Completing Week Two
With a sigh of relief, I can finally say that I have completed week two of #ds106. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the assignments we had to do this week. I think my favorite would definitely have to be the writing assignments. I’ve always enjoyed creative writing. The assignments I chose to do were the inner monologue of a household tool, a poem made of Twilight Zone titles, and the required assignment, creating an alternative ending from a reading from this week. As a theatre major, I found making an inner monologue for a household tool to be quite entertaining! I wrote my monologue from the point of view of a doorknob. The poem created entirely out of Twilight Zone titles, though entertaining, was a bit more challenging for me. First of all, I’ve never seen nor know the plot line of the show. That being said, I do think that I created a semi-comprehendible poem! The assignment we were required to do, making an alternative ending to one of this weeks readings, was really fun for me. I chose to write mine from the short story, “A Matter of Procedure”. While I was reading this story I thought I knew how it was going to end. I was completely wrong. I used the ending I envisioned while reading the story to write-up the assignment. I was a little inspired by the ending from “The Postman Always Rings Twice” when I was writing. A link to my writing assignments from the week can be found below.
I also really enjoyed this weeks readings. I read “The Postman Always Rings Twice”, “A Matter of Procedure”, and “The Killers”. Out of the three I definitely liked “The Killers” the least. It was too much dialogue and not enough narrative plot line for my liking. I found myself getting bored while reading it. In direct contrast, “The Postman Always Rings Twice”, though long, kept me in suspense the whole time I read it. I loved how the ending took a dramatic twist. It was completely unexpected. I found this quality to hold true in the short story, “A Matter of Procedure”, as well. I loved how chilling both of these pieces were. While reading “The Postman Always Rings Twice” I found myself thinking to a favorite novel of mine, A Secret History by Donna Tartt. It definitely contains a lot of the noir elements of these two stories.
The character dossier was also something I really enjoyed doing this week. I decided to make my character, Jack Spencer, from Chicago. I didn’t know too much about the city so I had to do some research about neighborhood demographics, weather, and various other aspects of the city. I also did some research into the lineage of different names to make characters like Spence’s mother, Lina Floretti, who is the daughter of Italian immigrants. While writing up my character dossier I found myself thinking about all aspects of the character I was creating, even thinking about different life and future events for him. I am excited to work with this character more in the future. A link to my character dossier can be found below.
The daily creates were also an enjoyable part of the week. My favorite one definitely has to be the cat on synthesizer in space. I love cats so I was excited to be able to use a picture of my own, Willow. I also had recently done a galaxy print painting for a friend so I used that for the background. It was also fun to use some of my photoshop skills I gained in my scenic design class last fall to put everything together. A link to my daily creates can be found below.
Overall, I’ve had a lot of fun doing the work from this week. The assignments don’t even feel like work to me I enjoy them so much. I’m excited to see what work we will do in the following weeks!
Writing Assignments: http://rhilaluman.com/assignments/i-came-i-wrote-i-conquered-writing-assignments/
Character Dossier: http://rhilaluman.com/assignments/jack-spencer/
Daily Creates: http://rhilaluman.com/daily-creates/challenge-accepted-daily-creates/