I was so overwhelmed when I saw the amount of work we had to do this week. On top of all of the work, I caught a terrible cold aka the UMW plague. I was then thankful that I could do all of my DS 106 work while in the comfort of my bed next to my box of tissues.
Daily Creates
The first daily create I made was the Lune Picture. This was the second day I got my cold and I was walking around with a roll of toilet paper so I could blow my nose whenever. At first, I wanted to do one with a roll of toilet paper, but none of the pictures were good. I decided to use the one with the girl blowing her nose because it definitely described my feelings that day.
The next daily create I did I LOVED. Math was always my favorite subject (until calculus, because who actually enjoys calc?). One of my fondest memories from math class was when I was in the eighth grade. My teacher was an awesome lady who tried to make math as fun as possible. When it came time to learn the quadratic formula, she had a great way of teaching us. She sang us the quadratic formula to the tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” After we practiced it a few times, we went into the hallway and sang it really loud for everyone to hear. To this day, I can still recite it without having to look it up. It was fun finding the pictures and putting this together. I tried to find fun pictures (minus the negative one) to complete this assignment, because I really do like math.
I got really busy the rest of the week with other homework and did not do the last daily create until today. For this one, I decided to do something a little more serious. With all of the stories about abuse in the media the past week, I have decided to link it into my class assignments. For example, I have to write a paper for one of my sociology courses on a current problem in American society. I am going to write it about abuse, both domestic and sexual, among celebrities and the way the media portrays and reacts to the claims. Abuse is a very hard thing for most people to talk about, but it is a very real problem. I personally have never been a victim of domestic or sexual assault, but I am very informed of the effects. For the past year and a half, I have volunteered with the Rappahannock Council Against Sexual Assault. We help victims by providing a free 24/7 hotline, hospital accompaniment, court accompaniment, and counseling. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault and need to talk, please call RCASA at 540-371-1666.
Assignments
I really enjoyed the assignments this week. It allowed us to be creative and choose what we wanted to work with. It also allowed us to try new things expanding our experience with the various digital storytelling techniques.
The first assignment I chose was the True Lies. It is a design assignment where you had to make something that portrayed a “hero” as a bad guy. I was not allowed to make up any lies, I just had to use the real truth about characters. I decided to make a tabloid cover featuring McNulty. He is one of the main officers in the drug case, but he is not perfect. I wanted to highlight his flaws such as anger, using his children to do his work, and his drinking. I also had to add the part about how he now drives the marine unit because I think it’s funny.
For the second assignment, I chose the monologue of a household item. At first, I was going to use a gun and talk about Wee Bey using it for murder, but I thought that was a little gory. I then decided to do the flashlight. It was very difficult to write this without it being totally sexual. I think I succeeded. I also added the GIF at the end because I thought it went along with my post 
Note: I’m not really sure how to embed this into the post, so you’ll have to just click on the link. Sorry!
For my final assignment, I completed the focus on one color. It was a visual assignment geared towards stressing one color in a picture. For this, I took a screenshot from the video and used Photoshop to focus on the colors of the shirts. It is a well known fact that wearing certain colors can mean different things. For example, purple symbolizes royalty, blue symbolizes peace, and green symbolizes nature. In this photo, we see Wee Bey and the prison guard. As you can see, they are both wearing blueish colored shirts. I found this to be interesting. Both the prisoner and guard are wearing the same color, yet the outfits symbolize very different roles. Usually when I think of prisoners, I think of orange or khaki jumpsuits (this may or may not be a result of binge watching Orange is the New Black). In my mind and in Orange is the New Black, there is a clear distinction in the outfits of the prisoners and guards. I find it very interesting that in The Wire, there is none.
Finally, we were asked to read an article and decide whether or not the tumblr and Facebook sites about The Wire were examples of digital storytelling. Here’s what I wrote!
http://www.sydthek1d.com/wp-admin/post-new.php
