The Alcoff piece was definitely dead on with the assignments we are working. I am still not 100% sold however that speaking for others is harmful… that is kind of where I am stuck.

In her three beginning examples she sets up what her pice is going to be about by giving very different situations of speaking for or in the last case not speaking for. In the first example I believe that her style of writing should not be critiqued by a few other women so harshly – that example did not sell me to believe speaking for others is bad. Yet the second point about the president is a grey situation where he could be helping and could be hurting… yet the president is not simply speaking for but acting for. And then the last situation when the theorist won’t even lecture.. I thought that he could have lectured if he was educated on the situation he is still qualified to stake claims of his own personal opinion.

As far as relating that Alcoff piece and the situation at the boys and girls club I have been struggling with speaking for and speaking about. Since we are working with younger kids I feel there is some knowlegde I have looking back at my childhood that they are not aware of. Since our group plans to incoroporate a volunteer activity schedule its hard to say what speaking for the kids really is. Am I speaking for them if I express the activity choices I enjoyed when I was younger and state that I want the kids to have those opportinitues as well? I guess its a difficult subject that I am having trouble grasping but the Alcoff piece didn’t make it any clearer for me.

Some parts that I find confusing are:

“Charge of Reductionism” - why is it viewed negatively? In many cases I feel I need to see that someone has successfully achieved something higher than I have to know it is attainable. And in just as many situations there mentoring, help and even their networks can be very helpful to me. I many times especially in school and work know I am “reduced” to a lower level of inteligence and training – nor would I be angered if someone where to point it out. Its true and a place for growing not something to try and hide and not let people talk about.

I guess my biggest misunderstanding is what is the problem with being spoken for by someone who has an intention of helping you. I’m trying to grasp the idea but it hasn’t fully clicked.

I do agree with Alcoff’s statement: “Even a complete retreat from speech is of course not neutral since it allows the continued dominance of current discourses and acts by omission to reenforce their dominance.”

• It sounds to easy to be true but it almost feels like if you are going to speak for someone, with good hearted intentions, and they are aware of your intentions and direction – how can it be negative? 

Definition: To be service to, to serve, to provide with service

“The idea that every American has something to give and at all times may, can and should give, explains why it occurred to students that they could help Mexican peasants “develop” by spending a few months in their villages.”

In Monsignor Ivan Illich’s piece from 1968 he is addressing the Conference on Inter-American Student Projects. The quote above is relatively in the beginning of his piece where he down and out bashes people (Americans) helping out/volunteering/providing service to other countries, particularly Mexico.

At first in class when the topic about voice over was brought up the main things that came to mind were movies where they cut out cursing and you can totally tell the difference, music videos with the clean version of the song with original video, or even a preformance with a pre-recorded track. A few different situations came up in my mind about what there could be possibly be written about voice over and pertinent to this class.

 After reading the two pieces the topic on voice over was a lot more interesting and even more indepth than I thought possible. Kozloff made many strong points on the defense for voice over and the creativity. I did not think there was a situtation that a voice over would be a good or necessary thing but she definitly made her case. The artistic side of narration versus what I originally believed to be a cheap cop out or way to please over sheltering mothers is cleary defended in both of her pieces. 

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Enrty part II, responding to the prompt after reading the pieces for the second time:

Notes on Invisible Storytellers: Voice-Over Narration in American Fiction Films

• It is very true that the average moviegoer watches many movies without noticing voice-over narration (myself included)
• voice=medium, someone must be speaking, no text
• over= off screen, in a different time and space than the time and space of the discourse
• narration= content
• verb tense and the ways things are stated strongly affects whether is can be considered voice-over narration or not
• 6 elements very interesting
• *thought: many movies that are made after books seem to have proper voice-over narration because the books are already narrated?
• verb tense in again very particular
• I haven’t seen any of her example movies yet…
• The different types of voice-over narration and the many things that make narration not voice-over are getting complicated and rather particular/detailed

Notes on A Defense – and history – of Voice-pver Narration

• Piece makes her statements more clear and less particular about what is and what isn’t voice-over narration (while my original beliefs of what is was were incorrect this makes it more clear than the confusion of the first piece)
• History of voice-over narration was not at first by choice but by the only means of being able to produce sound
  • later becoming popular, it stuck around even when new technology was available
• Still listing many titles, I have not seen any, until CLUELESS… finally a title I recognize and  can relate to voice-over narration
• Interesting and clear distinction of “The art of cinema connects Image A via editing, camera, or lens movement with Image B and the eddect is meaning C, D, E expressed without explanation….” 
• States many quotes of critics, some are seen below in answering prompt questions but the counter arguments are helpful in persuading to her beliefs in V-ON
• My dad is in love with the movie Apocalypse Now… but again I have never seen it (voice-over tends to be in sci-fi and older movies… not so much the movie genre I tend to watch…)

Prompt:

It is clear how many different people object to voice-over narration because Kozloff quotes tons of different people’s beliefs and objections to V-ON portraying how much they do not believe it to be artisit, classy, etc. Kozloff definitly feels the need to defend V-ON because it is something she is passionate about and she is well aware by the many negative quotes how and why people do not think its affective and do not use it in film. She very thoroughly defends V-ON however, by clearly and repeatedly stating the oppositions counter arguments and then clarifying their flaws to prove her opinions/points. Examples:

• “And God help you if you use voice-over narration in your work, my friends. God help you…”
• “…using it is insulting the audience”
• showing is better than telling.. etc
• it is singular, requires no thought, imagination, etc
• “But why bother, it is just a cheap shortcut, the last resort of the incompitent.”

I was not familiar at all with voice-over narration. When I thought I knew anything about it- as you can read in my first entry above I was clearly wrong… After readind the first piece by Kozloff I was not anymore clear on what V-ON was or wasn’t- I was more confused. But then reading the second piece it became clear to me the importance of V-ON and what exactly it is… which I tried to portray in my notes.

Ideas: The Notebook, Stranger Than Fiction, Clueless, The Shinning, 300 

At first when reading the text I was in a loud room of girls and got very frustrated when trying to understand the piece. So I decided to into our sleeping porch and read. ( I also printed out the piece and wrote notes on it as I read). While reading this second time I found I understood the piece a lot better. Some of the notes I made include.

• visual space – sight and linear
• acoustic space – sound and nonlinear
• Sounds lead to imagry and sight does not really lead to anything
  • While sounds leads to thoughts, use of imagination etc. sight pretty much shows you anything you would need to imagine in otherwords does the work for you.
• While visuals have been monitored and controlled for a long time by government, parents etc.; sound and music are not as monitored and have more room to grow especially in the varying things on the internet.
• Particular sounds not can be asssociated with many different visuals again seeing something only dead ends the imagination process.
  • Ex. Hearing a song can make you picture many things- something personal, a particular occasion, or a visualization for the meaning/words. While seeing the music video of that same song would stop all of the individual thought processes.

Weird quote: (already in quotes) “Now we will be able to communicate acrossthe world, now we will be able to solve conflicts, now we will have better education , now we will have more democracy.”

                 Huh? First I don’t have a clue who is supposedly saying these things nor how it realtes to sound or sight…

Other quote (one I found I agreed with): …radio was quickly absorbed into commodity systems, and the state imposed its desire to organize the space of the spectrum, establishing the boundaries and rules that define the commercial radio that now dominates our ariwaves.

              Very true, originally the radio was not edited, monitored, subject to fines, nor restricted to particular materials. Like television and many other aspects of technology, sound has not yet been completely conquered but they sure are trying their hardest.

After looking over Megan’s portfolio again after receiving the prompt I feel more confortable about the class- requirements, expectations, goals, etc. I looked at her papers and structure of her portfolio; I feel that since Jentery felt it was a proper example, good enough to show other students, that it will be a good basis for how to conduct my pieces for the rest of the quarter. At first looking at it at the beginning of the year I didn’t really make too many connections with the papers I would be writing and the portfolio Megan made but now that we have more descriptions and actually the same prompts it was more help in preparing me for paper 1.2 and will continue to be helpful for the rest of the quarter.

In high school there was a variety of ways to get involved and help out with the Life Skills students (special education students), with clubs, within the community, etc. I was in DECA which is an international business club focused on sales and marketing. Unlike other schools 50% of our time and energy went into doing programs for and helping out the school and community. Looking back the activities I was a part of would definitly be considered service learning where at the time that was the last thing on anyones mind. We did things from sports captains cleaning up the campus, assemblies on holidays, programs on anti-drugs and anti-drinking and driving, we had a tv station, and many other things that helped the community and our high school of 3,000 people; while it also taught us important lessons.

The variety of activities/service learning projects and programs I was a part of in high school I believe have taught me the impact I can make and the many things I can accomplish which will come in handy during this quarter of service learning.

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Entry Part II – I remembered writing an entry but when looking it at all my blogs I didn’t have one for service learning so I wrote another and then magically the first one decided to reappear so here are both: (first above and second below)

I have many instances of helping out, getting to know, working with and volunteering for activities for the special education students at my high school. I was an officer my junior year and chapter president my senior year of the business club DECA. While 50% of what we worked towards was building business skills etc the other half of our focus was on leadership and campus/community interactions and relationships. So the plethora of things we did- anti-drugs and anti-drinking and driving, Breaking Down the Walls (a school wide program to break stereotypes and cliques), the Life Skills Christmas Party, zoo trip, aquaruim trip, lunch buddies, MP mentors and so much more- were all a lot of fun, very interesting and learning experiences. I also spent much of my time coaching special olympic soccer so I felt that it be very suitable to volunteer at the Wallingford Boys and Girls club because my experience working with special needs kids of all ages and disability types.

Then I decided that I have learned how to work with special needs students for the past four years and while it would be somewhat different working with these kids at the boys and girls club I wouldn’t have to adapt much nor would my experience there be too extremely different than any other I had in high school. So I decided to use my high school volunteer experience as a basis for my volunteering now but stepping outside of my comfort zone of students I am used to working with and trying something new. By this I mean, I decided to volunteer at the North Seattle Boys and Girls Club where there are less disabled special needs students and more high risk students whose lives differ just as greatly from mine as those with disabilities.

I originally thought I could use what I knew to continue my volunteering but I’ve decided instead to take what I have learned in volunteering and apply it with a completely different type of people and completely different situation. So I am excited to get to know the students whose background and hardships are completely different from those I have grown up with and learn how to relate with students who aren’t disabled but who may come from broken homes or poverty.

The rationale for the song order of her playlist seems to be the things she does throughout one day in her life. She gets up, assuming she is in a dorm she talks to friends in the hall and does everyday things, goes to the IMA, reads, watches the office, etc.  There is a set up of blue underlined songs and also plain black songs and the meaning of this difference is unclear. At first I believed it was the difference between sounds and songs but that clearly was not the case when some of the songs and some of the sounds were blue and others were black.

Other sounds that might fit into the playlist would be more day to day activities or possibly things she does on the weekends, activities or hobbies that are special or fun that she likes to do but does not necessarily does on a daily basis. The playlist of sounds seems to have the typical day but there are also more atypical things that happen in everyone’s lives.

I assume she is a typical college student by her everyday activities. She is religious by some of her song choices and likes music that is not necessarily the most popular and on the radio or MTV but possibly more local bands?