Amber Burg's Blog

Students all over campus are buzzing with thoughts. Thoughts about the latest Walking Dead episode, the new release of the PlayStation 4 and thoughts on paying for tuition. With all these thoughts bouncing around, opinions are bound to vary.

Walking Dead Recap

Sunday night is a night of football for most people but come 8 PM every zombie lover hits AMC to watch the latest Walking dead episode. This week’s episode went from Rick and Carl’s father son bonding moments to the disease outbreak almost wiping everyone out in the makeshift hospital section of the prison. It was an episode that had everyone hanging on to the edge of his or her couch. The plot thickens with a new twist ending leaving everyone wondering ‘What the Governor is planning?’ Walking Dead follower, Brittany Rupp tells what she thinks is going to happen next. “ I think that the Governor is going to mess with them through the gates and then eventually infiltrate their home.”

Jennifer Olinde caught the episode on Sunday and shares her thoughts on it.“ The father son bonding moment between Rick and Carl was a good addition to the episode. When Rick runs out of bullets and Carl tosses him the clip of ammunition, the look of amazement on Rick’s face is priceless.  It was a great zombie apocalypse bonding moment.”Check out what the governor has planned Sunday the 17 on AMC at 8 pm.

New Gaming Toy

If you are looking for a gaming system with a Blu-Ray player, fast loading, new trophy achievements to unlock and new games to play? Look no further; Sony is releasing the new PlayStation 4 on November 15. PlayStation gamer, Jerry Heylmun, says I’m most excited for the improvements in the graphics.

Pre-orders have been taken and the current price of them is around 399 dollars. However, people looking to buy a PS4 at a midnight release might not get one. According to Josh Smith from Gotta be Mobile, Stores like Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart are planning on have a couple non-preorder consoles but they will go fast.

Tuition and Money Concerns

Cost of tuition is keeps rising higher. Morningside College costs around 34 thousand dollars. That’s a high price education but one that most students say is worth the price tag. However, most students don’t know that it keeps going up. Morningside student, Hannah Hecht, tells us what she wishes she would of knew coming in. “Before I came into college, I wish I would of know that tuition went up every year because I assumed that my financial package for my first year would be the exact same every single year.”

Like, Hannah, many students did not know that the price tag for quality learning keeps going up, but there are ways to start saving up for the final bill. For example, a work-study or on campus job, summer jobs, and a savings account would all help take a bite out of the price. Bailey Baack, let’s us know what she wishes she would of done to lessen the load. “Before I came to college I wish I knew how important it was to save up in high school and just start building your savings from the gecko because when you get to college it gets really tight and you wish you would of saved earlier.”

While we might not all be able to go back in time and start saving money in high school, we can all set aside some cash to save up for it now.

Audio

This story I thought was interesting. The person that is telling the story is framed as a little guilty and I think not an entirely great person. I think the girl who was kidnapped and survived is an amazing strong person who had a lot of hope and strength to keep going everyday in captivity. It made me feel bad for the girl and wonder how in the world did she do that. The person who was telling the story, just their comments made me dislike them. For example, the comment ‘by the end of the month she would be dead’ and ‘why bother going up to speak to raise money for her’. That just created a negative impression of that person to me.

The way it was written made me have a positive impression of the girl and what she went through. They did not include the horrible parts she went through but it still made you feel bad for the girl and happy that she was alright. The beginning made me think the girl was not going to make it and then towards the end it just surprised me that she did. Just though all the parts about what she did in captivity and the comment about her being determined to make it out alive. Also, the fact that she was not mad at her kidnappers. It makes you feel for her though when she says her kidnappers still call her.

The pictures just gave me what the person looked like. Also, the one with the girl and the children made it to where you could see what kind of a person she was. Any picture with kids is going to make you more able to like them I think. It made me see her more positively. The layout just went in with the introduction to what was happening, the background story and ended with the  conclusion of what the outcome was.

I would like to know more of what happened to her in captivity and more about how they treated her. Knowing a little of what  the people who took her looked like would be nice to know. How are they still reaching her? Why hasn’t she switched her phone number or block their calls?

Read it here

The name of the article caught my attention. I have never heard of brain fever before and the line underneath it said 15,000 children dead. I was curious after that and why I have not heard of it before if so many have died.

I like how they told where it effected people at, asia, islands, and near rice paddies. They said where it comes from and how the animals got it. I like how they have who gave the funding for the group who developed the vaccine. It gave a general overview of bits and pieces of the important stuff but left out a lot I think.

I want to know why it is just those locations, what specifically attracts the virus there. How does it transfer to the children from the animals? Are they working for a cure? Do they have any lead or just no clue what to do? I want to know what the vaccine is suppose to help with? Does it prevent the virus or slow it down? Why does it need approval from W.H.O.? What does the approval from them need and how were they able to give the vaccine without approval?

Read it here.

Classes and Professors are being forced to move out of the southern library area. The cause of this: construction.

The main concern for everyone is safety. Offices and the classroom 111 have windows on the outside wall. The school is concerned with something from the construction site coming through the windows and injuring someone. Offices are being located to different rooms inside the building that are away from windows and outside walls. The new room set for classroom 111 is set to be Roadman Hall’s ICN room.

With this change coming to campus some students have concerns about this new move and how it will affect the classes and the Mass Communications Department. Hannah Hecht voices her concerns. “I think the move to the ICN room might be a little bit more difficult for the Mass Communications Department to deal with because its not as close to the T.V. and radio stations and all of the offices.”

The Fundamentals of Journalism class is one of the classes that is held in room 111. Its students took the news rough at first but started to warm up to it.

This new change was broke to them, Thursday October 24. After the new was broke, the room sounded and looked like chaos. Everyone was talking at once. With everyone trying to speak at once, the words blended together to create a loud murmuring sound.

The walk to the new classroom was cold, windy and slightly wet. The sprinklers were blowing water out creating fog in front of Roadman Hall. The mist hit some of the students, which did not go over well.

Inside Roadman, the voices of the students quieted down. Most were trying to taking in where they would have to go to find this room for the rest of the semester.

When the door to the new room opened not many people were still talking. Some students were even happy now because of the giant plush desk chairs. This was an upgrade from classroom 111’s hard plastic chairs.

Kelsey Ahart shared her opinion of the new classroom. “I like it because there’s a lot more room in the Roadman ICN room and the chairs are very comfortable. And there is two screens instead of one.”

While this move is a big change for students and professors on campus, it is done for everyone’s safety.

Audio

This drew me in mostly because I have Adobe software. I wanted to know what happened and if it was going to effect me.

It gets right to the point, somethings been stolen, here is what it is. It goes on to tell what the company says and what happened. It mentions what programs were hacked and what might be stolen from them. I like how it continues on with what hackers do with this information and how much they can make off it. I also like how it says that just because it is encrypted does not mean it will stop them. It will just slow them down. It also mentions how the hackers hack, to a certain extent, which was interesting to read about.

I wish they added more on why the investigation was incomplete. Did they lose the trail of the hackers or did they just call it quits after no new leads? I also want to know how these hackers are able to hack Adobe and get millions of peoples’ information and if the company is doing anything about it or going to. Knowing who did this would be good too but I think that the hackers are still unknown. What is Adobe doing for customers who had their information stolen. Are they letting them know or getting them their programs back?

Read it here. 

This article caught my attention with its picture and the caption. It just made me want to know more about it, like how this is possible and why someone would want to pay that much to see the earth.

It covers everything it needs to. It tells what companies are going to be doing this, in what year, how much it costs, the where is yet to be determined, and what it is. It gets the important information out and leaves the least important for last.

It could add more on why people want to do this besides drink in a balloon and view the earth. I would like to focus more on the view you get to see and how the science behind the balloon makes this possible. A later story could possible be where it is happening and how the first trip went. I think they focus too much on drinking in a balloon, its funny at times but what you actually get to see would be cooler to read about.

Read about it here.

Three hours after the ‘I do’s’ and these newly weds are fighting.

The groom, Richard Brunson, shot his bride, Laurette Kenny Brunson, in the abdomen. The bullet was fired at their home located at 617 Black Street. The bride is currently at St.Luke’s Hospital and is in satisfactory condition.

Sargent Mann recaps what happened after the wedding.

SgtMann.

The bride had three children who were present during the incident. Many of their neighbors and friends were also present. Neighbor Walter Corse  tells what he saw and hear.

WCorse.

The couple had been living together for four to five months prier to this event.

The article is about a new clinical trial happening in Africa against hookworm. I thought it was interesting and the picture was intriguing to know more about.

I like the lead it brings the story into to focus right away and sets it up. They give the background of the problem. This is important for them to write first to let the readers know the background of the parasites. It tells us what it does, how it effects the people and where it sucks the blood in the body. It then goes on to tell how the treatment proposed will help the people and what it does to the parasites. I like the way it ends with when it will start and the timeline for how long it will take to do the trial.

I would like an update after the trial has started or when it has finished to see how it went. I think they hit all the main who, what, when, where, why and how.

Read it here.

“Can a robot be built to behave like an octopus?”

That’s just the question that engineers and the group OCTOPUS Integrated Project have been trying to answer.

The latest “Octobot” has a soft body, four arms and can squirt water. Its four arms are built to curl around objects just like a real octopus. The “Octobot” can also crawl and change colors.

The octopus is ideal for this job because of how they act in their habitat. They can squeeze through tiny holes and adapt to their surroundings. Researchers are hoping this new robot can help uncover more about the life of an octopus.

Here is the story.

This caught my attention because I rarely hear or see an article about people killing penguins in the news. However, I do not like their lead. They are just saying how everyone loves penguins and that they don’t eat zookeepers. It’s adorable and funny but I feel that it should focus more on why the penguins are being killed.

I would change the second paragraph to be the lead and delete the actual lead. They also have a few grammar errors that need to be fixed. I think they should of moved their ending paragraph information up sooner and moved the information on other animals and whether or not humans can get it towards the end.

I like how they have quotes of doctors and biologists. I like how it includes why and how the penguins are getting and if humans can get it. They also tell how a zoo gets their birds to eat the pills put in fish that was interesting. They report cases from zoos that have had that outbreak in birds and how many have died.

Read it here.