My 10 Assignments

Here are the ten blog posts I have decided to include in my final blog assignment:

This post about the then-current top five teams in the Premier League was written on 29 Jan 09. I chose to include this in my assignment because I felt I gave a great deal of news, as well as commentary to one of the manager's outbursts over officiating. The post includes a video of the manager.

On 9 Feb 09, I continued my blog posting on Beckham-watch. I chose to include this post because I included personal interest in Chelsea FC's season but also included the Beckham saga. I also put in my own personal commentary which I felt wasn't too biased.

For my hybrid class assignment 5 written on 23 Feb 09 I kept the blog strictly to the topic of 'citizen journalism'. Because of the seriousness of the topic (the Virginia Tech Massacre) I didn't load the post with pictures or video. I just linked to two 'citizen journalists' that I like to read.

During a turbulant time in the Chelsea FC organization, I wrote commentary on Scolari being sacked in a post from 10 Feb 09. I kept the post short and very newsy. I felt this was a good switch from my humorous commentaries. I also enjoyed putting in the photo of Scolari who seemingly is shocked over a call on the pitch. Perhaps a similar expression crossed his face when he was sacked.

In a personally exciting news post for myself, I reported on 3 Feb 09 that a World Cup would possibly be coming to America. I included this post because of it's importance to the topics covered in my overall blog and feel that this post exemplifies one of the aspects of In Pele We Trust.

In this 2 Feb 09 posting I wrote on the Beckham-AC Milan-LA Galaxy love triangle. The introduction of the Beckham-watch I felt that this blog was worthy of inclusion of this assignment because of the news like writing, which helped set the tone of my blog.

In the second hybrid class, I focused on my exploring blogs. I included this 2 Feb 09 post because it really helped me expand my knowledge of blogs and I felt that my commentary would help other students as well. Also, by reading the comments, I felt that my reasoning for including this post in this assignment was justified.

I included this hybrid class (written on 9 Apr 09) because I feel it showed off my sense of writing style. I think it was humorous (hopefully) and showed I truly was Gen Y-er. I didn't just draw on typical reasons, but drew on what I was doing at that exact moment.

These two early postings from 27 Jan 09 and 28 Jan 09 both show how far along my blog design has travelled. At first I just posted the links in the blog without linking key words like I later learned was an important thing to do in the blog world. I included both of these posts for this reason, and feel changing them to be blog-correct would diminish how far I have come in blogging.

Adam

Hybrid Class: Social Networking

I facebook. I love it. I love how silly the quizzes are, I love updated my status with ridiculous limericks, I love it all. I find it soothing to see others tell me they're up at 3AM doing stupid stuff. I also love reading people's problems in their notes.

Of course I know out of the 300+ 'friends' I have I really only actually talk to about 20 of them on a consistent basis. The rest are previous classmates or even previous best friends that it is nice to see their life is as boring as mine.

The main reason I use facebook is to keep in loose contact with these people. That way if I ever need something from them, or they need something from myself, we can contact one another. It is a good tool to use for, well, networking.

However, the main reason I use facebook is to kill time while I'm at work. I love looking at my 'friends' ridiculous pictures that they feel the need to take every time they go to a party. Why do they do this? I have no clue. It is so repetitive, so boring. Maybe I'm letting my hatred of the college scene come through. But maybe the college scene includes facebook.

Overall I think facebook could be positive, but it could be easily abused.

Adam

My youth team

I have been coaching youth football for a few weeks now. It's a recreational league with 8-10 year old boys on my team. Now, I'm not new to coaching footy. I've been helping coaching JV girls at Chandler High School for three years now (all three focusing on goalkeeper training, last year being promoted to assistant coach), but man, I am having a difficult time.

The fact that I do take the basic skills for granted, I find it difficult to even run a practice because half of the players cannot pass correctly. But there are two players that stand out. One played for a club team and his father is an Israli who lived in England playing footy. Then Marc, a family friend I have been training for a while (I coach with his older sister).

Marc gets trained by me as a keeper, but has a natural skill for scoring and more importantly assisting goals. He really an amazing player.

We have our third game (one win and loss currently), but we should do well the rest of this training season. They only play 6 games to get them ready for summer and fall leagues.

Adam

Hyrbid Class 9

As a member of the Gen Y generation I feel that I am completely tech savvy. I'm no genius, and still cannot figure loads of stuff out, but I can get by. I put myself in the 87th percentile. I find it interesting that older generations are catching up. My parents are becoming more frequent internet users, and have even started to text. I think that my generation takes for granted what we were given to us. I know that right now I am sitting in my office, with duel monitors, a blackberry in my shirt pocket, music playing, and right after I finish this I'll be streaming some video (yes, I'm a terrible employee).

As for google...I think it is the most (along with wikipedia) amazing source for the new millenium. I do think it teaches us many things, but I agree that spending too much time on the web is a bad thing. But when I'm researching for a paper I can search endless databases instead of my local libraries old journals. So yeah, I am smarter because I have access to so much material.

I think the internet has increased my subject knowledge leaps and bounds beyond a typical classroom.

Adam

Ruining America?

Check out this interesting article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680101041299201.html

Adam

Week Review

Well, the Premier League seems to be had to the defending champs, Manchester United, but my boys in West London are now in second. The current league standings are:

Manchester United - 62 pts
Chelsea FC - 55 pts (own tiebreaker due to goal differential)
Liverpool - 55 pts
Aston Villa - 52 pts
Arsenal - 46 pts

We will see what comes of this.

Meanwhile the first knock out round (after group stage) kicked off this week for the Champions League. The Champions is a Europe-wide tournament that Manchester United won last year. The results for the first leg (you play the same opponent twice, whichever has more goals over the two games moves on) are as follows:

Chelsea FC (England) 1 - 0 Juventus (Italy)
Villarreal (Spain) 1 - 1 Panathinaikos (Greece)
Sporting CP (Portugal) 0 - 5 Bayern Munich (Germany)
Atletico Madrid (Spain) 2 - 2 Porto (Portugal)
Lyon (France) 1 - 1 Barcalona (Spain)
Real Madrid (Spain) 0 - 1 Liverpool (England)
Arsenal (England) 1 - 0 Roma (Italy)
Internazionale (Italy) 0 - 0 Manchester United (England)

As you can see England and Spain make up 1/2 of the remaining 16 teams. It seems likely that one of those countries will win the League.

Here's hoping to Chelsea! But if not Barca or Inter are my other hopefuls!

Adam

ENG 494, Hybrid 5

It has been a long, hectic week and I apologize for the lack of updates. I will get back into the swing of things soon.

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'Citizen journalist' is a great was to label all of us. Us bloggers, us facebook linkers, everybody. Up to the minute, a matter of fact, balls to the wall news. Sure, bloggers blog about silly, random thoughts, but I definatly agree that with all of the technology in the world it is hard to not take citizen journalist's seriously.

Many of the footage of the Virginia Tech Massacre was captured via a cell phone. A tragic event was able to be brought to the public on a first hand account. Us CJ's really affect the world. All over the internet people are blogging about world events. I think of it this way: if there is a section in the NY Times, there are thousands of blogs about that type of news. News, opinion, sports, arts and entertainment, business. The list goes on and on. I think a good CJ must be opinionated, give facts, link (unlike myself this post). I don't think they have to report on everything, because then they actually become the media. I feel myself is a citizen sports journalist, focusing in footy. I think that there are many bloggers who become the media and really shape how we think about things.

Soccer by Ives and Perez Hilton are two bloggers who have become respected news sources. And perhaps, with a little bit of luck and hard work 'Pele' will become one. I would want to change the name and just focus on AZ footy, but I think I am going to try that.

Adam