Amara's Blog

It’s safe to say that I was struggling to get through my homework this week. With 2/3 of my top 3 favorite holidays, Thanksgiving and my birthday, happening last week I couldn’t help but be distracted.

Nonetheless I squeaked out two posts onto masslive and (to state the obvious) am currently writing on my meta blog.  I also commented on a number of my classmates blogs and posted to twitter twice so far.

I plan to end my blogs strong with frequent quality posts this last week with videos and photos galore.

P.S. to reach my 3 post quota I’m going to post an interview clip with JLo on her AMA performance.

So ever since we got the assignment that would require us to put original pics onto Masslive I’ve  been having serious nightmares. I mean what kind of original pics could I produce that would in any way relate to the Jay Leno Show. Well last night,  amidst one of my nightmares, it came to me! Eureka! I could recreate one of Jay Leno’s segments right here at good ol’ UMass!

I thought Jaywalking would be my best bet when incorporating pictures to my piece. I’ll ask students questions like who’s the current secretary of state and hopefully make them look stupid so that we could laugh. That is the overall premise of jaywalking afterall. If they do end up looking smart it may not be funny but at least we know that our tuition is paying off.

I chose the gallery on Diwali, an Indian holiday that celebrates a Hindu God named Rama. The pictures were breath-taking to say the least. I was attracted by the colors, people, and celebration of life that the pictures vividly portrayed. I admired the make-up, the dress, and the scenery.

Because I was  raised in a melting-pot city like Cambridge and have parents that migrated from Nigeria as young adults,  I really appreciate cultural differences. I think boston.com did a great job of showing and not telling the reader about various aspects of India’s culture.

The pictures prompted me to reminisce about holidays I’ve celebrated both in the states and in Nigeria. In other words they allowed me to relate to a culture I know very little about. This is totally cliché, but those pictures were worth a thousand words so I’m pretty sure I just read an awesome novel!

The second gallery I chose is on the conflict in Pakistan. I was drawn to it because I hear a lot about how the Afghanistan war is affecting the country but rarely see anything concerning it. I was surprised by a lot of the images;  in some instances on a superficial level and in other, that wasn’t the case.

For instance I saw a beautiful picture of a pretty little girl with a nose ring on, sitting next to a dog! I immediately thought to myself, my mom still won’t let me get a nose ring and I’m dang near independent. Also, Christmas after Christmas I anticipate a puppy jumping out of a neatly wrapped box. Hasn’t happened yet. So you can see how that image came as a shocker.

In many of the action shots  in Pakistani cities where people were protesting, fighting, or salvaging wreckage I only saw men. Actually, there’s only one picture with women in it and they were sitting by peace signs looking almost apathetic (which I’m sure they were not). My point is, I didn’t see a woman’s point of view in the story and that kind of hurt. I’m not even a feminist!

Lastly, throughout it all, meaning the violence, wreckage and despair, I still saw glimmers of hope along with aspects of the Pakistan culture shining through. I saw kids playing, men smiling, people embracing, and a nation of people who seem rallied for change. And yes, I inferred all this from a few pics. 

This week I was a horrible student. I managed to write only once for masslive and I feel the one post I did write was mediocre at best.

Here is my list of inexcusable excuses:

1) My car broke down in Boston on veterans day, was stuck there until Friday early in the morning

2) My computer became infested with viruses (no more free movie downloads for me) and in turn, I spent an insane amount of time on the phone with HP help (btw they did a great job of fixing my comp)

3) Went to new york and neglected all of my assignments, and am now playing catch-up

So there it is. Now that I’ve gotten all those out of the way. Here’s what I’ll do to make it up. This week I will post 4 times to masslive and they will not be mediocre. I will comment on my peer’s posts, and post to my meta blog.

Before you read this I’m going to ask you to bear with me. I’m the kind of gal that likes instructions when asked to write because without them I go off in insanely random tangents. Seeing as how this assignment had one instruction (write in first person) you are about to see just how haphazardly I can put together a story. To make it easy, prepare for dear diary type stuff.

This weekend I’m going to New York to see the Lion King on Broadway.  What’s the occasion, you ask? My cousin/best friend Ify and I are celebrating are birthdays together in the big apple. I know, corny much. My thing is… who cares? If a joint birthday party with my cousin and friends to see the Lion King is wrong then I don’t want to be right!

Lion King is my favorite Disney Movie of all time and I feel it necessary to see it in person. Lion King was actually the first movie I ever saw in at movie theatre. I went when I was 5 and remember because all 6 of my brothers and sisters came plus my old day care teacher/neighbor; it was quite the field trip. By the way, for or all you Disney fans out there, don’t get your knickers in a bunch! Mulan and Hercules have tied for second on my list.

Anyway I’m turning 20 on Nov. 24^th and Ify turned 19 on Oct. 20^th so it’s perfect. My other best friend Nehemie is setting the whole thing up. She lives in Brooklyn and is going to be our tour guide. I know what you’re thinking, can it get any lamer. The answer is yes!  We also have a number of other things planned. Like a spa day, movie night, and… what comes before part B? That’s right, PART-AAY*

I hope to take tons of pictures and to return more cultured. After all, this will be my first show in New York and I feel obligated to share that experience with all my facebook friends who won’t be able to come**

This week’s posts on masslive went okay I think. I’m getting the hang of using titles and excerpts to draw readers in.

Sometimes I feel like I’m forcing a topic however. I can never tell whether or not what I’m writing is newsworthy. Either way, I try and go for it and just hope for the best.

I’ve been following other bloggers with television beats and that has helped me get a better context for what I should focus in on. Alan Speinwall (spelling) from nj.com is a really good reference for me. He writes about some of my favorite shows and consistently is interesting and reflective.

Following the election results on Tuesday via three sites, masslive.com, nj.com, and the Washington Post was definitely a different experience for me. I’m used to watching cable news for my election results so the assignment felt a little forced. Rather than listening to the speculation that occurs on election night by hosts of cable news shows, the sites allowed me to bypass that and focus in on the hard numbers. While getting the results as they came in sans speculation was quick and easy it left me feeling like I missed out on some action in the form of political analysis.

Each site had its own focus that ranged from national to local coverage. Masslive that has a Western Mass readership focused on the local elections that their readers cared about. The Washington Post took a national focus primarily because their website is visited by people across America. NJ.com focused on the gubernatorial race in the state, clearly because it was what their readers wanted to know about. Though all sites had a focus none of them completely disregarded elections that were not centered in that focus.

I was intrigued by the twitter aspect of the assignment. I thought it cool that the whole class could have a discussion live on twitter. It’s not that the topic was stimulating, what excited me was learning how to use twitter in another way. The more  forms of communication that I familiarize myself with the better! Knowing how to use tools like twitter, blogging, facebook, and the like will only increase my skill set and worth when looking for a job after school.

After it’s all said and done I still rather receive election results through cable news networks; its more fun that way. However, if I were ever unfortunate enough to not have access to television or my preferred cable networks then at that point I would check online.

P.S. There were corresponding articles on the sites with the results that came in. Though I did take the liberty to read some, I still maintain that watching the talking heads on T.V. is more exciting.

 Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday said that the White House was dithering over the strategy for the Afghanistan war and suggested, in more than a few words, that the White House take the steps necessary win.

“Make no mistake. Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries,” Cheney said at a Center for Security Policy event while accepting an award.  

Cheney’s remarks have been covered by almost all the major news organizations in print, online, and on television.  Along with the big media organizations that covered Cheney’s comments small-scale reporting in the blogosphere has also taken place. The incendiary speech Cheney gave made for entertaining news and the media ran with it.

The first post on the site was about the creators of twitter and their recent and unpredicted success. It  refrenced another article on the matter, linked out to it and provided a block quote from it. It was a short post and had a clear voice. This post’s main function information was to call the readers attention to the news of the day the author thought was interesting.

The second post was also about something relevant to a broad audience. It was about halloween and potential costume ideas. It functioned as an advice column warning reader to stay clear ‘don’t’ costumes in order to avoid looking like a tool on October 31st. The post was sated with opinion and brass comedy. It was longer than the first post but did not link out to anything. This post used more pictures than the first one.

The third and last post started off with a lengthy block quote to set the scence. This post is different than the first two because it was behind the scenes news on a front page story.

I only posted to Masslive twice this week =(  I will be making it up with an extra post next week!

TMI: But I got absolutely no work done this weekend and am frantically making it up now.

Nonetheless I think my latest post to masslive about Wanda Sykes went really well. Firstly, it let me preview what I did and make edits; an improvement that I will not take for granted. I feel like the content was pretty good too. I had a picture, a block quote, and a link!

I still need to work on my excerpts and titles. I don’t think they’re as catchy and straightforward as they could be. Also It would be nice if I had an overarching format or process to tie my posts together better… need to work on that. 

I kind of wish that our blogs were accessible on the masslive website. It would be nice to feel like people have the opportunity to read them.

I’m really starting to enjoy my classmates posts as well. No, I am not brown-nosing… it’s not like they’re giving me a grade. Anyway, I think their content and styling are getting better so that’s cool to see. I’ve been posting comments and all that good stuff.

What else…  IDK my bff Jill.