The inspiration for this flashback was provided during the first week of my SMASH experience. I remember thinking, “This dining hall is impossible to navigate!” I would have found it helpful to see beforehand what was going to happen when I walked through the doors into the hall, and I never forgot that first feeling of overwhelming confusion upon entering Stern. Someday I hope this flash presentation finds its way into the hands of a lucky first year scholar preparing to come live in the dorms, for I’ve cataloged a few helpful hints and tips to getting through the dining hall efficiently.

My favorite elements of this flashback are the sound effects I recorded using my voice, along with those provided by Anthony, Mauricio, and Jose B. It’s been great working on this project during my final week in Tech 1!

This is my first draft, more to come soon…

Alanna Reyes

Outline: Flash Presentation

Title: How to survive the dining hall

Menu slide

Path to Basic (Like Breakfast) Steps

Path to Extra Treats

BASIC LIKE BREAKFAST PATH

Step 1: have your meal card ready to give to the attendant

It helps to have your lanyard off your neck so you aren’t fumbling around for it.

Hand her the meal card, not your lanyard. It’s faster if you just hand her your meal card.

Step 2: get in line for a tray and silverware

There are two lines, so don’t get stuck in the closest one.

If you forget to get a utensil, there are other utensils available at the doors into the seating area.

Step 3: Choose an entrée and get in line for one.

There are also vegetarian choices for those who can’t eat meat.

Speak loudly when asking for your choices.

Step 3b: Getting cereal

The machines, bowls and milk are in the seated area.

Mix and match cereals and drink them with soy, chocolate, low-fat and non-fat milk.

Step 4: Walk quickly but carefully to the drink line

Now that they are remodeling, there is only one line.

If you want fruit juices, there are machines in the seated area.

Step 5: Find a seat in the seating area

Sit by your SMASH friends and socialize, try not to sit by yourself.

EXTRA TREATS MENU:

Fruits and Salads:

Fruits and Salads are located at the various bars inside the food area. Pick fresh fruits and make your own salad.

Dessert: After you finish eating, you may get a dessert.

Desserts are located inside the doors into the seated area.

Mints: Mints are on the way out of the dining hall.

Make sure you get a red one. The green ones taste bad.

Are Pheromones for Real? – Alanna\’s Version

This podcast originated with a curiosity for the effect of pheromones on love and the human body, and ended with a newfound LOVE for the audio editing program called Audacity. Ashleigh, Ralph, and Alanna were captivated by a news article stating that love was finite and they wanted to investigate this further. Team Lovely was formed, and went to work interviewing SMASH scholars and RAs to gain perspectives on this topic. In the end… you’ll have to listen for yourself to hear Team Lovely’s conclusion.

In the background of our podcast, you may be able to discern Ralph’s and my voices singing the song “L-O-V-E”, as well as the song “What is Love?” by Haddaway.  It was important to me that my podcast have two songs within the content to break up the interviews and keep the energy level high.  Equally important was my desire for all of the interviews to go as smoothly as possible, so I took extra time to cut out all of my subjects’ “umm”s and “ahh”s.  I also wanted the interview subjects’ names to go in front of their interviews for clarity’s sake since differently edited podcasts I’ve heard in the past have confused me.

Title: Are Pheromones for Real?

1) SMASH introductions of all three SMASHcasters
2) Introduce topic through interviews [craft questions to interview-ees]
“What do you think of the idea that love is really just a chemical reaction designed to continue the human race?”
Interview Subjects: female scholar, male scholar, adult (staff)

3) Debate
Alanna takes the side of Yes, it is just a chemical reaction
Ashleigh takes the side of No, love is more complicated than pheromones
Pose the question: Are we still tied to our animal instincts, pheromones and all?
4) Conclusion:
No matter which conclusion scientists come to, “Love was made for me and you!”

Some people call me Allama, a few refer to me as Iguana, and others call me another crazy name altogether. It doesn’t really matter to me, as long as they know that my real name is Alanna Victoria Reyes.

The main images in this montage are those of a soccer field complete with goals and a birds-eye view of piano keys. Playing the piano and soccer are two activities that I love and treasure. My favorite colors, (pink and yellow, because they remind me of drinking strawberry lemonade on a warm summer day) are also included in the background of my montage.

The name “Alanna” is Irish-Gaelic, which is why I included an Irish flag in the top right of my montage. “Victoria” is an English name, most famously shared with Queen Victoria. Her crown is located in the bottom-right of my montage on top of a Girl Scout trefoil (the green logo). Both of these names combined make me sound very European, especially with my last name of Reyes. This name originates from Spain, hence the Spanish flag next to my Irish flag. In reality, I am none of these nationalities. However, I am a hodgepodge of different cultures, including those of Mexico and the Philippines. This is why the Mexican and Filipino flags are hovering over my family crest.

Closer to the bottom of my montage (or the top, if you are viewing it upside down) are logos from my interests and pastimes. These communicate my identity much more effectively than my name does. “Alanna Victoria” lends an image of a fair, delicate, flower-like girl (which refers to the rose atop the piano keys) who would probably be afraid to play a violent sport like soccer. But then my last name, “Reyes” undoes that notion because soccer players tend to stem from Spanish-speaking countries. Nonetheless, I am still a Girl Scout who sometimes prefers to record the action in sports instead of participating, which is why I included a camera and a Lynbrook Basketball logo. I’m the team’s unofficial amateur photographer, but you wouldn’t know my status from the way they revere my action stills of the players. The LPFI logo is also large in my montage because of the huge impact LPFI has had on my life. Finally, there are pictures of a llama and an iguana in the background, which represent my nicknames.

In the mornings, I wake to an alarm clock playing my favorite high-energy songs off of an i-Pod playlist I created. After I get dressed, I go into the kitchen and turn on the radio to a Bay Area news station and hear other peoples’ accomplishments and predicaments during the time it takes me to eat my breakfast cereal. Decoding the mysteries and puzzles on the back of a Cap’n Crunch box never takes long, though, because the answers always relate back to the cereal itself, so by 7:15 I’m out the door and on my way to my high school.

When I arrive, a barrage of t-shirt logos and tote bags greets me, most of which proudly display names like Volcom or American Eagle. It can be difficult to navigate the halls with such an obstacle course, so I’ll duck into my first class and open my math textbook to last night’s homework assignment. This just goes to show that by 8:00 A.M. most weekdays, I’ve already sorted through a gauntlet of media, images, and advertisements.

This media is ridiculously effective in getting what its producers want, which is to have teenagers and their parents buy their high-priced clothing and advertise it around their schools. This has been going on since I was in middle school, where the high-profile popular kids would parade around with their Abercrombie & Fitch shopping bags. But school wasn’t the first place I was exposed to advertising; watching The Big Comfy Couch and Barney as a child showed me plenty of advertisements for the latest Tamagotchi pets and Furbys.

I was extremely impressionable back then, so it makes sense that advertisers would want to target small children. But using small children as a target audience is very effective in inducing change. Why else would Smokey Bear commercials be played during Saturday morning cartoons? Young children have not yet established strong opinions about anything but foods they dislike. So, if one wanted to create a radical societal change, repeatedly showing the same idea in any form of media would convince children to start the revolution.