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The Walk.

 My walk was boring, not because it's empty or dull. Because I've done it for over a year now, in various mindsets up towards Massey. Walking past the same old war memorial for a distant war that I have no personal connection to. 

Is there anything disabling about Tory Street? For an abled body individual, from first glance...no not really. However, sometimes in life you forget about others, not in the sense of ablism. More so, that life just happens and sometimes you only think of yourself. 

As I was walking down the slight incline of Tory Street I thought to myself "Hmm, what if an elderly with poor mobility had to walk up and down this each day?"



I felt a bit weird taking a photograph of someone with the intention of highlighting their disability of weakened motor functions. But their they are, an elderly man, double crutches walking down the hill. This gentleman began walking across the street as the pedestrian light turned green. He wasn't even halfway through the road before it became solid again as seen in the photo. 

It made me think of just how little time the pedestrian lights last in Wellington, attempting to cross Tasman Street where it intersects with Courtney and Manners is always a stressful ordeal. Partially due to being injured by a vehicle whilst crossing the road before. But if a lanky 6ft2 gets stressed everytime that red pedestrian light starts flashing, what about those with impaired mobility?

Tying this into, Building culture: why good urban design requires a better understanding of Tikanga Māori. Which highlights the importance of creating urban spaces with tangata whenua, the people of the land to celebrate our cultural identity. Creating a space for everyone in New Zealand, tourist and citizens alike to experience a urban setting that is welcoming of all walks in life...so why is Wellington so poorly thought out when those walks of life slow down.

I recently watched Tom Scotts video about cable cars in Wellington. A new home owner told Tom that they bought the house from an elderly couple who had to install a private cable car just to get up into their own home.



The owner of the installation company that installed this said cable car stated that a system like such could cost up to $120,000NZD. Think of all the elderly, living on their superannuation who might not be able to access even their own homes due to such an exorbitant price. 

Wellington prides itself on being a walkable city, it use to have a large system of cable cars spreading itself across town. Now a single one exists, purely as a way for Uni Students to get up the hill to Vic and a tourist attraction. 

With Metlinks less than stellar track record of late, cancelled or straight up missing bus services, the disabled in our city have a even harder time navigating to locations further than they can realistically walk in a timely manner.  Not very "walkable city" of you Wellington.


We all assume...

Where does power reside in telling a story?


This is an interesting one, having already completed my final projects in Creative Media Production in producing a short film, it would be assumed that power fulls in the hands of the crew producing that film. Not just the director or writer, but absolutely everyone on set. Every crew member is a cog in the machine of story-telling. But machines need electricity, or power to run. Power is a detached concept to storytelling, just as the power companies who provide a service to power your cogs, a film crew needs an audience to tell their story. Even if nobody knows about the story yet. Throughout that degree, I was taught all about the target audience and the power of the audience in the success of your art. We were told, time and time again to "not just make art for the sake of it" but for a reason, for people other than yourself. It's a delicate balancing act. I believe power sits in the middle of telling a story, the listener must want to know the content of the story being told, and the teller must be prepared to follow through with a full story.

What is the 'danger in a single story'? 

However, the teller must also be prepared of the possibility of a single-sided story, when communicating with the listener, the teller must be ready for the consequences of their rendition or contents of their story. Its up to the teller to decide where they sit on another delicate tightrope of truth and deception. Rather through ignorance or deception. The danger lies with the perception of trust from the listener for the teller. A juicy gossip story about how Mark cheated on Diana will only hold strength if a) Mark did in fact cheat, b) The listener trusts the teller. If Mark did not end up being unfaithful and the listener approaches Mark to discuss this story, the consequences will fall back onto the teller for telling a fabricated story. Thus, impacting the listener, teller and Marks relations to each other. 

What do you personally learn and gain from listening to the talk?

I was reminded, especially in this day of the internet and social media that stories are often 80%  (made up number) single stories that I usually end up trusting unless I already know knowledge previously. I learned to slow down when processing information and that sometimes in life, rather harmful or not, single-sided stories can impact my personal views about things, places, people ect.

 

DISCUSSION AND REFLECTION:

I want to use this section to bring up an ironic thing said during the class reflection period. A classmate, who I do not know the name of made a comment about all Americans only knowing about New Zealand due to the Lord of the Rings films. As an American who's lived here for nearly 16 years, my parents brought my family here not because of Lord of the Rings, but for its safer and quieter cultural lifestyle. What they said, was exactly what Chimanadas flatmate assumed of her culture as being poor and lacking the ability to use a stove. The American stereotype is that we are all, fat and dumb and only know of New Zealand due to Lord of The Rings.  As I make this note I realise I come off as offended, maybe I am slightly. None the less it was a perfect example of a one sided story.

INDEPENDENT STUDY

During today's class we talked about the dangers of telling a single-sided story. A lot of the video we watched touched on what I perceived as, systemic casual racism. When Chimamanda Adichie moved to America she spoke about how her flatmate wanted to hear her "tribal" music and was disappointed when Chimamanda played a western artist. Her flatmate's perception on Chimanadas culture will have been shaped by what type of media she was exposed to throughout life.

Chimanada discusses how these negative stories of her culture are often portrayed more often than positive ones, and this is seen widely around the world in media all the time. Maybe this is branching out too far but when looking at the Russian and Ukraine War, Russia uses one-sided stories all the time. I cannot confirm what percentage of people believe this, but the Russian Media and the Kremlin justify their invasion to rid of Neo-Nazis elected in Ukraine...despite Zelenskey being Jewish. These types of stories can literally be harmful to society and people, even deadly.

She also states that single stories highlight the differences in people, not the similarities. These differences can end up being used in a derogatory way. See the previous example of "tribal music". We, as humans are all different, in looks, size, shape, thinking patterns. However, we are similar in more ways than we are different. We all live on the same earth, we are the only known planet out there with intelligent life. We all need each other to live and continue our existence...maybe this is getting too existential crisis of me.

Have you made assumptions about people or places? 


Of course I have, I think its human nature to assume. To try and fill in the gaps of information, I think humans crave to understand as much as they can about anything put in front of them. 
When I went to Hawaii in 2017, I assumed the whole place was a luxurious getaway island, almost like a massive theme park of pleasure and sun. However, when we landed in the terminal and got on the bus to the main area of Honolulu, we had to ride through the slums of it first. It was a shocking first look on a place I've never been too before. The amount of homeless people and rubbish all over the streets made me sad...not the type of feeling I'd expected from Hawaii. The piece of information wasn't so much discovered through a book or any semblance of available information physically. It was a reminder that, no matter where you are in the world there will always be those affected poorly by capitalism.

Referencing the Class

Major Tool: Discovery use the Astricks to expaned search aka photo* = photography, photographer, photogrammerly ect

Citing Sources MLA Edition 9:

MLA Interactive, OWLL. owll.massey.ac.nz will tell you everything on MLA citing.
MLA is very lack on information, if you dont know the arthor or date you dont need to write it out.

Zoterobib is a good alternative zbib.org

Dont use URLS from Discover for renferecnes, copy and paste the title into zbib.org. 

Paste it into document with Keep Source Formatting

In text citations = authors surname, then page number.  (Sampson, 444).
If theres no page number, no need for it. EG Video or blog

Pracitice Cit: 



If no author do title