Random Post- Christmas Decorations

I love how even though we all live in dorms, most people are still preparing for the Christmas season. Once we came back from Thanksgiving break, everyone had new decorations for their rooms. I think its really cool to see how people are taking the limited space and resources that they have, and still making their rooms unique to them and their personality. I know my room rate and I have Christmas lights hanging up, a big bow, light up candy canes, and actual candy canes. It just feels better to walk into the room and see it all done up for Christmas time. Even if you don’t celebrate lights and you want to just put up holiday lights or whatever, it just looks nice to see everything lit up once a year and decorated.

 I saw a group of girls, just last night, on their way to a Christmas themed party with blue bows in their hair. When I asked what it was they explained that they were Chanukah bows. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. It’s all about the spirit of the season and whatever holiday you celebrate. Even though they didn’t celebrate Christmas they weren’t going to let that ruin their night and they weren’t going to dress up for a holiday they didn’t celebrate, and I thought that was really cool. I love to see how everyone uses the Holidays to express them selves. 

Journal #6- What I've Learned

I feel like over the semester I have learned a lot about writing, Penn State, the arts, and how they are connected and always have been. I found this course particularly interesting because me and my room mate are both musicians and we realized quickly up here that there weren’t a lot of places to play music and not a lot of people to play with either. Because of this, we had multiple discussions about how maybe we picked the wrong school if we wanted to play music. To us, there wasn’t really any art at Penn State. Through this class I have learned that arts are indeed everywhere here at Penn State and you don’t have to look very hard to find them.

It might be true that there aren’t a lot of bands here at Penn State, but that was no reason to count out the arts all together. I have since learned that the arts are pretty much anywhere you look. Whether its anything from painting, to dancing, to poetry, to acting you can always find a Penn State student ready to share their talents with the rest of the school. Now I think it is a shame that people not only look at Penn State as just a school with a football team, but also don’t even consider the arts to be in the picture at all. I was one of those who did not think the arts really existed here. I’ve even come to learn that we have a very impressive theater program here and our very own art museum right on campus. This is something I would have not expected when I first came to Penn State.

 Hopefully through our art, we can show the entire world that Penn State is not just a football team, it is quite the opposite. We are a diverse group of individuals who all love and do different things. Yes, some of us like sports, but others have dedicated their life to the arts. If Penn State continues to be as involved in the arts as it is now, then I think it wont be long before people start to really notice in the exact same way I noticed. Pretty much everything I just said I learned about Penn State in this English class, and I think its only a matter of time before other people see the same thing that I do.

I also learned a lot about writing too. I think that I have really improved as a writer during this semester. It just feels like a completely different atmosphere then high school English class. I would say the number one thing I took from the class is to think about your target audience. I have found this to be a great writing tip. It helps you be narrower in your work, and not jumping all over the place. It also has taught me to write somewhat different things based off who my audience is. I especially learned this from writing my memoir. I wrote about wrestling and realized that some things I needed to go into some more detail on since I was writing to none wrestlers. Over all I learned a lot in the class and I feel like I have a lot more to learn about Penn state and writing in general.

2.

http://ashleelindoh.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-arboretum-at-penn-state.html?showComment=1354495321894#c1020254416340093975

http://bryancarse74.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-red-and-brown-water.html?showComment=1354400809289#c7037378988430217688

http://samanthamartinblogspot.blogspot.com/2012/09/palmer-museum-visit.html?showComment=1354495401242#c7163294274401988966

http://tarasaverageblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/2.html

http://derosag5050.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-palmer-museum-of-art.html#comment-form

http://ashleelindoh.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-red-and-brown-water_16.html?showComment=1354494405528#c3797903465946544060

http://ideasoninspiration.blogspot.com/2012/10/artscultural-response-lecture-with.html#comment-form

http://joewater.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-garden-means-to-me.html#comment-form

http://carascornerthearts.blogspot.com/2012/11/extra-blog-post-2-my-photography.html

http://jimmyschlupp.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-social-network.html?showComment=1354495234626#c4907119496569689600

3. I have completed my survey. 

Arts and Cultural Event: Open Mic Night

For my event i went to see an open mic night at East halls. Its pretty low key, its just held in Roxy's on a thursday night. I was pretty surprised to see the amount of people that were there. Many people were there to perform and to listen as well. Most people did the same thing, got up with an acoustic guitar and sang a song. It honestly did get a little repetitive. Some people, how ever, did mix it up. One person got up there and did an entire rap about greek mythology and related everything to a girl. It was hard to take in everything he said because he was speaking so fast but basically he related the different attribute of a girl he was rapping about to the different gods or creatures in Greek mythology (i.e. being strong like Zeus). He did it in a way that was really cool and interesting. Another person got up and did a song that was more of a joke. He played Lil' Johns "Get Low" which is normally not a song you would expect on an acoustic guitar. He made it sort of theatrical and the song was really funny to watch and listen to.

Another girl who took it a little more serious, got up and did her version of Adel's "rolling in the deep." She changed it to the point where it was almost not recognizable, but it was still really good. It was nice to hear someone do the song differently. I was pretty surprised by how good everyone was and enjoyed the whole experience. I definitely think that I'll be back for another open mic night soon.