SRU Cosplay Club President, Kyla Jones a.k.a "Ely Renae", takes the cosplay world by storm.

     Aside from the shock of blue hair lying in layers around her face, you wouldn't be able to tell that art major, Kyla Jones, 21, was anything but an average SRU student.

Jones brother, Brent, Jones, and her boyfriend, Logan Veltre at a Penguin's hockey game.  (Photo Courtesy Kyla Jones)

Under the moniker, "Ely Renae,"Jones pursues a hobby called "cosplaying," a derivative of the words "costume" and "play," where people dress up as their favorite comic book and video game characters. Through her pursuit of cosplay, she drew a following of over 16,000 fans on her Facebook page, as well as getting mentioned by Kotaku, a gaming website, and the World of Warcraft official Facebook page.

Born in Fairbanks, Alaska, Jones' family moved her and her brother, Brent, to Pennsylvania when Jones was 4-years-old. She attended Grace Baptist School in Carlisle, PA, and was part of a graduating class of 12 students. After attending Carlisle High School for two years, she was diagnosed with Type III Hereditary Angioedema, which causes severe stomach pain, and Jones said that sometimes it was so painful she couldn't walk.

     Growing up, Jones said she was very artistic. She dreamed of designing her own jewelry, and had hopes of one day opening her own jewelry store. She came to Slippery Rock as a metal-smithing major, but she said she wasn't very passionate about it. From there, she changed her major to digital art, and said that she fell in love with it. Jones' interest in digital art is where she got her start in cosplaying.

A digital self portrait by Jones

     After attending her first convention where she didn't dress up, Jones said that she saw a very intricate costume and immediately was interested in trying her hand at cosplay. She created her first cosplay 1 year and a half ago, and portrayed "Katarina" from the video game, League of Legends. From there, she's cosplayed all different kinds of characters, from TV shows to video games. Jones said her cosplays usually take several months to make, and cost about $300 a costume.

Jones as "Katarina" from League of Legends
Photo Courtesy: Circle Cosplay

"Cosplaying is like any other hobby," Jones said. "It's a total money pit."

Jones as "Jinx" from League of Legends with her handmade "Fisbones" bazooka from the game. 

     Jones said that her favorite character she's cosplayed was Jinx from League of Legends. Jones said that Jinx's psychotic personality was fun to bring to life at the convention, and that a lot of people thought she had done the character justice in her portrayal. In the video below, Jones describes her Jinx cosplay. 

     Wanting to share in the creative process, and the spread the word about cosplay, she started SRU's Cosplay Club, which has 20 members who meet Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. in the Art Sculpture Building. There, the group works on their original cosplays, and consult each other on the creation of the costumes.

     

     They've also done workshops on posing, featured below, to build up self-confidence, which Jones said is an integral part to cosplaying. Because most cosplays are networked through the internet, Jones said that people are quick to bully others' cosplays online. In an effort to combat that, Jones started an organization known as "Cos for Pos," or Cosplayers for Positivity. Members are instructed to leave three positive comments for every negative one online, so that the bullied cosplayer is encouraged to move forward.

SRU's Cosplay Club does a workshop on posing for photos in costume. (Courtesy Kyla Jones)

Below is an interview with Jones, wherein she describes how people are deterred from cosplaying because they fear negative feedback.




    Despite her strength in the face of online criticism, Jones boyfriend, Logan Veltre, said that she wasn't as confident as she is now before she started doing cosplay 1 year and a half ago. Veltre said that he was there before the Facebook page got famous, and attributed its success to the "real" personality behind the stage name.



     Jones has been to several different conventions to show off her cosplays, namely Pittsburgh's Tekko Con, National Harbor, MD's, Magfest, and Baltimore's Otakon. See her various cosplays below, and the specific conventions where she's modeled them.



Above all, Jones said that cosplay is about trial and error, and working to the best of your abilities.

"Cosplay is a way people can stay creative going into adulthood," Jones said. "It's an empowering thing to act and be exactly how you want to be. When I cosplay, I feel empowered and excited. I feel like no one can stop me."

Dr. Laux's Road to Happy Talk

In his 26th year at Slippery Rock University, professor, Dr. James Laux, succeeded in bringing the first happiness class to the university, but this was not granted without opposition. Based on Tal Ben-Shahar's successful "Positive Psychology" class, Dr. Laux first proposed "Happy Talk" in 2007. His class was rejected for several years, and on the year of his retirement, it was approved, and garnered the interest of over 90 students.

Despite having taught a similar class called "The Pursuit of Happiness" at Hiram College, Laux only taught between 5-26 students. On the enormity of Slippery Rock's Happy Talk class, he said that he was glad he could reach as many students as he did, though he does regret the loss of class discussion that comes with a smaller class.

The Road to Happy Talk Draft

Meograph Proposal: The Road to Happiness at SRU

Dr. Laux has been fighting for years to teach his happiness class at SRU. Already having taught at Hirum College, and inspired by Harvard University's class on the same topic called "Positive Psychology," I'd like to get Dr. Laux's perspective on how his first (and last) Happiness course at SRU went. I'll also be interviewing Dr. Flynn, who approved the course, a "non-traditional" student, and several other students who've taken the course.

"Positive Psychology" was taught by Tal Ben-Shahar, and became Harvard's most popular class, superseding even "Intro to Business." That inspired Dr. Laux to not only teach the course, but also to fill up the auditorium in Eisenberg.

This Meograph will be important to SRU students because people other than communication majors were interested in, and are enrolled in the course. Dr. Laux has also taught at the university for over 25 years, and recently the sorority AOII awarded him with the title of "Most Influential Faculty Member."

This story is relevant to timeliness in that the class is just about to end, and people will have concrete judgments about it by now. I think a lot of people will be interested in how the class went if they didn't take it, and if they did take it, how others' feelings compared.

In relation to significance, 95 people have enrolled in the course, and it's one of the bigger elective classes people have shown interest in taking. If people themselves aren't enrolled in the course, their friends have certainly talked about it and piqued their interest.

It's also a human interest story because a retiring professor stayed and extra year, and realized his goal course just as he was about to retire.

Native American Celebration Day kicks off with storytelling and traditional dancing

Smith Student Center Ballroom, Tuesday Nov. 4, 10:30 a.m.

 Traditional Jingle Dancing

            Slippery Rock University brought in this year’s Native American Celebration Day with cultural dancing, and craft making.

           The Pittsburgh-based Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center joined to bring the event together in the Smith Student Center Ballroom. The celebration began on the morning of Thursday, November 6th with Native American storytelling that began at 9:30 a.m. SRU invited local elementary and middle school students to this event and those students were invited to stay for the Native American jingle dancers

            The jingle dancers introduced the story of their origin, which began when a man’s granddaughter became sick. He then dreamt about women adorned in silver dresses, and constructed his own dress out of lids of tobacco cans. He folded each lid into a cone, and sewed them on to a dress for a dancer. The first time a dancer danced with the dress on, his granddaughter became conscious. The second time a dancer danced, she sat up. The third time she stood, and the fourth time she danced alongside the other dancers.

            Crafters were able to display and sell their wares throughout the day. The setup included various stands displaying traditional jewelry, dream catchers, and arrowheads. Students were also welcome to participate in crafting dream catchers.

Sophomore Alyssa Pauletich, 20, art education and special education major, said that the social aspect of Native American Celebration Day was what drew her to the event.

“I like how interactive these cultural events are,” Pauletich said, “I’m especially excited about making a dream catcher. It’s too often that cultural events don’t go out of their way to involve participants.”

            Junior Haley Cardwell, 20, said that she went to the event to check out the jewelry and to make a dream catcher. Cardwell said she’s also part Native American, and that drew her to the event as well.

           "It's really interesting that people are still so connected to their culture," Cardwell said. "It makes me want to be more connected to mine as well. 

Why Cardwell came to Native American Celebration Day.

Students making dream catchers

RockOUT's annual Drag Show draws largest crowd in history.

The annual Drag Show at SRU, hosted by RockOUT, gets the largest crowd in its history after moving its location to the Smith Student Center ballroom. Local Drag Queens, and two SRU students participated, and got cheers and laughs from a generally receptive audience.

Kettlecorn Video Proposal: Pride week

My proposed KettleCorn video project will focus on the events during Pride Week, hosted by Rock Out. I want to focus on the drag show primarily, but also want to include the candlelight vigils and speakers.

The history of the spread of the ebola virus, the media hype, and its impending fizzle.

Ebola: The Road to Panic on Dipity.

If you're an avid watcher of any news station, local or national, or are simply a scroller on Facebook or Twitter, you've more than likely been exposed to the hype that the mass-killer ebola virus is en route to the US. What most people don't know is that since its discovery in 1976, it's taken thousands of lives, but only 1 in America. According to the CDC, it spread so rapidly in developing countries through the use of dirty needles. Follow the journey of the virus, the media hype, and the fizzle of the deadly Ebola virus. 

*All stock photos courtesy of Fotofelia

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

The SRU Office of Multicultural Development hosted Hispanic Heritage Month (HHM), which started September 15th, and concludes October 15th. To promote HHM, the Office of Multicultural Development provided cultural food, activities, and a salsa dance lesson last Tuesday during common hour.

SRU Marching Band Performs in Homecoming Parade

Led by dancers and flag bearers, the SRU Marching band performed at the 2014 Homecoming parade.

SRU School of Rock Float plays live music at Homecoming parade

Joe Karl of Kappa Delta Roh leads the band on the guitar

ROCK Twirlers talk about their parade performance in SRU's 2014 Homecomi...

Sisters Kayla and Karlee Wilhelmina, and Jeanna Pozzuto enjoyed performing for large crowds at the SRU Homecoming parade

SRU's 2014 Homecoming Court greets parade goers

Alpha Kappa Psi students recreate SRU BISS building, Eisenberg, in their...

Along with a timeline of SRU events, an AKPsi member dressed as President Norton for the event.

New Exhibits and Animals draw crowds at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium

Cigarette Smoking: A Carcinogen and/or a Choice?

Though once a status symbol hanging off the lips of resident "cool kids" and teenagers in every coming-of-age movie, cigarette smoking is becoming more and more obsolete as we have become aware of the health risks of smoking, including lung and throat cancers, emphysema, and low birth weights of infants born to smoking mothers. Since 2000, the percentage of teenagers who smoke is down from 23% to 9% in 2014. Though teenagers have been brought up to know the assorted dangers of cigarette smoking, still 42.1 million American adults continue to light up, even being aware of the dangers. However, 1 out of 3 hookah indulgent college students are unaware that in one session of smoking, they inhale 100x the smoke of a single cigarette. Cigarette smoking kills over 443,000 people a year, so is it worth it to let people continue to kill themselves?

While people have always had a knack at choosing exactly what is most harmful to them, does that make it just to limit their unalienable human rights? Do you remember the 18th amendment? Though I'm glad America sobered up enough to realize that women were capable of voting one amendment later; however, just two after that, the 18th amendment was appealed by the 21st. It is to date the only amendment to be repealed from the Constitution. Why is that? Well it turns out when you tell people not to do the thing that's bad for them, they will find illegal ways to go about doing it, and put people at risk by doing so. If you find that unbelievable, ask yourself how many people that you know have smoked marijuana, because the number of people who have has increased to 35% in 2013. Check out the police blotter  on the online Rocket to see how many underage college students don't care that the drinking age is 21. Though cigarette smoking is inherently dangerous, is it reasonable to limit personal freedoms so that the adult taxpayer doesn't have a choice?

I'm Janelle Wilson, the Jackknife Journalist.

Like the knife for which this blog is named, I promise to deliver news that is quick, useful and to the point.

As technology develops at an astronomical pace, paired with the perpetually growing prominence of social media, it's changing the world of journalism more quickly than I have a say to. In order to become more aware and responsive the the changing world I'm writing in, I've enrolled in new-media journalism.

I'm a junior journalism major at Slippery Rock University, and am the asst. campus life editor for SRU's newspaper, the Rocket.

Aside from this blog, I maintain a personal:

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These are two local papers from my native steel city, complete with dichotomized political views to tickle everyone's fancy,

The right-winged conservatives, Pittsburgh Tribune,

And the leftist liberals over at the  Pittsburgh Post Gazette

In a time where newspapers are quickly becoming irrelevant in comparison to the instantaneous news delivery social media provides, it's a wonder how both of these Pittsburgh newspapers are surviving in such a competitive market. Take a look at both and see if you can figure out how they continue to survive.  

And an escalating power in the market of new-media, 

Buzzfeed

Buzzfeed is like the bastard child of the Huffington Post and Myspace. Born in 2006 as an entirely online media outlet, it utilizes both hard news stories, and miscellaneous other entertainment articles and quizzes to keep the public interested. Once they even reported live and on-location at the Gathering of the Juggalos, which provided for a post that showed what news is leaning toward these days: ordinary common interest and news stories, but trimmed with short and sweet captions, and tons of pictures.