Final Portfolio

The Link

“The Importance of Being Earnest” premieres Spring Sing Weekend – picture

http://thelink.harding.edu/index.php/arts/1120-harding/756-qthe-importance-of-being-earnestq-premieres-easter-weekend

Smiles for Christ talent show raises money for children in Honduras – audio slideshow

http://thelink.harding.edu/index.php/arts/1120-harding/912-smiles-for-christ-talent-show-raises-money-for-children-in-honduras

Seniors involved in real-life application final projects – Slideshow

http://thelink.harding.edu/index.php/features/2-harding/914-seniors-involved-in-real-life-application-final-projects

Class Work

Journalism job post

I outlined the qualifications needed for the position of managing editor for Orion Magazine, what skills I would need to obtain and how I am working toward that.

Personal Blog

I have posted 12 total personal blogs including my own photos on each one, excluding the cow picture on the technology one.

Job Blog

I found a job description that interested me: managing editor for Orion magazine. Orion is a bimonthly magazine that is focused on the odd combination of nature and culture. The pairing caught my interest, and I checked out their web-site, which featured beautiful pictures of nature and articles about economy, global ethics and naturalism. The magazine publishes six times a year and constantly posts multimedia content onto their website.

The managing editor’s duties would include brainstorming, writing and editing features. He or she would edit print and online material; organize meetings and magazine content; oversee contracts, interns and freelancers; and manage communication between editorial, marketing, development and digital media.

Most of the listed guidelines are character traits, such as a creative, reflective, flexible, have “a belief in the power of writing,” understand the importance of the “marriage” of print and digital, and independently motivated. The only real qualification they list is at least five years of experience as a “managing or senior-level editor for a reputable general-interest or literary magazine.”

I know I’ll need to enter a business in an entry-level job first, but I look forward to being qualified for a job like this. I’m trying to try as many different writing styles as I can. I’m especially excited about my magazine internship this summer. Magazine writing is completely different from newspaper writing, so my new editor told me. I’m really excited to learn a new style and master it. I’m also exploring many different subjects as I write through college. I’ve even tried sports. I’m advancing my photography and graphic design skills, taking pictures and designing pages for The Bison.

You mean this counts in real life, too?

A graphic designer designs his space

I recently did a story on final projects for The Bison, and I got to watch a lot of seniors going through the stress, excitement and learning of senior projects. I can’t believe I’ll be a senior next year. I still remember that moment in sixth grade when I couldn’t even imagine what college would be like and how relieved I was I didn’t have to worry about what I wanted to do the rest of my life yet. I wonder what I would say to that little girl if I could reach back in time. “Oh my goodness, you have no idea how fast life is going to come at you. College will be here in no time. Pick a major now!” Or “Six years really isn’t that long. Enjoy this time while you can. Being a kid is really better than you think, haha.”

I took a personality test once, and one of the characteristics of my personality type (INTJ, woo!) was a need for closure. And that’s completely true. I can’t walk out the door before saying ‘bye’ to everyone in the room. So when I thought about senior projects, I thought of it as a goodbye from your teachers that have watched you grow in your major. They’re so unlike other final projects you’ve had and they remind you that you might have a career doing this one day. It tells you, after you finish this, you don’t have to come back after another summer break.

Some final projects remind you why you love your major. My suitemate Laura Lovett did her education unit on Africa, with tons of little projects and learning activities for her future students. You should have seen her glowing after she was done though. She just beamed when she thought of teaching these things to kids one day.

The graphic design majors were putting up their best projects for display in the art gallery one week, and I watched them as they sorted through their work from the past four years. At one point, senior Brian Hodges stood back and just looked at his wall. I just wonder what was going through his head as he viewed the accumulation of his college career.

I have one more year to say goodbye, but I know it will go by quickly. Just like it did in sixth grade.

Our newest pet

The Bison's newest pet

Well, here’s to my favorite pot of mold in the Bison office. Hopefully the only one. We just didn’t have to time to clean our loyal coffee pot in the past three weeks (probably more than that) while we were whipping out the the third best college newspaper in the state, according to the Arkansas College Media Association.

But where would we have been without that coffee the first week back after Christmas break, recovering from shopping, turkey and sleeping in? Or midterms week when we drank the coffee to dull the guilt we felt for writing articles instead of studying for our 200-point tests. That may have been the last time we used it actually.

But from our neglect, life has spawned. And what diversity! There must be at least six different cultures in there. I’m just glad we found them before we left for the summer. Who knows what could have happened if we had let the life cycle continue. We could come back to an intelligent creature that lives off coffee! But he would fit right in with the Bison staff.

What is time?

Bisons for Christ - Humane Society

People enjoy helping people (and animals). People enjoy that warm feeling inside that they get when they help someone who needs it. The thank-yous from an elderly woman, the smile of a child and the tail wag of an excited puppy all make it worth it.

To most Harding students, service is never a laborious, time-consuming duty. It’ something  so much better than that. It takes some time out of our busy schedules, sure. But what is time to a family whose house burned down a week ago and is living in a small apartment that doesn’t feel like home at all? What is time to the widower whose yard has grown up to his waist but would rather have a real conversation than his lawn mowed?What is time to an animal when it has been locked in a cage for weeks with sparse attention that is already stretched between the limited staff? Your time is everything.

When technology goes bad

There is a moment when your computer hesitates before a very important action where you watch the screen, waiting for movement. You’re holding your breath. Your chest is tight; your tear ducts are ready to open the flood gates. You’re begging it out loud, “Oh please, oh please, oh please” and making promises to finally let Windows update if it just works. Finally, Word saves your 20-page paper you forgot to save when you first opened the document. You exhale joyously and thank it out loud while you silently hate the stupid piece of hard ware for even scaring you in the first place. You slam it shut, hoping Santa Claus might have enough cash sitting around this year to get you a new computer that doesn’t corrupt your Word documents, crash your Internet every five minutes and turn your iTunes a strange pink.

Technology was supposed to make my life easier. But why has it forced me to allow an hour for starting up Photoshop in my photo-editing process? Why is exploring my C drive like blazing a trail through a tropical forest with a butter knife? I keep this computer because it works. But can I REALLY say it works if it is constantly causing me to lose precious time I set aside for homework?

There will always be something faster and smarter than the piece of technology I own, but how long should I tolerate the unjust burden of my aging lap top? I could compare it to a calf. At first, it runs and jumps through the fields, active and adorable. But then, as time passes, the calf begins to slow and fatten. Eventually the calf needs so much time feeding itself that it no longer has time for “extra” activities. The calf becomes a large, fat, lazy cow. Is my calf ready to be made into a hamburger?

Well. My birthday IS coming up. Mommy. Daddy.  : )

Writing for Mass Media Portfolio

The Link

“A little less paint, a little more noise”

http://thelink.harding.edu/index.php/sports/3-harding/396-a-little-less-paint-a-little-more-noise

        The Rhodes Rowdies, Harding’s dedicated basketball fans, experience a student-driven revival, marked by the high attendance of the Jan. 30 men’s game against Ouachita Baptist University.

“Talent show raises money for Honduran youth”

http://thelink.harding.edu/index.php/news/1-harding/441-talent-show-raises-money-for-honduran-youth

Musicians from Harding and the Searcy community participated in Smiles for Christ’s talent show at the Underground Feb. 12 to raise money for children who live in the dump in the capitol city of Honduras.

This story was posted from the Bison web-site.

I am still planning on creating an online slideshow for this storywith audio and photos I took myself. I’ll complete this as soon as we figure out the technical issues.

Burksy’s

I posted the list of nominees along with a small blurb the day they were announced in chapel. However, this has since been updated and removed.

Class Work

Web-site review

Using the six advantages of a web-site, I defined how National Geographic’s web-site implements its high-quality interactivity, immediacy, permanence, mobility, flexibility and capacity.

Personal Blog

I blogged to my wordpress account each week accompanying every blog with a photo, creating a flexible photoblog.

Smells like spring

 

Sunray Flowers

I couldn’t help it. I went to Riverside today. Granted, half my classes were cancelled today, but I could have been doing more productive things. Like this blog. But I really needed my Vitamin D after a rough midterms week.

I didn’t mind thinking with the sun in my eyes today. It was like looking ahead to brighter plans. Every minute closer I get to stepping into Nicaragua, I get more and more excited.

Listening has always come easy to me. From childhood, I would listen to others and respond with only what I thought was important to say. That’s why I’m ready to meet these people, with their different world view and culture shaping everything they want to say. I’m ready to listen to the stories people are dying to tell. I want to hear what is important to these people.

I want to capture their personality in photo as well as in words. You can see so much in someone’s eyes, body language and smile. I’m ready to look at a photo and see the emotion pouring out of every glance. There’s something about a photo that can give me goosebumps and inspire me to pursue the beauty in everything.

The sun is shining. What more can I ask for today? May the sun shine on Nicaragua.

Chalk dust

 

Dusty Blues

When I was in school, we used chalkboards. But a sporadic outbreak of kids allergic to chalk dust emerged during my upper elementary years. Maybe the lawsuits from sneezing children’s parents led to the invention of whiteboards. My teachers just made them sit in the back. I miss chalkboards though: the screech of white against green, the dusty swipe of the eraser. I remember the powder sticking to my sweaty palms as I stood in front of the class unsure of the math problem above my head.

Whiteboards just don’t generate the same classroom atmosphere. There is never the ear-piercing screech of calcium sulfate, only an awkward squeak when the marker is running low.

Who even needs a whiteboard anymore? Slap it on a PowerPoint and project it onto the pull-down screen. No more texting while the teacher’s back is turned as he/she writes out a particularly detailed diagram concerning the history of cardboard. A single click brings up a plethora of notes a student cannot dream of copying down before the next slide. 

Gone are the days of passing notes as you wait for the notes to be written out. Goodbye sunlight filtering through the chalk dust as you sleepily follow the teacher erasing the last math problem. No more chain sneezing. But what I will miss most is the attention-grabbing shriek that could snap every drowsy head up from an afternoon nap.

End of Day Wind Down

 

Amnesia

It seems like people’s most vulnerable points of the day are when the sun rises, the moment of beginning: how you start your day may affect how you handle everything that it brings; and when the sun sets, the moment of end: watching the light of day disappear as you replay the day’s events can bring you a feeling of accomplishment or of dread. After a full day of classes and work, I crave the moment I can just sit in my car and stare mindlessly at the sky. If I’m lucky, the sky will be full of life that evening and capture my thoughts until the night swallows the sun. It’s a moment I use to put out of my mind all the homework I have due that night, stop dwelling on the questions I wasn’t sure about on my midterm or forget that I tripped in front of the entire class. For a few minutes I don’t know what school is. I don’t remember what I have to finish at work. All I remember is what color the clouds are.