One crazy week down, 14 more to go. Here is a summary of the work I completed this week:

Prior to the official start of the semester, I had already setup my “ahotcrazymess” domain, installed Word Press, and registered it on the ds106 site. I am an American Studies major and had to set up blogs in some of those classes so luckily it was kind of easy for me to get back into the swing of things.

Next came the task of getting all of my social media accounts established as well as setting up my gravatar. The only social media accounts I had and used on a regular basis prior to this class were Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram so I had some work to do in this department. I set up accounts with Flickr, Soundcloud, and Youtube and then since my phone is pretty much glued to my hand, I downloaded the apps for those sites as well. As a single mom of two kids I am always on the go so those apps help me complete the assignments without always having to be in front of a computer. I must say though that most of my friends and family aren’t on Soundcloud and Flickr and I try to stay very private on social media sites by locking down my privacy settings so I’m not sure if I will keep those accounts once this class is over but you never know.

Then came the Multimodal introductions on all of the accounts I had set up. DS106 was introduced to “A Hot Crazy Mess” by means of a picture, a video, a playlist, a tweet, and a blog. Once I did that I perused my classmates introductions and commented on Kelly, Kelsy, Kailey, and Travis’ posts. It was nice seeing the range of ages within the class. With going to class during the day I’m usually the old lady on campus but that doesn’t seem to be the case with ds106 and it’s definitely a nice change for me. I tend to think that I feel like a 20 year old until I hang out with 20 year olds and totally remember that I am no longer a 20 year old.

The tasks that I had the most fun with were the Daily Create assignments. Sometimes the ideas came easy and sometimes the ideas came not so easy but I found that coming up with an idea each day was a good way to keep my attention and with my ADHD self that’s hard to do at times. From my dog to my kids to Forest Gump, nothing was off limits when it came to meeting the challenge of the Daily Create assignments. I’m also obsessed with a collage app I downloaded a year or so ago and collages may be a staple when it comes to completing the Daily Create assignments.

I would say that finding the time to watch all 9 of the episodes of The Wire seemed to be the most tasking part of the week. I watched the show years ago when it first ran on HBO but my kids have fried my brain so there wasn’t a lot that I remembered. I began watching the episodes last weekend but with it being the first week of the semester as well as the beginning of regular season for field hockey it was hard for me to sit and binge watched like I would have liked to have done. My son has a portable dvd player though so I ended up buying season 1 of The Wire from Best Buy and watching it while driving to the various college and high school games I had to umpire and tweeting some of my favorite lines along the way. I will say that I have been watching it from a different perspective after watching the video discussions posted on the Wire106 site. I’m watching it more from a LOST point of view now in that the show contains clues as to what something means, what is going to happen, or what has already happened. I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that it’s hard to find people who truly have your back so I completely related to McNulty feeling like he couldn’t trust anyone in episode 7. And why should he? Santangelo is a mole trying to find out less than desirable information on McNulty that could cost him his job, the FBI had investigated Daniels in the past for integrity concerns, and Price is Senator Davis’ driver showing that drug money is tied to the political world. I also recognized many of the faces in the show and couldn’t figure out where I knew them from until I googled the cast. Suddenly the familiar feel to the show made sense: some of the people cast in The Wire were also in one of my favorite shows by the name of Homicide: Life on the Street. Now I find myself trying to spot the former Homicide cast members sprinkled throughout The Wire like it’s a game that I have to win.

I think I’ve covered everything that I did during “Boot Camp” week. It was a little overwhelming having to accomplish so much but getting started prior to the semester starting did help to alleviate the stress of completing it all in 7 days. Bring on week 2!