Three easy steps... +1

  Staring wide-eyed into the new semester I think I am just about ready to hit the ground running. It is a good thing I suppose as classes start on Tuesday. The potential for this semester excites me for that reason alone. I have an incredible group of professors this semester and the class material promises to be engaging and transforming. The class list looks like this- Paul's Letters, African American History since 1865, Christian Theology, Christian Anthropology- Man and Woman in the Image of God, and finally Small Group Ministry.
  Coming out of Costa Rica and coming back to campus has put me in an interesting mood. I am fascinated by the possibilities of the coming courses, I feel different or changed in terms of the work ahead of me but cannot put my finger on how or why, and ultimately I am more excited than ever to dig into a new semester of classes. Costa Rica put some things in perspective and while I am excited for the coming years out of college (whatever that entails), I feel really ready to engage in the coursework I have ahead of me. I look forward to conversations, thoughts and challenges.

  Ok ok, so its not all fun and games-
Step one- buy books.
Step two- organize syllabuses (syllabusen? syllabi?).
Step three- *sigh... uh oh. final count- 26 books and about 60 pages of syllaben.


+1 (no not the band of old... pictures! of course!)

  This is just a little time lapse I put together to get a hang of the whole process, its not much but I'm hopefully going to explore the concept more in the near future. (taken out a window, from the third floor of our dorm at Whitworth then out the window of my room.)

a first timelapse from David Rurik on Vimeo.

Digital Story final project

  Well finals are here at last. I wrote my essay, I turned in my video all that's left to do is present it here to you all! Hope you enjoy! This project has just been (or more likely will be soon) posted HERE on the Whitworthian's (our school newspaper) website. It was an interesting project and I attempted to make good use of a technique called kinetic typography. I know that this version is not nearly as good as what's out there (you should probably check that link out, it will make you smile at least), but it was a start and I'm pleased with my results.
  I shot this event held by the Students for Education Reform on MLK day last week. I gathered all of the audio live (and I'm still impressed with my little Zoom H1). The group did a march in the morning then held this event which featured a local hip-hop group and a reading of the I Have a Dream speech (among other poetry readings).

SFER Whitworth from David Rurik on Vimeo.

Slideware presentation

     Well, you ask what class I'm taking for JTerm? (Or maybe you don't ask that, but for now you're reading my blog which means you are now likely curious what it is I'm taking...) Digital Storytelling is the class title and we have been studying some design and presentation basics that are fundamental to creating engaging digital media. Pretty interesting stuff in my book!
     Here's a quick look at some stuff I've done- first a link to my flickr account where I have posted the design project that we were assigned. See it Here and Here. Next a quick link to a slideware presentation (ie. powerpoint/keynote presentation with included audio on a cool site called slideshare.net). Here's what I did for the project that was supposed to avoid some common mistakes that author Garr Reynolds clumps together under the title "Death by Powerpoint" in his book Presentation Zen (find it Here).
     Here's that presentation-

Photography

View another webinar from drurik

Something new!

     Thanks to Mike Hagen (his blog found here- Out There Images), I turned my mouse to a website called vimeo.com. I had heard of the site before but never really thought much of it. Maybe I had been on it. I just imagined another youtube. Well ultimately that's what it is. But better. The website says, 'Vimeo is a respectful community of creative people who are passionate about sharing the videos they make.' Cool. So I started looking around. I signed up. I uploaded the Covenant Bible Camp video I made last summer as a fundraising piece for the ministry and linked it to my blog (see previous blog post).
     Then I found this- 5 Vignettes or 5x5. Its a group that makes videos that have limitations. 5 clips, 5 seconds each, don't edit the audio. So I dug around and came up with some clips from various beaches in Costa Rica and composed this little 5x5.

5x5 Costa Rica from David Rurik on Vimeo.


     I am intrigued by the process and the restrictions. Hopefully before January is out I will have composed a few more. Stories. Themes. Ideas. Can you create a biography in 25 seconds?

Covenant Bible Camp 2011 video

     I finally got this online in a format to share, enjoy this piece on Covenant Bible Camp.

Covenant Bible Camp from David Rurik on Vimeo.