Week 8 Progress

    I am happy with my progress so far. I am most proud of being able to relate my stories with Halo. I do not have a good weekly routine as I procrastinate a lot and am not as motivated to do the work since I am about to graduate. The class assignments I enjoy the most are the short ones, the shorter, the better. I have used some extra credit options to catch up in commenting and to get some extra points. I think things have gone well in developing my blog and site.

    The changes I would like to make is not to procrastinate as much, but I probably still will. I mainly just want to avoid getting behind as I am about to start a class (8 week class), and I have other classes to focus on, like my Capstone with a project we are starting. There is nothing new I really want to do in this class or change about my blog/site.

Air Force fly-over by R.A. Killmer (May 2007). Source: Flickr

    This picture motivates me as it reminds me I am close to graduating and I will be able to focus on my career with the Air Force.

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

     The comments and feedback I receive I would consider to be fair to good in terms of quality. I think the ones I find most useful are the ones that highlight an error I made, like misspelling of words or unnecessary commas, or the ones that highlight something I did good. 

    I feel like I am somewhat getting to know people, but not that well. I think that due to the online format, it is harder for me to really connect with someone, especially when it is mainly through walls of text. I am happy with my introduction as I think it serves its purpose well by giving a brief backstory about me. I am not sure what I will do differently in my feedback as I try to be specific when I can. I will leave my introduction post alone but I added some text to more clearly show my portfolio link incase some people had difficultly seeing the link.

You can learn from criticism. Source: cheezburger

    I chose this picture as I think it is important to understand that criticism is not meant to put you/someone down but rather to be utilized to improve whatever is being criticized. Learning from someone's criticism can allow you to further improve your work for that particular audience or maybe it can fuel a new idea for you. Overall, I think it is important to receive criticism and not be scared or distraught from it.

Week 8 Reading and Writing

     The reading and writing assignments are okay to me. They are easy but really time consuming for me. The hardest part is thinking of my own story as I never really do that, so I use Halo to help me out. I am happy enough with my blog and website. I am satisfied with the writing I have done in my stories, but writing the stories are not something I really look forward to. My biggest accomplishment in my writing is exploring/expanding my creativity at times that I have never really done before. My favorite reading so far is "The Cunning Crane and the Crab" as it is short, interesting, and easy to read. My reading notes do help with my story post, but I think I'm going to start shortening them instead of noting each chapter. I'm not sure if I discovered a specific strategy but I have been going from detailed notes on every chapter to less detailed and soon less chapters.

Master Chief from Halo by Gunner111 (April 2008). Source: Flickr

    This is my favorite image I have used so far because it is about Halo, one of my favorite video game franchises. I am not sure what else to do to get more from this class, but it has helped me think more creatively I believe. I guess I could try to stray from the Halo theme and try to be more original and creative, but that sounds like more work than I really want to do for this class.