Ok so today I had my first experience with bad personal PR.
The Facts:
- PR class was directly after lunch today, it was a one hour slot.
- While I don't think I want to major in PR I do find it to be a great class for some heated discussions.
- I wasn't taking a very active role in today's class, partly because my mind was in another place, my back hurt and I was just tired overall. (No excuse though for what happened)
The Story:
Ok so about 15 minutes into today's class my instructor Melanie handed out some information on the IABC Code of Ethics and the Canadian Public Relations Society, Inc.
We discussed (and by we I mean almost everyone but me) some of the differences between companies who use a team of in-house PR people who are on the payroll all year round and companies who hire freelance PR people. After that was finished Melanie had us all read the info on the IABC and everyone did (and by everyone, I mean everyone but me). I instead decided to draw things in my notebook and to not read the info. Not because I thought I was better than it, or because I think it's stupid, but because I was being stupid. I pretended to flip through the pages and continued doodling on my page.
It was clear that Melanie knew exactly what I was doing and then asked me what the differences were between the IABC code of ethic and the CPRS code of ethics. I obviously didn't know because I didn't read what they were. I think she expected me to lie and maybe try to make something up on the spot. However what my instinct told me to do was to just tell the truth. So I did and it couldn't have come out anymore rude.
My Exact Words:
"To be perfectly honest I didn't read it" (It was said in a very dismissive and arrogant tone)
I then realized as I was walking to my next class how much of an asshole I came off as. If I was watching myself say that, I would have said "what an asshole".
It wasn't my intent to be that rude I was just telling the truth, but they way I said it made me look like a dick.
Now I owe two apologies here.
The first to Melanie.
I showed a huge amount of disrespect to you today and really made myself look bad. I make no excuses for not reading the papers you handed out. It may not have been my intent to come off so rude, but that's most certainly how it sounded and for that I sincerely apologize.
The second goes to my classmates.
I would like to apologize for making myself look like an asshole and an all around idiot for decide to NOT do what you all had no problem doing. For whatever reason I made a choice to "just not do it" and I was wrong in that.
What I did today was stupid and rude but most of all just plain selfish. I'm not better than anyone else in the class and certainly don't want anyone thinking that that's what I think. I now view myself as being one step below everyone else because of the way I acted today.
To everyone, I'm sorry.
JW
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
I Got Blisters On Me Fingers!!
First order of business is to post my new drum videos.
The first one is a cover I did for Carly, she really like the song "You know what they do to guys like us in prison?" by My Chemical Romance and as fate would have it it's one of the few songs I can play well by that band so I figured I'd give it a go. The only part of this cover I don't like is closer to the end I start to play almost half a step faster than the song, hopefully it's not as noticeable to you.
The second is another System of a Down song that I've loved playing since their album "Mesmerize" came out, however I've never felt comfortable enough to record myself playing it. There is also some really heavy double bass in it so I figured that if I record me playing the song I'd had to set up another camera to record my pedals on those double bass parts. I really like how this one turned out, it's definitely one of my best covers. The only downside is I recorded this as the last song of a long night of playing and I was tired so I didn't beat on the drums as much as I would have liked, my arms and legs were just too damn tired.
School so far hasn't been as rough as I had thought but I assume that things are going to get much more intense the further we get into it. We've had some homework and a few quizzes and one test for Grammar which I think I bombed but other than that it's been pretty easy to keep up. So much so I've gone back to my old job at Auto Extreme polishing and driving cars, I need to make some extra money because parking downtown is obscene!!!! I'm not taking the bus either, no offense to anyone who takes the bus, but I just HATE it so much. Plus I'm not going to spend $200 a month in insurance for my car to then take the bus to school. The only downside of school so far is I haven't been able to see Carly as much as I would like. People have been calling CreComm the "relationship killer" but I like a challenge and being the exception to the rule so that will NOT be the case.
That's all I have to write about now.
Follow me on Twitter.
-JW
The first one is a cover I did for Carly, she really like the song "You know what they do to guys like us in prison?" by My Chemical Romance and as fate would have it it's one of the few songs I can play well by that band so I figured I'd give it a go. The only part of this cover I don't like is closer to the end I start to play almost half a step faster than the song, hopefully it's not as noticeable to you.
The second is another System of a Down song that I've loved playing since their album "Mesmerize" came out, however I've never felt comfortable enough to record myself playing it. There is also some really heavy double bass in it so I figured that if I record me playing the song I'd had to set up another camera to record my pedals on those double bass parts. I really like how this one turned out, it's definitely one of my best covers. The only downside is I recorded this as the last song of a long night of playing and I was tired so I didn't beat on the drums as much as I would have liked, my arms and legs were just too damn tired.
School so far hasn't been as rough as I had thought but I assume that things are going to get much more intense the further we get into it. We've had some homework and a few quizzes and one test for Grammar which I think I bombed but other than that it's been pretty easy to keep up. So much so I've gone back to my old job at Auto Extreme polishing and driving cars, I need to make some extra money because parking downtown is obscene!!!! I'm not taking the bus either, no offense to anyone who takes the bus, but I just HATE it so much. Plus I'm not going to spend $200 a month in insurance for my car to then take the bus to school. The only downside of school so far is I haven't been able to see Carly as much as I would like. People have been calling CreComm the "relationship killer" but I like a challenge and being the exception to the rule so that will NOT be the case.
That's all I have to write about now.
Follow me on Twitter.
-JW
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Drum Covers Aplenty
Mike is now back at Fanshaw in London and Drumfest 09 is finally done.
Our kits were broken down and mine shuttled home in my car.
I had been thinking of selling it for the longest time, I had taken pictures, got it appraised and was almost ready to put the ad up, but then as Mike, Jackson and I played our few final songs I remembered how much fun it was to play drums. Right then and there I said, screw it, I'm not selling this kit even if I can't play it until I get my own place.
After getting home and unpacking my car, taking everything downstairs into my room and only then realizing how much space I actually had. After planning carefully about how to feng shui my drums around, and after moving some stuff around in my room I found a setup I like.
It's a 4 piece but it's the only way I could get that huge 20' ride cymbal in there. I have plans to buy a rack kit and hang my smallest tom off of the crash cymbal stand and then put my 8' tom in it's place.
It took a while to get used to, having to do fills without a middle tom and have a ride cymbal instead was very different. Especially the big ammount of space my hands have to move to get from my high tom to my low tom, but I'm getting the hang of it.
So these past few weeks I've been playing like crazy, practicing a bunch of songs and starting to play some I've never tried before. I've also started filming covers again and I figured I'd post some here.
This is the first video I recorded since putting my drums back together, it's a cover of Toxicity by System of a Down. Pretty easy song for the most part, made a little more complicated with less toms to work with but I really like how it came together.
I'll be posting more as they come, I've 2 videos in waiting right now so in the next few updates I'll post them. I figure I should get in as much drumming as possible before school starts to really kick into high gear.
Speaking of which school is awesome, I clearly made the right choice by coming to CreCom, I'm finally in a class where everyone is smart, there isn't one dumb person in my class and that's great. Plus there is always great discussions going on and everyone is contributing and it makes coming to school very exciting. Right now the only class I'm not enjoying is "The Writers Craft" because it makes me feel retarded. It's going to be a struggle to maintain a good grade in that class, but hopefully I'll get it. If not there are tons of people in the class who are fantastic at it and I'm sure they'll lend a hand.
That's all for now.
Follow me on Twitter
-JW
Our kits were broken down and mine shuttled home in my car.
I had been thinking of selling it for the longest time, I had taken pictures, got it appraised and was almost ready to put the ad up, but then as Mike, Jackson and I played our few final songs I remembered how much fun it was to play drums. Right then and there I said, screw it, I'm not selling this kit even if I can't play it until I get my own place.
After getting home and unpacking my car, taking everything downstairs into my room and only then realizing how much space I actually had. After planning carefully about how to feng shui my drums around, and after moving some stuff around in my room I found a setup I like.
It's a 4 piece but it's the only way I could get that huge 20' ride cymbal in there. I have plans to buy a rack kit and hang my smallest tom off of the crash cymbal stand and then put my 8' tom in it's place.
It took a while to get used to, having to do fills without a middle tom and have a ride cymbal instead was very different. Especially the big ammount of space my hands have to move to get from my high tom to my low tom, but I'm getting the hang of it.
So these past few weeks I've been playing like crazy, practicing a bunch of songs and starting to play some I've never tried before. I've also started filming covers again and I figured I'd post some here.
This is the first video I recorded since putting my drums back together, it's a cover of Toxicity by System of a Down. Pretty easy song for the most part, made a little more complicated with less toms to work with but I really like how it came together.
I'll be posting more as they come, I've 2 videos in waiting right now so in the next few updates I'll post them. I figure I should get in as much drumming as possible before school starts to really kick into high gear.
Speaking of which school is awesome, I clearly made the right choice by coming to CreCom, I'm finally in a class where everyone is smart, there isn't one dumb person in my class and that's great. Plus there is always great discussions going on and everyone is contributing and it makes coming to school very exciting. Right now the only class I'm not enjoying is "The Writers Craft" because it makes me feel retarded. It's going to be a struggle to maintain a good grade in that class, but hopefully I'll get it. If not there are tons of people in the class who are fantastic at it and I'm sure they'll lend a hand.
That's all for now.
Follow me on Twitter
-JW
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
End of Summer/Beginning of School
Expect more regular updates now that apparently more people are going to be reading it, well that and I'm now being marked on it.
So summer 09 is pretty much over, school has started and very excited about the prospects that Creative Communications is going to bring me. I knew that I wanted to major in TV Broadcasting in second year, but now after getting into advertising I may want to try that. It for some reason is really fun, but it may just be because of the wackiest of instructors Kenton Larsen.
PR is also a good class too (and NOT just because Melanie is going to be reading this) however sometimes I think that most PR is needlessly complicated and could stand to be much simpler. In everything though the more money involved the more complicated things get.
Quick side note The Bonus Stage just aired it's 15th episode here and we've started filming a new format. I've gotten tired of having to edit 30 minutes of video as a whole and cut episodes to 10 minute segments for YouTube. So what Tom and I have decided to do is film each review as a standalone segment. Think of it as a TV show you'd watch on cable and between each review is a "commercial" that separates the reviews. So technically you don't have to watch the previous part to find out what we were talking about although we hope you watch all three parts anyway. So far since January of 09 we've had almost 10,000 total views and just over 2,000 channel views with 87 subscribers. Please check it out here and you can also follow The Bonus Stage on Twitter and get regular updates on what is coming next for the show.
I just finished reading the brand new compilation issue of The Walking Dead from Image Comics.
This is honestly one of the best graphic novels I've ever read. It's so well written by Robert Kirkman that it feels like you know ever single character like they're in your own family. It's all penciled and shaded and there is no colour, so if you only like to read comics that have colour you may want to stay away.
The story really has very little to do with the zombies as characters, it's more about the human struggle going on where you're never safe. Everyone is at risk at all times and the interactions between people are so realistic to crisis situations that I feel like it's almost a window into what would happen if a zombie outbreak came about. If anyone who is like me and LOVES zombies I recommend picking up the book "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks.
He is a comedy writer but he writes this book like it's a completely legitimate survival guide. It's taken on a huge cult following and I highly recomend it for any zombie fan. To that end there is also a great website about surviving a zombie apocalypse with a very helpful forum with discussions about how to survive the worst.
That's all that I can think to write about now.
Follow me on Twitter
Things you should check out.
Starship Amazing
Happy Video Game Nerd
Cinemasacre
- JW
So summer 09 is pretty much over, school has started and very excited about the prospects that Creative Communications is going to bring me. I knew that I wanted to major in TV Broadcasting in second year, but now after getting into advertising I may want to try that. It for some reason is really fun, but it may just be because of the wackiest of instructors Kenton Larsen.
PR is also a good class too (and NOT just because Melanie is going to be reading this) however sometimes I think that most PR is needlessly complicated and could stand to be much simpler. In everything though the more money involved the more complicated things get.
Quick side note The Bonus Stage just aired it's 15th episode here and we've started filming a new format. I've gotten tired of having to edit 30 minutes of video as a whole and cut episodes to 10 minute segments for YouTube. So what Tom and I have decided to do is film each review as a standalone segment. Think of it as a TV show you'd watch on cable and between each review is a "commercial" that separates the reviews. So technically you don't have to watch the previous part to find out what we were talking about although we hope you watch all three parts anyway. So far since January of 09 we've had almost 10,000 total views and just over 2,000 channel views with 87 subscribers. Please check it out here and you can also follow The Bonus Stage on Twitter and get regular updates on what is coming next for the show.
I just finished reading the brand new compilation issue of The Walking Dead from Image Comics.
This is honestly one of the best graphic novels I've ever read. It's so well written by Robert Kirkman that it feels like you know ever single character like they're in your own family. It's all penciled and shaded and there is no colour, so if you only like to read comics that have colour you may want to stay away.
The story really has very little to do with the zombies as characters, it's more about the human struggle going on where you're never safe. Everyone is at risk at all times and the interactions between people are so realistic to crisis situations that I feel like it's almost a window into what would happen if a zombie outbreak came about. If anyone who is like me and LOVES zombies I recommend picking up the book "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks.
He is a comedy writer but he writes this book like it's a completely legitimate survival guide. It's taken on a huge cult following and I highly recomend it for any zombie fan. To that end there is also a great website about surviving a zombie apocalypse with a very helpful forum with discussions about how to survive the worst.
That's all that I can think to write about now.
Follow me on Twitter
Things you should check out.
Starship Amazing
Happy Video Game Nerd
Cinemasacre
- JW
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