Echo Article #5

New Takes Define Faculty Art Show

A piece I wrote on the New Faculty Art Show.

Blog Colors

I have been trying to change the background and entire color scheme of this blog, but I just can't seem to find one that is aesthetically pleasing and easy to read.

Problems that have arose in my thought process:
1.) I am starting to think black is too morbid and sends out the wrong vibe.
2.) Text that is not black or white seems illegible. My favorite color is red, but I can't find a red that seems less morbid than black, that I like and that can be red on.
3.)I really don't want the colors to be insanely boring and professional either. This is a personal blog and therefore the colors should illustrate something more personable than a professional one.

I tried to Google color schemes and found a couple that didn't work out. I would look off other blogs, but stealing someone's blog colors, really? That's just pathetic, plus a lot of girls seem to have some kind of pink...I detest pink.

Am I putting too much pressure on the whole thing? Is it so much to ask to find the perfect color scheme that inspires me to become who I am supposed to become? Maybe that's the problem I am still trying to find who I am.

Halloween Jokes

Halloween Jokes can lighten the scary mood of Halloween, which is why I always liked them as a kid. I shamefully admit that while I love Halloween, I never understood the thrill of being scared.

Classic joke I learned in ninth grade:
Q: What did the ghost say to the beehive?
A: BOOBEES!!!

Joke good on two holidays:
Q: What do you get when you cross a vampire and a snowman?
A: Frostbite

Sad but true joke:
Q: Why don't skeletons ever go out on the town?
A: They have no body to go out with

This one is just dumb:
Q: What is a skeleton's favorite musical instrument?
A: A Trombone

This one will make you chuckle:
Q: WHo did Frankenstein take to the prom?
A: His ghoul friend

Awww....
Q:What kind of mistakes do ghosts make?
A: Boo boos

Nerdy:
Q: What is the ratio of a pumpkin's circumference to its diameter?
A: Pumpkin Pi

And for the grand finale:
Q: How do you mend a broken jack-o-lantern?
A: With a pumkin patch!

For more Halloween jokes I recommend the following websites:
http://www.robinsfyi.com/holidays/halloween/humor.htm
http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/jkscary.html
http://www.halloween.com/halloween-jokes-1.php

Article on Forensics

It turns out I freaked out for nothing, I was able to go talk to the forensics team the following night even though I missed their meeting and my article was still published on Thursday. I'm not saying I'm an expert yet, but I do think the improvement in my writing skills shine a little bit with this article.

Article on Forensics Club

My Fortune Cookie

Tonight my fortune cookie said: "A SUDDEN CHANGE IN PLANS WILL LEAD TO GOOD FORTUNE"

I sure hope the cookie is right, desserts are usually deceitful....they taste so good and then they make you fat, but maybe this stupid little cookie with this silly piece of paper in it will turn my bitter pessimism into something good.

In the words of Tony from West Side Story maybe "Something's Coming."

Halloween Costumes

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, probably because dressing up has always been one of my favorite things! (It's the theater kid within me).

Costumzee claims these costumes to be the top 100 most popular of 2010.

I know it might mean I live in a cave somewhere...but I'm not quite sure how the seven deadly sins made it to number one. Though I must admit I do like most of these ideas such as the peacock, Alice in wonderland, Medusa, of course the mermaid and Marie Antoinette.

I am surprised at Moulin Rouge...when did that movie come out 2002? 2003? I love it, but I wouldn't think those characters has that kind of lasting impression, though as a woman saying you are Satine is a way of saying you're a prostitute without actually saying it. ;)

Store bought costumes never tend to fit me right.I know I am not the only one with this problem. most adult women costumes are most suited for the bedroom. I don't say this to be a square, I say this because it's true, if you want to be something regular for Halloween and not something dressed up as sexy, good luck to ya!

Plus when you buy a Halloween costume from the store, chances are if you are going to a big party, someone else will have it, and even worse...they might look better than you in it! So I usually start trying to get ideas with what I have at home. I also like to try and invent the costume, meaning instead of being a character from a TV show, I would rather be something nameless, a role anyone can play.

This year the inspiring pieces I found were the black tutu, black-feather-Vail hair piece, Old blue dance dress and bright red gloves.

This narrowed it down to three options.
1. The Bumble Bee- Black tutu, wings, yellow striped t-shirt, striped tights and antennae- all obtainable

2. Miss America- blue dance dress, bright elbow length gloves, tiara, tights red shoes

3....or for once instead of pretty and cute I thought I would be femme fatale creepy as a black widow...not the spider, but the actual woman that killed her husband. Black Vail hair piece, black dress, black knee high boots, wrist length lace gloves, tiny spiders and a weapon of sorts, complete with fish net webby black tights

The third option has won out and will be my first Halloween debut! However, Miss America is a close second and for that may be costume number two, if I dress up twice this year. Miss America is more drafty though and is more of an indoor costume, so it may all depend upon setting. Hopefully, there will be pictures to come.

WAITED UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE AND DON'T HAVE A COSTUME, COSTUME IDEAS...I found this website amusing as well.

Tonight's Work Daydream

I've been promoted. I am no longer chained to the circulation desk and I no longer need to work circulation. The ora of well I do my job and what a great person has spread so much, that forget the library director it reached and inspired Dr. Duderstadt.

Dr. Duderstadt was so impressed with my awesome organizational skills and beautifully written poetic memos (I've never written any memos, but I could write beautiful ones) and e-mails that he has hunted me down to become his personal assistant.

That way when people ask me where I work at U of M I can say..."The Duderstadt center." and when they ask me what I do, I can reply "I'm Dr. Duderstadt's personal assistant." Everyone campus community or not would be so impressed by that response, I would never have to feel ashamed of what my life has become again...

I wish I could tell you that my daydreams of living an impressive life to make a difference in society haven't subsided, but my dreams have become what they have become I guess.

I screwed up...

I lost my planner this week, I always think I have my schedule perfectly under control, but as it turns out without that stupid book, I forget what I scheduled and I continue to plan things on top of other events with only my work schedule in mind....That being said I should not have been so upset about the typo and thinking the Echo was unorganized, when I screwed up this time.

I accidentally agreed to take an article assignment tomorrow night, when I had a prior committment. I just thought, well I have Monday nights free, but I didn't think about how I do not have October 18th free.

They gave the assignment to me at the meeting today, with the sharp deadline of Wednesday morning (they had not assigned any Life stories for Thursday yet) and I realized my error around 9:30pm and tried to both e-mail and call the editor to cancel, but received no response. I offered to make it up somehow with another story or event, but I don't know if that helps. I can't believe I made such a stupid mistake. I would not have made that stupid mistake if that stupid planning book, which seemed like such a waste of paper, was not missing!!

What's more is I'm not entirely sure how I fit into the world at the Eastern Echo, I felt like such an outsider at the meeting today and while I ask questions, annoyingly so, I really wish I had someone to take me under their wing and show me the ropes. Instead, I got all tense and timid and my imagination started making everyone look like they were giving me glowering stares. This screw up is not going to help my image.

I wonder if people wonder what a non-journalism grad student, creative writer undergrad is even doing there...I wonder if they are annoyed by my journalism ignorance and the fact that if this were a real paper or magazine then I would have no chance in hell on their staff. I wonder if I've just walked into territory that was already spoken for and I wonder how I can stop wondering all these negative things.

This has not been my week, but I will keep trying-made up glowering stares or not.

Art Therapy

I woke up today and my stomach was turning, I had a headache and dizziness had overcome me in a way where I just wanted to lay in bed.

"You can't do that," my inner voice nagged me. "You have an article deadline tomorrow, you have to work at five, you have things to do."

I rolled over and stared out my window, moaning. Then I saw how beautiful the view of the house outside was and had the sudden inspiration to sketch it.

The inspiration to sketch has not hit me since the summer, but I sat in bed and drew. Tada! Low and behold by the time I was done...no dizziness, no headache and no dreading getting up. I have this sketch to thank for that.

Where the F#@! was Puck!! My rant on Glee...

Did anyone else miss the dreamy and rebellious Puck this week, or was it just me? Am I the only one who cared to see him go?

He was one of my favorite and one of the most colorful characters from the first season. I mean who else can get away with a Mohawk these days? He added an edge to the Glee club, that I'm sorry to say cannot be replaced with the new character Sam.

Which by the way, what was up with that? All of a sudden Sam's on board with Glee club? I would like to see that turn around please. It would've made more sense if he joined suddenly because of meeting Quinn, but nope he just gets introduced like its no big thing, kind of like how Puck going to juvey gets a reaction for only a few minutes. They could've at least shown him getting into trouble on the show.

Then, when researching the topic I find very little Internet concern over the loss of Puck's character. All I see, is that in season three, everyone is going to have to re-audition and Puck or Artie might be gone for good! People if we do not start a campaign to save Puck now, we could lose him!

Don't leave Puck, I will miss your edge.

"Life as We Know It" Really Did Blow It

Life As We Know It trailer

Excited about the plot line and totally stoked to see the beautiful Katherine Heigl (Holly) and the dreamy Joshua Duhamel (Messer) , I saw the movie "Life as We Know it" on its release date Friday, October 8th.

The two stars, who at the beginning of the movie don't get along after a horrid blind date, inherit custody of their recently deceased best friends' 1-year-old, Sophie. They end up living under the same roof, which is a mansion that was owned by their deceased friends.

Sounds like a pretty good romantic comedy, right? The problem is I just told you the meat of what happens. I love sappy, predictable romantic comedies more than most people, but I can usually take something away from them that I didn't see in the previews. This was not the case with this movie.

I would not be surprised if Hollywood wrote this movie in five minutes, or while they were sleeping.

Joshua Duhamel's character is insincere, he goes from not wanting to raise Sophie, to being one of the world's most involved Dad in about 5 minutes screen time.

While I usually love Katherine Heigl (27 Dresses is one of my favorite movies) and the type cast she represents on the screen, a strong, independent, intelligent woman, this movie did not expand her acting abilities.

The reason this move would be worth seeing at all is the social worker, Janine (Sarah Burns). While I do not think her portrayal of the part was realistic of a professional social worker, it was unexpected and she left the audience wondering, what would happen if a social worker really acted like that and told people as hilariously as she did to "get their shit together."

Mermaids

First of all I would just like to give a shout out to my dear friend Robin Bennett, whose own blog Broken Bird inspired this posting of mine and it's a take off on her post entitled: "Brown Chicken, Brown Cow" about her desire to be sexy.

I read this post and very snobbishly and thought, I've never had a real desire to feel sexy as a woman. I never wanted to be one of those long-legged, tight little dress and 6-inch pump wearing girls at the fancy evening party. I never wanted to be the girl to turn heads and be stared at...as an early developer I got too much of that attention already.

Then I took a moment to re-think the situation. It's true I never wanted to be the turning-heads-at-a-party kinda sexy, but I have felt the need to be seductive. I've just wanted to be the mysterious girl that no one notices, or only gets noticed and dazzles people when she wants too...like a mermaid.

Mermaids take to the water and only reveal themselves to sailors, boaters or pirates when they want too, but when they do surface it's such an amazing experience for the viewer that he is stopped dead in his tracks. If he is holding anything it immediately drops and his mouth hangs open, because he just cannot believe this stunning creature exists...which by the way, I am a true believer in mermaids and perhaps their stunning beauty is the reason no one else can believe their existence.

What's more is a mermaid with her long, lustrous hair and flashy fin also calls young men to her attention with her talent and bravery. Sometimes, her singing voice draws men closer and sometimes it's because she saves a drowning man.

So, Robin was right, while her case may be different, every woman has the desire to be sexy in their own way...and as one of my favorite books "A Mermaid's Tale" by Amanda Adams says:

"No man can resist a mermaid."

Magical Fairies

So as mentioned before, in order to make a living while working on my writing career I took a full-time job at the University of Michigan's Art, Architecture and Engineering Library working as a late night technician/information resources assistant. The late night technician parts is just a fancy way of saying I work midnights and like a vampire, I barely see the sun.

I really kinda hate this job for several reasons (one being the unrealistic hours)...but instead of going into those reasons I will share with you the things I think to make myself laugh while on the shift.

I am a magical fairy. Yes, this sounds odd, but let me explain. While I was being trained and my co-worker was listing all the tasks we are responsible for one of the things he said was "So we basically try to fix and watch out for things at night, so the morning people don't knwo how chaotic it was..." I immediately began picturing us fleeting and fluttering around picking up books, shelving them, shutting off lights and making sure no patron was left behind.

Without thinking about it, I actually said "So we're like magical fairies that come in and fix everything at night."

He kinda laughed and agreed. I am so glad he is secure in his masculinity, not all men woul'dve reacted so well to me calling them a fairy.

From then on whenever, I have to complete the dreaded task of searching for a book that no one has been able to find for years, or counting all the people in the building and unjamming printers...I think of myself as that mythical, fleeting creature and feel better.

Update on Typo

I e-mailed the news editor and editor-in-chief of the Echo about the first word in the article saying "his" instead of "this." I received a very nice and polite reply from the editor-in-chief Joshua Coudret.

He said that he understood my frustration, but the good news is this was only a website upload error and the mistake did not show up in actual print...I checked and they were able to fix the mistake on the website itself! This made me feel like a million times better.

He then went on to explain that in the newspaper business errors can be expected because work has to be done quickly. This I knew, but I understood why he was saying it after my harshly worded e-mail. I don't expect all articles I write to be error free and God knows I would never want them published exactly how I turn them in, so I am very thankful for the editors. I was just frustrated because it was the very first word in the article...it would've been different if it was not as obvious.

Which is what he said in the last paragraph, he said that the original draft I sent in was good, but that I may want to research AP style a bit more and I did appreciate his criticism because it will help me improve my writing.

The tips I have gotten from the life editor, Janis Tsai and him have been very helpful and so I will continue to write for the Echo and I hope there is not harsh feelings in the whole situation.

Biology Seminar Article- Disappointed in editor's typo

I decided to test the waters and write a news article instead of writing all features. I wrote about a biology seminar, a subject matter way out of my comfort zone and therefore, I felt least confident about it, so not sure I will be taking on a story like that again.

I am also extremely disappointed that the very first word in the article contains a typo that is not mine. Meaning my name is on an article where they changed the opening sentence I created to one that says "his" instead of "This" and then having this get past the news editor and the editor-in-chief makes me concerned about writing news articles at all for this periodical.

It is still experience, but how am I supposed to proudly display this in my portfolio? I mean its the very first word for god's sake!!!! So let me just tell all of you, my beginning sentence was:

"On Wednesday, October 6, in room 247 at Mckenny Union, Dr. Joan Rose, from Michigan State
University spoke to an audience of approximately thirty students on whether or not we should be concerned with state of our water at the first biology seminar of the year entitled: “Water Quality and Health in the Great Lakes.”

This sentence may have needed to be changed for whatever reason, but if I had started with "This" I would've been sure it said "this" and not "his."

Article: Biology Seminar Article

My Second Article

My second article I wrote for the Eastern Echo was on the movie "The Social Network" and whether or not it effected how students felt about their Facebook accounts. I was able to collect many quotes, but I feel my first article on the art exhibit was more strongly written. I think I am just more comfortable writing about art. However, despite my own negative reflections this article was printed.



The process was different this time, I handed it in to the editor and then it went straight to the copyeditors, so I did not do any editing myself once I handed in the article and it was just a surprise if it would be printed or which parts of what I wrote would be printed.



Here's the link: http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/article/2010/10/the_social_network_may_alter_opinions

Fantastic Ekphrastic Lesson Plan- Continued from Previous Post

Fantastic Ekphrastic! Lesson Plan-refers to previous blog, if you are at all interested:

Fantastic Ekphrastic!
“Q: Tell me, doesn’t your painting interfere with your writing?
A: Quite the contrary: they love each other dearly.”
-e.e. Cummings (poet and author with many awards) in mock self-interview
What does “ekphrastic” mean?
Ekphrastic comes for the Greek word Ekphrasis, which means a dramatic description of visual art. In the times of the classical era or classical antiquity it referred to the description of anything, person or experience. It comes from two Greek words “Ek” and “Phrasis” or “out” and “speak” respectively.
So what? What does that mean to us today?
Now, when we refer to ekphrastic writing or art we mean writing or art inspired by other works of art. Tip: Sometimes it’s fun to go around a museum and make up stories or poems about what you see!!
A Wonderful Most famous Example From classical Antiquity!!!
“Ode to the Grecian Urn” By John Keats- Romantic poet
A less known modern Example:
“Monet Refuses the Operation”
By Lisel Mueller- from her book Alive together New and Selected Poems 1996

Now it’s your turn!
(Students take a moment to pick a piece of art and write about it)

Incorporating Drawing and sketching into your writing
“We should talk less and draw more. Personally I would like to renounce speech altogether and like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say in sketches.” – Goethe- German writer and polymath
*Quick Fire Drawing-draw something you see in the room without thinking too much about it (10 second drawings) Tip: This is easier if you do not pick up your crayon at all
*Add something you imagine to your drawing…could be a character an object, anything as long as it is not really there with your still life
*Write something about what you have drawn
*Draw the next scene of your story

“Art does not reproduce what we see; rather it makes us see.” –Paul Glee- Swiss and German Painter

Sharing time and discussion!!!
(Students share their work and we discuss how writing and drawing can be mixed)

Fantastic Ekphrastic! -Teaching my First Workshop at 826Michigan

Today, for the first time I was the workshop leader at 826Michigan and taught a workshop I designed entitled: Fantastic Ekphrastic! I taught students the definition of Ekphrastic art and writing the first half of the workshop and in the second half of the workshop talked about how drawing and sketching could be incorporated into our writing (thanks, Patty and Phillip for teaching me this at Interlochen, so I could than pass it on to younger students).

I think it went really well and I felt more comfortable than I thought I would teaching, but then again I was teaching about art history, a subject I am very knowledgeable about and writing, a subject I am very passionate about. Not to mention, that many times when I am stuck on what to write about, I do Ekphrastic writing and so I was basically just passing down writing exercises I do all the time.

The only downside is there was low attendance, only two girls that attend every workshop at 826Michigan came and I am hoping if I teach this workshop again that more people will come, and wondering if there is anything I could do to up attendance.

My First Article!

Here it is Ladies and Gentlemen...my first article in the Eastern Echo.

Nature Featured in Art Show

I must admit, I do feel a little sense of accomplishment as a writer, it's not the big leagues but it's a start. :)

How to Become a Writer...or so they say...

So here's a secret I don't like to brag about, I work full-time at a University of Michigan's circulation desk. As you know my dream job is to become a writer and so often when no one is around (and I've forgotten my writing or have writer's block) I daydream about all the things I could do to have my name in print. Tonight, I decided to see what Google had to say about how to become a writer and here's what I found:

1) I did not really find this website helpful because I am already following these steps and they seem rather obvious. http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Writer

2)This site gave a lot of good advice and resources that anyone could use to become a better writer, I'm excited to use the resources and see if they are any good :)http://degreedirectory.org/articles/10_Ways_to_Become_a_Better_Writer.html

3) I liked the honesty of this site, it didn't treat writing as a career like some sort of picnic like many of the other sites do. http://www.jonathancrossfield.com/blog/2008/07/how-to-become-a-writer.html

4) Another obvious answer from someone who didn't seem to have much authority on writing http://www.boundless.org/2005/answers/a0001595.cfm

After these most of the websites get into more specific forms of writing and there are many sites on how to become a technical writer, or a copywriter..different genres like that. Ultimately, I would like to become a novelist and I think the advice Margo Rabb gave everyone at 826Michigan is better than what any of the websites said.