Frightful Beginnings Can End Happily Ever After
Starting out this semester, I was pretty concerned with the tasks I had to complete. First, I would have to create my own website…are you kidding me? I knew how to use Microsoft Office, and I thought that would be enough to get me through college, boy was I wrong. After trying this website business out, I actually found that it wasn’t that hard to do. Once I opened an account with Weebly, I could write a little about myself, what I thought was important in this world, and then I became totally excited about how much money I was going to save in cartridges!
Although working with Weebly was a terrific learning experience, soon I would become quite frustrated with its quirkiness. Sometimes I could have a certain font, and other times, I simply couldn’t! Putting Weebly’s quirks aside, it was fairly easy to use, and it really opened me up to different ways of documenting my writings. I haven’t decided yet if I will continue to use my Weebly site, but I know for certain, I will steal some of my writings from that website to incorporate elsewhere if I do change websites. One of the many important aspects I learned this semester was from one of our readings, “Living the Narrative Life, Stories as a Tool for Meaning Making”. I really connected to Pagnucci’s idea of preserving our past as I blogged about the stories I read this semester. I also thought about all of the times I forgot to bring my camera to an event, or when something interesting took place at an otherwise ordinary time. Feelings like this made me think about how I could document my life experiences, whether it’s my niece’s confirmation or just a few comments on a great book I just read. Writing doesn’t always have to be about how others receive what I have written; rather, I can find pleasures in what I write as well.
Blogging is fairly new to me, but I did create a blog last summer for my Writing Arts class. I feel pretty confident in setting up a new blog and I will probably do so in the future. I believe my blogs throughout the semester were meeting expectations and sometimes exceeding expectations, but I would have liked to know for sure. I know the blogs were supposed to be a place for me to exercise my freedom of thought, but I think I would have liked my professor to at least check one of my blogs during the semester and leave a comment as to how I did. This would take the guess work out for me. In regards to documenting my life, I think creating a blog would be the best fit for me. Blogging seems like a good way to preserve my past in small sections.
Twitterive
Alone in a park,
what should I look for?
Will it be extraordinary, or mundane?
The tall trees overwhelm me.
Can they tell I have nothing to offer?
When will the ah-ha moment take place?
Out of the lush greens,
a baby pink appears.
So young, so vulnerable, so beautiful.
That’s when it came to me.
The above poem reflects my struggle trying to figure out what I was going to write about for my Twitterive project. Prior to visiting the park and coming up with a topic, I had to figure out how to create a Twitpic, and since I don’t tweet, I was completely clueless about this procedure. After talking about Twitpic in class, I decided to Google it when I got home. Once again, I was shocked at how easy it was. So, yes, I tend to fear new technologies, but at least I try them out!
Once I came across that pretty little pink bud, I started to really take in the natural beauty that was surrounding me…for real this time. Vulnerability was another concept that struck a cord with me, because all of this beauty found in the park was exposed to anyone with good or bad intentions. I began to capture examples of litter, carvings in the wood, etc. This is when I thought about the people who lived across the street from the park and how different this park must have been when they first moved there. I created a character named Martha that was around fifty years old. Martha lived across the street from the park and truly appreciated the natural beauty found inside of it. I wasn’t really sure where to go once I created the interview with Action News, but I knew something had to wrap it up. At first, I was going to wrap it up so damn neatly that a bow could have finished it off, but after my conference, I realized not every story has to have a terribly happy ending, or just a terrible ending at all. This is when I came up with a poem from Martha to help add some closure to this project. I wanted the poem to explain that natural beauty was taken away by things like graffiti and litter, and then finally the graffiti and litter became prey to big business.
As of today, I still haven’t become an avid tweeter, and I don’t believe I ever will. I can see the affordances tweeting lends by recording a quick thought, and I will check Twitter from time to time during the semester to see if there is anything groundbreaking going on, but I don’t have any real desire to capture my thoughts in a mini blog such as Twitter.
I really liked how this project turned out. Since nature was the key component, I had to include a haiku. I really enjoy writing haikus, because they are short and sweet. Creating Martha in my mind was fun as well, and I really enjoyed the interview with Action News I made up. This was a stretch for me, because I have never written in that genre before, and I’m not sure I did it right either! I think it’s pretty clear to the reader though what I was trying to accomplish. Perhaps I could have created more characters, but in the end I wanted to keep the focus on Martha.
what should I look for?
Will it be extraordinary, or mundane?
The tall trees overwhelm me.
Can they tell I have nothing to offer?
When will the ah-ha moment take place?
Out of the lush greens,
a baby pink appears.
So young, so vulnerable, so beautiful.
That’s when it came to me.
The above poem reflects my struggle trying to figure out what I was going to write about for my Twitterive project. Prior to visiting the park and coming up with a topic, I had to figure out how to create a Twitpic, and since I don’t tweet, I was completely clueless about this procedure. After talking about Twitpic in class, I decided to Google it when I got home. Once again, I was shocked at how easy it was. So, yes, I tend to fear new technologies, but at least I try them out!
Once I came across that pretty little pink bud, I started to really take in the natural beauty that was surrounding me…for real this time. Vulnerability was another concept that struck a cord with me, because all of this beauty found in the park was exposed to anyone with good or bad intentions. I began to capture examples of litter, carvings in the wood, etc. This is when I thought about the people who lived across the street from the park and how different this park must have been when they first moved there. I created a character named Martha that was around fifty years old. Martha lived across the street from the park and truly appreciated the natural beauty found inside of it. I wasn’t really sure where to go once I created the interview with Action News, but I knew something had to wrap it up. At first, I was going to wrap it up so damn neatly that a bow could have finished it off, but after my conference, I realized not every story has to have a terribly happy ending, or just a terrible ending at all. This is when I came up with a poem from Martha to help add some closure to this project. I wanted the poem to explain that natural beauty was taken away by things like graffiti and litter, and then finally the graffiti and litter became prey to big business.
As of today, I still haven’t become an avid tweeter, and I don’t believe I ever will. I can see the affordances tweeting lends by recording a quick thought, and I will check Twitter from time to time during the semester to see if there is anything groundbreaking going on, but I don’t have any real desire to capture my thoughts in a mini blog such as Twitter.
I really liked how this project turned out. Since nature was the key component, I had to include a haiku. I really enjoy writing haikus, because they are short and sweet. Creating Martha in my mind was fun as well, and I really enjoyed the interview with Action News I made up. This was a stretch for me, because I have never written in that genre before, and I’m not sure I did it right either! I think it’s pretty clear to the reader though what I was trying to accomplish. Perhaps I could have created more characters, but in the end I wanted to keep the focus on Martha.
Oral History/Creative Non-fiction
Wow, where didn’t I go wrong with this assignment? I don’t know how I got so off track with this one, but for some reason, I really screwed up the format for my creative non-fiction. It was odd, because I wrote an oral history for another class I had last year and was very successful at it. I had a lot going on in my personal life during this project, and I guess that’s how I became confused and tried to blend the actual interview with a story. My first revision basically took care of the format problem, but then I needed to work on the language a little bit in some sections. After re-reading the story, it didn’t sound authentic to me. I tried to simplify the language so it sounded like a conversation Eddie and I would actually have. I think I did a good job revising this piece, but I’m not sure I have enough story here. I really wanted to share a glimpse of his childhood, and then talk about the impact his father made on him as an adult, and more importantly as a father. After it was completed, I’m not sure I satisfied the reader. I felt satisfied, but I know him very well.
This assignment was tricky for me, because I had a hard time keeping my point of view out of the picture! It’s hard to tell a story from someone else’s point of view. If I had the chance to do it again, I would have picked the video option for sure.
This assignment was tricky for me, because I had a hard time keeping my point of view out of the picture! It’s hard to tell a story from someone else’s point of view. If I had the chance to do it again, I would have picked the video option for sure.
Collaborative Research Project
By far, watching Food, Inc. and working on this research project was the most interesting, frustrating and enjoyable project I ever worked on. I felt like my world was turned upside down, and my head is still spinning from it! What I have learned from this experience has made a great impact on my life. I changed the way I eat and shop for food, which isn’t easy.
I really enjoyed working on this research project, because my partner and I actually performed most of the research ourselves. Writing research papers is probably one of my biggest pet peeves, but when I could actually do the research myself rather than just looking up what someone else said, I was floored. It was really exciting (I know, I’m a dork) to go into the supermarkets and perform our investigation, and then to document it all in our videos, I really did feel like John Stossel! I was so thankful to have the chance to meet with Carla from 7th Heaven Farm, because it truly was a learning experience, and it allowed me to make the forgotten connection to agriculture as Wendell Berry talked about in “The Pleasures of Eating”.
This project forced me to deal with the ugly truth so to speak. As an American consumer, I had been so removed from knowing where my food came from, and facing up to what was going in the farming industry. Truth is, I didn’t want to think about it.
In regards to the project, our strengths were definitely creativity, passion, evidence and good organization, but our one major weakness was that our topic could be considered too broad. We started in one direction and then switched to another, but I’m glad we made that change no matter what our grade is! I just wished my partner and I would have started on the project earlier than we did, so we could have had more time to give to each subtopic such as; animal welfare, accessibility (places like Whole Foods can not be found in the projects), commercial organic (is it really organic?), etc. I would highly recommend switching this project from the end of the semester to either the beginning or middle of the semester. I say that, because it gets so crazy at the end of the semester and I would have liked to have had more time to spend on this project.
I really enjoyed working on this research project, because my partner and I actually performed most of the research ourselves. Writing research papers is probably one of my biggest pet peeves, but when I could actually do the research myself rather than just looking up what someone else said, I was floored. It was really exciting (I know, I’m a dork) to go into the supermarkets and perform our investigation, and then to document it all in our videos, I really did feel like John Stossel! I was so thankful to have the chance to meet with Carla from 7th Heaven Farm, because it truly was a learning experience, and it allowed me to make the forgotten connection to agriculture as Wendell Berry talked about in “The Pleasures of Eating”.
This project forced me to deal with the ugly truth so to speak. As an American consumer, I had been so removed from knowing where my food came from, and facing up to what was going in the farming industry. Truth is, I didn’t want to think about it.
In regards to the project, our strengths were definitely creativity, passion, evidence and good organization, but our one major weakness was that our topic could be considered too broad. We started in one direction and then switched to another, but I’m glad we made that change no matter what our grade is! I just wished my partner and I would have started on the project earlier than we did, so we could have had more time to give to each subtopic such as; animal welfare, accessibility (places like Whole Foods can not be found in the projects), commercial organic (is it really organic?), etc. I would highly recommend switching this project from the end of the semester to either the beginning or middle of the semester. I say that, because it gets so crazy at the end of the semester and I would have liked to have had more time to spend on this project.
Conclusion
I truly did learn a great deal from this class in regards to writing, technology and research. I hope the few remaining writing classes I have to take next semester will be as exciting as this one was, and push me as hard as this class did at times. Blogging will definitely stay with me, and I can’t wait to create my new blog and possibly a new website for personal use. One of the greatest lessons I learned from this class is to think out of the box. I tried things I never would have done before, because I didn’t see the value in them as an outsider, but now I do.
