A Day in The Life

Today we’re kicking off a series of posts entitled A Day in Life, in which we will invite guests to describe a typical day of interactions with objects. We’re starting with Talk to Me “youth advisor” Frankie Michel. Frankie is a student at Bronx Science in New York, and is helping us with research for Talk to Me. As a representative of the first generation that has grown up in a completely digital world, she provides an immensely valuable perspective. Besides this first post, she will also write about how technology is viewed and used by her and her friends in their daily lives.

My Interactive Day 1: Frankie Michel

I wake up in the morning, and the only thing that gets me out of bed is turning on music that I really like.  One of my favorites is “In the Flowers” by Animal Collective.  I listen to all my music on my computer, a Mac Book or my iPod, and get it all from iTunes.

Before I leave my house I check my BlackBerry because my friend Jordana texts me to tell me where the school bus is so I’m not late.

I arrive at school around 8:00 AM and I have to swipe in with my student I.D.

A Flex Cam in Spanish Class

In all of my classes there are machines that teachers can use called Flex Cams. They are little cameras that the teacher can direct at a handout and the image gets projected onto the board so the whole class can see it. We also use them to watch movies.

In Physics class we learned about magnetic field lines, by doing a really cool experiment where we put a magnet on our desk and then put a sheet of paper on top of it. We then sprinkled little shards of iron onto the paper and they made a pattern that showed where the magnetic field lines were.

When I am bored in Spanish class my friends Max and Jackson play a game with me where we divide a piece of paper into three sections. The top section is for someone to draw a head, the middle is for another person to draw a torso, and the bottom is for a third person to draw the legs. No one is allowed to see what the other people drew until it’s finished.

I’m one of the yearbook designers and photographers, so I take lots of photos around school of kids during lunch, sporting events, Earth Day and other things. We also have a yearbook website for our yearbook staff, where we can all share articles and photos, I use it all the time. I also help my yearbook teacher make posters using Photoshop on one of our school’s computers.

Our Yearbook Page

I take the subway home and always swipe my Metrocard at the turnstile.

When I get home I go on Facebook and see who’s posted on my wall. Maybe one of my friends has posted a video, or I play Robot Unicorn Attack. I also often look at interviews of people I’m interested on YouTube, bands I like or celebrities I’m interested in. One time I looked up an  Aldous Huxley interview when I was reading his book Brave New World for school.

I usually watch movies and TV on my computer, because I buy them on iTunes. the most recent movie I watched was Drugstore Cowboy and I loved it. One of my favorite TV shows is True Blood which is on in the summer.

Here’s a cool video I like. It’s of this guy, Reggie Watts, who posts videos on YouTube of himself beatboxing, using a machine to play back the different noises he makes.

I make mixed media art pieces. I paint with acrylic paint on canvas, and often paste on cutout images of artwork from old Sotheby’s art books that my upstairs neighbor, who works there, gives to me.

Dad's Casette Player

I like to read literary essays and poems in old books that my dad shows me from his many books. He’s also slightly obsessed with listening to historical cassette tapes he bought, that are recorded lectures from college professors on literature, and different events in history. He has a tape player and I often listen with him when he plays something that relates to my A.P. U.S. History class, or an author I might be reading for English.