Final Post and Macbeth

This last weekend the entire INT 95 class was required to attend one of the shows that the theater department was putting on. Their version of Macbeth was interesting, to say the least. I am not a particularly huge fan of theater, and will generally only really attend a showing if it has received great reviews, or I have friends or family that are performing. However, I enjoyed the non-traditional style of this particular theater performance. I did enjoy the various ways that the actors created the sets using their own bodies, and the creativity utilized throughout the play. However, I found that the play was slightly difficult to follow, though the plot summary that was given to us helped tremendously. I believe that having the same actors play multiple roles made following the play slightly more difficult, but I understood it fairly well. The actors seemed extremely well-prepared, which is a nice change to many of the various theater performances that I have seen.
Though this did not particularly inspire me to learn more about the theater and dance programs offered through UC Santa Barbara, I will still support the various performances, because I understand the tremendous amount of work and effort that goes into organizing and creating these pieces of art. I also enjoyed watching a Shakespearean play, as opposed to reading it. I feel that actually being able to watch the events unfold helps to better conceptualize the plot, emotions, and minor occurrences that may go unnoticed in a simple reading.

Dr. Appel and the Education Abroad Program

Dr. Irwin Appel is someone who has been involved in the Theater and Dance department at UCSB. During his presentation at our INT 95 lecture, he presented a lot of information about the department, and how to get involved. Though I have had many friends in theather, the only experience I ever have with theater was being a narrator for a play in the third grade. However, I have heard many good things about theater, and may have to check out the program.
Secondly, my class and I checked out the EAP (Education Abroad Program) building this last week, and we learned a tremendous amount about traveling abroad for school. This is a program that I am very interested in, and would love to participate during my junior year. Although I would love to travel to Germany or any Spanish speaking countries as I am familiar with both languages, I would like to travel to an area that is less frequented, in order to hopefully prepare myself to eventually join the peace corps. In the EAP building, we learned a lot about the necessary prerequisites (or lack thereof) for visiting various nations, and the multiple different ways that you can stay in those areas--for example, staying for a quarter, a year, or doing a complete integration program, which I think is very cool! I look forward to preparing for embarking on an education abroad program.

My Experience with Social and Informational FSSP Events

I have done multiple social events since I came to UCSB. We were technically required to do four activities for our INT 95 class and the Freshman Summer Start Program (FSSP). I realized that activities were great ways to meet friends and integrate myself with the community. Although I enjoyed all of the events that I went to, I did not like the idea of “required” events. I understand the premise for required events; namely, you want to have students getting out and interacting with each other over common interests. This is a brilliant idea, but I feel that it would be more constructive to have an informational session to raise awareness for the various clubs that are on campus, as opposed to having required events. In the following sentences I will describe the events that I attended, and my experience with each.

I watched two free movies offered through the Isla Vista Theater, which I enjoyed tremendously. Being able to see relatively new movies in a theater for free was an excellent way to spend time with friends, especially for those with a tight budget. The two movies I saw were Stoker (a horror/thriller), and Fast & the Furious 6. An academic fair was one of the required events, which was beneficial to me, since I learned a bit about the Education Abroad Program (EAP). However, though there were booths for many majors, there was no booth for Linguistics. Alas, I checked out the Communications booth and learned a good deal about that. Finally, I attended a career services workshop, where we learned a lot about how we can pursue work, internships, and ultimately a career using various resources offered through UCSB.

Dr. Lubach, Reddit, and Crazy Wildlife

This past week my INT 95 class visited the Davidson Library on campus in order to meet with academic librarian Sally Weimer for an informational session. I learned about many useful resources that I was previously unaware of, including a massive database of electronic scholarly articles. Our guest speaker this week was Dr. Lubach. He was a very informed speaker, and by far my favorite this entire summer. He advocated the importance of critical thinking, and various avenues and methodologies through which you can approach the realm of critical thinking. One of my favorite parts of his lecture was the point where he talked about balancing critical thinking in social situations. Sure, you may be able to refute someone else's claim, but that does not mean it is appropriate or kind to do so.

Local raccoon stopping in to say hello

Another thing that Dr. Lubach spoke about was a recently growing social board called Reddit. As an avid "redditor" for almost 3 years, I am happy that Reddit is beginning to accrue the popularity it deserves. This website is divided into several "subreddits," which are essentially sub-forums ranging anywhere from funny jokes, politics, news, religions, any hobby you can imagine, to intense academic discussion. The thing I love about Reddit is that (bar many of the more popular default subreddits) it is an awesome place to learn about anything you have ever been curious about, you just need to know where to look. In conclusion, I would like to include this picture of a raccoon--because as other Gauchos well know, the wildlife can be pretty insane around campus at night. Thankfully, if you leave them alone, they will usually scamper along on their way. I would be lying if I said that many families of raccoons and skunks hadn't accidentally snuck up on me, and of course vice versa.