What I learned

over the course of being in public speaking, I think I learned how to write speeches and say them out loud to an audience. I learned what makes a speech good and how to avoid pitfalls that would bore an audience. I learned how to debate topics and research arguments for topics. I think I grew like a centimeter over the course of the class, or I just think I did, either way I also grew my skills as a debater and speech writer. I think I could have done a better job with editing my end project video and I think I could be better at staying focused on what I'm saying. Well from here I'm going to take acting class in block D for the rest of the year, so my goals now are to be a better actor. I think I accomplished what I set out to do, I just did not do as well as I hoped on some.

video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEPnPg_Fvts

Things to improve the speech about cliches

1. I could do with more of them lovely examples. I've only gotten three which I thought was over doing it but as my speech reviewer pointed out, I could do more of that. Maybe people like getting beat over the head with examples. I dunno.
2. I should probably start thinking where I'm going to incorporate my other media elements. Like I've only thought about the begining in terms of that. I honestly don't know how I'm gonna incorporate it into the rest.
3. The ending needs a good mount of work, I put my take away inside a paragraph that isn't a conclusion. So I should work on that to make it a better ending overall.
4. I've already got audience interaction down because of my millions of questions within the speech but I don't think I would have he audience paying that much attention over the time of the speech so Prehaps I should make a few jokes, like exaggerating the Russian stereotype for example.
 That's all I got, ttyl

First draft of Ted talk

             you've probably watched the end of a movie exactly like this, narration is played at the begining and at the end with new meaning. Then the main character says something about how life is now good and the world is all rainbows and unicorns. This is a common cliche in family or romance movies. Cliches are the bane of a movie goers existence because they are unoriginal and lame. The last thing you wanna see when you pay 20+ dollars to go see a movie is a unoriginal and lame one. Many people just get annoyed when they see a cliche. They don't think about it and move on. But what if cliches had a bigger part of our life then anyone seems think.

           What do you know about guns? Unless your someone who owns a gun you probably don't know much about them but what you do know comes from media. And which media uses more guns than any other? Movies. What people know about guns, how they fire, the sounds they make, the amount of bullets they have, are all movie cliches. Why is it a movie cliche? Cause it's pretty much all false information. Many people would think that they could shoot a gun indoors but if you ever did you'd probably suffer hearing loss for quite a while. 

           How about other countries? What do you know about Russian people? Is the image that comes to mind, a alcoholic who's big and burly and also is an evil henchman? That's what I think of when I hear about Russians. This stereotype comes from action movie cliches about Russians. It's interesting to note how if you started talking about black stereotypes as true you'd be a racist but I've never heard anyone get upset about a Russian stereotype. But why? It's because cliches in movies desensitize us to it. We become accustomed to seeing it therefor we A. Think it's true and B. Think it's acceptable.
           What about mental illness? Moives love to potray someone as mentally unstable, crazy, and a sociopath. What they usually show are terrible charactures of actually mentally ill people. Many people are scared of those deemed as such for this very reason, they think that they'll hurt them because they are crazy. It really couldn't be further from the truth, while mental patients can be violent, they are far more likely to hurt themselves before they hurt you. While revealing that the main villain is unhinged can be a dramatic twist, I don't think their characters could come close to a true mental illness. 

           Several things you'd probably never think about because of your supposed knowledge may infact be false. Movies while the last place you should find actual knowledge are often accepted as to be true if only because it comes from movies. The point of movies is to draw you into the screen, into its world and thus we usually believe what we see when it's an especially good movie. Yet even when it's not, one movie's cliche is probably in another and slowly we grow accustomed to seeing it and believing it to be true. What I ask of all of you is to question where your knowledge comes from, if it be from a movie or a textbook and to question wether this knowledge is right or wrong. 

Topic relatization

movie cliches are the bane of modern movie goers existence, the plight of seeing the same plots, hooks and charaters is a tragedy of the modern age. Cliches usually are the result of lazy screen writing or wanting to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Most regard them as boring and over used but what if they were something more, something that shapes how we see the world. Take for example guns, in movies they are potrayed as unlimited ammo death machines that never offer and recoil or hurt the users ears when rapidly firing them. Many people think this way about guns, never holding one in their life their perception of them comes from what they see of them and about them. Cliches in that way have a significant hold over how the population views something, because if you see the same cliches over and over again about a topic we have little knowledge of then the cliche becomes our knowledge of the subject. This is because it is hammered into our brains whenever we see it a constant reminder of mostly false information. Serveral ideas we have come from cliches, true love, violence, heroism, drug dealers and so on and so forth.
I figure this to be my body and begining. I'll probably add to it. The take away would go like this.
All I ask is that when you think something, think about why you think that way. Not all of our incorrect assumptions and information comes from movie cliches, some can even come from your own mother. You gotta ask yourself why you view the world a certain way and where those views really come from.

Topics ideas and the like

My topic is movie cliches
I could start out with describing a scene from a movie we've all watched at least a dozen times (happy ever after ending) (narration from begining is at end with new meaning) stuff like that, or I could just show it, or I could do both.
The body of my speech is gonna be about how cliches mold our views of the world and how it works from a young age. Give examples like (how guns work) (how love works) stuff like that. I'd talk about how this can lead to negitive or positive stigmas about things such as all crime is perpetrated by Russian mafia or how if you don't act like this a certain way when you love somebody it isn't true love.
The takeaway is that what we expose to our children and ourselves, even innocent movies about love can shape how we perceive and act in the world.

Peter Pan: a awkward tale

Let me say right off the bat that I didn't hate this play or the performances of any of the actors. It was not the worst thing I've ever seen but it did have its failings. Overall the play had a good cast, the production value was lacking of course and the script left a lot to be desired. It's run time was satisfactory, I didn't feel as if I was there forever and it wasn't too short though I did start to get anxious towards the end.
       The cast of charaters in the play had a variety of performances ranging from good to very poor, no one in the play was terrible I feel though the weren't really putting effort into their roles and no one was excellent. Even Charlotte who was the best actor felt  flat at times and preformed way better as the mother then as a pirate. Peter Pan was played by areon who's preformance was mixed as well, at times I felt she did somewhat well with her role and others just seems as she was playing herself.  Wendy played by vepca who I felt was good at her role but it wasn't a strong performance. The brothers played by maddy and whoever were ok, the older brother being the better then maddies performance. Maddy's performance was simply talking like herself without having any emotions to her lines and it was rather annoying and detracted from the entire experience, it didn't help that her voice is grating. The side charaters such as the lost boys, the extra pirates and the Indians were all done well for what they were.
         The production value of the play was of course cheap but it was creative for what they did, I felt however that the visual representation of tinker bell wasn't neccisary and the alligator was more humous then scary and was a bit underwhelming. The sets were good for what hey had to work with and nice enough so it didn't take away from the experience.
         The script for this play was horrible, they said it was supposed to be "darker" but ended up having way to much redundant dialogue and failed humor. The dialogue is one of the main reasons I'm not faulting anyone for weak performances because it is honestly one of the worst attempts to recreate human speech that I've ever seen. It was like watching a chat bot try and pretend to be human . I however thought that the Pirates had the best lines especially the villain Captain Hook and that the interaction between the Pirates and Peter Pan at the lagoon while dumb and corny was actually kinda funny. To recap this play was nowhere near good but it was ok and I give it 6/10.

What makes a TED talk good

 I believe there are three things neccisary for a good Ted talk, 1. is a interesting and relatable subject matter, 2. Is keeping the audience interested in you either by entertaining them or using visuals 3 is a take away that makes the audience go "oh wow never thought like that before"
       The first one is kinda tough because your subject must be interesting enough to talk about without constantly repeating yourself or bore the audience. It's gotta be exciting to the audience, something fresh and new that they haven't thought about much or not at all. At the same time it has to be relatable, if your gonna talk about quantum physics don't talk about formulas and rules and actual Science, you gotta Paint a word picture. For instance if you were gonna talk about how the speed of light slows down time if you get near that speed you don't quote a bunch of numbers at the audience, you talk about how if a train had a track that circled the earth and could go the speed of light everyone on that train would experience time differently, a time bubble if you will and when they got of that train having been on it for a few hours they would be 100s of years into the future.
       Secondly you must entertain your audience, you could do this numerous ways. One way is the word picture as I said before, humor is a good way, audience interaction is good too but usually that dies off when the speaker gets into the meat of their speech,  or appealing to the emotion of the audience. Visuals are important too but if you do not need them you don't hafta use them. Entertaining the audience is less about keeping interested in what your saying and more about stopping them from being bored. As long as you keep them paying attention you should be able to at lest leave them with the take away which is your only lasting impression on the audience. No one will remember your statistic about incarnation rates in America but they will remember you saying that being reborn is the best experience of your life. This leads us to our third part.
       Which is the take away. The take away is vital, it makes the audience think for just a moment about something they never have. It's the main reason anyone bothers to watch TED talks cause if people just wanted to know about a subject, they'd look up the subject the speech is about and research it themselves. No, they want a spoon fed "wow never thought like that before" feeling that makes them feel good for about ten minutes. Your take away hasta sound impressive and reflect on what your speech was about. Use clever word play, big words,  the works. You gotta make this the most amazing thing that was ever said about anything. Once you figure that out you got yourself a speech. Now your ready to say it to the masses.

Assortment of topics

1. Dungeons and Dragons
2. Movie cliques
3. Fast food

Ted talks

Why some of us have don't have one true calling, a look at how just because people say you hafta only do one thing with your life doesn't make it true
https://www.ted.com/talks/emilie_wapnick_why_some_of_us_don_t_have_one_true_calling/transcript?language=en

school kills creativity. Why our education system sometimes fails our children and students by being too focused on one thing and not allowing students to find themselves
https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity/transcript?language=en#t-993000

Falling in love is the easy part. A talk about love. How people think that just because people are in a relationship means here is love and she says that instead of asking if they are still together, ask the harder questions about their relationship.
https://www.ted.com/talks/mandy_len_catron_falling_in_love_is_the_easy_part/transcript?language=en

How to get enemies with incredible ease: redux finial draft

      So you wanna learn how at make enemies with rapid ease? Well it's fairly easy once you know how, all it takes is some attitude, posturing and a few words. Now people are fairly easy to manipulate especially if you want them to feel a certain emotion and anger is the easiest emotion to provoke.
       The first step to having your very own nemesis is an unexpected one, you must befriend your target. Now I know what your thinking "why would I wanna befriend someone who I want to hate me?" Well I'll tell you why. No one is gonna care if you just out of the blue start insulting them, they'd be offended sure but they really wouldn't care.
        You want the target and you to have past history for this to work. I'm sure everyone here has made a friend before so I needn't explain that one but you'll know when your ready to cross them when they are either texting you all the time or talking to you all the time, the ladder being better.    
       Anyways, now you have to act as if your friend has preformed some slight against you. Make it small and insignificant. Don't tell them to their face, I doubt your a god enough actor to pull it off but you should either text them a lot of malicious things or call them and start yelling. Now avoid them the next day, don't look at them or talk to them and the next step is very important.
       After a good day of this you gotta confront them. What I mean by that is you should yell at them, call them all sorts of horrible insults and curses. They will be shocked and confused but you must keep it up, the insults gotta keep coming and then as soon as you start shouting at each other tell them that you guys are through.
       Now this is the part where if you were a nice and normal human the friendship would end and that is it but for our evil purposes we must press further. Call or text them to insult them further. Do it a whole bunch or till they block your number. Then whenever you see them, insult them until they do the same to you and tada you got yourself a enemy

A reflection:noitcelfer A

the second debate Was handled way better then the previous one. Perhaps this was because I was sitting down, dunno? I feel that I used my time efficiently and tried to successfully rebut the opposing arguments. I felt that the ending wasn't strong though probably because of the way I ended it. I think the good counter balanced the bad and overall I had a good proformance in the debate.
      The lighting round debates were interesting because for the first one I had the harder side and for the second one I was forced into a debate. The first one went better because I didn't flounder in the rebuttal period. I felt that the points were acceptable given the time and the rebuttals worked for what Was said. The begining was strong in my opinion cause it was a miricle I thought of any good points for the first one but the second one was easier I think. The second debate had a problem because I was rebutting without reaffirming my side but it happens. The first debate was better then the second. Perhaps it was because I had to do the second debate without expecting it. Anyways, ttyl

Debate 2: rebate

Thesis: we support the idea that teenagers using social media is a good thing because it makes them confident, let's them connect and stay in touch with people they would otherwise couldn't, allows them to see news and interesting stories they normally wouldn't see and allows teachers to connect them to people and places that have different backgrounds and ideas then their own.

Pathos: telling people that they've all reached out to someone they normally couldn't have. Allows you to keep in touch with distant friends and such

Ethos: social networking allows people to connect to important figures such as the president and celebrities

Logos: statestistics on teachers and social networking and self esteem and social networking.

The debate: a sorry show of sportsmanship

The debate was an interesting event, for I thought my team had it in the bag but no. We succumbed to confusion, nerves and badly timed outbursts. We did have a strong end though. The beginning wasn't as strong as it could've been due to a mixup of thoughts. The rebuttals were interesting, with the first one not laying down strong arguments that we had made prior to combat the exact arguments the opponents were making. The second one tried to make a good argument but after the first point couldn't remember what anyone else had said so instead insinuated a opponent was wrong. The opposition was interesting as well with their begining being hard to understand because of how fast it was but it was with arguments of substance. Their first rebuttal said some things without any real proof. And their second did a bit better but wasn't very fast with what he was saying and that detracts. 

Their ending was a strong part but it did get caught up on what the first rebuttal had to say about one point, wasting precious time that could be used else were.  In all honesty if you look at each of the players in the debate and compare them for their positions, the opposition won the begining and the second rebuttal. My team won the end and the first rebuttal. So I thought no one really one cause if I was watching this debate I would have thought that both sides weren't strong with their arguments. If we added the timers we would have one but really that's not fair and doesn't count. Speaking of the timers, Ours did a good job on that I think. The opponents did well too except for getting the times mixed up. 

Ttyl- Jack 

Picks

1. Seasame street versus the muppets
2. Burger King versus McDonald's
3. Are video games too violent

Debate topic

1. Fried chicken or grilled chicken
2. Brand verus knock offs
3. Prequels versus sequels: Star Wars
4. The muppets or sesame street
5. The greatest wwe wrestler ever

Monologue two: the backstory

Motivation: the motivation for this monologue is anger, anger at the stangnate and unmotivated populace who are willing to sit by and do nothing while the world turns sour. 

Backstory: the charater is a news personality who is about to get fired from his job for poor ratings. He wants to make his last one memorable

Setting: a news room where the charater is speaking to millions of Americans watching his broadcast.

Blocking: the charater is sitting down but as his speech goes on and his fury builds he moves away from his desk and starts yelling at the camera.

Monologue two: gotta get mad 

 I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

      We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

       We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy. 

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

       Well, I'm not going to leave you alone.

I want you to get mad! 

         I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

        All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.

You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, 

"I'm as mad as hell,

and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"

Look! I made a speech video and it is not very good. You can barely hear me. I'm also flailing around like a car salesmen trying to sell you a old junker. I'm imitating a teapot and at the end i actually pour out some tea. I really need to work on my hand gestures and teapot effectiveness. I pretty much didn't have any strengths except I was firmly rooted in the ground. Perhaps eye contact was good? I don't know, I just see this as a terrific fail on my part. Though I was matching that day so at least it was a snassy fail. My weaknesses were numerous, I didn't talk loud enough, I moved way too much. The speech itself was lack luster. but i digress, i learned a bunch from watching other people say their speeches out loud. I thought that Adler was loud and i should be too, Maize acted like a automatic robot and so should I. David showed me how to make an interesting speech. It was fun though, to say my speech out loud in front of people, i wasn't nervous at all, the speech itself wasn't very good, the delivery was dull and uninteresting. Thats all from me, ttyl.  

Public speaking: how to fail at it

The most important elements of public speaking are things that we normally do when talking to normal people. It is when we are talking to groups of people that we mess up our words, fidget and talk very fast. The way to think about public speaking is that instead of talkin to a huge group of people you are talking to one very deaf very invisible person. So it can be said that the important elements of communication with other people is the same elements of public speaking. Now maybe it's on a lesser scale but the concept is still the same. The elements therefor are your ability to speak with volume, make eye contact and talk with interest. No one would bother speaking to a very quiet person so don't speak to a group as if you were a church mouse. You won't be taken seriously if they can barely hear you and probably cut you off before your finished on accident. You gotta make eye contact as well else people will think your shy, unprepared and too cowardly to look them in the eye, it gives a bad impression. Makes you seem a tad bit shady. This applies to speaking to crowds and to one person, it doesn't make you seem very honest. But more importantly then making eye contact is to never dart your eyes around the room! You'll look like your trying to run, if you can't manage to make eye contact, stare straight ahead cause it will at least seem better. The third and most important thing to do is to speak with interest, no one likes a mono toned boring idiot. You hafta speak like this is the most exciting and interesting thing you could be talking about. Like the end of times has arrived and your trying to negotiate with the lead alien while he's shooting lazers at you. It's just polite. It makes you seem more interesting too so maybe that pretty person in the crowd will talk to you later😏. Who knows? Anything can happen when your interesting. So to recap never talk soft, never bore and look at people. This will epically help when talking to invading aliens. Last thing to talk about, I have three goals, firstly to stop getting nervous, secondly to stop my leg shaking and thirdly to be able to figure out how to speak in public. That's all for now, ttyl.

Who am I? That's a difficult question to answer because who I think I am and who you perceive me as are two very different people. But I belive that I am mainly made up of contradictions. These contradictions aren't big things but they netherless make no sense when used to describe something. For example I am a very lazy person, I wouldn't do an ounce of work if I could help it. At the same time I'm a hard worker, I go running at 6:30 every day for no real reason I can think of expect that it's a good thing to do. I also am incredibly mean or a nice guy depending on who you ask which ties into how we perceive each other versus of we perceive ourselves. Anyways, I don't think I'm nice yet there are some people I know that would say that I am. I just think I'm a mean person who does nice things occasionally. Another contradictory thing about me is that I'm a loner, I don't like to be around lots of people all the time yet I find myself surrounded by friends. Which I never really wanted or expected but it's something I have. I apperently made a bunch of people like me without really ever trying to be liked. People just like weirdos I guess. And that is the basic understanding of who I am, a weirdo.

Who am I?

When someone asks you the question of "who are you?" You would usually respond with your name and then proceed to get to know the person who asked the question through more questions. It's a rigorous process that takes a long time to really understand a persons charater.
          I would make this system take even longer because I would just make a new self up. I would say I'm James Palk from Transylvania, I know how to fly planes and had once climbed on the pyramids. Now most of those reading wouldn't belive me if I told you in person, or would you? Most of what I say is said with an air of confidence. Unlikely as it is if you say anything with confidence people tend to belive you, and while in actuality they are probably wrong some of the time. Anyways, I have a professional degree in bullshitology, or the science of making things up, for good reason. I've always been able to spin the tallest tales from the most mundane activities and create beautiful works of fiction.
       What's weird though is that I'm quite a literal person, I'll take anything you say at face value and won't notice the joke till later. It's a contrast to how I talk because I tell jokes and stories all the time yet I can't seem to understand when other people are doing it. I am a very polarizing person, some people hate me and some people love me but that just life. I am also very lazy, I wouldn't do the slightest bit of homework if I could get away with it, but at the same time I drag my self awake at 6:30 in the morning to go running. I don't know how I can manage to run 3 miles everyday even when it starts to hurt while I can't do a few math problems to save my life. It's weird, probably because I'm weird.
        Weirdness though isn't a horrible thing, I personally like strange characters to normal ones. I find that people who act normal or never do anything interesting are just hiding from themselves because there is no such thing as normal. I for example do whatever I want whenever I want, most people would be too shy or cautious to just do something without cause. It's quite fun and I'd suggest doing it once or twice cause you'd be surprised where the brain takes you when it's free to wander.
 That's all the rambling I have for now, I'll just talk to you later then.