Composing log with TIB essay

This is my process/composing log with my "This I Believe" essay and link to my digital mulitmodal project that was for my Digital Media class.  I chose to focus on dreams as the subject.


Leah’s composing log
Thurs. 8/30
I’ve been trying to come up with a topic. One idea I’ve been considering came into first place last night but I’m still kicking around how to express myself.
Mon. 9/03
Not entirely sure how this is going to work out...I had to work all weekend so I haven’t been able to do anything regarding the project. Plus, it is becoming quite clear that I am going to have to find time to purchase a new laptop. Mine doesn’t work and I have been using my boyfriend’s - the only problem is that he is in school entirely online and is on the computer constantly. I really need to commit to an idea so I can run with it. Being indecisive is really holding me up right now.
Tues 9/04
Decided on an idea last night - finally - and wrote the essay. Went through a ton of images to find what I want for my project. Tried Creative Commons with little success regarding images that will work. Found the perfect song but unfortunately it is a clip from Youtube so I can’t download it and therefore don’t know how to use it. Of course.
Wed 9/05
I have my images but didn’t remember to write the info for each so I am going to have to go back at the end and figure out what information I need from each source and how to cite them. Citations have always been a weak area for me. I recorded my speech (ugh) and although I have heard myself recorded before, it is never pleasant. I have some quotes I want to use but they break up my speech too much so I decided to put them on Powerpoint slides and include them with my images instead.
Thurs 9/06
Had school and work today so haven’t had much time to work on anything. Am trying to find a way to use the song I want. Asked some guys at work if they had any recommendations as how to use it but am coming up empty.
Fri 9/07
Am starting to really freak out. I have found that youtube is a valuable source of how-to info if not usable content for my project. Guess I need to find another song...I am going to avoid youtube for this one. Need more pics. Right now slide show is pretty unimpressive so need to add transitions and more.
Sat 9/08
Work, work, work and unfortunately not on the project. Gotta pay the bills somehow though. Did ask around for people’s opinions regarding what kind of laptop to get so after this project and once I have access to my student loans I can avoid having to use someone else’s. I need something I can work on whenever I need to.
Sun 9/09
Today is going to be an all day affair. Going through all the possibilities of transitions, effects, and animations is very time-consuming but I want to find what works best for the pictures and theme for the movie. I did find another song that I don’t like near as much as the first one, but oh well. I checked to make sure my word count is within the right parameters. Still need to re-record my speech and do citations. The schedule at work went up and of course I have to close tomorrow night. And then my boyfriend has to be on the computer after I get off work. Will do what I can before work and after that, I don’t know how I am going to be able to finish the project in time. If it weren’t for the citations and finding what and where they are and figuring out how to cite them - I might have a chance. As it stands now...
9/10
I have been working on my project but have been keeping my log in a notebook so I’m going to go back and fill this log in from that. At this point I have my music, my images, my transitions, effects, and animations in place. My essay is the way I want it but I need to re-record it and add it to my movie. Citations are going to be a major pain because Creative Commons didn’t offer me much in the way of what I needed for my project. As with any project, problems keep popping up. I tried to add a title page to my movie with the result that it completely stopped working. I took it out and voila, we’re back in business. I played around with the duration of the images as I want some to be shown longer than others. Played my movie through (still only music and images) and the music ends rather abruptly - not using the whole song. Need to tinker with that if I can find the time. Due at work in about an hour and am behind on what I need to have done by this point. It’s either going to be a very late night or a very early morning or both. I really don’t want to turn this in late.
9/17
As with before, I am filling in what happened earlier this week. I didn’t always have access to a computer so I kept notes in a regular old notebook. I stayed up all night Monday working on my project - when I had access to the computer. I never could figure out how to stop my speech from looping so eventually I just accepted it and had my voice fade out at the end. The other night (Wednesday) I went back to find the pics I had used for my project and imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find them all. They were from Flickr but they apparently had gotten buried. I learned a valuable lesson - always record the website and contributor from anything you pick up, just in case. For the ones I did find, I made a Powerpoint slide of credits and tucked it in at the end. I think it was Friday when I finally uploaded my project to YouTube. When I tried to find it, I had problems so then I just put it on my Facebook page - even though I really didn’t want to. Last night I submitted my written essay to NPR and emailed the prof the screenshot and the forwarded submission email. Finishing this composing log should get me all caught up. Okay, just tried to find it on Youtube and was successful this time. You can either just search “Leah’s dream project” or click on this link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzOeXRHnB6U
Hope you like it.
Essay is same as DMC.
Written essay:

I believe that my dreams have purpose. My dreams take me to places that my imagination has created. I can do things that are impossible in reality. I can be someone who is myself, and yet not. Rarely are my dreams hazy and out of focus. Usually they are amazingly vivid. There are times when I am unaware that what is taking place in my mind is a dream. Other times I know that I am dreaming. Those are the most liberating by far. I have flown in my dreams more times than I can count. I have soared above rivers, perched in trees, and seen the ocean from a bird’s-eye view. There are always trees in my dreams - maybe because I feel like there is a chance that I could float away too far and never get back to solid earth. I have taken great bounding leaps on the sunlit and sandy shores of beaches only to find out that gravity has little effect on me.

Because my dreams are usually of the intense variety, it means that when I have bad dreams they can leave me shaken, sometimes for days. Although these dreams are dark, I would rather suffer through them than never dream at all.

My worlds are many – they consist of sunny days in a forest, moonlit city nights, grey wintry mornings, and more. It has always pleased me to be able to visit other places, people, and sometimes dimensions through reading. By dreaming, I experience things in a way that reading cannot equal. It is like living the story in the mind rather than reading it with the eyes. Although the worlds in which I travel can be stranger and occasionally scarier, they are often more magical, mysterious, and inviting. They are also my own creation, even if unwittingly. My subconscious seems to be quite insistent.

I know what it’s like to wake up from a dream and be relieved. I also know what it’s like to wake up from a dream with a sense of loss that the dream wasn’t real. I am not fearless in my dreams but I do have courage. It gives me hope that I may be able to develop from the person I am in life to the person I am in my dreams. I don’t expect to be able to fly, but I certainly wouldn’t mind it.

I dream of events, people, places, animals, and situations so complex and intricately woven that I can only guess that they are the tapestry of my imagination. It’s as if there are millions of patterns in the world and there are as many scenarios and characters waiting to be discovered while I sleep. My mind is trying to tell me something…It’s saying, “I am giving you the material – now create. And wake. And remember.”

10/1
I was a bit confused - I thought I was waiting on feedback to do the reflective part of the composing log - hence the reason for the gap in time and entries. Thinking back on how the composing log helped me made me consider how it would help other students. It helped me to feel less out of control regarding the assignment. Laying my progress out and being able to go back and read over it let me see which parts of the assignment took the most time. I’m hoping that what I learned will help me in my Affinity space project. For instance, finding images and figuring out which transitions worked was pretty time consuming. II know now that I will need to allow a substantial amount of time for that. I think that some students are visual learners which could translate into them finding pictures before they write their words. Images can stimulate thoughts which in turn become written words. For me, writing the essay helped me start everything up because then I knew what kinds of images I wanted to use and could eliminate some right off the bat. I would encourage students to use a composing log so that they can monitor their progress. They can also look back to previous composing logs - if they continue the practice - so they can remember which things about the project tripped them up. For me it was keeping a record of where I got my images and making my words/speech end at the same time as my slides. I feel that the composing log requires not a lot of work for the help it can give students as they work through composing a project.