assignment #11- THE assignment

well… the time has come. it is the last day of the semester. and that could only mean one thing…  reflection time!

more realistically, it means everyone scrambling to get their blog posts and comments in on time (myself included) 😉

i had an awesome time in ct 101 this semester and learned many new skills. for one thing, i learned how to make sick collages on mmm and i got to also show my photoshop express skills, talk about my passions, make memes and even build a website using wordpress. 

i did not come to every class but those i did attend, i loved the atmosphere of the class and appreciated ryan’s style of teaching and desire for student input. it truly was an unconventional class and it’s a shame more classes can not take on a similar structure.

so what grade do i think i deserve in the class?

well, besides wanting an A, i think i also deserve an A because the only reason why i would think i would deserve a lesser grade is due to my absences. but i do not think i should penalize myself for taking advantage of the accessibility of the class as a working, full time student with a long commute.

i know that i could have made it school many times if i am being honest with myself, but i also know that  if i had gone to school those days my quality of work in this class and all of my other ones would have been poorer because i would have had less time to complete them. i think in 2023, just a few years after we discovered most things could be done online, i do not have to feel shameful that i did exactly that.

i completed every mandatory assignment and with the exception of assignment 6, which admittedly was quite rushed, i feel my blog posts grew every week, were well thought out and nicely executed with hyperlinks and gifs and i  always followed  the prompts provided. i completed all of the mandatory assignments and built my website up.

i definitely plan on continuing to run my website long after this class is over. i am really grateful that this class gave me the opportunity to create one. as i’ve previously mentioned, i never thought about creating my own website before.

now, i already gave myself a grade but if i had to give one to ct 101, i’d give it an A+ great professor, great assignments, and a flexible learning environment. the voices behind ratemyprofessor definitely were right about ryan- he’s a fan favorite for good reason!

you can see all my work from the semester here :

Assignment #1- on the internet this week

Assignment #2- To GIF or Not To GIF

Assignment #3- do memes imitate life or does life imitate memes?

assignment #4-passions

assignment #5- digital storytelling project flexibility

assignment #6- making art immediacy

assignment #7: “mid” semester reflection & domain naming

assignment #9- domain name registration, hosting set up and word press installation

assignment #10/10 pt 2- word press customization

my one regret from this class was not commenting more on my classmates work because i really did admire it from afar. i’m proud of all of for how far we’ve come and i hope everyone who is reading this enjoys a great winter break. peace out, ct 1o1 !

assignment #6- making art immediacy

using my intuition, my creativity, and the immediacy of needing to submit this assignment 😉 , i used figma to make a to do list.

assignment #10- making my website mine

i really got into my website, and worked very hard on making the first few pieces of content. in fact, i arguably spent too much time working on it when i should have been studying for finals, but who could resist fun website building over studying?

i plan on using this website somewhat like portfolio. i have goals to one day get a masters degree in language and science technology. to get into the school and program i want to attend, i will need to conduct a research project and present it. in addition to this, i’d like to be able to show my interviewers something to set me apart from other candidates and so i figure this website can serve as that, to show my true passion for language.

but it is not just for the purpose of a portfolio, i’d genuinely like to teach people things. i plan on writing posts to teach polish and spanish grammar (and more later, but i am going to start with the two languages i am most familiar with) to english speakers to keep as tabs on my website, always available for someone looking for resources.

the first post i made was an introduction, as i mentioned in my previous post, i’d like my website not be completely faceless and for people to feel a connection with the person who wrote the material they’re consuming.

then i made a quick little page about entitled why learn a language? just to quickly summarize key points as why language learning is beneficial.

then i began working on the real job… explaining complex grammar of a foreign language in a way that is easy for people to understand and is not overwhelming with information but also thorough. i have made two posts under my polish page : przypadki one and przypadki two… these posts explain the declinations of polish nouns and adjectives, a huge component of the language that is very difficult to understand, especially for native english speakers. on the polish page, i inserted two hyperlinks at the bottom of the page to direct viewers to those posts.

i had to figure out how to make subpages for my page but all it took was one simple google search and now the tabs look exactly how i want them to.

i am extremely satisfied with the progress i’ve made with my website and will soon start to make posts about spanish. and one day i’d like to include essays about my opinions on linguistic theories,  the lack of bilingualism in america and other topics relating to language.

i’ve never considered making my own website and i never knew it would be a process i’d really enjoy. i am very grateful that this class gave me the opportunity to venture out of my internet comfort zone but more about that will be in my final blog post.

assignment #9- getting started

i had (surprisingly enough) a very painless experience setting up my domain. 

when i was picking my website name, every name i tested out was available, i didn’t find word press impossible to navigate and i felt an overwhelming sense of pride when i was able to customize the site a little bit, and of course the coupon code and not spending 30+ dollars tied the experience off with a bow 🙂

for my theme on word press, I went with the 2023 version as it was not as complicated as the 2024 version aaaand because it had the best aesthetic in my opinion. i chose the canary color scheme offered- black and yellow.

i thought the appearance of this color scheme was both warm but serious, which is the feeling i’d like to convey as my website is informational but i want it to also feel somewhat personal. i also preferred the layout that the theme offered compared to the others.

the website is relatively straightforward to use, to customize, edit and navigate your website you can hit the wordpress logo in the upper left hand corner of the site. the menu will appear below it and you can change the appearance of the site and manage posts and pages. i have tried to work on a godaddy website before and i must say, i found that front-end website maker slightly harder to navigate so i am really pleasantly surprised by the ease of wordpress.

i have already customized by website but that’s gonna be in the next post… see u there 🙂

okay so we’re a little past the middle of the semester but better late than never, right?

to be 100% honest, i would probably, at this very moment in time, grade myself at around a  C+ in this class because i have missed quite a few lectures (although I have been assured its not the end of the world 🙂 ) and am also missing some assignments. i am missing assignments 6, 9 and 10. but as far as 9 and 10 go, i already have my domain up and running, i just need to write my posts for the ct101 site.

when i upload my missing assignments i think i will be deserving of a high B or an A in the class as even though my blog posts are late, they are of good quality. i try my best to follow the prompts and incorporate a lot of media and hyperlinks and i also try to grow my posts with every submission.

if you want to see my old posts, you can find them here, and here, and here, and here, and here. 🙂

now that we got that out of the way, here are some thoughts about the class:

1. i am incredibly thankful for the flexibility it has given me. as a student with a full school schedule, a job and many hobbies, this class has gifted me some extra free time due to professor seslow’s willingness to accommodate and accept late submissions.
2. i have become more open to the internet through completing these assignments. i am incredibly excited for creating posts and running my website, i am slowly but surely getting the hang of word press and am thoroughly enjoying the research and writing component of the blogs posts i am drafting.
3.  it was encouraging to look through the ds106 assignment repository and the daily create and see people really engaging with their creativity and posting it online for others to enjoy or draw inspiration from. i’ve always enjoyed creating art but i often times put an added pressure on myself to be original and end up feeling like i’m not a creative person when i can not come up with or execute an original idea. i’ve learned that its perfectly fine to draw inspiration from others and that’s how you’re going to find the idea that suits you best for the time, art is so much more fun with guidelines but without stupid rules  you create for yourself.
4. blogging is fun but like all things, its not as easy as it seems. whenever  i work with a new medium, i get severely humbled during the process. i have a newfound respect for people who can seamlessly maneuver internet tools and not have to rewatch the tutorial 10 times (maybe that only applies to a small demographic but i don’t know ) and for people who have designed even the simplest websites.

now let’s talk about my website:

obviously, i have already picked a domain name which was lubaslanguagequest.com 

this was not my first idea for it though, obviously. my first thought for my website name was lubaslinguistics.com and then i thought of linguisticswithluba.com (i should probably tell you at this point that luba is a nickname of mine most of friends call me)

but i felt limited by both of those options- what if i did not want to write about just linguistics but just about language? then i moved to options to like languagewithluba.com or lubaslanguagecorner.com i liked the direction i was heading towards but still unsatisfied then i went from corner to quest and was still unsure about but i ended up going with it.

i like the decision i made because it gives me the flexibility to make the blog posts about whatever i want in the scope of language. the way i see it, my quest is to not only teach others on the internet about language but also to learn myself. my “quest” can encompass all aspects of learning a language- posts about grammar rules, posts about my opinion of languages or linguistics, tips for studying etc.

none of that feels off limits for me because i did not pick such a confining domain name whereas if i stuck with lubaslinguistics.com,  i would not have such creative freedom.

i am currently working on two posts; one about a polyglot’s language learning method and one about the intricacies of polish grammar. i am very excited and will keep you guys posted as to when they are up.

byeeeeeee!

well… i finally bit the bullet. i have been putting off this assignment forever and a day! i have even started working on posts for my website already but this assignment has sat untouched for weeks because in all honesty, it intimidated me- it seemed like a lot to take on. i found an exercise i liked a while ago but was so afraid to execute it.

for my first creation, i went with a prompt i saw on the daily create- it was the prompt posted on november 2nd: design a birthday cake to commemorate marie antionette’s birthday.

my passion is…

learning new things!

i struggled writing this blog post as i am very much a jack of all trades, master of none and I am excruciatingly aware of the fact that my past projects and burnt out passions are all commiserating in a graveyard somewhere…

so now this may sound like a lame passion but hear me out- i had to think to myself ‘what do dancing, trekking, rock climbing, crocheting, reading, writing (might seem counter intuitive on a post without capital letters but here we are), drawing, cooking, and language learning all have in common?’ the answer was right in front of my face- i had to learn all of these things (for most of them, the learning does not stop) and then this realization had a second wave- i very much enjoy learning/having learned these skills.

i dance just for fun but in dance, you never stop learning- you need to learn the steps and their names you learn about what makes choreography good and unique, there’s also dance history where you can learn about well… the history of dance. when i was in middle school, we had a dance history class where i learned about  the foundations of modern dance and queen martha graham who said this about passion-

studying language(s) is also never ending because no matter how much you study, there is always more to learn. english is my first language and i am still learning about it! just last year i took a phonetics class and learned IPA and the sounds of the letters in american english, specifically in the northeastern dialect. in learning polish i had to learn how to use cases and how to pronounce grzegorsz brzeczyszczykiewicz   which is easier done than said 😉 and i’ve been studying spanish in school from the 6th grade until present day and i still have plenty of distance between me and fluency but i’ve never stopped enjoying the process.

“You have no power here…”

i also learn about linguistics and can tell you about whorfianism and why i believe neo-whorfianism is garbage theory

in rock climbing, the learning never stops either- besides learning how to physically climb, the first technical skill of the sport you have to learn  is how to tie a figure 8 knot and later you’ll learn harder things like how to make a stable anchor , how to place gear and how to clean up gear- i’m still working on those…

with trekking, you need to learn how to train your body for long excursions and you need to learn how to stay warm, what kind of clothes are suitable and how to navigate

with every book you read, you are learning- you  learn the plot of the book if its fiction and if it is non fiction you learn about its subject matter. books can also teach you new perspectives and genuinely alter your life. this year i read a book called the four agreements that showed me a different approach to life, even though i did not find the whole book completely realistic or doable, it definitely broadened my perspective.

and with writing, you learn effective styles over time, new vocabulary, and proper formats for different kinds of writing

all of this to say… i am passionate about a lot of things but I am most passionate about learning. reading helps me to learn about the perspectives of others, writing helps me learn the perspective of myself and getting outside helps me learn about the world and my place in it. i one day desire to be a vessel of knowledge, but so far i just know a lot about nothing… i still have such a long way to go but i will never end my pursuit because

are memes art? definitely. although memes have not existed too long in the grand scheme of things, there were definitely meme precursors that were also art- the comic strip! think of peanuts, the far side, garfield or any other comic strip… those were analog memes; a funny little picture and words for context to tell a story and make the audience feel something (humor, namely)

you can argue that the comic strip was “more” of an art than memes are because the artist actually had to sketch the featured drawing but memes often consider digitally altered or created images that the artist put time and effort into creating- no different than doing a sketch in my opinion…

memes are art for many reasons;

firstly, because they require skill and practice to make at an advanced level. like any other art form (painting, dancing, sculpting, etc.) , it is one that could be perfected over time. and like any other art form, it exists on levels scaling from primitivity to mastery.

memes, like all other art forms, have sub styles- there’s dank memes, niche memes, ironic memes, deep fried memes, etc. and once a new style of meme is created by someone, they inspire other people to make similar memes… like in art, the style of one artist or memeist will inspire hundreds of others to embrace the same style and implement it into their own work.

memes are art people they make people feel something. happiness is the first emotion that comes to mind, but I have definitely come across memes that have boiled my blood or have made me feel sad, I’ve even seen memes that made me feel shameful I could find them funny.

most importantly, memes are art because they shape our culture. memes are timely, and document important social events. memes require context- sometimes the context will have to do with pop culture, sometimes politics, sometimes the PSAT– without the context, you’re lost.

i think some people’s reluctance to recognize memes as art stems from some form of elitism because as pointed out by the guy in the video , memes have the potential to be participated in by everyone; memes are inclusive whereas more classical forms of art sometimes are not. i love the quote he cited from Tolstoy- “to invoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced  and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words so to transmit that feeling that others experience the same feeling. this is the activity of art.” i completely agree that this quote can be directly applied to memes.

a couple of memes about CT101:

Hi all, my name is Meagan and my favorite feature of the internet is our ability to share information with each other. You can learn almost anything on the internet from a comprehensible teacher who most likely isn’t even a teacher- anyone can share their knowledge without credentials and have many platforms to do so.

This week on the internet, the queen’s library website
has made me happy because they have resources on their website to help you learn a wide variety of languages and even dialects of specific languages. It is free and accessible to all of those with a library card.

Most of my time spent on the internet is dedicated towards language learning (and just learning in general) and the plethora of resources and knowledge available to me always leaves me awestruck.