Final Creative Journalism Portfolio Post

Here is a collection of my work in Creative Journalism in the 2011/2012 school year. I'm very proud of all my work this year, not just because I like the way it turned out, but because it was fun. Stressful at times, but fun. So in no particular order, here is a sampling of my best work this year, immortalized here for your eternal viewing pleasure.

Advertisement Project: Converse Coming Home

Free Style Article: Foreclosing the Final Frontier

 

300 Word Article: The Elegance of the Fresh

Feature Story: Doctor Who, What, Where, and When

First Person Article: We Don't Like to Call it Dyslexia

PSA Project: Right to Vote

 

Investigative Journalism Project: "We're not a bunch of hippies."

Dying to Tell the Story Essay Response:

Podcast Project: 10 Things Creative Writing Majors Can't Do

Photo Journalism Project: People and Close Ups

Photo Journalist Prezi: Zoriah Miller

MORE Name All The Animals

The character that grabbed me the most is Terry. She was bold and didn't care what people thought about her, or so we thought. It seemed as though Alison started most of their "romantic encounters" and Terry never seemed to make the first move, so it could be said that Alison wore the pants in their relationship, even though Terry seemed like she would be. When Alison basically dragged her out of the closet Terry was mad, even though rumors had been spreading for ages about her during the read-a-thon, she wasn't ready yet to face up to them and walk her talk. I think that being a little hypocritical is one of the human weaknesses that was all have, and its nice to see a character that has this as their character flaw. She cared about what people thought about her, and she didn't like that she did. Terry showed that she cared for Alison's wellbeing and was a very loyal friend when she made Alison eat food after she found out she was leaving food for Roy. She seemed like a friend I would like to have.

I think the parts that were hardest for me to read were the parts where it describes her parents, especially her mother, dealing with the fact of Roy's death and the way in which Alison seems to be dealing with it. When I read the part where her mother tells her that "lesbians will burn in hell!" I almost wanted to throw the book at the wall because her mother was so close minded that she couldn't even hear of her daughter doing a report about the history of homosexuality. Another part that really bothered me was when her mom is trying to set Alison up with Dan. Her mother doesn't even register the fact that her daughter has been asked to an all night concert by a boy and his friends, she just deletes that fact from her hard drive and focuses in on her daughter going somewhere with a boy.

Name All the Animals by Alison Smith

Alison Smith lost her older brother in a tragic car crash when he was only 18, just about to leave for college. The book starts out with Alison getting her period and telling her brother, Roy. The exchange is sweet, and shows, in only a few paragraphs, the kind of person and brother, he was. The story really starts in the next chapter, when two policemen bring the Smiths news of Roy's death. This book is a memoir, and I like the way that Alison emphasizes that fact that it is her father that really breaks down, not her mother. Throughout the first couple chapters we see Mrs. Smith as a strong woman, a woman who believes that she can change the past by just pretending it didn't happen. Alroy (the collective name for Alison and Roy) call her erasing technique "playing Kremlin" and their father says that that is exactly what she is doing with Roy's death. This book dose not seem to be too action packed yet, and I don't expect that it will be, but the author seems to be good enough that the story dose not half to be.

The Bell Jar and Sylvia Plath Poems

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is written beautifully, the words not overbearing but just enough to give the reader something to sink their teeth into. Ester Greenwood has been called up from Boston to New York city for a month to just enjoy herself, and she is bored. She could do anything, talk to anyone, but she isn't finding the big city all its been cracked up to be. She is staying a women's hotel with other girls who have won a fashion magazine's contest, most of whom are annoying little self absorbed idiots. But some are interesting, including Ester, who is not complaining exactly about being showed with gifts and dragged around the city to parties, but she's getting kind of tired of it. I would to if I were her to be honest, and I can really with her connect with her. I haven't really read that far, but what I have has been very interesting. I think i am really going to like this book.

"April 18" is one of my favorites of Plath's. This poem is about lost yesterdays and tomorrows, and the future that will never happen. The last stanza of this poem really struck me:

"a future was lost yesterday
as easily and irretrievably
as a tennis ball at twilight"

These lines really struck me because they are so true, and they sum of the way we treat most opportunities, especially the day to day ones.

"I Am Vertical" is more of a poem about nature, and the cycle of life than most of her others. Most of her poems are about death and surrendering to the darkness, and this one is a nice refresher. She uses personification very effectively in this poem, helping the reader really understand what she was trying to say. I have noticed that her writing is often witty and deep at the same time, even in this poem which seems to have a lighter tone to it.

English-Speaking Persons Will Find Translations

"English-Speaking Persons Will Find Translations", a poem by Michael S. Glaser, captures the way Americans treat the Holocaust and how ashamed we should be of out own past of genocide. Glaser describes tourists bringing their children up to the ovens at Dachau and posing them for the camera so they can tell everyone about the "amazing" trip they had in Germany, which is wrong on so many levels, its hard to describe. The author also talks about the movie playing in his hotel, one of the cowboy and Indian kind of things, one that shows Americans in a very bad light, but it still seems acceptable. Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Vietnam are also mentioned, proving the point that we have no reason to judge. What happened in Dachau was awful, almost to terrible for words, but what people where doing and the way we see it as a nice day trip is almost as bad, and Glaser makes this point beautifully in this poem.

Betsey Brown Post #2

The exposition of Betsey Brown really caught my attention. Betsey is sitting on a balcony, watching the sun come up over her neighborhood and captures the mood of the late 50's very well. This scene also gives us insight into what kind of person Betsey is. She is a helpless romantic, loves the quiet beauty of nature and the somewhat louder beauty of the spoken word. After Betsey returns from her sunrise watching she goes to take care of her mother, Jane. Jane is an interesting character, loving her family, but also seeming to have a dreamy side. I think Jane's gentle love makes her a great mother, at least so far in the book.

Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange

Betsey Brown lives with her four younger siblings, mother, father and grandmother, all in one small house. The author, Ntozake Shange takes time in the exposition of the book to describe this house, and Betsey favorite places in it, showing that this setting is very important for the rest of the story. In the first few pages we learn the Betsey is the daughter of a relatively young couple, Jane and Greer, and has some odd quirks. She likes acting, or as she calls it "elocution", likes to hide and describe stairs along with balconies. I like the writing so far, its eloquent and witty, and the characters are interesting.

The Good Thief By Hannah Tinti

When my mom first suggested this book to me I wasn't sure if I would like it, I'm more of a strong female lead kind of girl. My experience with historical fiction has been mostly with the Dear America diaries, almost all of which were weak female leads, and not the best writing I've ever read. So when I started reading I thought that I was in for a dry history lesson, but Tinti proved me wrong. She showed me that historical fiction can have interesting, three demential characters that are not total stereotypes. This book deals with a lot of issues, from orphanages to grave robbing and body snatching. Foremost is the issue of how people with physical deformities were treated in the late 19th century. We have a boy without a hand, a hairlip, a deaf woman, a giant and a dwarf, all of whom are trying to live as normal a life as they can. This book really captured the underbelly of society in the 19th century, complete with corrupt CEO's and double dealing doctors. I would recommend this book for anyone who can stand a little blood.

Haiku

I have some haiku on the side, down below "quotes", but here are some new ones:

Spring rain

puddles grow

in the basement

Drip, drip, drip

icicles pit

the snow drift

Milky way floats

in the sky

doubled in his eyes

Peaceful night

polaris floats

by the water lilly

Haiku Guy

Over February break we had to read Haiku Guy (cover on the right), a telling of the life of on of the famous haiku master, Issa's student "Buck-Teeth." I really enjoyed this book, the writing was a mixture of quietly yet powerfully descriptive and bluntly humorous, and this, I think, helped me most of all enjoy the story. Haiku Guy is set it Old Japan and New Orleans, giving the book a nice kind of juxtaposition, much like a haiku. David Lanoue tells us a story that he insists is being sent to him by a Buddha from the beyond and is full of colorful characters, most of whom we know only by their bamboo brush names, Buck-Teeth, Cup-of-Tea (Issa himself), Mido, Shiro, and Kuro are only some. We also meet people from the present, people in David’s writing group who give him advice on the book, and sometimes even enter its pages. This book is what you could call an instruction manual from the art of writing haiku, using the stories of Buck-teeth and his colorful friends as lessons, and then giving anecdotes from the authors own life to enforce the point he sis trying to make. I don't usually read instruction manuals on rainy Saturdays, but this one is really a great example of a rule breaker, because you would never know was it really is. The morals or the stories are so nicely wrapped up in elegant words and profound thoughts that you would never know you are learning the language of poetry. I would suggest this book to anybody, it has a bit of everything, its great for those rainy days you know your in the mood for something, but you don't really know what. Who knows you might become the next Cup of Tea with a little help from the master himself.

Last Words

This is our last "class required" post, but I'll try to keep posting questions, thoughts, and movements, because I've put A LOT of time into designing this bog. I don't really know what to say, do you ever know what to say in situations like this? Goodbyes are not my speciality, so I'm glad this isn't one of them. I feel like i just started this blog, and there are a lot of things i still want to post on it, so in the immortal words of The Beatles:

"You say goodbye and I say hello...I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello."

I'll write more soon!

Pointed Questions #2

I got kinda obsessed with questions, so got ahead and answer these if you want, its not class required or anything, but I think its just fun to see peoples responses.

1. If you had to live with one kind of the weather for a year what would you want it to be like?

2. Who is one person who has changed your life (for better or worse)?

3. Who is your role model?

4. What do you think happen after death?

5. Do these beliefs interfere with the way you act from day to day?

6. What is your favorite quote?

7. If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be?

8. When you blow the candles out what do you wish for?

9. If you were going to change your name, what would it be?

10. You have been told you have one more day to live, what would you do, who would you visit?

11. (I know I stole this from Clara, but its a good question) Whats the first thing that comes into your head... NOW?

Questions

1. You've just discovered a new planet, what do you call it?

2. what would be the most epic way to die?

3. How do you want to travel the world? I mean, everyone wants to travel the world.

4. Who would you die for?

5. Whats your favorite TV show?

6. What would your mutant power be in X-men? More importantly, what would your name be?

7. What would you say if i told you i dont like either pancakes or waffles?

8. Whats your favorite color? Why?

9. Whats your opinion on the Turducken? (if you don't know what it is, check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken)

10. How long did it take you to answer of these questions?

2021

This commercial really shows what I think the world might be like in 2021 if we don't do something about it, and this also ties into valentines day. I am not endorsing Motorola by posting this, I just like this commercial, so hears the link.

I don't really think that the world will be so Orwellian, but there will probably be some kind of loss of free will, not to sound too conspiracy crazy. It may already be happening, and we wont realize it until someone comes along and breaks the norm. I would like to think that the world would be like some of my favorite sci-fi novels. I'd like to combine all of the wonderful things of the future and leave out all of the control, normalcy, and conspiracies, but though I'm a daydreamer, I'm not that stupid. I know the world wont be full of hover boards, and anti aging pills, but we can still dream about it.

To someone who died in 1980, the world is a totally different place, but we think it's normal because we have grown up with it. If you think about it, we have computers so small that they fit into our pockets, and we have achieved flight, both within and outside of this atmosphere. We have just grown up learning everything by brand names, and single nouns that sum up what amazing things we have created, and that makes them seem like ordinary, everyday things. If we really look at the things around us, cars, plains, trains, computers, TVs, even our buildings, and we take them back to their fundamentals, they are much more extraordinary than we realize. Tin cans that can fly, drive, and hurtle through untamed country for miles, are what we have created; boxes that show pictures, pictures that move! And that can help us see people who are thousands of miles away. We even have "shelters" that are more than 1,250 feet tall. We have to face the fact that the future is hear, we have to stop trying to create it. This is it.

Movement of the World Post #1 Musical Motions

The man was tall. Tall, with overly long arms, and legs that must have been a disadvantage on small planes. He traveled a lot, it said so in the program I clutched in a seat at the back of the auditorium; to England, inland, Scotland, and all over Europe, so I am sure he has had experiences with planes, of all sizes. Even from up in the balcony, I could see how tall he was. He dwarfed his full sized, 300 year old instrument hunching over it protectively as he tuned. When he straightened up he didn’t say anything to the audience, no puns, no explanation; he knew what we were there to see, or rather hear, and it wasn't him cracking lame jokes.

The room was more than silent as he put horsehair to metal, the air was think with baited breaths and even the dust particles stopped to watch as he drew, in a long streak of crimson, the bow across the string, creating the first note of the rest of our lives.

I don’t believe that any art form, even this one, with its infinite words and phrases, metaphors and similes, can describe another, and that is why I will not waste my time with a lengthy description of what can never be conveyed in words alone. For that to be possible, this would have to be written in the curves of base clefs, and the lines of quarter notes, the periods at the end of my sentences would be marking dotted half notes. There is no way I can live up to the magnitude of his playing, but I can describe the way he moved, and interacted with us, his instrument, and the air its self.

His long fingers looked as thought he wasn't even holding the bow, as if it were floating thought the air, mealy guided by his arm. It would glide and then jerk, as if it were a ship on a stormy sea. He wore a blood red shirt with black slacks, the classic attire for a cellist, male or female. His shirt was so neat and crisp that every crease stood out clearly black against the crimson. Mountains, valleys and plains formed on his right sleeve, as he played first soft then loud, slow and then fast. He seemed to be acting out the music as much as playing it, his arms the curtains, fingers running up and down the fingerboard the actors, and his instrument the set.

His shadow, a warped double of himself, stood with him and bowed when he finished. he sat again, cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses with spidery fingers and then started the whole spectacle over again.

this is a description of a concert i went to last weekend with the world renowned cellist Steven Doane at Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music. Ben Doane, Steven Doane's son, plays at the same school that i do, with the same teacher, so i have met mr. Doane before, but this time I actually heard HIM play, and it really changed the way i look at playing an instrument.

Hot Air

I dont know if this is cheating, because this is one of my own pictures, but i really like the lighting, and mood of the picture. I took this one when i went to balloon festaval in dansvil with my friend and her grandparents. though few of the balloons took off because of wind, they were all inflated and tethered on the ground, this is a picture of one of my favorites being blown up, there are more pictures from the fair at the bottom of my page in my flickr photo stream.

Pointed Question #1

If there are gods, do they sleep? If they do sleep, what do they dream? If they dream, what must their nightmares be like? What scares gods so much that they wake up sweating?

Profoundly Random Thought #1 Paper Reflections

Have you ever looked at yourself in a fun house mirror? Or ever noticed your reflection in a rain studded puddle, or grime streaked subway window? I might go as far as to ask, have you ever looked up, late on some wet night, and seen yourself staring back at you through your black, rain streaked skylight? If you ever have seen your reflection warped, ripped, shattered or bent, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Walking down the street you pass broken glass, embedded in the mud beside the sidewalk, glittering just for a moment as it caches the sun. The grass, wet from last nights rain, is reflected, shattered in the broken bottle beside the daises. The white petals are fragmented, barely recognizable in the dirty glass resting in the shade of their leaves, but yet you know that they are a daisy, pure white and glowing in the warm spring sunshine.

It's the same with writing, this blog even. we write, and our images, our personalities are fragments, mixed up and cobbled together again, yet we know there is a human being on the other end of the wire, typing furiously to finish the post before the class it up.

you know that i am a high school girl, assigned to write this blog for my creative writing class, that my name is Amelia Carter, and you think you know me, but are you sure its not just my outer shell, with glittering bits of broken glass embedded in it, reflecting your shattered image back at you?

Posting

OK, i have to explain how I'm going to do this, or else this isn't going to make any sense to anyone but me. I'm in a book club outside of school, and in it we read The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, which is partly writing in journal entries. These journal entries are grouped into "Profound Thoughts" and "Journal of the Movement of the World", pretty self explanatory. I really liked this book, and have been using this format of recording thoughts for a while, so I thought I should start using it here. I've just changed the titles to "Profoundly Random Thoughts" and "Movement of the World." I've also added a category called "Pointed Questions" which are just question that make you think, you are not suppose to answer them. I just wanted to let you know how the posting was going to work, if its just me myself and I, and not school stuff, or other random things I think of. Thanks.

I Am...

I am... no, don't worry, I'm not going to write on of those "I Am" poems that you will be forced to write at the beginning of every english and creative class you will ever take, believe me, I've written and read enough of them not to make that mistake. But I have been instructed to tell you about me, and my plans for this blog, which are hazy at best, and I have to start somewhere, so here goes:

I am a high school student that is being forced to wirte this blog, for my creative writing class, ergo, the focus is writing. But I will be adding my own random thoughts about random things, and making lots of ranbom lists, plus, get ready for quotes galore! I'll post some links and ask for some suggestions for books, movies, music, etc. I've never really had a blog before, so I don't really know the kind of things you usually find on them, so please don't judge the subjects of these posts to harshly.

For the writing on the other hand, please give me your opinion, no mater what you might think, please be honest. there is no way I can get better if you don't tell me what to improve on, and please don't just say "good", a little more detail never hurt anybody. Thanks a lot for all your future comments!

I think thats it, I hope I did this post right... anyways, happy blogging!