Writing Art Life

A Moment Changes It All

Writing Art Life — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:02:04 +0000

Anthony Shadid’s 2003 article “In a Moment, Lives Get Blown Apart” is quite striking and provides much insight into how Iraqi citizens were affected by bombings from the U.S. military by giving names and showing their individual responses. Although it specifically describes one instance of an attack, one can gather how many more stories like this could be told in the decade that our military occupied their country. The people affected were civilians, just trying to keep up with their daily routine of work and family; these people were not the terrorists that America was seeking in retaliation of 9/11, or the people who supposedly held those “weapons of mass destruction” that we just happened to never find.

I find it sad that these people, some of whom likely having limited knowledge of the U.S., will now associate us with the nightmare that they went through. They will generalize all Americans to be the people responsible for turning their lives upside down by bombing their homes and places of business, disrupting their sense of safety They cannot humanize us if we do things like this to them. What about the little boy mentioned in the article, who says “the Americans are trying to kill my father”? Peace cannot be easily achieved in the first place, but the younger generations carrying that subhuman idea of us will certainly make peace much more difficult. Similarly, many (if not the majority) of Americans think that all Middle-Easterners are terrorists and are incredibly intolerable of the culture and religion, when they are not the Islamic extremists that pose a threat to the safety of our country.

My Childhood Playlist

Writing Art Life — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:34:46 +0000

For my music-themed post, I decided to share a certain phenomena that happens to me when I hear songs from when I was a kid. As it is, I have reason to believe I have more memories of my childhood than most other people based on things I’ve talked about with my friends. I think this makes it easier to remember a lot of the music I used to love, and also helps me recall memories associated with that music.

I’m sure everyone knows that feeling you get when you hear a song you haven’t heard in a long time. It takes you back to the time when you listened to it a lot, and it’s so closely tied to your memory you can even remember specific occasions of what you were doing when that song was playing. In a way, it helps you remember what your life was like back then better than if you just tried to think of it on your own.

Here is a playlist of songs that I listened to a lot when I was a kid that are special to me because of the memories they contain–I apologize in advance, but didn’t everyone like some less-than-respectable music at some point in their life? Don’t judge me!

#1. Always Be My Baby by Mariah Carey: This song came out when I was about 4 or 5 years old. I was living in Mobile with my parents and my older sister, who was about 15 or 16 years old at the time. Some of my most precious childhood memories are from this time, because it was the only time my whole family lived together (we moved when I was 5 and my sister stayed in Mobile to finish high school). I remember watching the music video and thinking how big those kids looked to me.

#2. If You Had My Love by Jennifer Lopez: When I was 7 or 8 this song was released, and I remember watching the music video on MTV back when they still played music (sneaking behind my parents’ backs, of course). This song reminds me of being bored all summer, laying on my sister’s bed so that I could watch her TV since I didn’t have one in my room, and starting to watch MTV a lot for the first time.

#3. Tearin’ Up My Heart by Nsync: Like most girls my age, I was an avid Nsync fan, and this was the first song by them I ever heard. This is what spurred me to buy their CD, and it was all downhill after that. This song reminds me of hanging out with my friend who lived down the street, and I thought she was just so cool for having her very own CD player with speakers in her room. We would listen to my Nsync CD, dance, sing along badly, and jump on her bed.

#4. I’m Blue by Eiffel 65: When this song came out it was around the time my parents got divorced, and the only way I heard it was when I would go visit my dad on the weekends. He must have lived closer to the radio station that played it all the time, because the only times I got to hear it were in his truck. I saw a commercial saying that their CD was being sold at Sam Goody, and I got him to take me to Sam’s and Goody’s to look for it, not knowing that Sam Goody was a completely different store! I finally acquired the CD somehow and listened to this song on repeat, much to my mom’s annoyance.

#5. The Sign by Ace of Base: I have a very distinct memory of this song, and it’s quite strange to me that I remember this. My sister and her friend came to pick me up from daycare one afternoon, and the weather was supposed to be severe later that day. I was deathly afraid of tornadoes as a child, so I was basically freaking out when they came to get me. To help calm me down, my sister’s friend grabbed my handheld fortune teller thingy and started moving it with her hands to make it look like it was singing along to the song on the radio, and this happened to be the song. It didn’t help calm me down, but it gave me a strange memory.

#6. Candyman by Aqua: Remember my friend I was talking about with her very own CD player in her room? Well, she and I would listen to this song all the time, the singing along and dancing never improving.

#7. I Want it That Way by the Backstreet Boys: My sister and I would listen to this song together all the time. I’m not sure that she even liked it that much, because she was about 18 at the time and that seems a little old for the Backstreet Boys, but at least she pretended to like it for me. We listened to it so much together that when she moved away I couldn’t bear to hear it without crying. To this day, this song brings back strong emotions of me missing my sister… strange for a cheesy Backstreet Boys song, huh?

#8. Dreaming of You by Selena: When I was 9, my best friend was a girl from Panama (the country, not Panama City) and she showed me the movie Selena, about the Mexican singer whose rise to fame was cut short by her getting killed by the president of her fan club. Although this is not my favorite Selena song (my favorites are all in Spanish), it brings back the most memories.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s Genius-try

Writing Art Life — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:30:05 +0000

Today in class we watched Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED.com talk again, and I must stress how much I love this one. Not only does she provide me with interesting facts that I can pull out like parlor tricks to impress my friends and family (such as the origins of the idea of a genius and the phrase “olé” coming from “Allah”), but she brings up important points about creativity and the doom that seems to surround the greatest creative thinkers. If artists believed in a power outside of themselves that brought them these great ideas, they would very likely be much happier people and perhaps not as prone to manic depression and alcoholism/drug addiction. In order to nurture one’s creativity, you should free yourself of the huge responsibility that comes with being a creative person — just let the ideas come to you, and be ready when they’re there. If you’re not ready when the ideas do pass through you, let go and accept that it wasn’t meant to be for you to give life to that poem or song or short story. Creativity does not have to correlate with despair; you will only be a tortured artistif you let yourself be. In my opinion, you shouldn’t put that much pressure on yourself, because the great ideas we are given as creative people are divine in nature and we are not meant to cope with the responsibility of producing them at will.

My Map

Writing Art Life — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:45:26 +0000

Web Writing Style Guide, Parte Dos

Writing Art Life — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:18:53 +0000

Before reading this guide, I didn’t put much thought into the importance of all of the little (and big) details that go into a blog, everything from the layout and content to the headlines and font. I am satisfied with most of these details on my blog, like the layout and the theme (after finally changing it from that eyestrain of a theme from last semester), but I usually don’t put much thought into the titles of my posts, and my headline/subheader isn’t exactly all that special. After all, I thought of it in about five seconds. Even though I don’t particularly wish to expand my audience beyond the academic setting, it still matters if my blog displays that I put effort and thought into it. Otherwise, I won’t get many readers other than the professor, and this class is supposed to be about sharing and collaborating. It’s funny how this guide mentions CRAP (contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity) because this just emphasizes their importance; these guidelines for layout and design were mentioned here. Basically what I took from this is to make more of an effort with my blog in every aspect, and to not just focus on the writing anymore.

“Beyond Black and White”

Writing Art Life — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:26:06 +0000

“Beyond Black and White: Document Design and Formatting in the Writing Classroom” solidifies common sense notions about the design and layout of your writing – the physical appearance – influencing your audience’s reaction and ability to interpret your work. One thing I took from this article is to not be afraid to include photos, graphs, or other types of graphics; I will make an effort to find appropriate graphics to supplement my blog posts from now on, because wouldn’t that just make things a tad more colorful and interesting? My only concern is applying these concepts to MLA-formatted work for other classes whose professors are just not as cool as Dr. Woodworth (to put it simply). I’ve never been adventurous enough to bold or italicize important words in “serious” papers before (and by serious, I mean worth many points), much less include graphics. At the same time, MLA (not to mention APA, AP, etc.) was developed so that there would be a consistent format of writing among a certain community so that the information within the documents would be easily interpretable without having to decipher a different format every time. None of my previous English teachers had enlightened me that you’re allowed to include graphics in MLA-formatted work.

Web Writing Style Guide

Writing Art Life — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:38:18 +0000

This Writing Spaces article has valuable information for those who are new to writing on the web. The introduction compares and contrasts the techniques of writing for a web page/blog/message board versus academic writing. Most of the same rules apply; your writing should be grammatically correct as well as organized and coherent. If your writing does not have these qualities you can easily dwindle your audience because everyone expects to be able to read something easily without having to decipher confusing styles. Unless your only intended audience is friends and family, you should avoid being too casual. Chances are, your audience will keep coming back if they feel that you put effort into your writing.

One big difference between regular writing and web writing that I neglected last semester is inserting links to your writing. (Notice the link I included!) It’s convenient for the audience to be able to just click to whatever article you are referencing instead of having to search for it (and chances are they won’t be interested enough to go through that trouble). Another major difference is the media you can supplement your writing with! You can include pictures, embed videos or audio recordings in your blog. Instead of the black ink against white paper with the Times New Roman, size 12-font with 1″ margins on all sides you turn into your professor, you can customize with colors, graphics, and backgrounds. You’re still writing efficiently while giving your audience a peek into your personality – or maybe even just a nice change of web scenery.

The chapter “Writing in the Genres of the Web” teaches the different settings in which you may write on the web and what patterns are appropriate for each. For example, Twitter is a social website in which one to two sentences are posted, while WordPress, LiveJournal, Xanga, and others usually have posts of several paragraphs. You also have to consider the audience you want to attract, because if you post a note on Facebook only your friends will see, and will not show up in search engine results. Another tip is to not ramble about pointless, generall uninteresting things. It will make you seem self-absorbed and inconsiderate of your audience. If you use your real name on your blog, be very careful about controversial topics or gripes about your job that could result in a pink slip from your boss. Besides, who wants to read about someone’s problems and complaints? That’s another deterrent from a potential audience.

This article has a lot of helpful tips for those with little blogging experience. Althought I’m not very interested in expanding my audience, I will still keep these “rules” in mind as I write for this class and hopefully improve by the end of the semester.

Charlie Todd’s Improv Absurdity

Writing Art Life — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:57:19 +0000

In this Ted.com talk, Charlie Todd shares his experiences with doing improv in public. Some of the things he and his accomplices did are technically pranks, I suppose, but they’re all in good fun. I actually wouldn’t mind doing something like that myself (except for the ones in which going pantless is involved). Some examples of his gags are wearing no pants – only his underwear – on the subway, and having some friends at subsequent stops get on the subway in the same getups (…or lack of them), while acting as if they do not know each other at all. A hidden camera observes a particular woman’s reaction to seeing him on the subway with no pants; initially she seems almost frightened, but once she makes eye contact with other observers who are laughing she smiles and laughs as well. He and some friends also devised a plan to go to a Best Buy wearing navy polo shirts with khaki pants (the uniform of Best Buy employees) and stand around doing nothing in the store. Imagine if you happened to be in the presence of one of the pranks by yourself - wouldn’t it be slightly strange? Maybe not depending on your personality, but it would be so much more fun to share the experience with other onlookers. That’s what his improv stunts are all about, I think – it’s about the pointless fun and sharing that experience with others. You don’t have to do something meaningful in order to make memories with other people. I hope our class does some kind of public improv this semester; not only would it be a great story to tell, but it would be something else that we can all share together.

Online “Filter Bubbles” and Wikipedia is Good for You?!

Writing Art Life — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:25:23 +0000

Eli Pariser’s TED.com talk “Beware Online ‘Filter Bubbles’” shocked me. I had no idea that Google search results are personalized. I realized that Facebook personalized your news feed based on your friends whose updates you click on the most often, but a search engine? I don’t like that. This can block information to everyone. It’s almost as if they’re trying to control what we see based on our personalities. And apparently it doesn’t matter if you’re logged in or not; Google will still change your results. I wonder why they feel the need to change things like this and assert more control over what we see.

“Wikipedia is Good for You!?” is a Writing Spaces article by James Purdy. I appreciate that someone finally realized that students are going to use Wikipedia anyway, so he talks about the ways to use it in order to get the most from it. I don’t feel that I learned anything from it, but it was nice to see that someone other than a student shares my opinion on Wikipedia.

I don’t know if everyone’s high school teachers did this, but I was always taught repeatedly how to analyze sources to verify their credibility. Naturally if there are outrageous claims or possibly an ulterior motive, you throw it out the window. And with Wikipedia, there are often not any sources listed. There may be sources for different sentences in that certain article, but if the particular sentence you are reading is not cited, you’re out of luck as far as Wikipedia goes. However, whenever there is a citation and you can verify it, you have just discovered another source that you didn’t know about before. In this respect, Wikipedia can be very helpful when you’re researching for an assignment. As James Purdy puts it, Wikipedia is a good starting place. I would never try to cite Wikipedia itself, though.

I will admit that I am guilty of sometimes believing claims on Wikipedia that are not cited, but only when my grade doesn’t depend on it. Usually when this happens it’s about something I don’t care about that much, anyway.

Isn’t Wikipedia such a great thing? There’s so much information available in once place. Instead of using a search engine and having to browse endless websites to find out something, you can just type it in and Wikipedia has it all in one place for you. Its credibility needs improvement, but even so it’s a threat to printed or online encyclopedias that you have to pay for.

The Big Assignment

Writing Art Life — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:09:08 +0000

I have to admit, within the past few weeks I’ve suffered heavily from some self-induced stress in writing these papers. I’m grateful to have such unique assignments that I actually learn from, but I have GOT to stop procrastinating! I’ll have wrinkles when I’m 25 at the rate I’m going.

I learned a lot from writing these papers about the Civil Rights movement. I had always learned about it in school growing up, so much that I became desensitized to it. Once you become numb to something like that it’s hard to muster up enough interest to learn more about it, but I learned from a completely new angle in this class.

Like I’ve mentioned before, school textbooks leave out the gory details of what people suffered during their fight for equality. I understand not wanting to scar little kids for life, but to some extent you need to know how much these people sacrificed. If not, you can easily just take your rights for granted and not realize how hard some people fought just to be treated human. I think it’s especially important for young black people to realize what their grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations had to do, because it’s so close to home for them even if their own ancestors weren’t involved.

What would you do if your rights were taken away? How far would you be willing to go? It’s hard for me to answer this question since I’ve never been in that situation. We are all very lucky to have been born in the United States; sure, the U.S. has its problems, but imagine living somewhere without humanitarian ethics. I know that I wouldn’t hesitate to protest or participate in demonstrations. I would always remain nonviolent like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s followers, even if that meant having to get pepper sprayed or shoved around by the police. What’s so great about that is there’s usually more civilians than there are police, so if there is an issue everyone wanted to unify for, everyone would have strength against the police. I think that helped the Civil Rights protestors: there were always more people for them than against them, so they eventually won.

I hope I never have to find out how far I would go to keep my freedom. We should never take for granted how great our lives are, or underestimate how bad things could actually be.