August is the time to gif!!!!

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Oh-Yeah

 

Okay, so I just barely got this one out. Better late than never, though, I suppose.

So, first I took the phrase “August is the best time to” and typed it into Google, then did a screenshot of every answer option screen I got up until “J,” which was weird enough that it needed a graphic to go along with it.

Surprisingly, Indian travel options came up twice, once with Goa and once with Jaipur, neither of which I knew of before this exercise.

This is of course part of the August gif-a-thon started by Talky Tina. I’ll dedicate this here gif to her! Also, I will dedicate the fact that I have no idea who Jonathan Rhys Meyers is to her. He is obviously a different being than Jonathan Rhys-Davies. Ahem.

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Remodeling for a Tastier Experience!

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The Assignment:

Revamp your WordPress Banner.

The Process:

I first gathered six photos I have taken of dishes I’ve eaten. Next, I opened Photoshop and made a blank canvas of the exact pixels (960Wx260H). I then resized all the photos to fit onto the banner. After, I feathered  the edges of the photos and arranged them on the blank canvas.

The Story:

My name is NOMNOMreeses for a reason- I love food! I enjoy fine dining and love to try new and unique dishes. For this banner design, I decided I wanted to share some of the beautiful and delicious dishes I’ve had recently. This new banner is fresh and and fun! I feel it reflects my name wonderfully. : )

It looks so yummy too…

~NOMNOMreeses~

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Haiku It Up (Digital Storytelling Assignment)

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My fifth and final digital storytelling assignment is making a haiku in the writing category. Before I present my own piece, let me just explain what the haiku is briefly.

Haiku, known as the shortest form of the poetry in the world, originally started in the 17th century in Japan. It became international in the late 20th century and now people all over the world make haiku of their own. There are several rules in Japanese traditional haiku and many of them are also adopted into the international haiku. The common rules are:

?Use three lines of up to 17syllables.
?Use a season word (kigo).
?Use a cut or kire (sometimes indicated by a punctuation mark) to compare two images implicitly.

(From Wikipedia)
People often think that to express one’s feeling in the 17 syllables is enough for making haiku, but it’s not. The most basic concept of this poetic form is to resonate totally different imagery (often presented as nouns) and generate a new perspective/context/atmosphere/situation of the moment based on these imagery in the reader’s mind. In a sense, it is like appreciating a scenery picture. To appreciate the piece, one has to know the connotations of the general/proper nouns used in the piece, which makes it difficult when it becomes international since the cultural backgrounds of the creator and the readers might be different and the readers cannot pick up the implicit meanings or nuances of the words. Since there are four distinct seasons in Japan, almost all the nouns were categorized into one of the four seasons a hundred years ago, but we cannot do that any more in these days. Still we can use some words that relate to seasonal events (e.g., snow as winter or cicada as summer). I think this rule to include a season word in the poem was made probably because it was the most efficient way to indicate the time and location of the setting depicted in the poem.
Since this assignment is set for haiku beginners, you don’t have to be so strict. All you have to do is just keep the first rule: three lines with 17 syllables (ideally 5-7-5). The attached photo helps a lot to understand the scenery that the poem depicts. Here is my work about the killifish (“medaka” in Japanese) that I have at home.
Killifish swimming
In a glass aquarium
Under Tokyo sky
You can probably imagine the scenery without the help of the photo. Here is the photo.
Killifish under Tokyo sky
Click here to enlarge

In this haiku, I attempted to resonate the words “killifish” and “Tokyo” and parallel the situations of the killifish confined in the aquarium and me living in Tokyo surrounded by high buildings and watching the killifish (without referring to myself in the haiku). Japanese killifish (medaka) is categorized in the summer words in traditional haiku, but it’s difficult for many Japanese to understand that connotation today.

I stuck to the Japanese traditional haiku rules this time because I like Japanese literature. (My major at the graduate school was modern Japanese literature.) Of course other students who would like to do this assignment don’t have to follow these traditional rules at all. Just following the 5-7-5 rules is good enough to make a creative piece of art for this ds106 course. I just wanted to let the reader to understand the basic concept of haiku and show its literary depth as Japanese literature. Below are some links to understand the essence of Japanese and international haiku and some literary works in English made by native English speakers. I hope they may help you to do this assignment more creatively.
More detail of this assignment: Haiku It Up
Photo edited by Picasa
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Greetings From DS106 (Digital Storytelling Assignment)

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Welcome to YOYOGI
Click here to enlarge

This is my third Digital Storytelling Assignment. This time I picked up the assignment from the design category. What I had to do was just making a postcard of my home town. Yoyogi is the place where I live now, which is located in the central Tokyo. I love this town for several reasons: It’s next to Shinjuku, the largest station in Tokyo and really convenient to go everywhere in Tokyo (Many train lines come in). There are a huge number of restaurants around the station which keep me exploring one after another (and it doesn’t seem to end.) On the other hand, the town is also surrounded by the natural environment. You can walk to Meijijingu, the largest shrine in Japan, and Yoyogi Park, which is also the largest in the central Tokyo. I put all these factors into the postcard so that the viewer would recognize the diversity of the town.

For making this postcard, I used Picasa for the first time. It’s very useful especially for this assignment since it has the feature to make a photo collage automatically from several photos. You can also retouch and adjust the photo image without knowing how to use it in detail. (It’s very simple!)

I hope you can also feel the atmosphere of my home town a bit from this postcard.

Edited by Picasa

All the photos used above are taken from Flickr via CC licensing.

Yoyogi Park by Vic Paredes
yoyogi st by TitoRo
Yoyogi-Park ”a Brushed Gold Saxophone Player”_061206_003 by haribote
Yoyogi Park in Spring by micah.e
Yamanote night train by sinkdd 
6-13-07 Yoyogi-1.jpg by abuckingham 
At the North End of Yoyogi Station by ykanazawa1999
@yoyogi by saotin

For more detail of the assignment: Greetings From DS106

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Digital Story Compilation (Digital Storytelling Assignment)

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Here is my video for one of the digital storytelling assignments. I gathered all the photos that I took for the daily shoot assignment and edited them into a video. Although each photo is a crap taken by my poor mobile-phone camera, with a great help of good background music, a series of photos generates a certain kind of atmosphere of where I live and what I do everyday. It was good that I could “reuse” what I’ve done earlier for the class and attach another meaning to them. I hope you can also feel a bit of my not-so-exciting school life in Tokyo.

Music: “Pacific II” by William Ackerman

Video edited by Windows Live Movie Maker

For more details: Digital Storytelling Compilation

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Digital Story Compilation (Digital Storytelling Assignment)

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0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 50 votes, average: 0.00 out of 50 votes, average: 0.00 out of 50 votes, average: 0.00 out of 50 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5

Here is my video for one of the digital storytelling assignments. I gathered all the photos that I took for the daily shoot assignment and edited them into a video. Although each photo is a crap taken by my poor mobile-phone camera, with a great help of good background music, a series of photos generates a certain kind of atmosphere of where I live and what I do everyday. It was good that I could “reuse” what I’ve done earlier for the class and attach another meaning to them. I hope you can also feel a bit of my not-so-exciting school life in Tokyo.

Music: “Pacific II” by William Ackerman

Video edited by Windows Live Movie Maker

For more details: Digital Storytelling Compilation

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Digital Story Compilation (Digital Storytelling Assignment)

View Assignment Details
0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 50 votes, average: 0.00 out of 50 votes, average: 0.00 out of 50 votes, average: 0.00 out of 50 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5

Here is my video for one of the digital storytelling assignments. I gathered all the photos that I took for the daily shoot assignment and edited them into a video. Although each photo is a crap taken by my poor mobile-phone camera, with a great help of good background music, a series of photos generates a certain kind of atmosphere of where I live and what I do everyday. It was good that I could “reuse” what I’ve done earlier for the class and attach another meaning to them. I hope you can also feel a bit of my not-so-exciting school life in Tokyo.

Music: “Pacific II” by William Ackerman

Video edited by Windows Live Movie Maker

For more details: Digital Storytelling Compilation

View Assignment Details