'Gotta wrap this stuff soon!

TURN ON YOUR SOUND & SCROLL TO BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE TO SEE HOW MY PROJECT PLAYLIST.com PLAYS!
(This is what my social networking project was about!)

Well along with un-bought and so un-wrapped Christmas presents...I have this unwrapped project paper I have been whining and wincing over for way too long now. I feel old in this class and have struggled to keep up to speed I guess. But at least I see I am not the only struggling or with inquiries! Questions are good and part of this class project - right? I've been spending much time on this and in the HCC of MAC lab but mostly this project has been a grave distraction (in and of itself) to me.

I AM a music buff so when I go on playlist "to work" I play! I have multiple lists...my Christmas playlist alone numbers on toward 200 selections! Oh my music is good for the soul though and as my teenage son shared one of his playlist.com lists via an email...I guess the social aspect became real to me!

After all these weeks "in and out" of this hybrid "Digital Media Culture" clas, face-to-face or NOT and working in the lab...it's funny that I have come to the conclusion Ken must NOT like to blog much either! I am pleased with mine and hope that it has been what was expected for the course and in this social aspect as well. I have been struggling to find things on others blogs and have posted questions based on what subject matter and whose blogs seemed active.

Now that it is December I am going to change my playlist here to an abbreviated list of Christmas Hymns because I think in our culture we are moving away from the true meaning of Christmas and it grieves me. I hope you enjoy it and that the practical application of playlist.com being linked to my digital media blog will helps me to pass this course with flying colors!

On another note I am taking my kids over to the Chesapeake Gallery this week since I missed the opening and talk because my Hubby was hospitalized that evening. I hope the JJ Weiss display will help me kill two birds with one stone...making this a homeschool field trip for them...and fulfilling the gallery review requirement for me here! Now if I can just get the time before the last class to write that! Yes...Gotta wrap this stuff soon!

Working on my playlist.com project in the MacLab...gobble gobble!

Several times I have come into the Mac lab to work on this project...usually it is reasonably quiet.

Sorry to sound so motherly but today I felt like the atmosphere here was a place of general disregard for those who were seriously at work!

Yes..several loud turkeys "gobbling" here this afternoon...
maybe they were excited about the upcoming holiday...
a few were especially irritating me with their boisterous talk,
live and on their cell phones.

Okay well enough said there! Now it is "class time on a cyber week" and I feel ill-equipped to participate. I am STILL feverishly working on the paper aspect of my research project. Here is a screen shot of the title page of my power point on playlist.com which is finished!

I see some have posted stuff regarding our social network assignments...I am at a loss of how this is going to flesh out for me and my final grade in this course ...Ken I am trusting you really are a very understanding soul of sorts!

Here's hoping I can figure out how to post my contribution to the ART 108 class project place when I my final draft is fit for public consumption!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING THOSE IN MY ART 108 CLASS! Gobble Gobble!

Stuff happens and I can only do what I can do!

I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW STUFF HAPPENS!

On my way to the Chesapeake Gallery last night, where our class was meeting...I got a call that my husband was headed to the hospital with chest and arm pain!

It's hard to believe how quick things can go wrong in life...he had felt bad a few days earlier and I asked him to see his doc earlier BUT!

At this point our 8-year-old asthmatic son was with him when he took ill...so just one more thing I needed to be concerned about of course.

Certainly both my son and husband matter to me...so I put my class meeting on the back burner, turned around and quickly drove to the ER.

I enter and there sits my sickly child stuck in a hospital triage room...during the H1N1 scare time...
when no kid under 12 is even allowed in the place (unless they are a patient themselves)!

As of now they are not exactly sure what caused Hubby's pain episode...
if his stress-test goes well today they will release him.

Hopefully, THEN I can get back to focusing on my class..
and the research paper/project...that I still need an extension on...
I can only do what I can do!

Grief...now sickness

Well last week was all about grief...
I lost rest by staying up late sorting through pictures for the tribute and pulling an all-nighter to see the video timed just right with the 50 pics that visualized the 59 years that my uncle, Henry Bennett, Jr lived.

I still need to post those on here...as it does not seem like the funeral home's pictorial tribute is up and running on their site...just the obit and the picture are there now and that link is not working on here.

Coming through a time of personal grief is bad enough and now I am seemingly being hit with sickness. Tonight I was feeling way too ill to go into the Mac Lab but I have been trying to get going on what I can do at home for my Digital Media- Social Networking - Research Paper. Here I am, stuck home, with a plethora of distractions and this sick AND tired feeling that looms like a gray cloud here - especially over me anyway. I am trying to live up to rule #1 of motherhood, "Mommies have no sick time to take!", but I feel like I am losing the fight.

At least my research assignment subject matter, playlist.com, involves tunes...
oh how music has always been such a mood-lifter for me. I can use a lift as I am attempting to learn what more I can about playlist.com as I endeavor to create the power point and write a paper of background info, and my opinion of its practical use and/or lack there of.

Thankfully, I am well on my way knowledge-wise...using it on a previous blog and having already established it on this, my class blog, weeks ago! I like playlist.com's as a widget of sorts because it is a means to add a music player for the enjoyment of the readers of my blog.

Late for Class...Lots on My Mind...

I was late for class tonight with lots on my mind. As the death of my Uncle Henry is settling in I am distracted by much. So I missed a neat concept of visualizing, drawing and sharing my social network with the class. As I think about this..I have just lost contact with another person who I dearly loved...and no internet network can reach there!

There is plenty I have to do for school but I am right now preparing for Friday and the funeral. Already, I have begun to pen some remembrances of my uncle which I may share as a sort of eulogy. He enjoyed his family and farm so the goal is to try to pull together a pictorial tribute of our memories of him that can easily be set to Aunt Lynn's choice song and included in the service as well.
 
You know, at times like this, I seriously thank God for photography and my inspired moments of creativity. I am especially happy I was blessed to get this photograph of Uncle Henry in his tuxedo at his son's wedding in January 2007! I am not a serious lover of equine, like my uncle was, but I know someone who nearly is, and inspired by that influence, I captured this January 2009 sunrise shot of two horses grazing in a snowy meadow near my home. Ironic and yet not...because God does work in mysterious ways...these two pics together will likely make up the cover of the funeral bulletin (which I hope to share at some point also).

Above all else, I desire to see my Uncle's funeral service honor God...and the strong man whose life-race was run with the vigor of a true race horse - competing for the likes of the triple crown!!!