Fireside Chat

Our final assignment in this class was the fireside chat. I really enjoyed this assignment because it was so open ended and I was able to do something very specific and personal to me. I enjoyed being able to make people laugh with my sense of humor and also share a true message that I’ve learned over the years that people may not know.

When I was thinking about my assignment, I really wanted to do something that was my personal type of humor. I made the video that I showed of the candlelight vigil independent of this assignment. I just enjoyed having a moment with my brother and roommate that are in the video. It really was just a way for us to have something to talk about. For a few months the official event of the candlelight vigil for Harambe was on Facebook and it was really a fun topic of conversation for us, talking about what we were going to do, what t-shirts we were going to buy, and what we were going to say while there. It just wanted to show my classmates my inner sense of humor, and this clip was a perfect match for it.

The second part of my presentation was another look into my inner self, that I can find meaning and spiritual truth in just about everything, even the really funny things in my life. After thinking about why I enjoyed making that video so much I realized that the idea of Harambe as a person and as deserving a vigil is not real and deep down I do not believe that. What I do believe about that, however, is that the progress in my relationship with my brother and roommate improved dramatically. That progress is real, and is a very joyous relationship. I wanted to communicate that message with sharing my own personal experience with this kind of thing and then talk about popular parallels in our culture. By using images of Zelda, Star Trek, and Woodstock I reminded everyone that these fictional worlds or ideals create real relationships between people.

This project was a perfect example of how we can express who we are and what we believe through secular means. This could very well have been a lesson about the creation, and about the promises that all blessings come from God. I think that many people in the world can connect with the kind of truths that I taught during my presentation, and I think that is something I was able to do with all of my projects this semester.