Earlier in this blog journey, I wrote a post about myself. It was a story crafted to project how I wanted readers to see me. The same goes for social media. Everyone’s social media tells a story; a story they carefully craft to include the parts they want people to see. And each social media site is a little bit different. My Twitter and LinkedIn are curated to be very professional. My Facebook is a pretty good breakdown of my life for friends and family to stay up to date about what I’m up to. My Instagram focuses on flattering pictures of me showcasing my fun travels and events. I…

Have you ever heard silence? Seriously, if we’re quiet and listening to the world, even if we’re somewhere quiet, there are all kinds of sounds. We talked about the importance of sound design in storytelling in my emerging technologies class because we are building our own virtual reality scene experience. It isn’t easy. I spent almost five straight hours working to add the right directional sound to my experience, before I gave up and came back the next day to keep working on it. But, we do it because sound is a crucial part of telling a story. Saving Private Ryan is one of the film standards of compelling sound.…

Ok, so I’m not talking about that fake news. (Sorry for the clickbait). But, in honor of President’s Day, let’s talk about a famous story…that didn’t happen. George Washington and the cherry tree. You might know the myth, and interestingly enough it’s not the only famous history story that never happened! Here are my top three favorite famous stories that never actually happened. 3) Nero Played the Fiddle While Rome Burned The story goes that the crazy emperor Nero decided to have a portion of the city burned to make space for his new palace, but it went terribly wrong and the whole city caught fire and was destroyed over…

Happy Valentine’s Day! Tonight I will be making a cheese board and chocolate fondue with my best girl friends who are also single and just hanging out; as God intended. Valentine’s Day isn’t my favorite holiday because of how cheesy all the couples get (you know who you are). But it’s always great to do something for and with the people you love, so I’m looking forward to fancy cheese and chocolate with my girls. In my Olympic history class, we learn a lot about the political relations and undertones of the games. On Valentine’s Day, we followed a story of love between two athletes. During the 1956 Melbourne Olympic…

Don’t I mean the Disney classic, The Lion King? Well, yes and no. Today in my emerging technologies class we did an exercise in storytelling. We talked about how there are usually three side to every story involving two people: one person’s version, the other person’s version, and then the truth, which is likely a mix of the previous two. Everyone has their own experiences that lead to their unique perspective. Perspective is important in emerging technology storytelling. We’ve done projects involving 360 video and virtual reality where the video perspective is first point of view. Perspective is essential to the narrative created when telling a story. The perspective changes…

Ah, the Telenovela. The art of excessive drama, unrealistic plot twists and never-ending stories…what’s not to love! Similar to soap operas, telenovelas are the Latin American dramas that kept housewives and the middle-class entertained during the early half of the 1900s. Then they grew into a phenomenon. The American hit comedy Ugly Betty was inspired by the wildly popular telenovela “Yo Soy Betty, La Fea.” Recently, Jane the Virgin took viewers by storm in a comedic dramatization of the telenovela. I have always been fascinated by the story lines behind Days of Our Lives and Dynasty. I’m OBSESSED with the remake of Dynasty right now on the CW, starring my…

I love numbers but I hate math. You might be thinking…that doesn’t make sense, but I promise it does! I like the ~aesthetic~ of calendar dates, the continuity of years and that numbers can sometimes tell a compelling story. For example, fun fact, todays date, 2/20/20 is a palindrome! It’s the same order forwards and backwards, which is cool. I love that my mom went to UNC too, and what’s cool is that it was exactly 30 years ago. She graduated high school in 1986 and college in 1990. I graduated high school in 2016 and will college in 2020. (All really pleasing years as is!) Today is Super Bowl…

I love stories. I love talking. I love myself. So it’s no surprise that I love talking about myself. But when I sat down to write a whole blog post “introducing me” and “telling my story” I hit a wall. After all, my life can’t fully be described in 10 fun facts or one quirky story. To top it all off, I’m only 21 years old so how much ‘life experience’ do I even have? But everyone has an origin story and on May 15th, 1998 at 3:43am Jamie and Lisa Rademaker had their first child…a daughter…and named her Melissa Grace. Melissa means honeybee in Greek. My mom has called…