final week.

What did I learn in the first journalism classes that I took? Well, I learned that I could be a journalist. I learned to be efficient in writing a story. The fact that mostly shook me up is when Brad told us, the class, that any of our article should take no longer than 2 hours (from searching informations to editing the final copy). I am pretty sure I am still way above the 2 hours, but I know the time I take to write an article have significantly decreased since september. I was particularly happy when I managed to write a good enough obituary of Holt Murray in a few hours during layout day.
I think I made some progress in my writing: in the way I structure my texts and paragraphs in particular. I still have some problem with grammars and sentence structures but if I pay more attention, I know it is going to be easier.
About layout itself, I very much enjoy organizing the pages in a sound and esthetic way. InDesign is an intuitive program that I liked to play with.
I still have a lot to learn and I am looking forward to step into the newsroom next year to share another semester with a, hopefully, as crazy team as this semester.

Last article part 2

I eventually got in touch on the phone with instructor at the Adult Education, and could get more interesting informations about the course. Now I know more about the course itself than its long boring history.

With this experience I know I should not let someone go on on something that I am not interested in. And I think my mistake here was that I kept writing to be polite when I should have stop. I also should have interrupted him. But again, it was hard for me to do so because I didn't want to be rude.

During the interview, I would say to myself... "Ok, this is torture to listen to all of this... but wait until he is done with one idea, and then interrupt him to go on the next question."
The thing is that the idea never stopped... and I only got a chance to change the subject a few minutes before he had to go to teach. And even then it wasn't I who interrupted him, but a colleague, who came in the common room we were sitting in.

Anyway, I think this is a lesson I shouldn't feel bad about redirecting the interview, because I am the interviewer. I know what I am looking for to put in my articles.

Dealing with interviews

Interviews can be as easy as posting a letter. But it can also be frustrating and puzzling. You never know which it would be.

One of my articles on the last issue of the Voice didn't work out as I planned. So I had to fill out with a different article that I had to write the day of the layout on thursday. The article was an obituary of a former Cabrillo instructors. Although I couldn't get in touch with the intructors via phones, I managed to track one on campus, and finally got a quick interview that saved the article.
The interview itself was pleasant and efficient. I got all the information I needed and the article turned out to be ok.

For this next issue of Dec. 8, I am afraid the content of my article is not going to be great. I interviewed an instructor at a Watsonville adult education school about his course on computer assembly and repair. Although the subject is great, when I actually interviewed the teacher, the information I retrieved wasn't really relevant.
We had limited time, so I had questions prepared in advance. But unfortunately, because I was unable to organize the time of the answers, we lost of time, and I could not ask the questions that really matters. So now my article is basically just the history of the class. Which I think is going to put everyone to sleep.

10/13 edition

Today, the class critiqued the paper. Even though the form has seen a lot of improvement, the substance still need a lot of work.
I have the bad habit to make my sentences too long and complicated. Instead, I should try to have simple and well structured sentences.
And this is a bad habit I have since childhood. The bad ones are hard to get rid of. I can distinctly hear my mother telling me "You need to have smaller and simpler sentences" after proof-reading one of my work in 6th or 7th grade. I still have the same kind of mistake now, which is unfortunate. Only practice good change that. So my goal for this week is to write more. Write on the blog, write for my classes, write for the newspaper, of course.
This week is going to be busy. I have to work on an essay for English 2, have a presentation and report for my photography class. I also have to get all of the information for my wildlife article before friday. I also will be reporting on an art exposition on Thursday.
So yes, I am kept busy.

Last article

For last issue of the Voice, I was in charge of reporting on the Student Senate. It was the first time I had to takes notes at a meeting. The Senate takes place in a room with a big oval table which fit about 20 persons. All the senators sit around the table, and the public sit on chairs following the walls, which are actually big window glass.
So I brought my brand new voice recorder, but it turned out to be useless as I was on the side so I couldn't get a good sound. Moreover, the senators weren't very loud which made it even hard for me to actually know what they were saying. I took a few notes that weren't quite helpful either. The meeting was very long, and I left before the end after 3 hours.
I found out the hardest part was actually write about the meager pieces of informations that I got. I didn't know how to turn my article, and what to focus on. My first draft was too much like a feature story not enough like a news story. So I was a little frustrated when I had to rethink my article because I didn'thave much material for it anyway.
Eventually, I had the idea to contact the president of the Senate and ask her a few questions that would fill my article.
My article turned out fine for how it started, so that I am even happy about it.

Everything is complicated

Everything is Complicated is the title of Sempe's book. Sempe is a French cartoonist. This book is a collection of cartoons where little characters find themselves in everyday life situations with always a twist of humor on a certain subject.
Anyway, I just thought this title resonated with my state of mind right now. I am just having a bit of trouble writing and finding inspiration. It would seem to be quite simple, writing every other day on a blog, but no, it is complicated.

A lot of people are used to writing blogs everyday about anything in their life or on what they saw on TV. In this loud crowd, I am just the silent person somewhere in the middle, or maybe over on the side. I listen instead and observe most of the time.
And then you are going to tell me I am actually writing on a blog. Yeah, I am writing on a blog, about how bloggers are a loud crowd, so I must be loud too. Everything is complicated.

Sitters surrendered

Finally they came down. After nearly two years the sitting outside the Memorial Stadium at UC Berkeley finally got to an end.
I got mixed feeling about this whole story and the outcome. On the one hand, the cause for which the tree people were fighting for is one I adhere too. The campus of Berkeley is so urban, that a little vegetation feels like a break in between the concrete. On the other hand, this sitting went on for too long, and I think a lot of people would agree with me that it went against the tree sitters.

I was living in the International House at Berkeley, right next to the Memorial Stadium, when the sitting started. I would walk by the Stadium and the tree sitters everyday to go to class. If you would have told me at the time that the sitting would last for two years, I wouldn't have believe you. At the beginning, there were only a few homeless people hanging out in there.
Then, the sitting crowd started to grow in early 2007 until they were around 15 to 20 people. At that point I began to question their protest. There was a lot of chalk writing on the sidewalk adjacent to the new community of tree sitters. A lot of it was about global warming and it seemed like those trees were the last trees on earth. I know it wasn't the only reason of the sitting, but please do not talk about global warming when only a few trees are at stake. When talking about global warming, talk about the Brazilian rain forest...

By the end of the school year, I just thought the whole protest was going too far for not much, and in other word was getting ridiculous. When I heard in september 2007 (I had moved from I-house) the people were still there and moreover were put behind fences, it just made me laugh.
The way the sitters persisted until the very last second was, to my opinion, annoying and laughable. Last monday, when all of the trees were being cut down, except for three, there were still 4 persons on one of the tree. And at that point, any reasonable person would accept the defeat and come down. But no, they still hung on those few top banches, with no provisions. It is only when the scaffolding was at reach of their feet that they finally came down to some sense.

Now I am just glad this all came to an end. One good thing that came up from the sitting, is that from now on, people of Berkeley could have their words on future urban plans of the campus.