Thursday, December 6, 2012

Patsy Cline Extra Credit: "She's Got You"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/76/Patsy_Cline-WSM_Studios_2.jpg


Patsy Cline Extra Credit
Song: 'She’s Got You' (1962)

I could have chosen from many great artists like Frank Sinatra, Elle Fitzgerald, John Lennon, Nat King Cole, and many more, but I decided on one of Patsy Cline’s songs because today felt like a Patsy Cline kind of day. I listen to a variety of genres of songs and it is usually older music because I can’t stand most of today’s music. Patsy Cline has a beautiful voice that makes everyone want to listen to what she has to say. All of her songs are wonderful, but for this last blog I chose, "She's Got You."

This long is not very long, but it immediately catches the listener’s ear and drags them in. It’s a sad love song. She is singing about a love that she used to have and now no longer has, but she remembers all of the things that they shared together and all of the things that he gave her. She is singing about all the things that she has left of him, while the new girl in the picture has the most important thing, him. This song is romantic, yet sad because she only has “memories” of what she used to have. I’m a hopeless romantic and this song gets to me all of the time. In my opinion, this part of the song is the most important, “I've got your memory, or has it got me? I really don't know, but I know it won't let me be.” The reason I say that this is the most important part of the song is that if one puts themselves in her shoes or in this case puts themselves in the songs situation, people will ask these kinds of questions about love and all the time they shared together and these questions and these memories haunt you until you are emotionally exhausted or finally do something about it. What does one do with the matters of a broken heart? They remember all of the good times that they had together and wish that they were still together and that’s why I think that this part of the song is important.

Patsy Cline has many great songs like “Crazy,” “Sweet Dreams,” and “I Fall to Pieces.” All of these are amazing songs and yes they are country, but not all country music is bad, plus it is a blend of country and pop, so it makes the songs more likable and enjoyable. I like this song because it has a catchy tune and always makes me want to sing along with it. I come from a very musical family. We play instruments and sing all the time. I caught the singing bug at a very young age and was introduced to a lot of good music because of my family. I know a lot of songs that most people never even heard of and I like that I was introduced to so many great artists and bands out there because without music I don't know where I would be now.



I've got your picture that you gave to me
And it's signed "with love," just like it used to be

The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got your picture, she's got you

I've got the records that we used to share
And they still sound the same as when you were here

The only thing different, the only thing new,
I've got the records, she's got you

I've got your memory, or has it got me?
I really don't know, but I know it won't let me be

I've got your class ring; that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it dear

The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got these little things, she's got you

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Last Blog



The two NPR recordings and transcripts that I listened to and saw caught my attention just by the title. I heard catchy music and sound bites in both of the recordings. And I knew that this is the kind of material I would need to use in my own audio essay. What I liked about these news bits was simple, they were entertaining. Both made me laugh at the absurdity of actually purchasing all of the items in the “12 Days of Christmas” song and that Canadians booed the fellow Canadian, Justin Beiber. Now the stories by themselves are silly, but how the speaker’s managed to catch my attention and keep me entertained was what I knew I wanted for my audio essay, but since my subject doesn’t have a “ha-ha” atmosphere about it, I’m just going to have to try much hard to not bore any readers. What I also noticed about these pieces was that they did a short introduction and then got to the point. They managed to be entertaining while informative and then signed off. I find it very usual to come to this website and get ideas from the recordings and transcripts. I know that these will be very helpful, when it comes down to finishing up my own recording.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/National_Public_Radio_logo.svg

I’m glad I came to this Wednesday’s workshop. Mr. L. really helped me shape my transcript/audio into a better paper/recording. For my audio essay I asked my two aunts and my dad, all fellow alumni, to answer some questions.  My first draft consisted of me asking questions and my family members replying, but when we peer edited in class, Mr. L. helped me with the analytical portion of my essay. He told me what I could put in certain places and what I could take out. My first draft was four pages long and I knew when I was listening to the recordings of my family members that this was too long and that I was going to have to cut some more. Mr. L. helped with that, he went section by section with me and how I could improve my essay, with his help I’m sure that I will get a good grade because he gave me very helpful and useful tips. I was that I came because it helped me see what I needed to focus on while I was editing the transcripts and the recordings.

NPR Audio Essays
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=165896141&m=165896132
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=165897395&m=165897453

Sunday, November 25, 2012

WRITING PROJECT 3


(SOUND BITE OF MUSIC)

ALEXIS ABRIL ALDANA, HOST:
Entering into a new environment can be very challenging and difficult at times. Going from a simple high school surrounding to a large and scheduled university can be overwhelming for most incoming students. Alumni from ASU are good sources for stories and information about education and life in a university. Raquel Aldana is a professor of law in California, Silvia Aldana is Global Project manager at American Express, and Abel Aldana is a Marine and the Manager of Floral Supply Syndicate.

A. A. ALDANA: When you started going to ASU, what were your feelings about going to a bigger school?

(SOUND EFFECT)

R. ALDANA: It was a drawback because it’s a double edges sword. On the one hand, bigger suggests more access and as a public institution I think access is really important. So in that sense I guess I am committed to the ideal of providing access to Arizona residents. On the other hand, it also suggests that it’s less selective and that when you are studying there the size of the school can make it more difficult to get more individualized attention and resources. For me, I navigated that by entering into the honors program.

(SOUND EFFECT)

S. ALDANA: I don’t really think I thought about it. To be honest I was young and immature and so I just went to college because I thought that was what you were supposed to do when you graduated from high school especially because of Raquel (Silvia’s sister). She pushed and said that you need to go to college and get an education.

(SOUND EFFECT)

A. ALDANA: At first I didn’t like it. It was overwhelming. You know, one time you’re popular the
next nobody knows you. And the classes were just too big. A lot of people in those classes.

A. A. ALDANA: What were your plans?

(REPEAT THE SAME SOUNDS THROUGHOUT THE AUDIO)

R. ALDANA: Yeah. I mean I thought law school was always in the back of my mind. So I knew that I was going to go to law school and so I majored in English literature and Spanish literature because I wanted to learn more about my culture, I actually got two B.A.’s by accident. I think it was preparing me to go to law school.

S. ALDANA: I didn’t! I was extremely immature. I again went [be]cause that is what I thought I was supposed to do and so I registered for classes and I had no plans. Honestly, if I had it all to do over again, I wish that I had more understanding of what I wanted to do. I don’t think you need to know what you want to do at that age, but I think I needed to understand it more. I didn’t have to make my decision of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life right there and then. I didn’t know what to do.

A. ALDANA: I wanted to get a degree in computers. I’ve always been pretty good with them. So I figured I’d go that route.

A. A. ALDANA: Why did you decide this/the path/major/steps to take in order to achieve your goal(s)?

R. ALDANA: Because I needed to be a good writer in law. Although I guess there was also a part of me that might do a PhD instead of law and I loved literature. What changed my mind about pursuing a PhD path had to do with the fact that literature is fiction and I saw to many problems in the real world and I felt that literature solved no problems in any pragmatic way. I think it’s very healthy for the soul for people to read and it is very good for society to do that. But I couldn’t see how it would make any difference for poor people who many of them can’t even read.  So that kind of solidified my commitment to law and not literature.

S. ALDANA: I moved majors a lot. I started with psychology, then I moved to anthropology, and then I did business and then I did medicine. I think it goes back to the first question, that’s the problem with the big school, is that I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t have any support system to tell me, to get me focused. Not that imp saying people need to tell you what to do, I honestly didn’t know what I was doing so I kept taking all of these classes. It wasn’t like there was a support place where I could go to and say I’m really confused, how should I go about doing this, so I just took classes and registered them. You’re kind of on your own.

A. ALDANA: I’ve always been pretty good dealing with computers since the TRS 80 model. You know, I just figured I got really good with that one, move onto the Apples and then just became really good with them. So I wanted to get a degree in something that was interesting to me.

A. A. ALDANA: What were you feeling when you started? Or when did it hit you when things start to feel different?

R. ALDANA: Here’s a funny story. I think I was very insecure. When I got my grades from ASU, I didn’t know that in high school my grades were based on numbers and in college, grades are based on letters. And when I first got my first report card I was looking at the numbers not the letters so when I looked at the numbers all of my courses were either three credits or four credits. And I thought that I had got three’s and four’s and I cried and cried and cried because I thought I had done better and I went to speak to Upward Bound because I was so ashamed that I had done so poorly. So I showed my report card to one of my mentors, and she said what are you talking about you have all A’s. And I was like what?! I go, I don’t, look, it’s a three. And she goes that’s not your grade your grade is this letter. It’s all A’s. I didn’t think I had gotten all A’s. I could not imagine that I had gotten all A’s. I expected B’s because I thought college was supposed to be  much harder and I thought I couldn’t really compete at an A level as I had done in high school but after that I was like, oh yeah this is a piece of cake. (LAUGHTER)

S. ALDANA: I think a lot of it was probably confusion. Not really understanding the purpose. I think I found myself losing focus and I’d be like oh I don’t have to go to this class, plus I was commuting and I would get up in the morning like we don’t have a test, and they don’t take roll call, so I would just not go to class.

A. ALDANA: they weren’t really different. I basically knew what I was expecting. Once I went into the computer classes, it was basically what I expected. I knew quite a bit of it.

A. A. ALDANA: What did you look forward to?

R. ALDANA: I liked learning frankly. I liked the classes that were challenging. I liked the honors classes the best. I was a commuter student and I didn’t really relate to the party school attitude. I was never a part of it number one, I felt like I was going to a different university because I was not really connected to the traditional mainstream. I worked a lot of jobs. There are some good professors and I feel that I taped into those professors and I was very lucky.

S. ALDANA: Honestly I didn’t.

A. ALDANA: Getting out of there. You know graduating and then getting a job. Doing what I love computers.

A. A. ALDANA: What advice could you impart on me, for my ASU experience and education?

R. ALDANA: Well you’re like me going to be doing a commuter experience. That’s why I actually wanted you to go to a different university. (UoA) One, it would get you away from home so you had to engage the full college experience and because it is a smaller school. I think that would be healthy. So I would say to you, don’t make the same mistakes that I made.  One of the best things I did was take a job at ASU and so I worked tutoring students. My sub-community was that and Upward Bound. I would recommend that you get some kind of job on campus that will get you more connected. You should make deeper connections with professors.

S. ALDANA: I have a lot of advice. Because I think that I’m someone that I could say classically did everything completely wrong.

(R. ALDANA: that’s not true.)

As I got older I regret a lot of my choices. For me, I didn’t have the full experience or real understanding of why you go to college. But also it’s a path to becoming an adult. I think commuting was the worst idea. I wished I would have lived on campus. I wish I would have joined clubs. I wished I wouldn’t have worked, I worked a lot. There’s to aspects, I think you have to be ingrained to be with other students that are going through the same experience. You join networks and you also party. That’s the whole ritual you’ll never get to do it again. And now that I am older if I could go back and redo it and just get awesome grades and still enjoy, I would have done it completely different. Education is extremely important.

A. ALDANA: make sure you do your homework. Make sure you stay on top of things.  Do the best you can. It’s pretty expensive so, every class, make it count. In the end you only get out of it what you put into it. That’s the best advice I could give you.

(FADING SOUND BITE)

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Writing Project 3 Details



     For writing project three, I was thinking about interviewing three people. Two of them have already come and gone from ASU and are pretty well off. One of them is my aunt Raquel Aldana, which she later ended up becoming a professor of law in California. My other aunt is Silvia Aldana and she is a big manager for American Express. And the last person I want to interview is my cousin Raymond Abril. The reason I want to include him is because he did not go straight to college after high school and I want to get two different points of view. My main goal for this audio essay is for me and hopefully other, to better understand what it is to attend ASU and what to expect. So in short terms, I want to know what to look forward to and ways to improve myself. I want first year students to be able to look back on this audio and hear what it takes to become something of themselves and hopefully whatever wisdom they impart will help me better prepared for my future in ASU and further down the road. This is my brainstorm for this writing project.

      I will look to my family members for the interviews. Each has a different story and I have made questions for them asking them about ASU life and education. Here are the questions that I would ask them:

Questions for my interview:
For Aunts:

  • When you started going to ASU, what were your feelings about going to a bigger school?
  • What were your plans?
  • Why did you decide this/the path/major/steps to take in order to achieve your goal(s)?
  • What were you feeling when you started? Or when did it hit you when things start to feel different?
  • What did you look forward to?
  • What advice could you impart on me, for my ASU experience and education?

For cousin:

  • What is different about not going to school after high school?
  • Do you feel bad that you didn’t go right after?
  • Are you planning on going to ASU?
  • What do you think or expect when considering ASU and starting here?



     I would go to NPR as a source and to use as a guideline for my interviews and transcripts.
To put all of this together I would first start out with a brief summary of what I plan on discussing and then lead into my interviewees. I would ask the questions that I have already planned out. But before I would do the interview, I would give each of my family members the questions, so that they would have ample time to think about their responses. The reason I will do this is because I only have a four to six minute time limit, so I would want them to adhere to the time limit by giving me enough information, but with small and short responses. So back to the interview, I would ask the questions and then have them reply with their already thought out responses. I would record them and then transfer the audio to my computer. After I do that I would make sure that I won’t have myself repeating the questions and just have them one right after the other, but will little introductions do make it flow smoothly. I would add certain sound effects that correspond to each person. More than likely I am going to add music in the back ground to make it more unique. So this is what I plan on doing. Hopefully it works and fits in with the assignment.