Daily Archives: November 7, 2012

Melting Crayons for Art

This week my craft is something that I’ve been looking forward to doing for a while; I just needed all of the right supplies. And the best part was that it was as easy as it looks. To be quite honest I’m not completely sure what to call it, maybe just melted crayon art. Anyways all you need for this craft is a clean canvas, a box of crayons (and not just a small box, you need a lot of crayons), a hot glue gun and a blow dryer. You start by gluing the crayons onto the canvas. If you do this you should make sure that your crayons are secure as this could cause problems later down the line, as it did for me. I let it sit overnight so that the glue could dry properly and so that the crayons would stay in place. The next day I just took my glued on crayon canvas to the bathroom with the blow dryer, turned it on high, and let the wax do its business. As soon as the wax started to melt, it began to fly everywhere because of the dryer. I hadn’t even thought about this, so after I was finished I had to go and clean up the bathroom sink because I had gotten wax all over it. So I definitely recommend placing some paper towels around the surface on which you are melting the crayons, because if you don’t you will be there for a while scratching the wax off of the surface. And let me tell you that is no fun. After you melt the crayons you can move the dryer in various directions in order to create the paths you want. Once you are done with your masterpiece you just have to let it dry, which happens relatively quick. I have to say I’m pretty impressed with this week’s craft and I’ll probably try to pawn it off on someone. Anyways everyone should try this craft because not only is it really fun to melt the crayons, but you end up with a really awesome piece of art!

Cell Phone TED Talk

So this week my sole focus has been on my speech. At first I thought “How the heck am I supposed to give an interesting talk on cell phones?!” But after racking my brain for a while I decided to give a speech that brings light to societies growing dependence on cell phones. The first way to demonstrate this that came to mind was comparing my mom’s usage of her phone, to my own. Quite frankly, I thought this captured the differences between generations. My mom was born in 1954 and is a part of the Baby Boomers. While I am part of Generation Y. I used this to show that technology fueled my generation’s dependence on phones, which then made it a widespread ideology throughout society. I mean, Generation Y got to experience firsthand this major shift, as it grew up our very own noses and we were a main reason for its growth. I then decided to focus on how most new outlets and newspapers now have apps for phones. The companies have seen that cell phones have grown in importance and therefore have altered their publication methods in order to survive. One of the companies that did not survive was the Rocky Mountain News. In 2009 it had to close its doors because of a decrease in newspaper sales.  I’d imagine that if they had converted to a mobile format they would still be in business today. My next point is that idea that politics has also morphed into a mobile sensation. You can now receive texts from politicians, emails on your phone, and they have various apps that make themselves sound better. Even Vermin Supreme has his own app that supports him. This technological shift has changed how people receive their news. Now it is accessible everywhere at any time. And this was definitely not the case about two decades ago. My last topic is the increase in texting and driving, and how this has led to greater deaths and injuries in people. Societies addiction to texting has landed itself on the road. And because of this people are not only endangering themselves, but those around them as well. Anyways, my speech at this point  is about 5 minutes ( but knowing me I’ll freak out and spit out 100 words per second, resulting in less time taken). Hopefully everything goes as planned tomorrow.

Election Day Observations

With this past Tuesday being Election Day it is kind of impossible for me to not have something political in my RCL blog. I have to apologize for the constant inclusion of politics, but that is my major so I can only say that I am obsessed. As the results were coming in for electoral votes for each state, Twitter progressively blew up. I saw tweets complaining about both parties. And once Obama won Ohio everything was blown to hell, to say the least. My republican friends began whining and using the #tryingtostayoptimistic, and the democrats of Twitter had tweets of victory. Who would have thought that Twitter would have been a place to find rhetoric of any form? Well, I guess I did because I’m writing about it, but that’s beside the point. Anyways, people on Twitter were using rhetoric without even knowing it. Their simple 100 word tweet provided much insight into their thoughts and opinions. Another place where rhetoric was used was outside of the polling place. Many supporters of the various candidates were standing outside of Alumni Hall making their last push to get voters to choose their candidate. Many were handing out fliers, others stickers. The League of Women voters were handing out free donuts. And someone else had candy. One of the lesser known candidates was even walking around talking to kids who were standing in line. All of this symbolizes rhetoric in some way. And it was very interesting to watch it all unfold right before my eyes.