27 February, 2012

Jou, 216 (Radio Lab)


Under 60 seconds.

Negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea for nuclear disarmament are underway in Beijing. Talks originally began in 2006 for North Korea to forfeit their nuclear weapons programme in exhcange for food aid for their starving natin. South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia are also involved in the treaty to help unite the area. Since the death of Kim Jong Il, his successor Kim Jong Un has been more open to international relations. U.S. envoy Glyn Davie said "The talks today were substantive and serious and we covered quite a number of issues." Discussions will reconvene tomorrow.

A nine-year-old girl was run to her death on Monday at her home in Etowah county, Alabama. Grandmother, Joyce Mae Hardin, punished the girl for sneaking a candy bar on the school bus that afternoon by running a marathon around the house for three hours until she collapsed. The girl was known to have a bladder condition which would be expedited by the consumption of chocolate. Officials ruled the death as a homicide citing severe dehydration as the cause. The girls' grandmother and stepmother have been charged for her murder.

Two young children were struck and killed Wednesday at the intersection of Shady Lane and west Tyvola Road. The intersection is known for being dangerous, officials are investigating preventative measures.

25 February, 2012

Psychology, 150 (Dream Interpretation)


As someone who generally cannot recall past a mild impression of an idea from their dreams, interpreting them is a rather difficult task to attend to. I've never held much stock in dream interpretation. The whole psychoanalytical scheme reminds me more of a soothsayer telling your your past, present and fortune based on a few generic inquiries, or a medium claiming to contact a dead relative of an audience member who has some connection to the letter “A”. It's an act of preaching to the choir, appealing to those who already follow the same school of thought and manipulating the details to force a meaning assigned to them.

That being said, I do acknowledge that dreams are obviously going to be affected by the individual's thoughts. The same could be said about writing a short story, or painting an abstract image. The raw materials must be in your head to be able to create the final product, but that doesn't necessarily mean that being able to conceive the idea correlates to one's want or ability to. In the same mechanic, the best sort of detective is one who can take the perspective of sort of character they are pursing while also not having the intention of following suit.

I like to apply waking psychological theories to dreams. There have been studies which show that your brain filters out irrelevant sounds and background noises. In these studies, they postulated that the brain may take these noises and try to sort sense out of them, giving the impression of disembodied voices or sounds that did not actually happen. It would not be far fetched, as supported by the biological view, that your brain could do this while also sleeping, taking queues from your surroundings and integrating them into the inner cinema evolving during REM sleep. So not only do you pull from your own past experiences, knowledge, creativity, but also from the world around you.

The cognitive view suggests that your brain uses REM sleep as a time to sort through the data of the day and file it away. It would therefore make sense for your experiences during the day to bleed into whatever absent minded thoughts you would fabricate while sleeping. A full REM sleep is the same concept as a daydream, it is up to your creativity and personal experiences as to what will fill these dreams. Any meaning you may wish to assign to it is up to you, but in the end, it's just an amalgamation of whatever stimuli you have interacted with and the correlations your thought patterns may related to those experiences.

In the end, as I stated at the beginning, I do not support the idea of dream interpretation. At this point, since dream interpretation is well known within out society, one could even argue that this has a placebo effect on those more liable to the idea, leading them to fabricate meaning from fragments. Dreams are a just an assessment of your day, a story your brain creates to amuse itself while doing some paperwork. Meaning, or lack thereof, is up to the dreamer to decide.

22 February, 2012

Jou, 216 (Blog Entry 3 - The Leche of Human Kindness)


The best way to get better at something is to practice it often.  I've taken to bringing my camera with me whenever I depart into the outside world, probably to the discomfort of my close acquaintances.  Luckily, they've been very supportive.


I recently photographed my friend's two-year-old daughter, getting her in focus proved to be quite the challenge.  The fun part of candid shots is that they don't have to be perfectly crisp, sometimes the imperfect ones lend to the subject, as more often than not, a toddler will be tapping into their wellspring of forever energy.



Heidi is a sweetheart.  The first time I met her, she looked at me like I was the devil.  Since then she's rather warmed up to me and has proceeded to turn on the doe eyes with abandon when her will is contested.  Not that I generally mind being manipulated by a small bundle of cunning, it's just so hard to deny her when she turns on the charm.

The entire time I was shooting, she shyly shuffled around with an occasional giggle bubbling past her lips.  Multiple times she would reach forward with her sticky fingers to fondle my lens, leading to some blurry "come hither"-esque photos and me neurotically dodging to avoid fingerprints smears.














As her mother was preparing their family dinner, I sat in the living room with Heidi to watch her favourite movie, Rio.  I'm a sucker for children's films and had yet to see it, so I was just as engrossed with the story as she was.  Luckily, I decided to pester her a little more with the camera and captured a sequence of emotion that only little kids seem to manage.  The film had reached a point of conflict in the plot, causing Heidi to go from blissful mumbling of song syllables she's retained on to fear, sadness, anger, surprise, happiness, then intent focus in the span of a few minutes.


That unguarded reaction and expression is something we eventually grow out of as adults, so it is refreshing when you get to see a child show their exact feelings so plainly.  It doesn't hurt to be damn cute while doing it, either.



Her favourite part was to look at the pictures of herself on the small display screen on the camera.  After a few minutes of posing for the camera, she would exclaim "baby?!" and clamour into my lap before any rebuttal could be issued to flip through the recent shots.  It was so much fun hanging out with my friend and her daughter, I can't wait to invade their home again soon.

17 February, 2012

Jou, 216 (Black History Month)


Central Piedmont Community College reconnected students with local history with a presentation and discussion of “February One”, a documentary on the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins, in celebration of Black History Month at Central Campus.

Amanda Capobianchi, the associate dean for Student Life, said about 55 people attended the film. A short discussion followed the film to engage students. Many students expressed their thoughts on the film as well as comments on the civil rights movement as a whole.
“A simple act can help change the world,” said Jennifer Conway, Student Life program coordinator at Central Campus.

Chan Lee, a public speaking student, attended the film on recommendation of his teacher. “It was good to learn about history, what they endured.” said Lee.

“Martin Luther King, Jr had the right idea where everyone was to be equal as humans,” said local Charlotte resident Peter Franz. Franz compared civil rights initiatives he experienced while living in both Chicago and and Charlotte throughout the 1960s, with an appreciation for the non-violent protests utilized in the South.

The film hits close to home for the Queen City, documenting the Greensboro sit-ins which influenced students throughout the South to take a peaceful stand for civil rights, including a group in Charlotte. An anonymous source in the film described the event, “That dime store was the birthplace of a whirlwind.”
Central Campus will also feature former CPCC president Ruth Shaw speaking on women's history and Corlis Hayes, communication instructor, performing a one person act related to the time period.

Jou, 216 (Blog Entry 2 - A Little Flamboyant Heart and Soul)

I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day. I view it as a very fake and forced holiday, even when I have a significant other to share the time with.

Luckily, a good friend of mine had invited me to see the play "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told" at the Duke Energy Theatre.  A mutual friend of ours is the stage manager for the show and asked us both to attend.

We decided to try a soul food restaurant near the theatre before the show, Mert's Heart and Soul Food. It was one of the best impromptu food choices ever made in the history of mankind.

The decor was eclectic and inspiring, the walls adorned with personal photographs of the owner and famous African-American figures of the South.

A chalkboard hangs above the open view kitchen featuring the original menu from the restaurant opening 13 years ago and random sculptures made from discarded items were stations around the cozy space, keeping a mix of old with the new in theme.



Our waitress was fabulous, a true southern lady calling us honey while she offered sweet tea as the first and foremost option for liquid refreshment.  No matter how long I've lived in the South, the odd obsession with tea sweet enough to make your cheeks pucker will forever amuse me.

 With the chill outside, I opted for some homemade chicken noodle soup and a piece of buttermilk fried chicken.  My friend, a born and bred Southerner, went for a more traditional collections of sides of macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and sweet yams.

Each order comes with a small loaf of cornbread, possibly the most delicious cornbread in the world.  I felt like my mouth was going to die from happiness, the moist and semi-sweet nugget of baked magic.  I'd honestly never been a fan of the stuff, but this restaurant introduced me to the perfect version that alone will bring me back with drool on my chin in anticipation. Yes, it was so good I am devoting an entire paragraph to its majesty.

To round off our meal celebrating old fashioned home cooking of the South, after asking the waitress for her personal suggestions, we ordered some banana pudding for dessert.

This was another one of the best life decisions we've made as a collective throughout our friendship.  Two in one night, we were obviously on a roll.

Enough whipped cream to last the entire dish.  Freshly made, I'd only ever experienced the kind that's been loitering in a pan at some cheap buffet before.

And, I don't know, I'm just a big fan of both bananas and pudding.  So, maybe I was a tad biased.  Which ever you wish to accredit my praises to, I definitely recommend this treat.

We were reluctant to leave, but we had to rush off to catch our show.  I plan on repeating my attendance, not only for the tantalising cornbread, but also to dive deep into some of the local food culture I've never had the chance to become acquainted with despite my years of residing below the Mason-Dixie line.

14 February, 2012

Valentine's Day Cakes


I baked up a storm for my Public Speaking class tomorrow. I'm doing a demonstrative speech on how to ice a cake. Lazytown references are the bulk of my intro, but I really wanted to make a cake dedicated to the cute rally point style some faux Canadian kid made up. 





It's pretty poorly executed, but I was in a rush to vacate the kitchen before dinner after baking 4 cakes and 24 cupcakes all day. >_<;;