Maiden Voyage of the USS Contemplation

This is a photo of my visual reflection.  It’s name is the USS Contemplation (I forgot to leave enough room to paint it the name on the side of the ship).  It is proudly flying the flag with the label F.E.S (Fundamentals of Effective Speech).  Each mast contains a genre and the sails equate the outline of what I have learned during this quarter.

The theme represents our journey as a class into the unfamiliar and sometimes fearful waters of Speech.  The speaker is giving his/her speech on the bow of the ship.  As the speech is being given,  fellow classmates are being active, supportive listeners while Professor Candee is at the stern (the end with the rudder) to confidently steer us in the right direction.

The mirrors placed throughout the ship represent  ”reflections” of what we have learned.  A couple of the mirrors are placed so that individuals can see themselves.  This is to show that we have not only learned about giving speeches but have also learned things about ourselves.  Candee has encouraged us to be authentic and to choose topics that we care about.  In order to do this, we had to reflect and think about who we really are.

I am so thankful to have taken this journey with each of my classmates.  They have all shown by example that seemingly impossible tasks can be accomplished when people work together to reach a common goal.  I find myself  thinking and contemplating  that if the attitude of support, encouragement and kindness were displayed by the majority of people in our communities, in spite of our differences, just how much could be accomplished.  People finding common ground and working together, building each other up, helping each other, growing together for the good and betterment of everyone’s future.

Pamela B.

My Personal Freedom

“Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.”

I have this passion for words… for writing and reading them. It is hard to explain- you just read something unbelievably amazing and it wows you. It opens up your mind and it really changes you. It makes time stop- your world slows to a halt for a brief moment. That’s why I love words (even though from time to time I tend to forget this).

When we were told to read something that ‘fit’ us, I thought about my writing, but put the idea aside. I thought about it wondering if it was a good or just terrible idea. I decided the day before to read my poetry. Maybe if I didn’t tell my audience until the end that it was mine I could ‘endure the reading’ and not worry about eyes staring at me.

I was nervous… and it was more than a normal kind of nervous. I was afraid of rejection. Writing is freedom for me, those were my words, and they are personal. I was scared of looking into the crowd and seeing their reaction. I was afraid of the thoughts from my classmates that I might not be ‘normal’- because the truth be told my writing doesn’t have happy endings. Maybe because the writers who have moved me influence my work and for the most part their writing is not about rainbows and sunshine. I’m influenced by what music I listen to and I also have this thought that unhappy endings have a shock value that just sticks with you longer than a ‘fairytale’ ending (I’m talking about ‘Disney- like’ endings). No matter, I get this rejection most of the time- these looks that read ‘sub-human’ when I share any of my writing and I was shaking inside. After my first poem, everyone knew it was my writing because I was asked that question, and I answered it honestly.

At the end of my second poem I looked up, realized people were listening, and I wasn’t getting odd looks from classmates. I realized that my classmates were open-minded and cared about what I had written… what I had read. I was relieved. I thank them so much for being so unprejudiced. It meant the world to me and it will make my future speeches easier knowing I’m not being criticized so harshly.

So all I can say is thank you.

-Sabrina

Happy Little Trees

Wow. I just realized that I hadn’t paid enough attention to the date posted on the schedule for when this blog post was due!!!! I have been too focused on the visual reflection project

Anywhoooo…… I have truly enjoyed all the demonstrations I’ve seen. It’s been nice to have all the mid-day snacks that accompanied many of the presentations. I’ve even made some of the dip recipes at home already, and even cooler, sent one to my guys drumming circle thing Saturday night. Everyone there, (even the vegans) enjoyed Jenna’s taco dip

I chose to demonstrate some simple painting, I feel like that is something I’ve done enough to demonstrate effectively. Everyone seemed to get a kick out of what was happening. Classroom affection levels for hippo’s has skyrocketed since winter began

I am a little sad that it’s all almost over. This experience has been a blessing. To see so many people sharing such immense pieces of themselves is just a beautiful thing.

(Gonna work on hippo t-shirt design now though,…..jus’ sayin’)

Trish

I Borrowed the cookie from the ‘Cookie Jar’

The fundamental madness has begun! Our reading was due starting last week and it has been a steady flow of amusement since. I chose a piece of lyrical writing by musician Jack Johnson. His off beat music and quirk keeps me smiling, although his message in this particular song is quite stern. I enjoy the aspect of making people think and think on a deeper level. I’m no Yoda by any means, but I am a single mommy and responsibility on a whole has forever more loomed over my head. I take life with a grain of salt, while trying to juggle the reality of a job, school, bills, and most importantly my son. This song speaks to me because there is such an enormity of excuses in life as to conditions or reactive behavior. It’s okay to make mistakes, and stumble or struggle, and when those inevitably happen, I believe in assessing what I personally could’ve done differently. Blaming others for an inward inability, to me, seems biased. I’ve always heard ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same process over and over but expecting a different result’. That is my ‘bigger-picture’ thought here. Stand up for your choices, whether good or bad, and believe that every opportunity in life is a learning experience.

Standing up and doing my reading was actually very nice. I was nervous as anyone would be, but I feel it went well. In hindsight, a better introduction would have made it more memorable. Alas, to err (pronounced err, hehe) is human and the ability to adapt is beautiful:)

Trish

Three Days of Learning

The last three days of class have been an enlightening experience for me as we have moved through our demonstrative speeches. We have learned things from recipes like Hannah’s oatmeal cookies and the history of them in her family. We learned about basketball from Blake and Jesse and about marching in the military from Shawn. The other Shawn showed us how to start a fire in the event that we are ever stranded and need to do so. I am hoping that if I ever get stranded that my cell phone works and someone can just come and get me because I am sure I would just start a forest fire in my attempt to keep warm. Pam showed us the difference between making a cake the normal way and making a cake the Weight Watchers way and the difference in calories. All in all it was three days of learning wrapped up with good time and good food.

Penni

The Invitation

At six years old I watched in amazement as five grown women scrambled around in a tremendously tiny kitchen preparing a fabulous home cooked meal. I had always envied them ever since I could remember. Although they were packed in like a can of sardines they were more graceful than the most elegant ballet. The five of them knew exactly what to do. As if it was programmed in at birth.

Great grandma Davis would start that morning making rolls. By 10:30 a.m. she was peeling potatoes. Her trembling hands held the dull parry knife and glided through with such precision that no one would have believed she was in an on set stage of Parkinson’s. She could not even write her name without the obvious signs of the debilitating disease, but she was brilliant. Great aunt Ruth, finishing the delicate preparation of oyster casserole, would talk a hundred miles a minute without watching what she was doing. I would cringe as she chopped onions while she was watching television. She would giggle and sneer, “Hundreds of years of practice and you’ll be able to do it too!” My grandmother would dash back and forth washing dishes, stirring cauldrons of volcanic liquid, and dancing to the sound of country music on the ancient radio that sat independent in the corner with nothing but the dust to keep it company. Mother would sprint down the hall and into the basement and emerge with armfuls of toppling jars of canned food. My aunt Bridgett, who was always late, would rush in through the back door and explain how it took three hours to get the children ready, only to turn around and notice that her husband was still asleep, that traffic was horrible, and that nobody told her the correct time. They would then gossip about anything and everything, who was the next to get married or divorced, and how nice the funeral for Cousin Joe was. To me they were all-knowing!

They knew when it would rain and that there was no way in God’s great earth that Aunt Betty’s baby was going to be a boy. Then on this day my grandmother looked down off her throne, only to see humble me watching the royalty. She knew of the longing in my eyes to one day be the queen of my own kitchen. She stared at me for a moment, almost like she had forgotten where she was. “HOT!” Yelled Bridgett from behind her. She snapped back into reality and leaped out of the way just in time for Bridgett to drain the scalding potatoes into the sink. As my aunt went to get the mixer, my grandmother stood still pondering me. At last, she pulled up an old chair to the corner of the counter, just in front of where the pot of steaming potatoes was. “Well?” She questioned in my direction. Without hesitation, I fell scrambling out of my chair and jumped to her side. She gracefully handed me a small electric hand mixer. With a small flick of her thumb it started buzzing uncontrollably. With her precisely detailed instructions, I was to spin the mixer slowly and to not touch the scalding pot. She added milk, butter, salt, and pepper to the swirling mixture without thought or measurement. After scraping the concoction into a worn glass bowl, she tasted. Then she added, “Even better than I could do.” So with a little smirk, she disappeared into the dining room cradling my masterpiece. At that moment I went from a spectator to a champion.

For a long time the tiny kitchen was even more crowded than usual, the fantastic five had taken on an apprentice. I was slowly being taught not only the basics of the kitchen, but the ranks of life. Before I knew it I was considered a part of the legacy. I was no longer a small child in their eyes. I was a young woman. I was a part of the organized chaos. I was one of them.

In the following years, we lost one of the greatest queens that have ever ruled, my grandmother. The tiny kitchen is almost rendered obsolete now. After grandma died operations moved into great-aunt Ruth’s kingdom. Sometimes I still feel as though I am the six-year-old watching in amazement. Then Bridgett yells “HOT!” and I snap back to reality. Sometimes I wonder that if on the day that I received my invitation, grandma knew that the others would need someone who was ready to take her place. So now on the rare occasions that we are all together, ready to prepare that family tradition of the home cooked meal, I step up and take my grandmothers place as number five.

 

Brittany

Three down and one to go

We have finished three of our speeches for the class. I feel that it has been a success for all of us. The first reading speech was a lot easier than the informative speech. The demonstration speech was not that bad. I had fun doing my demonstration of the origami crane.

My demonstration went well. I feel that it would have been better to just demonstrate the folding of the crane instead of trying to have everybody fold one. I forget that it is easy for me because I have folded so many cranes and difficult for people who have not done it before. However, I do feel that my demonstration was a success. The story of the girl and the legend of folding a 1000 origami crane’s helped me with this success.

I would once again like to thank you all. You did a great job doing your demonstrations and the food was great. The last speech is going to be the most difficult so far so good luck to you all.

Josh

For a loop

I had trouble picking my topic for my informative speech, because my speech teacher threw me for a loop. I was ready to write my speech on the Peace Corps when she suggested that I save that topic for my persuasive speech. She felt that I was more passionate about this topic and that I would have a better chance persuading people with this subject.

I was not sure what to write about now for my informative speech. Then on Friday I remembered my teacher’s suggestion that I write about something to do with computers. Ultimately I did choose computers as my topic. I decided to do my speech on identity theft. I feel like I could have done better. I had more information to add but I was worried about time constraints. Also I did not want to use a lot of technical terms and get people lost. I got nervous and forgot some of the things that I wanted to bring up in the middle of my speech, but in all I did ok. This is one speech that I wish I could redo with more confidence and a little bit more information, I could have made a really good speech. But hindsight is 20/20 and I am not much for living in the past so I’m ok with it.

All of my classmate’s speeches were great and I learned some very interesting things. Thank you, you all did a great job.

Josh

How to be more creative

These are just some ideas our group came up with to be more creative. Take a look and see if you agree or have any other ideas /comments to add.

One word for Speech Class!

Amazing! Speech class is one of the better class that I have in the past two quarters. This class is fun, inspirational, a team effort, and hard work all in one. The class is amazing because we are doing demonstration speeches and some people are showing us how to make food….which is great because it’s my birthday and what a way to have a birthday…lol. So far we have given a reading, and informative speech which were okay but I think for the demonstration speech people will have more fun because they can relate this speech to something personal in their life. But over all this speech class is AMAZING!!

By: Ashley Sams

Spring Quarter: Turning Over a New Leaf

After our first speech in class, I realized how much we are all going to change. Much like the season now, I see that this class is all about change. Not that we will be different people, but instead we will simply be different versions of ourselves.

Through this class I see us all growing, like a plant in the springtime. We start shut up and quiet, metaphorically small, like a seed when it is planted. But with the right care and support that seed will grow and become something better than what they started out as, much like we will. With the help and support of Candee (our instructor) we will bust our of our shells and become the speakers we know we can be.

Just like the flowers in the springtime, we will blossom and become BEAUTIFUL speakers!!

♥Molly Ann♥

1:44pm, March 17, 2010

@ 1:44pm today The best speech class in the world will have ended (.I am excited of all the new skills that I have obtained in this class that will help me so much in life, but so sad that its going to be over. I believe that SSCC should make a Speech class II. Confidence and Creativity on  is the top 2 skills that I will use that most. I was not confident, and I never was much into art and this class allowed me to be creative and I would take this class again. I will miss everyone,  Fund. of speech 12:30-1:44 for life!! GOOD LUCK IN LIFE EVERYONE!!

Sara

Cupcakes

My favorite food is cupcakes

They are so much fun to bake

It’s hard to make a mistake

When there are so many kinds to make

And different ways to decorate

And lots of places to take

But be careful so they don’t break

And you wont have to remake

Then you can partake

Without giving yourself a headache

That’s why my favorite food is cupcakes.

(:

I found this on the internet published by Laura Ewers for National Poetry Month. I thought since I did my demonstration speech on cupcakes, this little fun poem would go well with it! These were my favorite speeches by far. Thanks everyone for the delicious food, although there were other great speeches not involving food. Once again, everyone did great (:

Jessica J.

Reflection

For Candee’s morning speech class, we had to create poster boards of our walk through speech class. I really liked seeing everyone’s creativity. For mine, I had the Enya album book taped to it, because it has the song lyrics in it that I read for my very first speech. (Anywhere Is-my favorite song in the world, behind Led Zeppelin!) There were messages and pictures on my board of everything in the world that I could think of. I had a cut-out from a magazine that said ‘We’re ready to change into something more beautiful.’ Well, I put that on there and wrote Dear Speech Class above it. That’s my message for them, (they know who they are), for their journey through college life. I hope it’s as rewarding as mine has been. All in all, speech has really opened my eyes and I can’t wait to move on to the next challenge in my life.   Caila

Close up of Caila's Visual Reflection

Reflecting…

I was absent the day we all shared our visual reflections, so I thought I’d share mine on our blog. I’m really not sure how much detail everyone will be able to pick up, but I wanted to share nonetheless. There are some specific images on my poster that are quite symbolic. Confidence, empowerment, energy, illumination, night and day, befores and afters…Of course I’ m not going to simply explain the meaning of every picture, what fun would that be? I do hope that at least some of you take a few moments to examine the work. The images explain it all.

As always, Peace and best wishes to all,

~Heather

Life is a Stone Game

A few weeks ago I had an admissions interview with a college. The interviewer walks in 20 minutes late, pulls out a pen and paper to write down my every word, and asks, “Who are you?”

I had to answer this very abstract question with literally no time to think it through.

Since it was the last of many interviews, I was prepared to answer certain basic questions. He asked none of them.

And so, I found myself in a crowded coffee shop telling a complete stranger about my two biggest flaws, the best advice I’ve ever given, and where I plan to be in 15 years–coming up with long, detailed answers off the top of my head. I don’t remember half of what I said, but I kept telling myself that anything’s better than “Uh… I don’t know.”

How did I do? I have no idea. But I’m proud of myself for having the confidence not to panic under pressure. After this class, I hope we all do.

Life is a stone game.

-Tarina

If it Works For You it Works For Me.

By the image above, I imagine everyone in my class can remember my speech. I decided to take my demonstrative speech in an “unconventional” direction. I didn’t cook, or play music or anything of that nature. I wanted to express how there are other methods to accomplish things-goals, tasks, etc. So I demonstrated how  my daughter and I use our feet (she is much better than I am). I sincerely hope that if nothing else, my classmates realize that it’s not weird, different or abnormal. It just is.

~Heather

Demonstration speech

I had my demonstration speech all planned out, what I was going to say and what I would show. But, technology didn’t like me at all and I was forced to go to plan B. I had very little prepared for plan B and just went by the seat of my pants. I feel though that because I had very little planned and the difficulty of the demonstration itself, I did very well. Hope for the best of grades for everyone.

Richard

Where I Stand Now.

Well, my last speech was certainly… different. After completing my first two presentations by the book, I decide that I wanted to do my descriptive speech a little differently. The results were mixed at best, as it was a very unorthodox speech. Looking back, I suppose I chose to sacrifice structure for creativity. While it may not have been the greatest way to give a speech, I am still rather glad that I did my presentation that way. Why? Well, mostly because of the fact that when I gave my earlier speeches, I was far too afraid to venture off of the beaten path, so to speak. I tried to follow every rule of a presentation as perfectly as I could. Now, though, it seems that I am starting to actually find my voice; something unique to myself. Which, I might add, is the primary reason why I chose this course in the first place.

I may survive this class yet…

Kyle

My Music, My Chance

For my informative speech I got to talk about how I use the Mac computer program, Garage Band, to write my music. For me, this speech came very easily! I have only been writing music for less then six months, but music is one of my greatest passions and joys, so it was extremely easy for me to talk about. I even got to play one of the songs I wrote during my informative speech! (which I thought was pretty cool)

Right now one of the songs I have written (titled “Use Me”) is entered into a contest called “Rock The Camp,” put on by Camp Electric. This is a Christian music competition that is online. This is the biggest thing I have ever tried to do with my music! The winner will get to open for TOBYMAC this summer at Camp Electric, record with Grammy and Dove Award winner producer, Paul Ebersold, and win a free cruise on the MusicBoat! How cool would that be?! I need all the help I can get though! The first round is all about getting votes! In order for me to get into the top 10 I have to get as many votes as I can on my song! This round of voting will be going on the entire month of February and people can vote up to once a day, so I could really use everyone’s help! Please, go to the following link (which will take you directly to my song on the Rock The Camp website) and VOTE!!!

http://rockthecamp.endavomedia.com/audio/0EC404985E/use-me

Thank you all so much!

Emma