This project is okay, I have enjoyed it more the time since the last blog post. I thought what was the best part was making the video, and seeing it over and over again. I like the story I made from the interview, knowing people will know her story, too. I feel like the pictures of my mom when she was a kid really did work throughout the video. The video had to be two to four minutes long. I found it not that hard to make it in that time, but I think making it to four minutes would be hard. Each slide has to be more than 2 seconds but less than 9 seconds. And, the video is to tell the story, not the interview. I think this unit is pretty fun so far.

Making the video; I think the video was not that hard to make, only making me go crazy, “occasionally”. It was much, much easier than WeVideo, though. It’s just, that tweaking the video was much harder. At the end of the video, I had to add two pictures that must be taken(or scanned) with the phone, so I tried that, but there kept on having errors and I got very(I mean very) frustrated. I did not like every single picture-upload-thing time when making the video. IT. WAS. SO. FRUSTRATING! I got very crazy, so I decided to take a break from that. After all, I found I way to make it look good(with a scanner app).

Everything else in making the video was not that hard. The voiceover, picking pictures, and writing the script was not had. The voiceover, that was easy. I just had to press the voiceover button and read from the script, although it was a little hard because I recorded it at different times on different slides so the tone was different. Eventually, I realized I can’t keep it like that and had to record every single slide again. The pictures weren’t hard either, my grandmother had lots of pictures so getting the pictures weren’t hard. Neither was picking them. I already had plans for where all the pictures were going to go. Writing the script wasn’t hard because it was just like the narrative(with limitations).

I learned much about my mother’s life, I found out about what my mother’s life was like back then, and I learned a little bit about struggles, and architecture back then in the late 1900s(in China). About making the video, I learned some very important information about making the pictures fit in Adobe Creative Cloud Express. I figured that you can’t take it directly with the Camera app, you have to use a software scanning app. I screamed when it finally worked.

In conclusion, this unit was okay. I didn’t like the beginning, where you had to research a lot. After lots of researching, we got to do the good parts, like doing the interview and making the video. After all, I found it very frustrating as well, but it was better than the first part. I like this unit, I think it wasn’t as fun as Rube Goldberg, but it was still interesting to do. I found this unit much easier than the other units. I like this unit, I think it’s good and a little boring in some ways.

This project, immigration, is not bad. At least no research and writing work. Mostly, your research comes from the interview you conduct with an immigrant. After conducting the interview, you have to make an adobe spark video. I find this fun, but probably not as fun as Rube Goldberg. I think that this project is still interesting, just not the first part, where you have to research. I learned some cool things about how life was back then for my mom. I especially liked the pictures of my mother when she was a kid.

We just had to list 10-15 questions on a document. It wasn’t that hard, I felt like I had everything planned out in my head already. Almost like I already knew everything I was going to ask. Every. Single. Question. I still had to get some inspiration, so I looked at the “Sample Interview Questions and Interview” PDF. There were some good questions I found there. I finished 20 questions pretty quickly, from what I call. I mostly wrote questions like “How did moving feel” and “Explain your thoughts” and things like that(not exact questions). I tried my best to not write closed questions. It actually wasn’t that hard, you just had to add words like explain, describe, tell me, why or why not, those kinds of words. I tried to consider making my questions interesting or at least making them have interesting answers. I did sort of succeed. I did get some answers I expected, and some I didn’t. 

I mostly just sat there, on my parent’s bed(that isn’t the most convenient place, I know) with my mom, listening to what my mom had to say. Sometimes, my mom misheard me(I didn’t notice), and then she would go on talking about things that didn’t match the questions. I got confused easily but didn’t interrupt until I found the chance. I wanted this interview to be a proper one, even though there were some not-so-proper parts. I stayed there, listening to mom’s story, and nodding in agreement when necessary. I expected it to be shorter, just about 15 minutes would be enough, but it turned out I needed about 20 minutes instead. My mom had a lot more to say about each question than what I expected, I expected to hear a straight answer and explanation. I personally had never conducted an interview. I found out if you wanted a proper interview, you have to be quiet, nod in agreement(only when necessary), sit tall, don’t slump, keep a smile(to make the person you’re interviewing feel warm), and don’t be forcing. Somehow, I learned these things without consequence, it just happened that I knew what to do and what not to do. I had a prediction of what will happen if I did these things. What answer surprised me most was what thing, in particular, made moving extra hard. I expected to hear something like Oh, leaving all my friends and family was so, so hard. or Oh yes, the feeling of leaving permanently was so hard to conquer. et cetra, et cetera. But in fact, something I didn’t expect, my mom said, “Oh, extra hard… Hm… I think, the food. The food of the culture is so different from the food I’m used to. I still didn’t know how to cook back then, it was very hard.”  That sure was a surprise, I didn’t know the food was hard for her.

In conclusion, I like this unit so far. It’s not that bad, but not super-duper fun. I consider it “okay”. I like some things about the unit, for example, interviewing, Adobe Spark video, and some more. But something I don’t like is the research at the beginning. I understand that it may be strange that I really do hate research, but it’s just something I don’t enjoy. I just can’t handle boring, computer, note-taking research. I don’t think this unit is bad or good so far, but I bet the Adobe Spark video will make this unit even more fun. I’m okay with this unit, no particular feeling. At least this is better than some of the other units we did.