing iPhone away I decided to wonder around my apps and see what I could play with while walking back home. First stop: FACEBOOK APP. I wanted to see if there were new notifications for me, new messages, new ANYTHING! But NO!, once again I was disappointed and still craving for some entertainment. I decided then to plug in my headphones and turn my iPod on so that the quest to find something amusing on my iPhone could continue, but now with a soundtrack. The music started playing (with the setting set on shuffle – as always), but I came to the realization that although I have about 50 different apps on my phone NONE of them were serving a purpose at that time. I decided that my next step was to download something new from the app store. Given that I had just preached to my EDC5370 students about blogging, I decided to install the wordpress app. What could be better than walking around AND blogging at the same time, right? But right at that time I just baaarely looked up (it was God’s grace…I tell you) and I dodged a pretty big pile of dog poop! The thoughts in my head then transitioned from “what should I do on my phone on my way home” to “what the heck am I doing that I am not paying attention to the surface that I am about to step on while I walk home” and at that moment I also wondered how many other people have not have God’s grace showered upon them and did not dodge the poops in front of them in time. I thought about blogging about it but since I was so busy with other stuff I stored in my mind as a low priority thing…UNTIL…well…until last night, right? Something memorable HAD to happen for me to actually retrieve a low priority “future blog idea” from my head and that incident happened right after I got out of karaoke. If you know me, you know that I am a karaoke fan. Last night, such as any other Wednesday night, I met my friends at karaoke. I had a blast! I actually got to physically socialize with people (because I DO spend a lot of time in front of a computer..so sometimes is nice to interact with REAL humans), and when I was leaving the karaoke place the same thing that happened to me when I was leaving work happened. I checked my phone to see if anyone had called (one call this time, but it was too late to call back), then Facebook (nothing new then), and then BAM! I step on a HUUUUUUGE puddle of mud…I mean, full foot, about a foot deep into fresh watery nasty YUCK! mud. I was very upset, as you might imagine, but I wasn’t upset about the place where I was at the amount of craters on the dirty ground which became puddles of mud, and which I stepped on. NO, I was upset at myself! I was upset at my iPhone! I was upset with my addiction to little tiny Apple manufactured gadgets that grab you by your soul and make you attached emotionally to them! I was upset that this tiny little gadget, while providing me with so much connectivity and made me feel loved (when I had calls, text messages, and Facebook notifications) was causing me to detached myself with the world around me and step on muddy puddles, dog poop, and who knows whatever else I have been stepping on…These things are so ubiquitous that I ask myself, and you…my blog post reader: ARE YOU A POOP STEPPER? Have you also been distracted by these gadgets to the point that they caused you to trip on the streets, step on the people walking in front of you, cross the street when there is a car coming your way? Well, I hope you are not, but if you have please COMMENT and tell me your story

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EDC5370 Day 1

Hello EDC5370 students (and my blog followers, which are not many…if any at all…lol). I can say that today was a very successful day where we got to know each other, got to understand what the course is all about, got to play with some new gadgets and got to watch my amazing prezi presentation. If you are interested in creating a prezi presentation you can find more information about it here. If you want to take a look at my presentation once again feel free! It’s here!!! Please remember that your posts should be meaningful and robust (so those 2 paragraph posts need to be augmented people!!!).

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Addy vs. Video Editing Software

In the face of one of my most recent projects I have battled one of my most feared opponents. This opponent was one that I knew I had to face one day, but I wasn’t expecting that it would be so challenging and so stressful. My opponent, Video Editing Software, came right after my super pleasant workshop experience at the New Media Consortium Summer Conference in Anaheim, CA, and after a most deserved break from my uber busy schedule in TX. It all started with a very innocent request from my director at the Baylor University’s Academy of Teaching and Learning where I am a graduate fellow. Dr. Campbell, aka Gardner, asked the group of graduate fellows to record some micro teaching segments from some faculty members involved with the Summer Faculty Institute. Since I was not able to be there during the recording sessions I volunteered myself to retrieve the videos from the FLIP cameras (pictured here) and then add them to a private channel on YouTube.com. I had the pleasure of toying around with one of those tiny HD cameras and they are very easy to handle. With about 5 buttons total, that is my kind of gadget. The output was set to .mp4, and that did not seem to be a problem having in mind that they would be uploaded into YouTube and I was counting with some YouTubical magic to convert them to the YouTube player format. However we were dealing with 30 videos (2 angles for each faculty member) of aprox. 15mins that required about 3 hours of us (myself and one of my fellow grad fellows) trying to transfer the clips to my external hard drive (FAIL) then her (the other graduate fellow) getting another external hard drive to get the clips out of her computer into my server so I could start uploading the videos into YouTube. Well, there was a LITTLE problem: YouTube’s TIME RESTRAINT for uploaded videos. YouTube videos are pretty easy to upload as long as they are smaller that 2GB (which ours were), but they are required to be shorter than 10mins (which ours weren’t). 1st thought that we had was to chop the clips in half! So I get to my amazing Mac at work and get started. First getting the clips into FinalCut, then adding my In and Out points, then inserting into the segment…that was ok…THEEEEN I had to render it (the red line was there…I felt that I HAD to, right?!) It took FOR-EEEEVER! not only that…when exporting with Compressor another HUUUUGE waiting time. I felt defeated. I thought that FinalCut was against me. I jumped to another computer and met my little friend iMovie …Well…that’t what I thought! It took me FOR-EEEEVER just to get the clip there…AWFUL! Video Editing Software 2 x 0 Addy. I had thoughts about quitting, but I AM NOT A QUITTER! So I decided to persist and find another solution. The following ideas were brought up: (1) DVD Burnage (I know….its not a word, but neither is YouTubical…so don’t take anything I write for what it is, but for what it intends to mean), (2) vimeo.com, and…well…those were the options at that time. I then go to vimeo.com and the free version  only allows for crumbles of files to be uploaded per week (I mean…500 mb…really?! 500mb?! one picture is almost that big nowadays – I know…its not…but u know what I mean) and the 59.90 something per year allows for 5gb…but still…too expensive for what we were doing. So we decide to go with the DVD burnage + let’s give FinalCut a shot, but instead of rendering AND export using compressor we decided to cut the rendering altogether and export straight as a quicktime movie and BAM! half the time Video Editing Software 2 x 1 Addy. So now I just have to go through that process for about 20 more videos, upload them into YouTube (about 45 minutes for each upload) and I’m DONE! What a great after vacay week!

Update: the score now is actually Video Editing Software 3 x 0 Addy The “exporting directly through quicktime player was not well received by YouTube, so I will have to go back to the original 3 hours per clip process to get that done. Any other suggestions are welcome…if anyone at all reads this blog post :/

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End of the Semester

OMG…I can’t believe the semester has passed us by so fast. I remember when I was young and the year would last YEARS…However, now it all goes by in a blink of an eye. My birthday has always been a celebration that would take so long to come by, but now it is around the corner and yes I AM GETTING OLD. That makes me sad. Not because I am getting old, but because youth is leaving my life and without me using as much of it as I can.

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Obama is the AntiChrist!

Hahah…I know! The title of my post IS super dramatic, but the other day I was talking to my “college-life-partner” Ryan and we came to the conclusion that Obama IS the Antichrist. People are yet to find his birth certificate!!! and he WILL be the President of the United States (not that I agree with that choice, but I am realistic…HE IS  a better speaker and he eloquently say a lot of bullcrap that a lot of people ARE buying… Now, it also easy to see the signs of Apocalipse coming…and he is definitely the future unifier of the world, peacemaker, “end of the world ambassador” per say. Obama is in my opinion the “False Messiah” (how many people completely GO NUTS for that dude), we do have “Rumors of Wars”, we will see a lot of  “Famines” with this worldwide crisis, “Pestilence” HELLO!!! AIDS, super-viruses…., “Earthquake” (hum…ok..this one is not anybody’s fault LOL), but then “Sorrow”!!!! I am already feeling the signs of sorrow for all the changes that he is going to make, and that are going to affect THE WHOLE WORLD… I know…I AM BRAZILIAN, and I am proud of it too!! But this change of government in America is going to affect the whole world and I DO speculate that it WILL affect our fate as CREATURES OF THE WORLD and the fate of our souls…MAN…I think I need a drink after writting and thinking of this lol!!!

Fun sites about Obama being the Antichrist:
http://o.bamapost.com/
http://www.barackobamaantichrist.blogspot.com/
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message483746/pg1

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TWS

The reason why I am only adding this post to the blog is because last week I was uber overwhelmed with my Teacher Work Sample, a required assignment for my Contemporary Curriculum class. The experience was amazing! I taught a lesson on Latin America to 6th grades at Midway Intermediate and the experience was a BLAST! The very first day we talked about Latin America’s geography, climate, distribution. The second day we talked about Latin America’s ancient civilizations (great for me because I am a Maya fanatic). The third day we talked about the Spanish/Portuguese invasion and colonization PLUS I talked about Brazil MY HOMELAND!!! My favorite day out of the three, of course, was talking about Brazil. I brought a bunch of pictures from home, and music CDs with Brazilian music and Carnaval music (which the kids loved). It was so cute!! I tried to teach the students how to dance SAMBA and I am pretty sure they had a blast…because they were all trying and laughing along…The experience was really interesting because I never imagined myself teaching young kids, but maybe it may be not that bad afterall….

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UNBE – F#$@%& – LIEVABLE

Ok, I have been meaning to post this since thursday (when I hear about these news on Fox News, but I have been so EXTREMELY busy with school that I ONLY now could squeeze this time to talk about it. (P.S.: I’m sorry about the aggressiveness, but this issue really touched be and I AM really strongly minded about it)

It turns out that this science teacher – I forgot where – is getting punished and her school disctrict as well, because she taught that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Super-Man where fiction. Her 8 year old student’s parents firmly believe that the teacher crossed the chruch-state boundary by “DEMEANING” religious symbols.

Now, let’s reason together about this….WHERE!!!!! WHERE in the F(^*&% Bible is it said or REMOTELY mentioned that on the day Jesus was born SANTA F(&^(&^%^$ CLAUS showed up with a bunch of CRAP…WHERE????!??!?!

Easter Bunny, BRING IT ON!!! What passage??? HUM??? Tell me GOSH DANG IT!!! Are you F***ing serious people??? C’MON!!! Santa Claus and the Easter F***ing bunny where created by a capitalist society in order to increase business and fill of money of pockets of those that LEAST CARE ABOUT RELIGION or being a good person for that matter!!!

Im my opinion WE SHOULD tell our kids that Santa and Easter bunny dont exist BECAUSE THEY DON’T and I would be really happy if I could be proven wrong!! I know that on this post I am being a  little abusive of profanities, but I AM A GOOD GIRL and for the past years I HAVE been treated by Santa as a naughty, naughty girl because…CRAP…I haven’t gotten any of the things that I REALLY REALLY want…and I can’t affort them either…considering how BROKE a graduate student’s life is.

Easter bunny…geez….this one DEFINITELY does not give a S**** about me…I havent gotten ANYthing for easter for the past…HUM…EVER!!! I just CAN NOT believe how hypocritical some SO CALLED Christians are…they MUST realize that to be a better Christian it does NOT mean believe in Santa or Santa bringing awesome gifts on Dec 25th…The meaning and values of Christianity are so F)*(&&*Y%^&* up now by “Society” that the whole thing disgusts me…Don’t get me wrong tho…I BELIEVE that there is God, or at least a higher power, or being…overlooking us…with a purpose…and also I DO BELIEVE in Jesus’ teachings (not necessarily as him as my ONLY savior, but YES, as a messenger of God with an EXEMPLAR LIFE which we should follow as closely as we can…But by emphasizing and punishing people for teaching the TRUTH and opening the eyes of children to what is REAL…is so NOT Christian…and so shameful…geez…i gotta go throw up!

I FOUND THE WEBSITE!!! YOU GUYS NEEEEEEED TO SEE THIS!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/video-search/m/21161282/the_teacher_who_stole_christmas.htm?q=santa+as+fiction

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Speeches on Education

As a foreigner, it is really weird that I have been talking or even thinking this much about United States’ politics. However, since I have been living here and since this election has been so controversial, I just can’t help myself.

As a little treat to the few people that would be interested in checking my blog out, and also considering that those few would be interested in politics (specially in regards to education), I attempted to concoct embeded videos of either Republican and Democrat candidates bits on Education. Unfortunately, it did not work out the way I wanted so I embeded a super educated speech related to education that I am sure you guys will love.

PAINFULLLLLL!!!!

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