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I believe that Digital Citizenship is the act of behaving online like you would if the person was standing right in front of you. One should be honorable, decent, kind, and non-judgmental. A screen in front of your face does not give you the right to trash people on social media. Personal opinions are just that, personal. That doesn’t mean that anyone who doesn’t see it your way is wrong or bad. They are just as entitled to their opinion as you are yours. It is okay to disagree but keep it civil. Do to others as you would want them to do to you.

My family owns a brand. It is a Lazy P over wings and our horses all wear it on their left shoulder. Our horses are known all for their breeding, their dispositions, and, above all, their training. Anyone could climb up on one of our horses and do what they want to do and the horse will do it. They are branded.

Personal Branding is pitching yourself to the public with purpose. Everything you do and say is already branding you; you need to find what your strong points and what makes you happy and “brand it”. Like Scotland at PC, make yourself stand out from others. Be recognized for who you are and what you can do.

“Pay it Forward” is the act of receiving a kindness and “paying it forward” to a new recipient instead of the person who gave you the act of kindness in the first place. Social media is a good platform for this idea and people have benefitted from it all over the world.

Being asked to research this obscure, albeit famous film was a difficult task for me. Do I think it is art? Yes, I do. Why? Because in it I see concisely triggered movements, created with throw-away items and I see that movement and use of essentially trash as art. Peter Fischli and David Weiss painstakingly set up the Rube Goldberg device and then just as painstakingly filmed it with good cameras. The result was a simple, yet powerful short film that mesmerized its audience. The art and humor created by these to men have led other artists to expand their horizons of thought to include the unheard of and the unthought of. Garbage as abstract, manhole covers as terrain, and umbrellas as boats. It’s all art.

My First Movie

The first movie I saw as a teenager, where I paid my own way was Flashdance with Jennifer Beals. She captured the audience with her determination and wit. (I was really upset when I found out that a double had done most of the dancing for her.) The idea of a welder who danced appealed to me on so many levels that I just had to go see the movie. I was enthralled through the whole thing. I bought the soundtrack with my next paycheck and boogied to it every chance I got. Later in life I actually studied ballet for four years; Flashdance was embedded in my brain, apparently.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy takes us on a wild ride of adventure, discovery, and self-reflection. From the first pages, it is apparent that this is no ordinary book. This is a genuine guide, a handbook of sorts with advice from sage travelers from all over the universe. With towel in hand, we are given insight on living the vagabond life of a hitchhiker, living at the mercy of the goodwill of others, or their ships.

Arthur Dent was the average Joe until Ford Prefect saves his bacon. Suddenly he is a universal traveler on the adventure of a lifetime. He embraces it after some initial denial; he really doesn’t have much choice. He meets his first aliens and survives. He gets blasted into outer space and survives. On the Heart of Gold, he meets Zaphod Beeblebrox and instantly becomes an explorer of the unknown. After his mind is blown by a planet that manufactures planets, he concedes to the lifestyle of a hitchhiker taking life as it comes.

I feel a lot like Arthur Dent. My Ford Prefect is a petite woman dressed in vivid colors sporting a pixie haircut and a smile. She started by handing me a towel and telling me not to panic. I have taken her words to heart as I have gone on adventures and quests in Multimedia Communication and have survived. I have learned so much more than I thought I could and survived. In the classroom, I have had my mind blown and have conceded to the life of a student.

All silliness aside, Multimedia Communication is a real-life adventure in which we get to make decisions about our future and that of those we will be creating for. Having a guide to help us through this course has been instrumental to my success and I feel like I will be able to use this knowledge to create a niche for myself in this universe.

I said before that I felt like Douglas Adams was either a prophet or a time traveler. If he was neither, I was a man on top of technology with his finger on the pulse of the future. His predictions have been accurate to the nth detail. His is a genius that the passage of time has made immortal.

On his deathbed, a mentor of mine whispered to me, when I expressed concern for my future, “Molly, you’ll be fine. You are the most adaptive person I have ever met.” I have held those words in my heart life has tossed both the good and the bad at me and I have adapted as needed. Being ready for change is something every World Citizen should be prepared for. Like it or not, things are changing faster than ever. You can adapt or go extinct. I choose to adapt.

Iceland started out as a quaint little island with some hot springs on it and has changed to a bustling metropolis with happenin’ nightlife and an education system I covet as I have studied her. She’s green and grand and the tourists have discovered her. There is so much to see and do! She is rapidly becoming a place I want to visit!

Hypertext will be a way for me to share all I have discovered as we dive into our country websites. I hope to give people a glimpse of the Iceland I have come to know and love. Images, sites, and recipes to become an enlightened World Citizen are all at your fingertips!