Introductions

Ladies and gentlemen (all two of you) of the amazing Online Media Design graduate course of fall 2011: I am proud to say that I, Kiana Fitzgerald, am finally a Mac. This is quite possibly one of the most exciting moments of my life. I know this is only a glimpse into the wondrous life I will come to lead in the very near future, but as of now, I'm simply smitten.

To keep it simple, I went with a 13-inch MacBook Pro. I can't wait to start our lives together.

Other than my newfound citizenship in the United States of Apple, as some of you may remember, this is my first semester as a grad student. This is also my first semester as a teaching/instructional assistant for the School of Journalism & Mass Communication. I work with Dr. Lucy Brown in Advertising, and Dr. Jinbong Choi in Public Relations.

I graduated summa cum laude from Texas State in early August of this year (it seems like forever ago…) with a degree in journalism. I love to write, but I haven't had much experience, so I'm excited to take this class and other courses to see where it leads me. It's a lot to take in switching from undergraduate to grad school in less than a month, but I think I'll be just fine. Hopefully?

I also worked with the Texas State football team from my freshman year to my senior year as a student aide to the administrative assistant, so I was excited to see someone like Denise in the class who loves sports like I do. Although, I definitely think she has me beat!

Like Cindy, I love love love live music, and music in general! I listen to music anytime I get a chance. I love finding new artists and introducing my friends to their work. And I love meeting the artists who make the music I love. One of the joys in life for me. If I can work my career into live music events (SXSW, in my dreams), I would die a happy woman.

As for the video, I'm sure others were just as surprised as I was to see that computers weren't originally intended for communication purposes. That really blew my mind. I'm sure if the technology users of today were to be surveyed about the first uses of the computer, a whopping amount of them would assume what I did.

It was also really interesting to see how much time and effort went into the very first machines that were actually used to communicate. It was such an amazing accomplishment at the time, especially with the tools and technology they had to use, and it's incredible to see how far we've come in only half of a century.

I'm also excited to see if we'll be able to speak with Bob Metcalfe. That would be a great opportunity.

That's all for now, see you guys tomorrow night!

-Kiana Fitzgerald