you'd best learn to live while you're alive

My last day at South.

When I got there, another volunteer from our class was already working on putting posters up. Both of us were there the entire time, and Anne had a great project for us. With the Career Fair coming up this Thursday, she needed to make signs to put on the front door to welcome everyone as well as to mark parking. She found this awesome tiger print paper (South Tigers...) to roll across the poster and cut out letters to put on top. I think what we came up with was nice. It seems silly that it took two hours to make two posters, but that is okay. We sat around and chatted. Anne wouldn't have had time to make anything special, so it was great that we could make something nice for her.

The end of this semester has gotten pretty crazy, so it was a relief but also a sad thought that my time at South is done. It has been a great change from my typical volunteering. Instead of working with young kids, I have been doing a huge variety of activities with older kids. Filing, labeling, hanging posters, and helping with essays, applications, and FAFSAs has been a great change. I'm glad I have worked in a variety of places and look forward to what I find next.

Posted by berry191 at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reading 19---
"Technopoly" by Neil Postman

Key Words:
1. Change-

I thought it was really interesting when Postman talked about how deeply technological advances affect everything around us. He says, "New things require new words. But new things also modify old words, words that have deep-rooted meanings" (8). It is interesting to think how different our vocabulary is even from ten years ago. Technology drives such changes.

2. Technophiles-

Postman describes technophiles as people who "gaze on technology as a lover does on his beloved, seeing it as without blemish and entertaining no apprehension for the future" (5). He really feels like we must be skeptical of technology, as there are negative effects on our society and lives. For each invention, there must be the good and the bad and we must be aware of both.

Discussion Questions:
1. Are you skeptic of technology? Are the gains worth the negative consequences?
2. How can technology help us in architecture and design? How have you used technology already and what would you have done without it?

Posted by berry191 at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spring break kind of put a damper on my volunteer schedule. I was off for a week, then South was off, then I couldn't make it... this past week was much the same. I had some family stuff going on and couldn't make it on my normal Monday so I came in Friday instead.

I would just like to point out that Minnesota is gross. I got out of bed and definately was not looking forward to trekking to South in the icy rain/ sleet. Ew. But I did anyways, and was put in a much better mood.

When I got up to the career center, there was a note for me on the door telling me to go to another room downstairs. I was pretty satisfied that I knew exactly where this room was. I peeked through the window and saw a conference room full of well dressed students and important looking adults speaking to them. I waited outside for a minute before I gain the courage to knock and see if Anne was in the room. She was! I went and sat down and Anne told me that these kids were signing for the Wallin Scholarship (a prestigious $4,000 a year renewable scholarship for students in Minneapolis and now St. Paul). It was pretty exciting- it brought me back to the good old days (hmmhmunderayearagomm) when I was in their seats.

After a bit, Anne and I went back to the Career Center. It was a really busy day for her since there were many scholarships due and the career fair is coming up. I was glad I was there to help out with paper work and such.

I got on Anne's laptop and updated a contact list for the people coming to the career fair while making copies and such. Students were flooding in with questions for Anne. A pretty steady line formed between classes. Anne is very good at handling all these kids at once (and they all seem to love her).

In the last half hour, I helped a girl fill out her FAFSA. Ha. If there is one thing about the college process I hate, it is the FAFSA. I have done it for years, as I did it for my sister for two years before doing my own. If you have the papers right in front of you, it is not so bad, but sometimes it is so hard to figure out. I am no expert, but I know the basics. The student didn't have much paperwork with her, so we couldn't do much and she was very frustrated about this. Hopefully once she gets her taxes together it will come out easier.

I'll be back in two weeks!

Posted by berry191 at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i apologize for the linkage. i am not feeling so tech savvy right now.

these are my cover designs. they may change as i play with indesign throughout the night... enjoy:

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Posted by berry191 at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)