Wordle – fun, fun, fun! November 4, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Gibberish, Media, New Media, Superfluous musings, Technology, Writing.add a comment
Check out this fun toy. I played with this blog and created a pretty fun image of words in random colors/fonts/directions that sizes each word according to how frequently it appears in the particular text sample. You’ll see what I meant!
It’s a cool little applet that I stumbled upon while reading an RSS feed from an Intel blog and it’s really quite a fun way to visualize your text. I like that they’re described as clouds and also the fact that they show just what’s been most prominent in your writing, whether you like it or not, whether you expected it or not. 
Hypocrisy turns yet another eerily dangerous corner September 6, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Civics, Elections 2008, Media, Psyche, Writing.add a comment
The United States cries foul when other countries suppress their freedom of the press, yet…
I don’t know about you, but this worries me! If the United States starts arresting its own protesters and journalists and charging those who dare speak out and question any political establishement with terrorism of all things… then why should the rest of the world pay attention to our condemnation of the Chinese censorship of the Internet, the Russian mysterious killings of journalists, kidnappings of newscasters and closing of media outlets in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the open prosecution of reporters in the Philippines?
Belated Obama speech notes April 24, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Education, Elections 2008, Family, Grad school, Life, New Media, Reminiscing, Superfluous musings, Writing.add a comment
Been meaning to translate the few notes I had jotted down about Obama’s speech on race in the United States into typed words… and the notepad sheets have been sitting on my desk for weeks now. First of all – note that video on the Barack Obama web site is a YouTube video of the CNN footage – just pointing that out as a new media enthusiast and Wikinomics reader. Now to my thoughts, randomly jotting down about the time of the speech – mid-March:
I would love to have analyzed the speech from pure rhetoric theory because his speeches are usually written as textbook examples of following basics that enhance the message and complement an otherwise inspirational delivery (starting with a hook, weaving through reoccurring themes, starting and beginning with the same topic to frame the speech in a whole and bring it to a natural conclusion - and a slew of other techniques (like anecdotes, jokes, etc.) that make the speech so much easier to follow and engaged with). But I won’t go down that path because I am rusty and to begin with I only had the 101 speech class knowledge to rely on.
The white grandmother anecdote make some cringe. They wouldn’t do that to their grandmothers – embarrass them like that in front of the whole nation, critics said. The story was genuine, it was about “covert” racism, the kind that is not on the surface or even recognized by the person wielding it. I wondered about that too. There is a person in my immediate family who I could say a lot of the same about, on a very similar, close-to-heart story. But would I? Actually, I would. I don’t see why not. I don’t see how making the anecdote public is condemning them as a bad person. Everyone has some bias or another. But all has to be put in context of each person’s unique world view. Otherwise, we would all be hypocrites.
Obama did put the story of his white grandmother in context. And I am glad he did so. It is a much more common story nowadays with so many mixed couples of so many different backgrounds, and certainly not just in the United States.
Obama put the story of his grandmother in context like he put the story of his pastor in context – he grew up in an era of suppression of black people’s potential and opportunities. There are certain attitudes in my family I dislike as well, but I am not about to disown them. I know the context in which they were raised and their world views formed (in Bulgaria), my world view is a product of theirs and my own experiences – it’s a new prism (Bulgaria, the United States and brief trips to many other countries only since 2004 – until then I only knew these aforementioned two countries… odd isn’t it?).
I took issue not with his mention of his grandmother’s bias, but with his comment about jobs abroad. The thought of a protectionist president in today’s global and vibrant economy just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Listening to his speech gave me a new wave of ideas for a book or thesis – perhaps something I can work on after grad school acceptance when I’m more relaxed about my future but still with some buffer time before I tackle it head-on.
racism/Obama’s experience & world viewe/speech/immigration/my experience & world view/global economy
I look back at my own past attitudes and the growth and learning I’ve experienced consciously and subconsciously and it scares me somewhat. I tell the anecdote of the African exchange students (college level) at the public transportation bus stop outside the English language high school and my classmates’ hurtful comments; I also frequently share the story about a journalism teacher who really pushed me to look inside myself and recognize those learning moments in my first weeks in the United States when I met people of different ethnicities and cultures for the first time. Those memories are insightful but also bitter and painful because they prove I wasn’t perfect and by extrapolation it means that I may not be at the end of that journey yet – and that’s what truly scares me.
Nostalgia for a type of writing art April 24, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Food, Grad school, Media, Reminiscing, Superfluous musings, Work, Writing.add a comment
Took my lunch at a nearby mall, as I often do, a few days ago. I like to go there because there’s a Starbucks on the top floor that I like and if I’ve brought food from home I can either get a coffee and sit there to read my book or go to the food court, not buy anything and sit, read, and eat my packed lunch. Of course, if spring would come around, I would start eating my lunch in the park outside the office. 
I digress.
What’s also nice about going to that mall is that frequently there is something going on outside in the town square (a festival or protest with a whole bunch of horse-mounted policemen patrolling) or in the mall itself. So this particular afternoon there were several perishable food sculptures in the small fountain and plant area in the mall. I saw them from the second floor and was on my way out by then, but I wanted to take a picture of them and talk to the slew of junior-high-aged students standing around them… and I wanted to write a blog about it and partner it with some photos. The next day I went back, this time with a camera, and while I didn’t take pictures (I had lunch and then went shopping with a coupon that was expiring, leaving me next to no time to get back to the office after my long break), I did look at one of signs and it turns out they are world hunger awareness projects, like a competition for sculptors who arranged canned food, spaghetti and boxes of Crisco into: two giant robots boxing inside a rink, an oversized monopoly board with dice, etc., a humongous red apple with a curled worm coming out of it, and a crusie ship.
I guess my pangs of nostalgia for journalism surface when I see something cool like that, especially given the world food crisis that’s all over the news lately. This would be a story of how some local companies (well “local” being relative) like Whole Foods partnered to do this competition and raise awareness.
It’s strange because I don’t have a strong desire to go back to journalism. It is a dying art and the pay is pretty deadly too. But at the same time I am worried I don’t have a niche yet. The comfortable feeling of writing features is starting to stir up again and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
At least there are steps being taken toward the grad school path, which is helping me breathe easier – GRE class starts this weekend! Yay!
In retrospect: Missing academia November 13, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Grad school, Life, Reminiscing, Writing.add a comment
This weekend was a wonderful one. It was Nate’s 30th birthday. It was a wonderful, intimate celebration with brunch, dinner and cake, and keeping everything low key and fun. We discovered a great new brunch restaurant in the Pearl District – Isabel’s and we went to our favorite Indian restaurant for dinner. We spent Saturday afternoon at Wordstock, the Portland writers’ convention. I went into the festival thinking I would enjoy browsing books, perhaps talk with some publishing houses about the outlandish idea of writing a memoir – my mother’s dream more so than mine, but of late, seriously considering it myself for my own reasons.
I thought I might see a few school represented. I wasn’t mistaken there. (I was, however, not so lucky with the publishers looking for new talent… they were there, mostly local companies, looking to promote their most recent products… understandable. No big deal anyway, although I would have been curious to have a chat with someone.) I made a contact with a University of Oregon professor who runs the undergraduate internship program in Portland. He said he knows our company’s owner. I’m getting used to that – everyone seems to know him. It was just like everyone knowing a college professors of mine from the journalism department, who had spent decades working for the Tacoma News Tribune and other prominent media outlets in the Puget Sound area and elsewhere.
It was nice to have made a professional connection. I am supposed to be doing more networking anyway.
That wasn’t nearly as inspiring, though, as the two lectures we heard. They were talks as part of the Wordstock schedule of speakers and the first presentation we heard was from hosted by the University of Oregon. The topic was Investigative Journalism and the three panelists were Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada of the San Francisco Chronicle, and Nigel Jaquiss, a Pulitzer prize winning reporter from the Willamette Week (a Portland alternative weekly newspaper). It is not that the discussion made me realize that I miss the grind of day-to-day journalism work (not to deny that I like that and have fond memories of it, mixed in with a few bitter ones – for learning experience’s sake), rather the inspiration came in the form of a realization that I am desperately starved for lectures, discussions, research into current and developing trends in journalism and international relations. I miss school. I’ve been reading up on grad school prospects lately – just trying to get a sense of what grad school would be like – and I am not 100 percent certain if I miss the undergraduate academic experience in and of itself (i.e. a strong sense of community within the departments, etc.) or what I gather is the graduate school experience (i.e. more research-focused, narrow topics, a lot more 1:1 work with professors (which I actually really tended to enjoy in undergraduate as well), more stringent workloads, etc.). Whatever it is that I was reminiscing for (not that I can reminisce about grad school when I’ve never attended one), the tug to academia was strong and I just wanted to jump back in, dive into the discussions, attend a million more events where I could hear panels like this one, and write papers about them, quote excerpts from the talks in my research on the subject, ask questions and engage the panelists in a lengthy and well-informed discussion afterwards…
A few of snippets I collected in my little notebook (I couldn’t help it… I resisted for a long time, but finally caved to taking notes):
- scoops will be more important as journalism changes and becomes more competitive (Lance)
- newspapers are dying; it will be a slow death, but they will die and not enough revenue is generated online yet (Nigel)
- Federal prosecutors go after reporters every few weeks; not about protecting reporters, but about public information and public access; states have shield laws; Federal – not; hence the problem; understand the concern of “online journalists” who wonder if they will be protected by a Federal level shield law, but the issue is greater than that (Lance)
- bring it on – because our stories were “extreme lawering” – question was: will you get civil lawsuits by Bary Bonds if he’s not indited for the drug use you uncovered (Mark)
- editor vs sensor & how do you define a citizen journalist & should they be covered by a Federal shield law? (yours truly)
There were 100-150 people at this panel (thank you Joanne for teaching me to always jot down an estimate of the number of attendees at any event… scan the room, cont a group of people of about 10 to see what the looks like and then extrapolate/estimate the rest of the crowd). What struck me is that very few were young people. Perhaps predictable given the venue was Wordstock but a bit disappointing considering the stage hosting the panel was the University of Oregon. Not many in the audience were journalists, I judge that by the questions during the Q&A – including what is the Federal shield law (currently in the works) and who falls under it, etc. The topics in the discussion interested me immensely … I was on the edge of my seat, nodding, smiling at the panelists when they made a point I was familiar with, getting overly excited when they mentioned a concept I remember studying… But the trouble is, I do not want to work in the field anymore… or if I do, it is likely not in community newspapers where I belong (done that, not my cup of tea, unfortunately). I don’t believe I have a good grasp on what I need to be as a journalist and I have heavy criticism for myself when it comes to keeping the readership in mind when researching and writing a story. I think I belong in the research and teaching area of the discipline, especially interested in law, ethics and new media angles. However, I also know that it would be difficult to impossible to obtain a grad school degree and teach a subject so hands on in its nature where I have such a minimal term of experience.
It is a dilemma yet to be resolved. Than you, Nate, for talking me into stopping at this panel. Wish I had caught the one on magazine writing, one of my unexplored passions.
The second inspirational talk we listened to at Wordstock was from Adrian Tomine, a graphic novelist who had recently put out a new book. Nate hadn’t heard of him specifically, but being such a devoted reader of the genre, he wanted to hear this author’s take. Of course, he ended up buying the book afterward, devouring it by the end of the weekend and now I can’t wait to read it myself.
What was inspiratoinal to me was that he seemed like a great story teller, witty, yet carrying a lot of sadness and heavy wisdom. Young man. Very familiar looking. A bit harsh and cold from a distant perspective, but warming up to you very much while his talk takes you away into his creative process, his intriguing inspirations, his interesting and frank take on the craft that is graphic novel creation.
Here are my random notes from that session (yes, indeed, I caved again and took notes in my notebook… the fact that I brought a little notebook just shows how well I know myself and how I anticipated to miss the academia during this experience):
- lives in New York City (Brooklyn) with his wife; how contemporary; I want that for Nate and I – should we both go the artsy, creative route vs. the service-oriented research and academia route;
- dinner scene @ restaurant (sushi) – where a couple next to them were discussing his latest book; the woman had recommended it, the man was heatedly criticizing it;
- San Francisco (SoHo district) (Nate and I recently visited San Francisco after I was there on a business trip, my second time in the city, his – first; I visited with a Bulgarian friend who lives there now too) – used it in his book too; the architecture, the culture, inspirational;
- the viability of this genre and making a living in it (when before he was sleeping on the floors of comic book shop owners);
- and then the restaurant where the woman pushed his coming to her boyfriend’s attention; the man taking it seriously enough to critique in depth rather than dismiss it; and also this discussion in public and at length – they were not ashamed at all; just how has our society changes with comic books…
- English major @ University of California, Berkley; works in studio, acts out & speaks out loud the gestures and dialog his characters do – to make a more realistic representation on the page; his method changed – from scripting first and then drawing off of a Word-typed, listed format script, to sketching and writing at the same time;
When feedback is bitter October 15, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Writing.1 comment so far
Taking criticism well is an admirable quality. I have always been impress, and a little jealous, of those people who can take harsh criticism with a smile and turn it into a positive, productive learning experience for themselves.
For months, if not a year, now I have been doing little to now actual writing at work. Sure, I write dozens of e-mails a day and edit a fair share of technical papers, contributed articles, whitepapers, and who knows what other documents. Once in a blue moon, I’ve written an abstract, and that has taken a few revisions. I am rusty. I used to write 3-4 newspaper articles per week and when I was in school I used to write my papers first-draft only (no revisions, no edits… except maybe the occasional grammar or spelling typo that I fixed on a quick read-through).
It is true that on more than one occasion my writing has fallen rather flat. I also know that everyone, sometimes especially the best, need a good editor. Heck, I think I’m a better editor than writer.
It is also true that it has been a while since I wrote anything of substance. I did put a deal of effort into this most recent piece, though, and even though quite a bit about target audience and what the content, voice, and style of the narrative should be given the readership.
Yet, I fell flat. Very flat. It hurts when that happens in the professional world, but I’m sure it would have hurt more if it was in the academic, because I take that more personally.
What was particularly stingy about this snub, was the fact that all the comments were negative. Mind you, they weren’t purposely mean, but that only made me wonder whether I was being spared, given that I preempted sending the draft by speaking with that person about how out of shape my writing is.
When I was still relatively new at and tantalized by journalism, I did a feature story on the county fair – a school for food judges. I learned something there that I included in that story (and got praise for from the editor, who also used to rip apart my articles, though much more “nicely”) and that morsel of wisdom is with me – just like so many of the things I’ve been soaking up like a sponge, the way my math teacher in seventh grade used to say. The lady teaching the food judges’ course at the fair said that when they write their comments, they should do so using the Oreo cookie method: say something positive to start off, then provide the constructive criticism, and close off with another positive comment.
I’ve tried to live by this rule when I edited peers’ papers, when I taught ESL, when I’ve given pretty much any feedback on peoples’ writing. When my writing doesn’t get the same dessert treatment, I tend to block it out or recoil into infinite cycle of mounting self-criticism.
I wish I had an Oreo cookie method for receiving criticism.
Reflections on challenges of writing September 29, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Writing.1 comment so far
One of the most difficult things about writing is knowing your audience. Here is where blogging puzzles me. Who – if anyone – is reading this? How should I structure my musings? Who should I write for and how?
This is what I found most challenging about journalism as well. Often times I found myself writing something that the people I interviewed appreciated and praised. My sources were always happy. My readers – I don’t know. I don’t recall ever hearing back from any of them. (I probably did and it was probably negative feedback, so I must have blocked it out of memory.) This uncertainty, feeling lost as to my audience, is one of the contributing factors to the conclusion I reached that I was not a quality journalist. It is difficult to write with a specific audience in mind. Blogs can easily turn into journals. There is nothing wrong with that. However, what appeals to me more as a writer is those bloggers (or You Tubers – as I’ve had a bit more experience following some of those v-loggers’ work) who create a following because they are either captivating storytellers and keep an audience interested simply with their narrative style; or those who provide skillful and tantalizing commentary on current issues or topics of specific interest to groups of people – thus luring in an engaged and faithful following.
In either case, it seems as though I need a story to tell and I need to tell it well. These first few entries feel like baby steps, as though I’m re-learning how to write the way I did in college. Funny thought. Yet so applicable. I hope my writing grows up.
On procrastination September 28, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Life, Writing.add a comment
I feel quite tardy jumping in the Blogosphere space. For years I’ve skimmed at friends’ blogs, glimpsed at newsworthy ones, mulled over the thought of starting my own and then suffocating it. The tentative approach is due to an idea of “public diary” that I find rather unappealing.
Recently, however, thanks to a person whose opinion I value greatly, I’ve come to view blogging in a new light – as a venue for reflecting on professional dilemmas, career choices, life lessons, educational endeavors, current events, politics, and a slew of other outward-focused topics. It is a way to write again which I don’t get to do too much lately, one of the things I do miss about newspaper work.
The reflections to follow will be more focused and for that matter more reflective.
