Wednesday, February 27, 2013

3 strikes & i was almost out

They say three is a charm but baseball says 3strikes your out lol. Story number three i must say i almost struck out. Your probable wondering how? I was a day away from not having a story written or even have a clue of what i was going to write about. Didnt put alot of time into my story but because i was blessed with the skill to write i think i pulled it off well. Im glad i had so much help from Ms.Sheppard & Sabira who actually gave me the idea on what i should write about in such short notice. Jail breaking of phones who would have thought that was legal? I must admit i learned a lot from what i wrote about & was pretty impressed with the information i received on jail breaking of iphones. Im definetly making sure i get a head start on article four just in case i dont come out so lucky.

Drunko... What?

The third issue came out last night for the Seminole Scribe and collaborating quotes for this story was a walk in the jungle.

My outline and interview questions were all prepared on paper... but approaching students about the issues of Drunkorexia was a bit out of my comfort zone.

How would I go up to them and ask them if they drink? Rude much. I needed another method of approaching them and if I had to be a people watcher for the day, then so be it.

The day before draft two was due, I walked around campus eavesdropping on everyone's conversations. Luckily for me, everyone was talking about Spring Break so I walked up so some and simply just asked them, "so what are you doing for spring break this semester?"

Everyone's answers were so different... but also very innocent. No one said they were planning on drinking! Now I know that not all of the students here plan on not drinking during spring break.... that's just not normal. The story should've been about students not drinking during spring break instead.

On the verge of throwing this story in the nearest trash can, I walked into the student center and I could just tell by which "clicks" would be partying all week next week.

It was awesome. I collected so many potential quotes for my story but sifting out their vulgar use of language was making the quotes so meek.

Cutting it down to 3-4 quotes out of 7-8, I finally picked the ones that could relate to most students in Central Florida.

In order for my article to be a bit more serious because the name drunkorexia just tarnishes the tone, I interviewed the General Manager of the TheGoodDrugsGuide Ben Grodsky. He provided tips and facts on how to avoid drunkorexia and the harm it can cause to student bodies.

This article was a bit challenging for me because I personally do not drink, nor know anyone who does. So stepping out of my comfort zone and reaching out to bars, AA members, and partyers was like starting the first day of school.... nerve-racking and having the feeling of just wanting to go home.

-Sabira Mawji
-Editor of the Seminole Scribe Newspaper at Seminole State College.

3rd Story(Kyrie Irving)

My 3rd story was about Kyrie Irving, one of the youngest players in the NBA. Recently he's been playing far beyond his young age of 20 and I definitely took notice. It was fun to write about him for a few reasons:

First, he was the number one high school player in the country when I graduated in 2010. It's a mix of awesome and sort of depressing to think of what he's doing in the NBA right now even though he's a few months younger than me.

Second, he plays for my personal favorite NBA team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. The team has had a rough couple of years since Lebron James left for Miami and Irving has instilled hope in the future of the team.

It was also fun to see what other people thought of what Irving is doing. I interviewed three people, all basketball fans, some closer to the game than others, and everyone was generally under the same line of thinking when it came to Irving. That thinking was that this guy is doing something insane for a 20 year old.

Hopefully he'll continue to be great so maybe I can write about him again in the future because I definitely enjoyed it.

Old News is Better Than No News

After a very unfortunate mix-up with due-dates, I didn't get my 2nd article in on time. Which was extremely unfortunate, but what made a bad situation better was that I had an outline and 2 drafts of the article that was supposed to go into the second issue already written and able to be tweaked and put into the third issue.

The only problem with this is that it had to do with Ran'D Shine, the magician who performed during the African American Heritage event earlier in February. The question I found myself asking was whether or not anyone was even going to care about my profile. Ran'D was an amazing magician, but once he left, he was gone and I doubt anyone gave him a second thought afterwards. But what other choice did I have? Articles have to be completed so quickly that I didn't have time to try and write something else, so I did the best with what I had. At the end of the day, it was a great piece. But it was a bit out-dated. Old news. But that's better than no news. And It's a lot better than another 0.

- Ashley Collier

3rd time's a charm!

Going into article #3, I knew I had a cool topic; but didn't know how great the article was actually going to turn out.  I found this great article of a new library that will open in Texas that will be completely book-less!  As someone who loves a good paperback/hardcover book, i found this interesting. At first, I thought "will people care?" Are there any more people out there, who just like me, still go to libraries?"  Then I thought, "C'mon, of course there are, and even if there isn't, it's still somethnig I want to talk about."

I contacted the campus librarian at my college and little did I know, reaching to her was going to lead me to the most quotes I've ever had in an article so far. She was so interested in this story that she reached out and included two more librarians, the Dean of libraries and technology and the outreach librarian at the college!

Starting an article is always the hardest part for me. I want that awesome first sentence that will make the reader want to continue reading. In this article though, it wasn't as hard. "Imagine a bookless library..." that's all I needed, and as soon as I wrote it, I couldn't stop writing. Having so many quotes made it easier to write the article, the quotes said everything I wanted to say, all I had to add was bits of information here and there.

I'm defintiely proud of this one; not only because of all the quotes, not because it will land on the front page of the newspaper and not because of how much it was liked, but because I'm finally starting to leave my thoughts off the paper and finally start to write like a real journalist.

Now..what to write for article #4?!

Sorangel Santiago
Staff Writer
Seminole Scribe