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The following is an assignment I turned in for English Composition at Full Sail Online. Each student was to remember a past time in life and the soundtrack for that time period.

Living the “High” School Life

“Get Up Get Out and Get Something” by Outkast

During high school I was somewhat of an angelic trouble maker; meaning I never got caught. Many days during lunch my friends and I could be found driving around smoking marijuana listening to rap music. “Get Up Get Out and Get Something” would be blasting out the car’s custom audio system. The stereo system was a testament to my hard work that took a full summer or two to pay for. Luckily, the car was a hand me down from my mother so I was able to afford the twelve inch sub woofers known for annoying anybody outside the car as we cruised by. Seems like we were always traveling, but never really had a destination. The songs lyrics, “You need to get up, get out and get something/ Don’t let the days of your life pass by/You need to get up, get out and get something/ Don’t spend all your time trying to get high,” reminded me that eventually I would need to figure out that destination.

“In Due Time” by Outkast

My old 1985 Jetta was at the time 11 years old. I couldn’t quite afford the rims, but I did manage to scrounge up enough cash for a cheap paint job. Somebody should have told me not to paint the Jetta with the same colors as our rival high school.   Doesn’t matter how expensive the paint job, car keys will still scratch the surface. I dreamed of one day having a nice car; a materialistic attitude brought on by TV and other mainstream media. I just kept humming, “In Due Time.”

“Fly Away” by Lenny Kravitz

I could often be found behind the torn leather steering wheel of my Jetta pushing it to the limit down I-95. I chanted, “I wish that I could fly/ Into the sky/ So very high/ Just like a dragonfly,” as I pushed the pedal down further, passing the Georgia state line headed to the big city, Atlanta.  The windows would be all the way down which usually meant the volume was at a range higher than the blast of air swarming the interior of the vehicle. The charging breeze was relief from the hot and humid Southern heat. Either that or to aerate the car from the ever present cloud of rebellion.

“Paradise (Life)” by AZ

These days it makes me laugh to think maybe my back pains are derived from the gangster lean driving style of the past. As an undercover nerd the music effortlessly juiced me to be cool; an attitude my parents loathed, but peers embraced.  Inside I knew I was more than what they thought. Their opinionated outlook fueled me to prove them wrong. I could dress however I wanted and still make it. If my car keys had not been confiscated I escaped into the night; a paradise unto itself.

“Regrets” by Jay-Z

Back then you think you know it all. You’ve been hit with a few lessons in life which gives you ammunition to spew advice. I’ll never regret this attitude in some ways — learning I knew nothing is also an integral part of my being. “Earth is turning souls burning/ in search of higher learning turning in every direction seeking direction,” are words that ring bells still to this day. If anything, I have learned all directions lead somewhere; the fork being the only obstacle. My only regret is not having my ‘85 Volkswagen Jetta to cruise by at two miles an hour.  Undoubtedly, I would be sunk in the cloth seats listening to some mean beats. I think that last sentence just rhymed.

Going into week 3 of Full Sail I am now feeling the pressures of time, and the lack of enough hours in the day. This week I turned in 2 writing assignments, read about 50 pages, and contributed to our classroom discussions.  In all I spent about 22 hours towards Full Sail. This is of course expected, and I will be making adjustments to my work schedule as class work increases.  I am finding that the writing exercises are becoming a little easier as I churn more and more out. There is definitely a comfort with writing that only comes from repetition.

For one of our assignments we were to write a 400-600 word discussion post about Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Discussion posts are designed to allow other students in the class to read and critique each person’s work. I rarely like to comment about someone’s work because I am in no way a professional writer or grammar expert. I did chip in this time, and offered a few points of improvement to other classmates. These improvements included sentence structure, spelling, and other grammar errors that I felt comfortable helping with.  Some students had spelling mistakes that I could not believe. I opted out of bashing them online and hope they will seek further help from the professor.

Full Sail gives every student the ability to video chat with professors, but at this point I have not needed such direct communication.  It definitely will be easier to iChat rather than hiking on campus to find the professor or needed counselor; a part of online education that maybe should be a part of campus education as well.  Imagine how many more student-teacher meetings would be possible if instead of face-to-face students used video chat. These tools do have the ability to save time.

Well, I just checked in for my assignments this week (” see image on right), and it looks like I might have to make these posts pretty short in order to stay up with work and school. I am still very optimistic about school and really enjoying the benefits of taking a class online. See you guys next week!

My first week at Full Sail online is in full swing and things are going pretty good so far. As with most schools the first week is pretty slow and not too much time is required for course work. As of today, Thursday, I have spent about 3.5 hours on my assignments and corresponding with my classmates. Fortunately, Jeca Designs has been doing very well this month, but at the same time I am worried about time conflicts with school. I am hoping that as the course work gets heavier I will still be able to handle running a business.

The online system at Full Sail is definitely proving to be unique and intuitive, but I do feel it could be improved a little here and there. I had an issue when trying to upload an assignment on the Full Sail distributed MacBook Pro that prompted me to switch to my Windows 7 machine. That seemed a little strange. I really just think it is a Java issue on my MacBook that I have not spent time to look into.

My first assignment for English Composition was to describe the cover of a video game, CD, or movie in 300-500 words. Of course, I went with Alan Wake for this one. Pretty interesting that most of my classmates chose video games to write about as well. Surprising is the fact that 2 of the video game write-ups were submitted by females in the class.

So far interaction with classmates has been limited, but it is definitely encouraged and even plays a factor in your overall grade at Full Sail. Oddly, I have already been asked by one classmate to be friends on Facebook. Like I said earlier, this whole online thing is a little creepy, but I took it as a friendly gesture and accepted the invite.

For my current assignment I am expected to open a Word doc and fill in some information to be submitted to the professor. I really hope I don’t have to install Word, but can utilize Google Docs for all my writing. We will see.

Many of this weeks assignments include reading policies and checking off that they have been read and understood. It looks like we have a quiz next week on some of this material that shouldn’t be too tough.

Well, not a whole bunch to report on at this moment, but I will be back next week! Thanks for tuning in.