Time to Wrap it Up

After being in Feature Writing I would like to think of myself as somewhat of a good writer.  I know that I am not as good as the others in my class, because believe me, some of them know what people want to read about and how to get their attention.  I have learned a lot of the last couple of months, we learned how to use blogs in different ways, how to make videos and different ways that we can use our journalistic abilities, as well as the Madagascar Penguin Silly Bandz (by far my favorite part). 

Throughout this semester, I really have enjoyed growing as a writer. I think that my writing has improved and it has become a lot less hard to write articles. I have learned a lot of things about certain questions to ask during an interview and how to react to interviewee’s answers.  I have come to understand what is needed to catch the readers attention and how to keep it for articles that I write. 

I know that what I have learned over the past semester will be taken with me wherever I go in life.  Even though we were in a class that was serious about learning new ways to write for articles, we also laughed a lot and had a good time.  I feel like those couple hours that we were with each other on Tuesdays and Thursday were good for everyone.  Laughing is good for the soul and we did plenty of that for everyone in that building.  I really enjoyed being in that class, and especially all the great people I met in the process.

Is Craigslist Safe?

Everyone thought that Craigslist was going to the new way to buy, sell and even trade people's stuff.  I even thought that it was going to be a great way to do all of that stuff.  I mean you can find people in your city who may be close to you and you can contact them to go pick up something from their house.  That is about the only problem I have had with Craigslist, you have to go to some random person's house to get something that you want, and you don't know if the something you are going to get is what the description says on the website. 


There are people trying to find jobs, housing, friendship, or products and services will find Craigslist to be a very useful community.  On top of that you could also meet other people to network or talk about issues that you think are important. You have to keep in mind that Craigslist is an online community so the risk of predators or scam artist are ready to take advantage of you as soon as you get on the site.  It is important to only go to someones hose if you trust them and trust that they aren't going to try to screw you over.

According to the Craigslist about page on the website:

The overwhelming majority of craigslist users are trustworthy and well-intentioned.

 

With billions of human interactions facilitated through craigslist, the incidence of violent crime has been extremely low.

 

Nevertheless, it's very important to take the same common sense precautions online as you would offline.

 

When meeting someone for the first time, please remember to:

• Insist on a public meeting place like a cafe
• Do not meet in a secluded place, or invite strangers into your home  
• Be especially careful when buying/selling high value items
• Tell a friend or family member where you're going
• Take your cell phone along if you have one
• Consider having a friend accompany you
• Trust your instincts

Taking these simple precautions helps make craigslist safer for everyone.

The College(Web)Life



http://www.facebook-stunt.com/

Throughout the United States the majority of college students spend their time on one website. Not their school website, not youtube, not myspace, but Facebook. Facebook is keeping students from writing papers, doing homework and reading textbooks. This social network has replaced every other social network out there and is still growing. People think that they need facebook, because "everyone else is doing it."
College students are becoming addicted to facebook, it is the new drug that is taking over the lives of everyone around me. It destroys your real social life. Why not go outside and hang out with your friends rather than feeding your pet in pet society or taking care of your restaurant in restaurant city? Seriously. It's pointless to play those games, it will just make you wierd and anti-social. Facebook will waste your time and I really do mean WASTE it. Nothing good will happen to you even if you get the highest scores in the games or posted the most posts, why is that important in college students lives? None of your real friends care if you get the highest scores, what people cares about is having the best time of their lives in their real physical life, by that I mean hanging out wityh your friends, spending time with your family and helping others.  You'd even be wasting your parents money with facebook with the electricity bills so why not do your parents a favor and do also yourself a favor by going out or at least read a book, come on now.

According to the Why Facebook is Bad for Your Health "person" on Facebook:

1. When you sit at a computer on Facebook for any length of time, you kill vital brain cells.

2. It is unhealthy to stalk both yourself and others.
3. Stop looking at your own photos- you are so vain!
4. Facebook makes you worry about what other people think- why do you think they like to comment?
5. You do not have 1000 friends-stop kidding yourself.
6. It makes you wonder why nobody is talking to you on facebook chat- they’re only looking at their own profiles, just like you!
7. “Why has no one left me a notification in the last three minutes!?!?!?!?”- Get a life!
8. He’s not going to fall in love with you because you have facebook stalked every photo and comment left by all his friends!!
9. Facebook makes you chuckle with glee at others misfortunes, Yes that slut from school is working in McDonalds!
10. No one needs to know every aspect of your life through your status- if they want to know that you’re tired at 11pm they will ASK!
11. Facebook hating of pretty friends wont make you happier OR prettier.
12. Just because facebook suggests that there are people you may know, it doesn’t mean you know them!
13. Invite your friends to join Facebook? Why would you want to invite your friends into a stalking routine? They will only stalk you back!
14. Stalking wall to walls is not cool. Although it is their own fault for publicly publishing their conversations.
15. Parents have become Facebook savvy- is this cool? Or just Stalkerish?
16. In reference to no. 15, will you do this to your children??
17. Facebook can make you lonelier.
18. No-one sensors their photo uploads. – do we want to see you on the bog?
19. Everyone including your manager, mother and mangy haired stalker can see EVERYTHING you do on their “News Feed.”
20. We cant publish this list anonymously on Facebook!
21. Facebook- its free and anyone can join!

Secrets are like Masks....

Secrets are like masks, they hide the real person underneath.  Have you ever had a secret that you wanted to get out but didn't know where you could share it?  PostSecret is the way to do it.  You write down your secret that you want to share on a piece of paper, a post card, old receipts, literally anything and then send it to Frank Warren at 13345 Copper Ridge Road, Germantown, MD 20874.  Warren is the man who founded PostSecret.

Many people in the nation check his website to browse the latest reader-submitted postcards expressing people's deepest secrets, those including feelings, fears and/or desires. Warren also has compiled five books with what he thinks are the most memorable postcards.  The first book was published on December 1, 2005 and the most recent book was published October 6, 2009.  I think something that would be cool for people to do with their postcards is to hide them in random books throughout the world.  It would be a surprise for whoever picked up the book to read it.

PostSecret is a form of personal therapy for people throughout the world.  It allows people to say whatever they want and not have any repercussions for doing it. It also shows people that are posting their secrets that there are other people out there in the world who have some of the same problems that they do.  It is a good way for people to share their feelings and not have to worry about being judged.  I have read a couple of the books that Warren has published and I think that it is a great thing that he is doing.  He is giving people the chance to do something that a lot of them have thought about doing.

You Woke the Bears! Why did you do that?

Earlier tonight I watched the movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, the main actor being Will Ferrell.  The movie is about a guy named Ron Burgundy who is the top-rated anchorman in San Diego in the 1970s. Then when feminism marches into the newsroom in the form of ambitious newswoman Veronica Corningstone.  Ron is willing to play along at first-as long as Veronica stays in her place, covering cat fashion shows, cooking, and other "female" interests.  But that is not what she wants, she refuses to settle for only being eye candy for the men at the station, she steps behind the news desk and fights for her right to be a news anchor. 

In Ron's eyes, Veronica Coringstone is not so much the studio's most welcome addition. Ron and Veronica become passoinate with each other early in the movie but Veronica doesn't want their relationship to jeoprodize her chances of becoming a news anchor.  After Veronica pays her dues covering the female-oriented fluffy pieces, the ambitious Veronica sets her eyes on the news desk; more specifically, on Ron's seat behind it.  Ron doesn't take the threat lightly, and not long before the rival newscasters are engaged in a very personal battle of the sexes. 

Even though this movie is supposed to be a comedy, I think that it has a very important message behind the comedy.  The message is that even though there are things that are changing throughout the world, you need to learn how to accept them and not try to fight them.  If you try to fight them, it will more than likely end up in the favor of what you are trying to fight.  If you just step back and embrace it, everything will work out for you as well as everyone else.

Once Upon a...I mean StumbleUpon a...

A website that I have found very important in my procrastination is StumbleUpon, it is a website that has you pick things that are interesting to you and then generates random websites that match up with the things that are of interest to you.  I really enjoy this website; I have been able to fnd a lot of cool things while procrastinating my homework and writing papers.  I have found some pretty cool games while stumbling, along with really good quotes and things that I could also blog about. 

There is a Thumbs Up bottom that you can click on if you like the page that you are on.  It is true, I think, that the traffic that comes from most social media sites is basically all or nothing.  The popular pages may receive thousands of visitors.  There’s really no middle ground in the number of visitors that a page receives. Even if only a few people give the page a thumbs up and maybe a review or something, it will cause a significant amount of traffic for that page.

I think that StumbleUpon is a great site for networking, it builds on social media sites.  It is easy to add friends and keep them, join and be active in groups and even send email to other people directly from StumbleUpon.  Even though i don't used the StumbleUpon message system to communicate with people I am friends with, I hear that it is a good way to keep in touch with the friends that you make on StumbleUpon.  The networking that I’ve been able to do on StumbleUpon has been very valuable, it has helped me meet some very interesting people and understand what they are trying to do with themselves.  StumbleUpon is a close second behind Facebook for networking, but that is more because I am in college and the majority of the people I know and try to keep in touch with are on there.

Those Never Left Behind

The article "Final Salute" is a story in the Rocky Mountain News.  It is a story that is pretty hard to get through. I can't think about having to go to the doors of fallen Marines and telling their families of their child's death, it has to be so hard to do something like that.  When I think about the U.S. Marines, I think about yelling, guns, ships in the water, and the phrase "Oorah," but after reading through the "Final Salute" my mind has definitely changed. This article is about the men whose job it is to give the grave news to the families of their fallen soldier(s).  Not only does this article show what these select few do almost everyday, it also helps the reader to experience what is going on in the hearts of the men and the families.

I don't think I would be able to know that going into work everyday is going to tell families how their children have died.  I think that this article was interesting as well as emoional, these men had to share the worst news any military news family could ever recieve.  I think that is is an amazing thing for the men to stay with the families and be there for them when they needed it, no matter how long they needed it.  Time is not a problem for these military men.  There was a part in the article that was tough for me to get through, it was the part about the twenty three year old widow, who spent her last night at the resting grounds of her husband’s body before he was buried.  She talk about how she had one of the best night’s sleep, but had felt bad because she had taken that night's sleep for granted.  I know that it is hard to let someone close to you go, I have done it with four of my close friends.  I never got to say good bye or even tell them how I felt about them, they were there and then they were gone.  It hurts.  I think that it would hurt so much more if my spouse had died, knowing that I never got to tell them how much I loved them before they died.  It would haunt me for the rest of my life.

I think that this was a interesting article to read, it is good for non-military people to understand what the men and the families had to deal with.  It is easy to not care about everything else that is going on in the world and just care about your life.  People tend to not think about those who are serving overseas for our country trying to keep us safe from terrorists.  Those who are dying for our country for the betterment of other generation is a really high honor.  Even though it is a high honor, it seems like it would be hard for the families of the soldiers to have to deal with all of pain and suffering that comes with a military soldier.  Like Beck said, it is not up to him, but it is up to the families and the loved ones to decide.

The True Meaning of Beauty in This World

This article is about an awesome violinist named Joshua Bell. Even though i am not into violin music, I looked him up on youtube and found out that his is both a big influence in the world of music as well as the world in general. It surprised me a lot to hear that for few people stopped to listen to him play during the Washington Post experiment describe in the article "Pearls Before Breakfast."  The article talks about how Bell was standing on a busy metro platform, in front of thousands of people during the morning rush hour.  He ended up only getting a couple people to look at him and not even enough change to buy a small coffee.

Gene Wiengarten did a pretty legitimate job at showing me everything that was going on at the metro scene. He went into detail about what Bell was wearing along with some other details for the experiment.  The descriptions throughout the article were broken up by conversations, but it was done very well.  Then Wiengarten goes into detail about Bell's background and why he chose music and whatnot.  

When I started to read the part about L’Enfant Plaza it showed me that it was a performance that didn't live up to anything like Bell's normal ones.  Wiengarten talks about the satire of the lottery ticket patrons.  The ones who were getting the show of their lives and didn't seem to care.  Even though no one gave him the time of day Bell still played beautiful music.  He was taken out of the music world and put into the general world and it seems like no one cared what he had to share with them.  


I really enjoyed reading this article, I didn't know what to think about it because of the title.  The next time I see someone playing on a busy street corner I think I might stop and listen for awhile before I assume that they are either not good at what they are doing or just another homeless person looking for some change.