UniBlog: Getting The Ball Of Motion Rolling
Hi. Wow. Okay. Hi, Again.
I'm outta breath. I don't know if it's the fact that I just did something or weather I'm just that lazy that breathing has got me out of breath.
Before I get on with today's blog, I have a few updates:
MOFO
The Skippy Series I loved to race in oh so much is back, and back in business. Obviously, I'm not taking part - but I'd just like to raise a toast to those guys for returning to the Skippy League - and if I was at home last Tuesday night, I too would be joining them, on track having a laugh!
XRL 24 Hours
Kabort will be attending the hosted endurance 24 hour endurance race. Despite no Kabort entries to FP1 (Wed 4th Nov), I can see the Kabort truck pulled up outside garage #19 - which means they are at Daytona, and will be at Daytona in number. It'll be very exciting to see how they shape up to the likes of Keyboard.
AVRT-ATW (A Virtual Road Trip Around The World
I'm going to be reducing the hell out of this - no more daily/regular updates - I was bored stiff and wanted to see how long it'd take me to travel around the world using roads (on Google Maps) - but now, just as I like it, I have things to do and I am no longer bored. I may do occasional updates but as a general update it's probably going to be limited to continent updates or fewer - I hope the blogs alone are enough, and sorry for the ambitious project.
Even still, I named the car Milly - so, If I have a moment I'll probably drop a line about Milly here and there.
I think that's it for updates - but I'll probably edit some in if any come along!
Money & Budgeting
It's going absolute shite. I'm sorry for the bluntness - but this blog, I feel is the only - or one of the only places I can let absolutely everything out - no matter how ugly - and how much of a - excuse my french - shithead - it makes me look.
I wasn't taught too much about budgeting as a kid - I was fortunate to live in a stable home with little to no concern for money - which, I'm not going to point any fingers anywhere, I'm just going to say that, it is what it is - I can't or couldn't choose where or whom or how I am bought up, it's the past and it's just the way things are - it's the same with dyspraxia - I can't change the past and the way things were, I can only make my future more positive.
I don't know quite how I've made it into November, but all I can say is that I am very thankful that I have two incredibly loving parents that I can fall back on when I'm in the shitter.
Are My Purchases Worth It?
It depends what you're asking - could I live without the things I've bought? Probably - and I probably would be ok if I hadn't spent a shit-tone of money as a kid...or had a massive slap in the face.
I buy them because they make me happy - this improves my mental health and therefore I'm powered to keep going.
Let's try and make myself look good for a moment - the things I buy: 1) don't harm my health like - alcohol or tabacco or weapons for that matter. 2) are long lasting - they are made of metal instead of plastic 3) are an addition to a decade-long collection I've been adding to
4) won't be stuffed at the back of the closet (soft-toys, books etc.) 5) Dare I say it, are actually pretty damn good on the shelf - some people collect the oddest of things - and sometimes those things look a little odd.
6) I'm not alone, go to any (motorsport) fan's house and you are BOUND to see at least a model somewhere around the house
7) I'm not spending hundreds or thousands, or even £50 - most of the models come in at no more than £20, meaning it's the acculmative cost rather than the singles - and when I see a "banging" deal at ASDA...well, the inner child inside me...
8) I'm not going out with the intention of only buying models - this latest "addition" to my collection - was a part of an ingenious plan I had...spend £X on models, and £X +£1 or more on food - so I'm never making it the most expensive thing I go out and buy
Wednesday 4th November, 2020
Let's take a quick wind back to the previous blog to give a reminder of what was still to happen as the blog was being written
"Also planned for today is an interview the Adam Christodoulou for an assignment, as is an essential trip to ASDA to get more meals as well as completing the good old film review (film is from 2003 - good? Not so much, old? definitely)
Finally on the list is to potentially watch Glee - but with Annie having a broken laptop, we'll see what happens there"
So? How did it go?
- Interesting, the quote line isn't usually blue - how intriguing.
Sorry, I got distracted!
The Adam Christodoulou interview could not have gone better - after going shopping (bit about the money and budgeting malarky up top of this blog), I'd come home, sit down, call him (as requested) and we'd get straight onto it.
Granted, I added a few more questions than I had written down - because these sort of things crop up in interviews - but a little over an hour later we were done and I was much more informed about how a pandemic affects a racing driver.
I also did a bit of background search so that I could form an opening paragraph about him, and who he was and this also...turned up some rather interesting results which was incredibly interesting - and I believe would give the opening paragraph a little more "substance"
Come to think of it - a paragraph on how/where I met him couldn't hurt either - I mean, are lecturers and markers going to be more concerned if I don't write nearly enough or if I write too much - there's your daily tip for the day.
As for the assignment (not an assignment as such, more "work to complete after class" - I'd call it homework...but I'm always at home) On Wednesday evening, we'd (me & Annie) re-watch the Glee episode where the slight fallout happened (Ironically Episode 13 - Rather Unlucky Eh?) and get to Episode 15... (specifically 10 or so minutes in) when Annie left the Netflix Party.
Judging by the fact she was last talking about a charger on messenger before she dissapeared off the Netflix Party, I assumed her battery had died on her. So it was very good news that she had sorted that. This week we plan on finishing Season 2 of Glee - meaning starting next week we'll be approaching the half-way point. This is absolutely tragic as I will have nothing else to watch...other than High Scho- NO! That is not happening!
It'll be interesting - but I think after watching 6 seasons of Annie's (and now my) favourite show we'll be a lot closer.
This'll be my second series after Come Fly With Me that I would have watched from start to finish.
Also tonight, I peeped my head around the corner at Daytona to see if any Kabort cars were running in the practice session for the (XRL) Daytona 24 Hours happening on the coming weekend...unfortunately none were - but I've had reports that they'll be present in FP2 on Thursday at 18:00.
Despite buying food earlier on Wednesday, I had a shower, worked on my Assignment - or well, homework (now 24 Hours or so remaining) and went to bed.
Thursday 5th November, 2020
Thursday I originally woke up about 8am, hit the alarm about 8 times, wrote a bit of my homework/assignment (I think it was a min. of 600 words or something) attended my lecture at a couple minutes past 11.
The Lecture - Key Concepts Of Journalism.
Finding flying pieces of paper dotted around my room, I managed (only just) to take lecture notes.
For this lecture, we were looking at two main things - firstly genre, and secondly format.
Prior to this, as per usual, we had a little re-cap of what the role of News was - "entertainment" and "to inform" were bought up a lot.
We swiftly moved onto discussing Fake News and the spread of fake news.
we were shown a video which pointed to 5 "main" different sources
Memes, jokes and funny videos that go too far/are too realistic that someone believes
Scammers and those looking to benefit out of the pandemic
Politicians/Governments
Conspiracy Theorists (5G etc.)
Insider - someone you claim to know (unnamed Doctor) who knows more than the average person - either these don't exist or it's a "game of chinese whispers gone wrong
Big Media Companies like BBC, ITV, Newspapers also spread wholly or partially fake news.
With this we discussed how one can spot the signs of fake news such as:
It being inaccurate
It being misleading
It being designed to disrupt the normal "flow"
It Feeding into one bias or another
The most dangerous type of fake news is f-news which is based on true fact but a critical fact or element has been been tweaked or manipulated.
An example of this is when Lee Rigby's plaque/grave/memorial stone was being moved from the floor to a nearby wall. An anonymous person took a picture and made it out that the local council were removing the memorial all together and "forgetting about" Lee Rigby - which mis-informed many people.
Following this, we went onto Genres and formats - and discussed about the following terms:
Characters
Setting
Iconography
Narrative
Style
and in particular what would a game-show with these things in them would look like?
We then looked at sub-categories of reality TV, in particular:
Dating (First Date, Undateables, Come Dime WIth Me)
Makeover (human makeover, house makeover etc,)
Talent (BGT, AGT, The Voice)
Docusoaps (One Born Every minute)
Scripted (Bear Grylls etc.)
Social Experiment: (Secret Life Of 5 Year Olds etc.
We then watched wayyy too much of Love Island highlights (5 minutes) to look for the key parts of Love Island's format (location etc.)
We finished off by looking at formats - which are, essentially, the "franchises" of a show - for example the format of TopGear, used by TopGear USA and maybe Fifth Gear.
The one we looked in depth at was Big Brother as it had many spin offs for different countries' versions.
The lecture ended with us having another look at the assignment and the 6 options we had:
Journalism and terminology
News Values & What News Is
Analysis Of Citizen Journalism
Choosing And Discussing A Genre
Framing of EU Nationals by media
Discussing Gate-Keeping
After this, I'd have tea - a delicious margarita pizza, and watch two episodes of Glee (more technical problems) with my Girlfriend.
Sorry for the slightly longer blog today,
With the weekend coming up, you'll have a little break from the long ones!
On the subject of that - how is it the weekend already?!!?!?
Take care, have a safe weekend - and keep to the restrictions
- RT