3/17/2010 - Our Special Guests

Becky Rodriguez

Wow it has been a while since I have posted a blog. Well, what can I say? I have been doing good and hope that all the people who have been interested in reading our blog have missed us.

Since our last amazing visitor Anna Quindlen, we had the opportunity to interview two more interesting people. Hillary Cohen Freeman, a yoga teacher and photographer, came to talk to us about her trips to different parts of the world like India with her mentor, Douglas Brooks. She also spoke to us about how and why she became a photographer and a yoga teacher. Hillary is an outgoing and down to earth person who believes that when you try and try, you will get what you want. She had really good quotes about life. One of my favorites was, “You are the point the universe wants to make.” I like this idea because I believe that everything depends on the person herself or himself and you have to show the best of yourself.

Dave, an audio and video producer, was a great person who showed us about Audacity because he is the best on that. He taught us different techniques and tricks to do the best audio story presentation in 2 minutes. You are probably asking yourself how can you tell a story in 2 minutes? Well, it’s possible and I learned that myself because I was thinking the same thing. I learned that you just edit the more important parts to tell the story. The 2-minute rule of thumb comes in because as the person telling the story you want your listener to get the full picture without them falling asleep or clicking to another site.

I learned so much from the people we have interviewed so far. It has been a pleasure to learn a little about their personal and professional lives. I never imagined at the beginning of term that it would be a pleasure to interview people. I thought it was going to be a lot of work and that maybe, people we interviewed would give us a hard time and not want to answer our questions. I thought maybe they would feel like they were above us. But instead, I am learning that they are just like us.

3/17/2010 - Visits by Hillary Cohen Freeman and David Bergeland

Shannon

In the last two weeks we have had two absolutely terrific people come to our Edible English/Multimedia class. Hillary Cohen Freeman, who is an excellent certified Anusara yoga teacher and a photographer, came on March 1. I have to say she is a free spirited, down to earth person. Hillary had a lot to say and kept my attention the whole interview. It was interesting to me to learn that through yoga and many trips to India, Hillary said she found spiritually who she was deep down inside. I enjoyed some of her quotes. For instance, “The most personal thing you can feel is ultimately shared by everyone” or “Opportunity is not easy. It is a challenge.” I went home and thought about my age and how maybe I should start to really look deep inside myself and find me, find who I really am.

The other incredible guest we had come to our class was David Bergeland. He is a superb journalist. David has worked for a lot of news paper and knows many notable tips to get things done efficiently when working with audio. He showed us how to make an hour long interview into an impressive 2-minute slideshow. We learned about lighting and where the best position for lighting the talent, and where the microphone show be when we are interviewing someone. I enjoyed all of the slideshows he put together and all the information about Audacity, the program about which he taught us some tricks and tips. Hopefully, when I do my final project I can go back in my notes and try to put a professional touch on my slide show. I am going to try to take some pictures with good lighting to make my presentation pop and see what I can accomplish with the tools I have learned.

I think the more experience my class gets with interviewing respected people, the more we will get comfortable with how we speak in public, how to interact with certain people and how to get great information out of people so that we get great and interesting material out of our own interviews.