Sarah Bailin’s E-Portfolio

“I Believe in Strangers on an Airplane”

Transcript:

When I was in seventh grade, my math teacher offered my class a unique opportunity to receive some extra credit points. The assignment was to memorize the most digits of pi that you could in one night, and then recite them to the class the next day for 5 bonus points. I’ve always struggled in math, and seventh grade was no exception, so that night I went home and began memorizing as many digits as I could, knowing that I desperately needed those extra points.

When I got to class the next day, kids were proudly boasting that they had memorized up to 40 digits of pi in only one night. So they were all stunned when I stood up in front of the class and flawlessly recited 100 digits of pi, after only an hour of studying. But to me, this was no big accomplishment. Memorizing numbers had always been easy; all I had to do was remember what colors I was seeing. The navy blue 2’s, the bright yellow 3’s, the blood red 5’s… every number had a distinct color, so all I had to do was follow the rainbow trail in my head, and the numbers would come to me in their correct order.

I had always assumed that everyone saw the world this way. I always saw the numbers and letters in black ink the way they were printed on the page, but in my head, there was no question that each symbol had its own unique shade. It all seemed so natural, which is why, up until the age of 13, I never questioned what I was seeing.

However, in January of 2008, on a flight home from Florida, my mom began chatting to the man who was sitting next to her on the airplane. Halfway through the flight, the man casually mentioned that his daughter wrote novels for children my age. He said he would be happy to send my sister and I one of his daughter’s books, though at the time, I didn’t think he actually would. But sure enough, three weeks after the flight, I opened my mailbox to find an autographed copy of one of his daughter’s books.

The book’s main character was a girl named Mia, who had a condition known as Synesthesia, which caused her to see her numbers and letters in color. As I read the novel, the pieces began to fall into place, as I realized that, like Mia, I had Synesthesia. Knowing that I have Synesthesia has given me a unique sense of individuality, and has changed the way I view the world. I am so grateful to that man from Seat 24C, because what he considered to be just a small act of kindness to a young girl has had a tremendous impact on my life. I believe that this chance encounter with a random stranger changed my life completely. I believe in strangers on an airplane.

I really have no idea what topic I am going to do for my advocacy project yet. There’s nothing that has really stood out to me as a topic that I would be really passionate advocating for. Depending on what my topic is, I will probably advocate by posting online, using Facebook pages for my floor, and some of my organizations. My main audience will most likely be Penn State students, as I will probably stick to a local or university issue. Facebook would be a good medium to use if I am advocating for a university wide issue, because almost all students use Facebook, or some form of social media. I can also hang fliers on my door and in my hall and building for my floor mates to see. I am still doing research on topics that I could use for this project, but at this point I am really not sure what I want to talk about yet.

I’m honestly not sure exactly what I want to do for my Persuasive Policy paper. For my Civic Issues blog, I have been writing about Educational Policies, so I might want to expand on one of the issues I wrote about in one of my blogs. One of my blog posts I focused on what made the American school policies different from international school policies, and what I thought America could do to improve our school system. Another topic I focused on was the DREAM Act, so I may want to take a piece of that legislation and expand on it. I’ve already done a lot of research for these topics for my Civic issues blog, so I can continue with where I began.

I think writing about an educational policy would be a good topic, because people often are interested in educational policy topics, since they have been discussed a lot over the past few years in the US. I don’t know if I am going to focus on it at a University level, and just look at Penn State, or if I will adress a national issue.

UPDATE: I’ve decided look at programs in prisons where mothers are allowed to bring their babies into the prisons. There has been research that shows this is more cost effective in the long run, because the mothers who have their babies in prisons are less likely to commit a crime in the future, so this saves the state money. It’s also been shown that the babies who grow up with their mothers in the prison have less developmental issues in the future, so again, this saves the state money. For my policy, I will look at states that already have this program implemented, and create a policy where other states begin to implement this program.

I Believe In Strangers on an Airplane

When I was in seventh grade, my math teacher offered my class a unique opportunity to receive some extra credit points. The assignment was to memorize the most digits of pi that you could in one night, and then recite them to the class the next day for 5 bonus points. I’ve always struggled in math, and seventh grade was no exception, so that night I went home and began memorizing as many digits as I could, knowing that I desperately needed those extra points.

When I got to class the next day, kids were proudly boasting that they had memorized up to 40 digits of pi in only one night. So they were all stunned when I stood up in front of the class and flawlessly recited 100 digits of pi, after only an hour of studying. But to me, this was no big accomplishment. Memorizing numbers had always been easy; all I had to do was remember what colors I was seeing. The navy blue 2’s, the bright yellow 3’s, the blood red 5’s… every number had a distinct color, so all I had to do was follow the rainbow trail in my head, and the numbers would come to me in their correct order.

I had always assumed that everyone saw the world this way. I always saw the numbers and letters in black ink the way they were printed on the page, but in my head, there was no question that each symbol had its own unique shade. It all seemed so natural, which is why, up until the age of 13, I never questioned what I was seeing.

However, in January of 2008, on a flight home from Florida, my mom began chatting to the man who was sitting next to her on the airplane. Halfway through the flight, the man casually mentioned that his daughter wrote novels for children my age. He said he would be happy to send my sister and I one of his daughter’s books, though at the time, I didn’t think he actually would. But sure enough, three weeks after the flight, I opened my mailbox to find an autographed copy of one of his daughter’s books.

The book’s main character was a girl named Mia, who had a condition known as Synesthesia, which caused her to see her numbers and letters in color. As I read the novel, the pieces began to fall into place, as I realized that, like Mia, I had Synesthesia. Knowing that I have Synesthesia has given me a unique sense of individuality, and has changed the way I view the world. I am so grateful to that man from Seat 24C, because what he considered to be just a small act of kindness to a young girl has had a tremendous impact on my life. I believe that this chance encounter with a random stranger changed my life completely. I believe in strangers on an airplane.

For my Passion Blog, I am going to stick with the same topic I wrote about last semester, which was a survival guide to your freshman year of college. However, these were some ideas I also considered if I was going to switch my topic.

1. Dance- I’ve been dancing for 15 years, so I figured that I would have plenty to write about. I could write about my experiences from dance, or maybe I could write about different styles of dance, such as contemporary, tap, tango, salsa, mambo, ect. I could look into the history of each style of dance, and write about what made each one unique from the others.

2. Baking- I don’t have a kitchen here, but I love to bake with my sister at home. I could write a blog about different things my sister and I have baked, and maybe about the event that we cooked them for and the significance behind the recipe.

I’m still not exactly sure what I want to to write about for my “This I Believe” essay. I think I wrote one of these essays in middle school, but I can not remember what I wrote about then.

One idea I have is writing about the nursing home that I volunteer at. Over the past year and a half, I have grown very close to some of the residents living there, and they have taught me many things about life in general.

Another one I thought about writing is how I’ve worked at preschool camp for the past five summers, and how that influenced me to become a teacher.

The last topic I considered is writing about how one small moment can change your life. I would write about what led me to discover that have a neurological condition called synesthesia.

For my civic issue blog, I would like to focus on the topic of education. I am an education major, so I think that I would have a lot to write about within that topic, such as certain education policies, like No Child Left Behind. The other topic I would consider is gender issues, because I feel like there are plenty of issues to write about within that category, both locally and internationally.

I was fairly happy with how my blogs came out last semester. They were all the proper length, and I think I covered the topics well. To improve this semester, I might work on writing better comments on other people’s blogs, but for the most part, I was happy with how last semester turned out.

The most important aspect from these videos to me was the editing. This project does not require us to film anything, so the sections about choosing a camera and filming basics was not really necessary. However, as my group looks for images and video clips for our project, it is important to keep these ideas in mind, because we want to make sure that the clips we are using are good quality.

Transitions are extremely important in any video. In many cases, the longer you focus on an image tells the audience the importance of that image to your overall message. Therefore, my group will want to decide which pictures are most crucial towards our main ideas, and then we can decide how long to leave the images on the screen and how to transition between them. We also want to transition smoothly between still images and video clips, so will have to figure out the best possible way to alternate between the two.

Music can also make or break a video. My group is discussing poverty and welfare, which is not exactly a happy or uplifting topic. Therefore, we will want to make sure that the music fits the mood of the information we are giving. Music often sets the tone for a video, so if the music is conflicting with the overall message of the video, it will leave the audience confused. My group will want to find music that sets a good mood for our topic, but also does not overshadow what we are saying.

Overall, there are many things that are necessary to create an informative and effective video, but the two that stood out to me most clearly for this project were transitions and background music.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen blood donation flyers all over campus. The flyers, printed by the Red Cross club, have been encouraging students to donate blood as part of a competition with Michigan State University. Despite our student body being much larger than Michigan State’s we are losing the competition by a lot.

Today in Sociology, a girl in my lecture who was part of the Red Cross club stood up in front of the class for a few minutes to give us some reasons why we should donate. She said that donating blood could be seen as a civic duty, because each donation has the potential to save three lives. She also stated that many fraternities, sororities, and organizations would give its members community service hours for donating, and the members are required to have a certain amount of community service hours to remain a part of their organization, so this could be a great way to get those hours. She continued by saying donors would get free pizza, so they could save up on meal points and lion cash, and lastly, she added the donors would also get a free T-shirt, so they could put off doing their laundry for one more day.

I fel like she gave extremely good reasons for us to donate blood, and that her arguments were very persuasive. Her audience was made up of entirely college students, so free food is a huge motivation to do almost anything. Free shirts are also a big draw- at football games people go crazy to get the shirts they shoot out of the cannons. Almost every student on campus is involved with greek life or some kind of organization, so they will definitely be needing those community service hours. And of course, who wouldn’t want to help save lives?

Overall, I think she gave very good arguments for getting involved with this civic engagement activity by donating blood. The “competition” ends November 21, so I would encourage everyone to donate before then. It’s for a good cause, as well as bragging rights against Michigan State, so it’s a win-win situation for everyone!

I based most of my TED talk on my Paradigm shift essay. To prepare for my TED Talk, I went over my essay, and took the main points I wanted to focus on, and put them into bullet points in the order I wanted to say them. I then created a powerpoint slide to go with each bullet point, so that I would have something specific to say for each slide. Since I did my TED Talk on the first day, I did not have a ton of time to prepare and memorize my talk. Dividing it into bullet points was an easy way for me to organize and remember my speech. I tried to incorporate ethos and logos into my talk to help support my main points.

I do not like to watch myself on camera, and watching my TED Talk was no exception. I actually was happier with my performance right after I did it than when I watched it back four days later. There were more awkward pauses than I realized, even though they only lasted for a second or two. Furthermore, I barely made eye contact with the camera. Part of this had to do with the fact that the camera was so high up, so it seemed awkward to look at during my presentation. I think I made good eye contact with the audience, which may not have been a complete positive for this specific assignment, but for public speaking in general it was a good step.

I was happy with the pace that I talked. I talk fast to begin with, so during presentation I always go even faster because of nerves. This becomes a problem when I am required to speak for a specific time limit, because I always feel like I prepared enough material, but when I actually start presenting, it goes by quicker than I think it will. This happened to me in the first public speaking assignment we did this semester, when I felt that I had enough to talk about to meet the time limit, but I ended up being a minute short. However, during my TED Talk, I talked for 5:19, which was well over the minimum of four minutes. I feel like my talk flowed well and that all my points connected and were explained well. It definitely helped that I could see on the screen what powerpoint slide was coming next, so that way I knew what to say to transition smoothly to my next point.

I never know what to do with my hands during presentations, especially one like this where the speaker does not always acknowledge the powerpoint going on behind them, since often times people will point at their slides. I moved my hands around a little bit, but I do not think it was too distracting to my audience.

Overall, I think my TED Talk went fairly well, although I did not enjoy watching it. I was more comfortable presenting than I thought I would be, and I was very interested in my topic, so that definitely helped in the preparation. This was not my favorite project, but it definitely could have gone worse.

There is absolutely no reason for anyone to watch this video. I only included it because we were required to. DO NOT watch it. You were warned.

“AND IT’S OFF THE WALL…. A THREE RUN DOUBLE FOR SHANE VICTORINO!”

I am absolutely obsessed with baseball, so as I write this blog, I’ve got my eyes glued to the TV screen. After all, it’s game six of the World Series, and as Red Sox fans know, anything can happen during game six. (For those of you who don’t know, Game Six of the 1986 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets was one of the most iconic baseball games in history. The Mets won the game and eventually won the World Series. My Dad was at Game Six, and as a huge Mets fan, it was one of the best nights of his life. I will forever be jealous that he was there.) As a Mets fan, I still hate the Cardinals for knocking the Mets out of the playoffs in 2006, so I’m more than happy to watch the Red Sox pummel the Cardinals as I write this. Hopefully the score stands, and by the end of the night the Red Sox will be celebrating their third World Series since 2004.

Baseball is America’s Pastime, and there have been many historic moments over the years, and many influential players. One of the most famous players is Jackie Robinson, a player that non- baseball fans even know about. Robinson was the first African American player in the MLB, when he made his debut in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. By putting Robinson on the field, the Dodgers were making a huge rhetorical point, stating that they would not stand for racism and segregation in baseball. This was extremely controversial at the time, as you can imagine, as players and fans alike were divided on the issue. Many people shouted obscenities at Robinson, but the other player on the Dodgers stood up for him, whether it was with their words or through their actions, again making the point that discrimination should not be a part of baseball. At then end of the 1947 season, Jackie Robinson won the Rookie of the Year Award, showing the world that he was just as good, and probably better, than many of his white teammates, and proving that segregation in baseball, and in America, would be obsolete sooner rather than later.

There have been many outstanding moments in baseball over the years, however, Jackie Robinson’s debut will forever be an inspiring and pivotal moment in American history. Robinson made a rhetorical point by showing that discrimination would no longer be tolerated in America, and became an important figure in the Civil Rights movement. His number, 42, was retired throughout baseball, to demonstrate Robinson’s lasting influence on Baseball, and on the nation.