Artifact #1: Lindsey Vonn out for the Olympics

Objectives:

• Become familiar with the structure and requirements for this course
• Create an online blog to use for posting research an other assignments
• Become familiar with the other students in the class and learn their interests

Original Post:

This blog post is in reference to The Early Lead’s article regarding Lindsey Vonn’s withdrawll from the Olympics.

Lindsey Vonn recently tweeted out the shocking news that she will be withdrawing from the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. After suffering a sprained MCL in last February’s race in D’Isere, France mixed with a torn ACL from continued racing the pain seems have finally gotten to the point of unbearability and would ultimately be too dangerous for her long term knee health to continue on into the Olympics.

As an active skiier and snowboarder my heart goes out to Lindsey as I can only imagine the type of emotional carnage that she is going through. This has been something that she has done her whole life and her body is now starting to fail her. Mountain sports such as these take a serious toll on the body both physically and mentally, especially when doing this type of thing for a living where your health is your life blood and if your health fails you then you can’t make money.

I hope and pray that Lindsey is able to make a full recovery and compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics if she chooses to do so. And as for all of the other USA team members, you’ll be getting 110% of my rooting capabilities during your events.

 

Go Team USA!
Reflection:
I chose this as my first artifact because it vividly portrays a majority of the things that I value close in my life. Now when looking at this simple post it could be easy for one to think that there couldn’t possibly be something in this 300 word post that could be even remotely close to a persons values. Well I beg to differ. Ever since I was a kid I’ve followed the winter olympics to the T, especially the snowboarding and skiing events. I can still remember way back in 2006 when I was 12 years old, watching Sean White and Lindsey Vonn compete in Torino, Italy for the first time. All I could think about was how awesome each of them expressed their fearless styles through their events and how much I wanted to do the same. Immediately after that I picked up a snowboard and haven’t put it down since. It gives me a whole new avenue to express myself and separate myself from everyone else. I can have my own style, my own tricks, and my own path, as is the similar goal of an artist. It pained me to see Lindsey Vonn pull out of Sochi, as she has been such an inspiration for me over the years but deep down it was this article that gave me a little insight as to what some of my values are and why I cherish snowboarding so much. It is a way of personal expression. This was the first of many connections that I made throughout the term and it laid the foundation of my internal understanding of art.

This artifact helped me fulfill the first assignment objective in the sense that it gave me some brief insight as to what was going to be expected of me throughout the term and how I was going to have to dig deeper into topics than I was normally used to in order to find out the true meaning. It also helped me fulfill the objectives of becoming familiar with a blog. Something as simple as this doesn’t seem relevant enough to be portrayed as an artifact but the reality is that I didn’t even know what a blog was let alone what it took to create one until this class. I now know what it takes to keep up a blog and will continue to do so outside of this class as it has given me an outlet to express my views on issues in a truly non-invasive way. Lastly, this artifact gave me the opportunity to get to know some of my classmates and get a feel for what values they cherish. In using this artifact I have been able to compare the interests of others in comparison to my own which has given me a much greater understanding of certain issues and has allowed me to explore areas that I may not have been exposed to before.

Future Goals:
Since this is my first ever blog, I seek to become an expert in all aspects of the feature. My desire is to continue blogging even after this class is over so that I can keep up to date on my transformation. I want this to be a constantly evolving process so an up to date blog is essential to track my progress on my life values throughout the year. Lastly, I want to be able to continue to just have fun with my blog as well. I find that when you post about stuff that you enjoy or that means something to you then you are more engaged in the discussion when it comes to others who comment on your posts. This is truly where the learning begins and the deeper meanings are brought to life and this is what I want to continue to pursue throughout my time here at the University of Oregon.

Table of Contents

Artifact #1: Lindsey Vonn Out for the Olympics
Artifact#2: Life Values Assessment
Artifact#3: Food As Art
Artifact#4: Personal Adornment Discussion
Artifact #5: The Aesthetics of Horror
Artifact #6: Creative Spirituality Discussion
Artifact #7: Art, Games, and Technology Discussion
Artifact #8: Remixing Google Image Search