Social Media coming to an end....or is it?

Zitzsolutions.com

Over the last semester I have learned a lot about the world of "Social Media."  When I first got to the class I thought we were just going to talk about Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.  You know the three main websites that everyone thinks define "Social Media."  Throughout the semester I learned how to make my own Facebook and Twitter pages effective enough, to the point where it is presentable to possible job opportunities.  

I also learned how to make a Facebook fan page effective.  With the knowledge I gained from hearing and seeing a useful fan page, I think that I am more enlightened about how to make and maintain a successful page if I ever have to make one.

Aside from just learning about social media tools, I now have a much better grasp on how to use them wisely in order to reach the most people.  Monitoring Klout scores helps assess the usefulness of a Twitter account.  Although my personal score is around 30, it has grown tremendously from where it was a month ago.

I don’t really like LinkedIn or find it to be extremely useful to me, but I do see how it can be useful as a professional networking site.  I don’t really check my account very often, unless someone sends me a add request or a question that they ask me.  Besides that, I now have the skills to keep a LinkedIn profile and now know the potential it has.

I think one of the most valuable things I learned through Social Media was how to use Twitter. I had no idea what to do when I first started, but now I see what an important tool it truly is. I foresee it gaining popularity and becoming even more influential than it is today.

My advice to my fellow journalism colleagues is that they should definitely take the Social Media class if they can, you will learn a lot about pretty much anything that you will ever want to know about “Social Media,” it is important to have knowledge above and beyond what you thought your knowledge could have ever been.  My favorite hashtag would have to be #jmcawesome because it pretty much sums everything that the Creighton University Journalism Department stands for.

To get an iPad or not to get an iPad 2

Google Search

I have been contemplating over the last couple of weeks on whether or not to get an iPad.  I mean they are the coolest thing to come since the iPhone came out.  I know so many people who have either the first generation iPad and people who have the iPad 2, and they all love that they got one.  There are so many cool things that you can do and get on the iPads.

Here are 10 facts about the iPad:

1.  Apple has positioned between the smartphone and the laptop, but the iPad doesn't create its own category, it just improves upon the not-so-successful segment of PCs.

2.  The device has a 10-hour battery life.

3.  It is powered by a 1 GHz Apple A4 chip and comes with 16GB and 64GB of flash storage.

4.  Apple's latest creation features a 9.7-inch IPS display and has a built-in accelerometer that adjusts the orientation automatically.

5.  Users can surf the Net, check emails, see images, watch videos, play music and games and read e-books.

6.  The iPad doesn't seem to have a camera.

7.  The iPad will be able to run apps meant for the iPhone.

8.  Apple's tablet also comes with the capabilities for word processing and presentations, but at a price of $9.99 per application.

9.  It has Wi-Fi, but there are models with 3G, with prices ranging from $499 to $829.

10.  And it's a touch screen, of course.

( http://gadgets.ndtv.com/shownews.aspx?id=GADEN20100127968 )

Those facts right there are enough to get me to buy just the iPad first generation.  I think that Apple will eventually make a better, faster and stronger iPad that the iPad 2.  I don't think that it is going to happen anytime in the next six months, but I could be wrong.  Who knows...

Nikes on My Feet

Nikeblog.com

I have figured something out in the almost year I have been living in my apartment.  I have more than enough pairs of Nike shoes, I mean seriously who needs fourteen of Nike shoes for only living in an apartment for one single year?  Apparently I do.

There are some days were I am wearing Nike shoes, socks, shorts and even a Nike shirt.  I have so much clothes made by Nike.  There are a lot of things that I have that show off to the world that Nike is my brand of choice.

Here are five reasons why Nike shoes are so popular:


Reason Number One 

Shox are famous for being the leading designer brand for the skills that is related to making them. Createing this footwear spends a very long time. 

Reason Number Two 

A large number of work is put into making these pair of shoes. There are lots of jobs involved, like handcrafting. The variety handcrafted has many fans. That is because they have a unique and wonderful design. What's more, it's a fact that they are high quality. 

Reason Number Three 

You will find that they use fine leather in the classic handcrafted varieties, which has added some spunk to famous shoe brand. 

Reason Number Four 

Due to the concern for International clientele, the Nike shoe brand has evolved applause all over the world. The creators understand what individuals want and they try to implement the best. 

Reason Number Five 

The last reason is one of the most important. These shoes are very durable and comfortable, which is one of the main reasons that why they are so popular around the world. Face it, this is a working world where we are constantly on the move. Nike knows this that we do not want to be stuck with a shoe that is going to make our feet hurt. That is why the Nike Shox Shoes are so popular. 
(http://www.ubscure.com/Art/107185/211/Why-Are-Nike-Air-Max-Shoes-So-Popular.html)

Pie Day, with a little Peep

http://coffeeshopjournal.com/2010/04/02/easter-peeps/

On Wednesday we had a "Pie Day" in my Social Media class.  Carol brought in at least six or seven pies for everyone in my class.  There were also cookies which were pretty awesome as well as Peeps.

Now I started this blog thinking that I was going to write about our "Pie Day" but I thought that I would change it to be about Peeps!  The reasoning behind this is, my brother brought home eight paper bags filled with Peeps.  There were over fifty boxes of yellow, pink and green marshmallow peeps.  I don't know why or what made him think to buy and bring home that many peeps but I am glad that he did.  I personally, like peeps, I just can't eat too many of them or they will make me sick.

I found out that there are a lot of mixed feelings toward these marshmallow delights, some people hate them with a passion and others are in love with them.  There are Easter, Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's Day peeps, peeps dipped in chocolate and there are even sugar free peeps.  Who would have thought there would be so many different kinds of peeps.

There is even a Peeps World!  How sweet is that.  It has all kinds of stores and attractions and pretty much anything that you could ever ask for in the Wide World of Peeps.

You wouldn't find this in a newspaper...

res.dallasnews.com/mobile-alerts

The 2011 State of the News Media overview is saying that newspapers are no long the main source of news, but who didn't think that this was going to happen.  The increase in online social networking sites should have been everyone's clue that the Internet was going to be the main source for news in today's society.  As well as the introduction of any kind of smartphone that the population could ask for.

Online media's audience went up 17.1 percent while all other ways of getting the news went down.  I am a news major and even I know that newspapers are going out of style.  It is bad for newspapers, even though people will still be picking up newspapers but that number will decrease by a good amount.  I personally don't have a problem with the change in news and how people are getting it.

In the special report on mobile it says that local news are going mobile.  Nearly half of all American adults report that they get at least some local news and information on their cellphones or tablet computers.  I think that it is easier to find information online through phones and tablet computers because it is handy and is easier to get a hold of.  It is easier to connect with news from all around the world especially with issues like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  If we didn't have the tools to get news from an online source the majority of the population would not know about what happened.

The technological future is upon us, it is changing everything hopefully for the better.  For all you anti-social media people, you better get over it and join the rest of the world; because time is of the essence and it is about time everyone is on the same level.

Is your page effective?

(Image via LogoPond.com)

The Invisible Children is a non-profit organization which through hundreds of volunteers and students, aid is brought to Northern Uganda in hopes of ending the longest running war in Africa. Invisible Children fights to end a genocide of people, while also trying to create a better world.

It seems that Invisible Children does use their Facebook page effectively. In the information section, the page has the founded, about, company overview, mission and websites sections filled out and it seems that they did it effectively. There are a lot of pictures on the organization's Facebook page, many of them are the logo but there are also pictures of people around the world who are doing something to support the organization. The wall posts consist of people commenting about how the Invisible Children organization came to their school's to talk about the organization.

To make this page better, I think that the organization should add events to the page. Maybe try showing where they are going to travel to to talk about what they are all about and what they are doing for the world.  I think that people spend time on this page because they want to learn more about the organization as well as looking through photos and watching videos to see what people around the world have done with this organization.  There are about 340,00 likes on this organization's Facebook page, the wall is updated every couple hours or so.

Is social media affecting the youth of tomorrow?

Social media is an important part of today's society.  It seems that everywhere you look someone is either on Facebook, Twitter or even checking/sending emails.  Are these social media tools sucking people into them? Trying to keep them on for hours on end?  No, I don't think that the tools are keeping people there.  The people who obsess over these tools are the ones who are going to be addicted to them. I agree that the girl on Facebook, who committed suicide, with the thousands of "friends" is tragic, but did Facebook cause her to commit suicide? I am pretty sure people have been taunting mentally ill people throughout the the world before Facebook was even thought up.

The majority of my friends and people that I know are on Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with their friends who don't live close, but I am pretty sure that none of them are constantly on those tools updating their lives one minute at a time.  There would be no need for that, and it would mean that they devote all of their time to social media.  There is no need for that.

I think that everyone is very connected through social media tools.  Are we too connected?  That would have to be answered by those who never log out of these tools.  There are a lot of people who think that using social media tools is a must for today's society and I agree with that but there is no need to constantly be on them.  These tools are very good at distracting people from the real world and living their real lives.  I think that it is important for people to be able to disconnect themselves from the social media world.  If that is not possible for people, everyone is going to have a problem with getting back to their own lives outside of the internet and will not completely understand why other people don't get what they are talking about.

Who Am I? Who Am I? Let's Find Out.

In 1962, Clare Boothe Luce, one of the first women to serve in the U.S. Congress, offered some advice to President John F. Kennedy.  “A great man,” she told him, “is one sentence.”  Abraham Lincoln’s sentence was: “He preserved the union and freed the slaves.”  Franklin Roosevelt’s was: “He lifted us out of a great depression and helped us win a world war.”  Luce feared that Kennedy’s attention was so splintered among different priorities that his sentence risked becoming a muddled paragraph.  (from Daniel Pink's latest book "Drive")

When we were shown Pink's video, I didn't know what to think of it.  Could it be possible to have only one sentence to summarize your life?  Only one sentence to show what the purpose is in my everyday life.


So…what do you think your sentence would be? 


Let's try and think about it like this.  What do you want people to say about you when its your time pass on?  If they could only do it in just one sentence, what would you want them to say?  How about a couple heart warming words thrown together to describe who you were?  Would you like that?  Probably not, what would YOU want that sentence to say about you? 

Would you want it to describe your accomplishments in life?  The type of person you were, if people actually took the time to get to know you?  How you treated those closest to you as well as those who weren't?  What you did to change the world around you for the better?  What would you want that one sentence to describe?


It's a tough thing to think about huh?  You only get one sentence to explain who you are...

So once again...what’s my sentence?

My Sentence is:

"I am an ambitious person who, when all else fails, knows that I will

succeed at changing the minds of those who doubted me."

Being a better journalist and financial difficulties

My area of interest is the News part of Journalism.  It is something that I am most interested in because I think that everyone needs to to get the news, no matter how they get it.  Reading blogs is not only a way for people to share their opinions and thoughts about everything, but it is also a great way to get news about anything related to journalism.  It is kind of cool actually.

The two blogs that I read were Ricochet by Chrys Wu and Eat Sleep Publish: thoughts on the future of publishing by Jason Preston.  In the first blog by Chrys Wu, I saw a pretty cool time lapse video of snow build up on a picnic table.  It became a internet sensation on December 30th, it has received over 2.5 million views so far and that number continues to grow.  This time lapse video was important in this post because it shows that even though putting a video like this on your blog is cool and all it isn't a solid way to get views for your own personal blog.  Photographer Chase Jarvis is credited with saying, "the best camera is the one that you have with you."  There is also a a tutorial for how to not let weather ruin a time lapse video that you can make.  Another blog post that I read about was one about how to become a better journalist.  An important part of being a journalist is leaving room for yourself to improve your craft.  The approach that was used was pretty good, the posts that I read through started by the author talking about his personal life and a story of some sort to lead into the topic of the post.  I really liked the picture that came with the post, it shows that you are never too young or old to learn something new.


The other blog that I read was Eat Sleep Publish: thoughts on the future of publishing by Jason Preston.  This blog talked a lot about how autocorrect can change the entire meaning of something as it did for the American Airlines tweet, saying that it was going to send doctors to haiti but actually didn't mean that at all.  But the post that caught my eye more than the rest was one about newspaper circulation.  The chart in the post showed how The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Daily News, The New York Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal newspaper circulation has decreased drastically over the last 20 years of their existence.  Though all of the newspapers have stayed above 400,000 it still looks like they are going to decline in the years to come.  There were some other posts talking about what the author thought about publishing in previous years and then again what they did in today's society.  


None of the blog posts that  I read had any labels which was kind of weird to me, because you would think that there would need to be at least a couple labels so people know what they author is talking about.  But to me, I think that both authors did a good job at getting to the point in each post so that they wouldn't need labels to help the reader.

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.

Mrs. Kelly's Monster

Mrs. Kelly’s Monster by Jon Franklin is detailed, heart wrenching, suspenseful and inspiring.  The story is about a woman name Mrs. Kelly who is suffering from a tangled knot of abnormal blood vessels in the back of her brain.  Over time the knot has caused her to lose part of her eyesight, hemorrhages, lost her sense of smell, taste, she had seizures, and she smelled a strange odor then started strangling.  It started affecting her legs, and she was partially paralyzed.  She was constantly in pain and didn’t want to deal with it anymore.  The story gives me the feeling that I am in the room while they are doing this operation.  It shows that it is a deadly operation and that anything could go wrong at any moment.

I think that the author does a wonderful job at describing what is going on during the operation.  He seems to know how to catch the reader’s attention and pull them in so that the reader wants to continue with the story until it is done.  The conversation between the doctor and the nurse helped to make the story into a dialogue as well, which I think also contributed to it.     

The thing that makes this a good story is how the story gives the reader the blow-by-blow scene of what is going on during the operation.  I also like how the author uses certain times in every couple paragraphs.  I think the “pop, pop, pop” added a lot of action to the story, it let the reader know the pace of the heart beat while the story went on.  There were great details to describe to the reader that certain things are as well as what is happening with “the monster.”

Franklin approached the story in the right way, he told the story of Mrs. Kelly from how she got “the monster” all the way through her life with it, what it did to her and then to her operation.  I think that this type was perfect for this story because in give the information in such a way that it seems to flow the best when read aloud.  This was a wonderful story, it was very dynamic and it made me want to turn the page and continue but at the same time I didn’t want to find out if something bad was going to happen to Mrs. Kelly.