Civic Action

I was never one to think about ethical issues involved in anything else besides health care. Well, this course really changed that. I believe that the ethical issues involved in communications are so broad and so important that they deserve more than just an ounce of attention. These issues really pinpoint where our world is heading, and it doesn't look like a really pleasant one. I feel like this course opened up my mind to the possibilities and the changes than just one individual can make. By far the most rewarding experience I had in this course was the Project Report. It truly put my life in perspective and made me feel fortunate for the things that I am blessed with. It also made me realize that there are millions of people in the world who are not as fortunate and it is through no fault of their own. It is our duty as human beings to help these people and offer aide through any means possible. This is another part of what humanity means. This course enabled me to think this way and I would encourage any undergraduate student to take this course as an elective. It truly pumps the mind and fuels the brain with information that would otherwise be unknown. Its our call of duty to help man kind. This starts with us, individually.

I think the best way to help improve this course is to add some more structure to it. By this I mean that I think there should be one main project, whether it be similar to the Project Report or not, that the students have to work on over the semester. At the end of the semester I think it would be a good idea to have the students do an individual TED talk based on this project. The project should be an ethical issue of their choice that is relevant to society today. I say this because I had such an amazing experience with my Project Report and I hope to have other students experience the same.

TED Talk - Our Emotional Connection

http://www.slideshare.net/vtruncellito/ethics-ted-talk

I really tried to put all my thoughts into this TED Talk. It truly reflect issues that I am personally going through right now. I still believe that no matter how hard this life gets, I would rather experience it with my emotions than hide behind a machine. This is a growing experience. You live and you learn. I hope everyone enjoyed my presentation and it made people think about how much our emotional experience truly shapes us.

Vanessa Truncellito : On our Loss of Self

Vanessa Truncellito makes a bold stance against the unethical interpretations of humanity and what it means to be human. In her accounts of associating emotions with humanity, she argues that due to technological advancements we are slowly beginning to lose our interpersonal connection with ourselves and the surrounding atmosphere.

Novels.Adapted.Into.Movies.

The Infamous Nicholas Sparks........

In my hopeless romantic eyes, there is no better novel to film adaptation than the sweet senseless stories of Nicholas Sparks. It is hard to even think of some of his books as "novels", but indeed, they capture the gaze and attention of millions of young hopeless romantics like myself around the world. BUT having read all four of these books, yes I am obsessed with Mr. Sparks himself, watching the movie can make or break the story line. My FAVORITE of ALL TIME is The Notebook. OH , how cliche. Anyway, the film followed closely to the novel with some minor changes here and there. Nothing of such drastic change that would completely alter the story line. However, there are some movies that do just that to the pure original novel. That irks me. In all honesty, if a movie is going to be created off of an author's year long or more working on a novel, it would make most sense to follow quite closely to the original story, no? That is why it was quite upsetting and rather frustrating when The Surrogates film didn't follow or align well at all with the Surrogates book. Reasons why? They are unknown but there could be some assumptions. It is obviously quite different to evoke emotional responses out of readers than it is out of viewers. I think it takes more intensity for a reader to become engaged in a story than it does a viewer. That is just my personal opinion. I am glad that most of the stories of Nicholas Spark went in line with the films that were made from the novels. I mean, who doesn't love a cute sappy love story once and a while?

"Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Loves is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It dose not take offense and is not resentful. Love take no pleasure in others people's sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes."
— Nicholas Sparks (A Walk to Remember)

"So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me... everyday."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

Humanity- So what?

It is a peculiar question. It is not exactly asked on a daily basis. What does it mean to be human? There are an immense about of definitions and opinions on what humanity is and means to people. There are even further debates over the fine line between technology and humanity.

I have a different approach to this situation. Being human means that you encompass a sense of emotionality. Emotions run through a human like the speed of lightening, each day, in and out. Being human means feeling these emotions, connecting with these emotions, and displaying them in a way only humans- flesh and bones- can do. I believe that it is due to the amount of stress that emotions put on some people that lead them to look elsewhere for an escape, ie. surrogates. It is when our own conscious cannot control these emotions that we are forced to repress them and use the most convenient tool on our hand as an escape. This being, technology. It is quite gross and disturbing to think that we as humans have the capability of transforming ourselves to become part of technology. However, we don't have the capability of truly controlling our emotions the best we can, individually and independently. This is quite scary. I am guilty of such a crime. Although I have yet to purchase my very own surrogate, I hide behind technology day and day out- whether it be my cell phone, facebook, my MAC. Its inevitable.

Emotions make us human. We are human. We shouldn't forget that.

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

Future Tracked.....

This article reminded me a lot of my mother. She always yells, "What are you glued to your phone?!", "Why do you want people following and stalking you on facebook?" "Do you have your name up for people to see?" Bla bla bla bla bla. Well, this is the world we are living in. And that is exactly what I tell her. And you know what, she agrees with me. She always refers back to when she was a kid and they didn't own cell phones, had no computers, and it was a BIG THING if there was a house phone. She shivers at the utter thought of parents having a Facebook- saying that if she wanted people in her life that she didn't talk to she would have them in her life. Otherwise, she doesn't want people tracking her. I give her credit for this and plus, I really don't want my mom having a facebook.

She is right though. It is a scary thing- my generation is wrapped up in this technology crap, especially the Twitter and Facebook and Myspace. It is all about keeping in touch via text messaging, something we talked about earlier in the semester. It is only going to get worse. Reading in the article that cell phone tracking devices that record your whole conversation, or even everyday recordings just in case you get attacked-which I must say, was very comforting- NOTTTT ( In the words of Borat )- is quite ridiculous and amazing at the same time. I understand that this is where our world is heading and if we don't follow than we will be casted out as a whole. However, individually, people need to start reverting back to the days where face to face communication was healthy, phone calls replaced massive texts, first dates were to dinner and not through Skype, and an extracurricular activity was kickball and not facebook.

All in all, I think the Ted Talk and the Article were both very good sources of information. In fact, I am sending both to my mother- through e-mail and AOL- which she is an expert in.

Till next time

It's Finally Done !!!!

So our video is FINALLY finished. We really did put a lot of time and effort into it and I am happy it finally is completed. Jimmy actually called me over the weekend and asked where the video was since I told him that I would send it to him. He is so cute. Anyway, we did touch up quite a bit to make it look more professional and I think we did a great job. For starters we put in some transitions between the scenes so it flows more smoothly. These were fade outs / fade ins- they all worked really well between the scenes. We also lightened up some of the tones that we had around Jimmy's face when he was talking to us about his disease towards the end. We added subtitles that introduced Jimmy's full name and title while he was introducing himself in the beginning of the film. The best touch that I think we put on our video was the music. The music was Imagine by John Legend. We took some instrumental parts in the beginning and then took the song with the lyrics towards the end of the video. This song truly touched us and we believe it made a great fit to our video. We also added a credit page at the end with our names and a special thanks to Jimmy for his help and story.

I cannot stress enough how much Jimmy touched my life during this project. If nothing else comes out of this project- meaning not getting an A!! Just kidding- I will truly be happy that I got to spend two great days with Jimmy. If anyone has any questions about him or even wants to meet him or interview him for yourself please let me know.

GOOOOOOO JIMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/commethicsthesituati?feature=mhw4#p/a/u/0/jZsauG2z3B8

People worthy of Honor

Throughout the experience of creating this video and interviewing someone worthy of recognition I believe that I grew a lot individually as a person. That sounds cliche. However, the two days I spent with Jimmy Calnan were probably the best two days of my college experience. I say this because things were truly put into perspective for me. So filming him was an honor and I hope to share his story with people outside of just this immediate class. With that said I think that our video was well put together and we could have some improvements on the graphics and editing. I absolutely loved watching the other group's videos and their amazing people and story-lines. Each one was different in their respective manners which was great. Some were more serious than others yet they all reflected purpose and meaning.

When we were first assigned this project I was pretty mad since the timeline was so short. BUT it was truly worth the stress and the work that was put into it. I wouldn't give up the time I spent with Jimmy for anything. He amazed me and I am sure will amaze the world if he ever gets the ability to do so. Here is a cute picture Lisa and I took with him:

He is so cute!!!!!!!

Similarly, going to the places he volunteers at made me want to look into volunteering for some of the places he does. I plan on e-mailing him the video after we make our improvements and asking him some volunteer sites that are looking for workers.

Please look into this disease and ways to help.

If there is one think i wish for people to leave with from our presentation of our video is that there is always hope. Everyone has their own tragic story, some more serious than others, but there is no reason to lose positivism and optimism. Jimmy is the prime example of this. He lights up his life with everything that he surrounds himself with and uses that gift and embraces others with it. I hope he continues to battle this deadly disease. He has so far successfully defeated this disease and in the end I truly hope with all of my heart that he comes out a winner.