Browsing through possible assignments, I saw this one, and was immediately reminded of Google Translate Sings.  It’s a fun channel that takes songs, runs them through Google Translate, and then translates them back into English to see what changes ensue (most of which are pretty humorous).  I decided to run our national anthem through Google Translate.  I first began by plugging in the English lyrics, and translating them to Armenian.  I then translated the Armenian results to Norwegian, followed by Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and then back into English.  The results are below.  I think most of the major changes came when having to translate between different alphabet systems, especially in regards to Japanese, which has a very different structure than the original English.  Personally, my favorite section is where it states that we must “overnight document” that our flag was still there.

Oh, you say that you can you can see,
By the light of dawn
We welcome the fact that with pride
Finally, I will flash the dusk.
Who broad stripes and bright stars
For dangerous fight
We saw on the wall
Galant?
And, it lights the rocket red!
Bomb will explode in the air!
Overnight document
That our flag was still there.
Oh, they are the Stars and Stripes are still referred to as the wave
In a free land
And brave of the house.

So this assignment, is basically offering to tell some more stories, fictional or real…

The goal of this post is to create a blog on your website that goes into detail how a group came together. You have the option to talk about motives behind joining forces, real or fictional. This can be serious or comedic, have fun!

So lets dive in.

It all started in the year 2006, ten years ago precisely. There were three boys who were all like brothers to one another. Marcus, Kendrick, and Mark. These three boys all lived in the same neighborhood. You could call ’em a crew basically. Everything these boys did they did together. They never left each other hanging and you could never ketch them away from each other for a long period of time. In the neighborhood, “Crestwood” was a family. Kids would play all day until the street lights came on, and Mother or Father would yell the names of their children to come inside. Mosquitoes were out, and the sun would set just right that would let the neighborhood know today was a productive, fun day. The ice-cream truck would snooze pass the block at times, and cookouts were always available for friends and family in the neighborhood. Anything outside of Crestwood seemed foreign to Mark, Kendrick, and Marcus. There would be days, when all the three boys did was play video games, laugh and joke about childish things and play tackle football in the backyard of Mark’s house. The three boys grew up into childhood with one another and never went without a day without being loyal to one another..

Years passed, and now “The Crew” had bigger things to brag about. The three boys were in high school and life meant more than just having fun all the time. The crew started to separate by each of the boys attending different high schools. Kendrick moved to Suffolk, Virginia, but Mark and Marcus went to the same high school and stayed living in the neighborhood. Things went completely opposite, as the three boys rarely talked to another and the only relationship that was really solid was Kendrick’s and Mark’s. Marcus did his own thing, being a little bit older than the rest.

Long story short, The three boys now don’t have any communication between each other and haven’t seen each other since high school.

I’ve really been enjoying fiddling with web pages, so I decided to take X-Ray Goggles to YouTube for this next assignment.  As a Lord of the Rings enthusiast, I decided to alter the video where Eowyn famously declares “I am no man” before stabbing the Witch King.  I changed the description to “Classic tale of boy meets girl” to imply a romance.  In a similar fashion I edited the name of the channel that posted the video.  I also altered most of the LOTR related suggested videos on the righthand side to have a pro-Sauron bent.  For example, I described the Mouth of Sauron as a diplomat who was brutally murdered.  This was another fun exercise demonstrating the power of words and context, in addition to the ease with which the web can be altered.  The full site can be seen here.

The goal was to use Pinterest and create a board with your ideal Dream House. I had no problem completing this assignment. I created a pin for my ideal bathroom, garden, kitchen, backyard and living room. I pinned a few different pictures of light tan curtains cabinets that I liked as well as a kitchen scenery. My favorite color is blue so you wont be surprised by the color usage. This was one of my favorite assignments and I look forward to using Pinterest in the near future.

This assignment was 4 star credible.

https://www.pinterest.com/mmadison209/dream-house/

Here is the link to the original assignment: http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/create-your-own-room/

In an assignment relevant to another part of this week, I have been tasked with creating a small story in Amazon commentary.

Link to Assignment: http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/three-moon-wolf-stories/

Stars: 4

Process: After scouring Amazon for a product, I found Elmo. The story is a product of my ever-active and increasingly strange imagination.

Result: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IHHLN5E/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

A link to the comment will be posted once it passes review.

I wanted to experiment some more with X-Ray Goggles so I decided to take on the Personal Search Engine assignment.  I decided to make mine somewhat ridiculous, so… some backstory.  For years I have used the phrase, “Mayonnaise, peanuts, and cucumbers,” as an exclamation of frustration.  “Mayonnaise” for short, when the situation is only minimally frustrating.  So I decided to create the Mayonnaise search, with natural derivations such as Mmail, etc.  I also altered the “I’m feeling lucky” button to give you options such as, “I’m feeling peanuts.”  The hardest alteration was to adjust the name of the search itself, as Google was placed as an image.  Luckily I was able to erase the image and add my title as a heading.  Other personalizations included putting some science and politics search tabs towards the bottom, and being more forceful in encouraging citizens to vote.  Ultimately this was a fun exercise that again emphasized the malleability of the Internet.  The full site can be seen here.

This assignment gave the task of entering a word into Google Translate that could not be properly translated to English.

Link to Assignment: http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/google-translate-fail/

Stars: 3.5

Result: Cwtch (Welsh) to Hug (English)

Process: With Google Translate as solid as it is, this was a bit more difficult than I expected. After testing a couple dozen words and phrases, I eventually remembered a word/expression from my time in Wales this past summer. While Cymru translates clearly to Wales, Cwtch is a Welsh idea with no perfect translation to English. Translate offers Hug as the only Enligh alternative, but that doesn’t quite sum it up. For a clearer explanation that I can give, see http://www.southwales.ac.uk/story/926/.

storify: kenya

My next assignment was to create a storify using several social media sites. It was marked as 2.5 stars, but I would argue I used 3 stars of work due to the amount of time it took and how many photos and tweets I put in it. I chose to use my Twitter and Instagram to tell the story of my Kenya trip I took in June.

The website was glitchy (things were not loading properly) so it took a while and a lot of patience, but I had a lot of fun with the assignment. I love going back and looking at pictures from the trip. I tried to put everything in chronological order, using photos from friends who also went on the trip. I also added tweets that I wrote over the course of the two weeks I was there.

It was really fun to tell a story using two separate social media sites, and I really enjoyed using the site. I hope to use it again!