BLOG #5

After I watched all the classes’ presentations and I realized that Gallaudet University is actually on a SMALL and abused by the students campus. I am pretty sure that one hundred years ago, Gallaudet and Clerc picked this spot because the beautiful landscape full of bisons. Today, definitely Gallaudet and Clerc made a mistake picking this location because the campus is crowded with gangsters, robbers, and creepy brick townhouses. Unfortunately the campus today is fenced with giant iron pointy bars and covered with little green spots and dying dull flowers at every corner you see.

Now this blog asked me to do something about my campus, dull Gallaudet University. Also how can I bring this change into positivity to the university? Only few things I could think, seize the bars and throw them out the Florida Avenue with those drunken people hanging out the corners or stuff new colorful flowers all over the campus such like one of the deadly sins, gluttony. Only one thing actually bothers me about this campus and the new visitors who drive up the front entrance. They only can see is the D.P.S.’s mini fort and the uncoordinated buildings. They would follow the D.P.S. guy’s arm pointing to the right side, they would turn right, and they will be lost because there are hidden or no signs for each building and no map for them to get a building.

First giant step I would make is to get some people who are willing to help me. Get those interested students to brainstorm a proposal for the administration and a resolution if they approved our proposal. Second step, I would bring my ideal proposal to the administration. The proposal would be such like telling them that most of the visitors tend to get lost when they lost the signs on roads and ending up asking the students around the campus where is that building or where is that office. Also we could find some evidence to support our point that there are very lousy signs and interview some visitors around here about their experience navigating themselves around here.

After their approval, we shall move on to the next step, ask more people (individuals, minor groups, and major groups such like an sorority) to help and brainstorm ideas to resolve the issue. After this step, I would move on to the final step, the resolution. The resolution would be to create new big colorful eye catching signs nearby the roads and the sidewalks so the people who are driving or walking will have no problem reaching from a building to other. Also create a nice map of campus at every popular people walking corners so the people who are lost will feel so revived when they saw the map sign and they will get their destination in no time.

One positive thing I can bring to Gallaudet University are the new curious visitors. When the visitors visited our campus without getting them lost and they will tell their friends and family about this campus and told them that our campus is very easy accessible and very organized. So this kind of way will pull more people in. Which may lead to the world more familiar about our campus!

Towson University

TOWSON UNIVERSITY

When I typed Towson University on google.com and clicked the university’s homepage. First thing I saw is the beautiful photograph with bright yellow tulips and a building from Towson University behind the tulips. I got the first impression of this photograph is that Towson University does include greenery. So I began to explore more around the website, I saw the sports, careers, arts/culture, research, and admissions. There were lots of pictures of students who served the community such like helping Maryland Food Bank. Also the interaction of the website was very inviting but unfortunately the colors really sucks. The Towson University’s colors were black and yellow. So the colors on the website is pretty dull but good thing the beautiful photographs were lightening up the dullness. So the first impression of Towson University before going inside the university to visit is pretty positive but I already feeling some negative points from the website because it is not disability-friendly but only racial-friendly only.

In The World Is A Text, Institutions of higher learning invest a great deal in their image. (Rader. 76.) I believe Towson University do invest a pretty big deal in their image because Towson University is in Maryland, in a wonderful location of small and good sized town off Baltimore’s county. In this article, Reading and Writing About Your Campus compared between San Francisco Community College and San Francisco University. There is a HUGE difference between those land because the greenery but only weird is that those lands were only some miles apart. Let’s see how different between Towson University and Gallaudet University because those universities are only less an hour apart. Students are likely drawn to it not simply because of its quality but also because of it is affordability (Rader. 78.) This quote may rhetorical into our university and Towson University. We may prefer to go to Gallaudet University because the deaf people surrounding instead the greenery.

“Place of memory” (Cresswell. 5.) When you walked in a place where you will always remember, for an example, when I walked in my mother’s hospital room when she gave birth to my sister. I will never forget this kind of surrounding where I feel creepy with all IV needles and heart beating machines but I feel this kind of happiness and excitement because of my little baby sister in the middle of the room. Now, when you walked in your dorm room for the first time, you will remember this room forever. So a surrounding where you will live for a year is a important point. Also Place a short introduction believes that place-making activities will engage your interest to live nearby this kind of activities. Now, Towson University’s website told that the university do provide many activities from helping homeless people to gardening the flowers around the community. Now it would pull many students in because of the surrounding where they will live for a year. I am so sure that you will go in a different surrounding if there is something you will be interested in. Back to my personal experience, I came in a different surrounding because I have an interest to go in, to meet my baby sister for the first time.

Baltimore Sun’s article about Towson University supported the third paragraph with Cresswell, the university believed that the surrounding is very important to their students. The article written by Ketty Faichampa, she told the readers that Towson University accidentally lied to the public because in 2003, Towson University created a master plan to create 5,000 seat arena nearby the campus but decided to cancel this plan because the university realized that this kind of idea will invite the public of crowded, noise, and pollution. So Cresswell’s idea gave a support to Towson University because the university believed that when a student came to the university for the first time, the person may feel the negativity of crowded public because the seat arena and then the person may choose other universities.

Looking at Towson University’s Mascot, Towson Tigers. Tigers are pretty common for a mascot in the schools around the America. “Reading and Writing About A Bicycle” by Jonathan Hunt told that there is thousands of bikes all over the world but each bike do have a personality and appearance. Similar theory as mascots around the America, Towson University do have a common mascot, Tiger but it do have a kind of personality because the tiger design on the football helmets may look mean or kitty-cute. The fixed-gear bike is thus not just a vehicle for transport but it is also a vehicle for communicating the values and characteristics of its owner. (Hunt. 97.) It is also rhetorical to mascots too. When you see Gallaudet Bison on a poster, you will see the white sharp horns and menacing teeth snarling front of you. So Towson Tigers will have their own personality and you will see their personality when you see their mascot on a poster.

Scenery - Campus Project

Scenery - the general appearance of a place; the aggregate of features that give character to a landscape. Dictionary.com. This definition gave me the meaning of a campus. Scenery of the campus does give out a influence to each person’s emotions. When the person sees a black barrier around a campus, they may feel unsafe and creepy. When the person sees huge palm trees rooted on each corner of the campus, they may feel wonderful and dreamful.

From my previous experience with Gallaudet University, the campus was built inside a huge black iron fence. That is the first scary impression brought to me when I came to visit the campus for the first time. The second sorrowful impression was the dead bushes around the security building. The rest of impressions was pretty negative because the thousands dead leaves on the grounds, small spaces of flowers, and few trees.

With my group’s ideal campus, I want to improve the scenery in this campus than Gallaudet University’s campus because I don’t think that campus is fitting for other go green people. First thing I would improve with my ideal campus is the front entrance because the front entrance is where the people pull in and see the campus for the first time. I don’t want them to talk about the first thing they saw is the dead bushes. I would hide the security building with colorful flowers and bushes and in some ways it makes the security more inviting and make the visitors more safe.

About the safety reasons I prefer the campus to add a fence but I would add some kind of vines with colorful flowers around the fence so it makes more eco-friendly to the neighborhood.

I want to add colorful flowers to empty spaces around the campus, like the corners between buildings or the spaces between the entrance doors and windows around the buildings. I want to insert trees where there is vacant green spaces to give shades for the visitors and residents. I want to add a variety of trees to the campus because a variety gives out different appearance and feelings from each tree. Each different tree have different shade of green and shape of leaves.

With all kind of green addition to the campus would make the people who came to feel inviting and very airy. When you sit next to steel you may feel unsteady with it because you know that it is man made object. When you sit next to a green plant, you may feel relaxing because you know it is a part of nature. So that’s why you know that you cannot live without the green because it is a part of your life.

BLOG #2

Actually I was not on the East Coast when the first hit of historical winter storm. I flew home on Thursday evening because an organization, Deaf Inc. invited me to come to their event on Saturday and to present myself as Miss Deaf Missouri. I was supposed to fly back to D.C. on Sunday but my flight was cancelled. So I called AirTran and they moved me to Monday evening. Again, it was cancelled and moved to Tuesday evening.

Good thing that my flight was delayed to Tuesday because I met Alan Hurwitz. He was trapped in Oklahoma too so he flew to St. Louis, Missouri because he rather to stay at his friend’s home instead a motel in Oklahoma. So on Tuesday, I went to Deaf Inc. and met him. It was so weird because I am a Gallaudet student and met the president of Gallaudet in St. Louis, Missouri instead at Gallaudet campus! Lucky him, he make it back to D.C. on Tuesday evening because he flew to DCA, not me. I was going to fly to BWI.

I was trapped in St. Louis until Wednesday because Baltimore got a lot more snow than D.C. When I saw the news that snowstorm is GONE in D.C. but a snowstorm was coming to St. Louis on Thursday morning so I decided to fly to Atlanta, GA and stay at a friends home for one night on Wednesday. On Thursday I flew back to the East Coast!

When I got back to the campus, I saw many gloomy faces of Gallaudet students and my face was shining from warm weather in St. Louis and Atlanta! When my friends told me how devasting that they were trapped in the dorms with no shuttle services and unpaved sidewalks. Only I can say, THANK GOD I WAS IN ST. LOUIS WITH MY FAMILY AND PETS!

I don’t see any positive feelings from my friends but a lot of negative feelings. I understand how they feel when DPS told them the campus is closed and the shuttle service is closed. I think that is kind of unfair for the students because they don’t have other things to do on the campus. Maybe Gallaudet should set up a recreation center for

students during weekends, bad weather, etc. A week of seeing the same people on campus drove them crazy and made them wanting to get out so badly. But the week before the storm, the weather was so beautiful and the students were staying in the dorms? That don’t make any sense to me but I think the peers and media influence are the reasons because when they see other people whining about trapping in the dorms and the news on televisions telling them to keep warm, get more food in case, etc make them worry. So they feel the need to get out and feel that the outside world is fine because of staying in ONE place with a fence around them make they feel “paranoid.”

(Pictures by Jessica Willoughby)

My first experience living in a dorm

When I came in my dorm room, 606 in Benson Hall, I felt the wind of nervousness and excitement. I felt nervousness because it was my first time to live away from my home and living with a person I knew only one year. I brought everything with me like pictures, posters, gift wrappers, and tape.

I sensed a mixed energy from the room because there were positive and negative things inside the room. I found some good things such like wall holes from poster tacks which made me to think which kind of poster the previous resident putted on a poster of Bob Marley, Watchmen, retro, or puppies. Other positive things were about my desk, there is some slight thin scratches around the drawers and it made me think how did the person got it by chipping with a chair, a shoe, or heavy object which have to drag instead carry. Negative things such like a stain on the middle of floor because it may be pee or vomit. Other thing is dull brown stain on wall next to the door and it could be a soda pop spill, coffee, or worst things like vomit!

The room belongs to me today because I redesigned the room by moving my roommate’s bed to the farther left wall and my bed on the right wall next to the door, dragging the two huge dressers on the wall next to the door and opposite to the window, putting two drawers on top and bottom between the two dressers, and added my futon on the wall next to the window. Also added a small television and end table in the corner between the huge dresser and my roommate bed that gives the people to have their own privacy while vpping and putted my roommate and my desks under our beds. Then stashed our stuff behind the desks and inside the drawers.

I put my favorite floor rug over the stain on the carpet, added all pictures and posters on the walls which covered the blank white paint, wrapped my gift wrappers on all drawers and boring tan wood pieces of furniture, added a nice futon in the middle of room which made the room half of living room and half of bedroom, and added my style – hippy, retro, and colorful into the room. It made other people to feel more inviting because we got space to sit down and chat, feel so cozy when lay down on my floor rug, or feel so relaxed by looking at my posters and pictures all over the walls.