CreComm Assignments Page

From time to time instructors ask us to blog and specified topics, some of which I put on my designated "Crecomm Assignments" page. Since there's only two days left of CreComm, I figured I'd delete the page for the summer. Besides, I only have two assignments on there anyway, and now...I have them below.

Enjoy!

Journey for Justice 

March 30, 2012

I thought it was really smart to start the story right on the day Candace disappeared. It may seem tempting to starts with some family history or information about the city, but Mike McIntyre made the right decision on how to start. It is an engaging read right from the beginning, which lead me to keep reading.

His intro started with Mark Grant being interviewed as someone seemingly getting back on track with his life, and ended with letting the readers know that Grant was Candace’s murderer. This may seem unusual but because it is a true crime novel and not a work of fiction, conducting the intro this way made sense.

There were too many doctor reports towards the middle of the novel. This slowed down the engagement of the story and was hard to get through. From what I gathered, most of the doctors had said pretty much the same thing; Grant is likely to re-offend.

As a journalist it is important to remember that when you’re writing an article, you’re writing a story. McIntrye’s book wasn’t filled with fluff, but with facts and strong quotes, but he still managed to tie everything together to make things flow rather than sounding like a long list of facts.

I was not impressed with how the presentation went. McIntyre started off the seminar by talking about his role in this book, and other book’s he’s written previously, which was fine. However, he talked for the first 30minutes. Then he finally turned it over to Wilma Derksen, who I was more interested in listening too. She talked for 12 minutes then McIntrye cut her off and told her it was time for us to ask questions, but then he did one last rant about himself. Not cool!

 

Fall 2011

Bloggin' Love

Skepticism

I never really thought that I would become a blogger. I used to read a few blogs years ago, but was always bored with the content. From what I saw, people mostly used their blogs to complain about all the terrible things that happen to them in their life. You know, waiting in line at Tim Horton’s for more than 10 minutes, being cut off in traffic, the cold winter weather that always seems to surprise Winnipeggers when it approaches; such horrible things that they can’t wait to get on a computer and blog about. To me, most people seemed to use their blogs as their journal and unfortunately the ones I read, weren’t very interesting. And so, I didn’t want to become one of those who bored people with the mundane details of my life; who cares right?  I felt the same way about Facebook. I didn’t see the point or the excitement of updating your status every few minutes outlining details of your day that nobody wants to read.  

Conversion

Of course, I gave into Facebook a couple of years ago. I don’t update my status 11 times a day like a lot of people do, but it does have its uses and entertainment value. But it wasn’t until I started CreComm this fall, that I started blogging. We were asked to pick a topic or a theme for our blog and as I’m sure you’ve noticed I picked the theme of starting my own clothing line. So far I’m having a lot of fun with it and learning a lot about fashion and the industry. I like having the chance to incorporate what I learn into my blog, so that other people with similar interests can learn new things as well, along with sharing some of their knowledge and experience with me.

For example, one of my fellow Crecommers and bloggers, Monique Pantel, commented on the pictures I posted about my design sketching attempts. She referred me to a website where I can print out outlines of people so I can just draw the clothing on them to make things easier. I haven’t tried it yet but I know it will definitely come in handy. Check out Monique Pantel's blog. If the link take you to a page with a beautiful blonde at the top, then you've arrived at the right place :D

It’s a really good feeling when people comment on your blog posts, because it lets you know that people are actually reading your blog, and are interested in what you’re writing. I’ve slacked off a little bit with posting, but hope that I will soon get back into the swing of things.