...NYT Review

I would have liked to discuss this article in the NYT review, just to see what others saw happening in the future as we wrap up our degrees and go find "real jobs". I wonder how many college students now see independently contracted work as a good way of going about working, or if they want to stick to the traditional corporate-based work.

Personally, I've thought about how much more convenient freelancing would be, and how I would prefer to be a contributing writer to a newspaper/source than a full-time journalist. I have so many other interests that could bring me income, that it would be sort of patched together, but I could live off of it. However, I also think that I need a very strong portfolio to be able to do this, and I would probably need to start out working as a traditional staff-member. It's an interesting approach to work though, and having grown up around my parents' businesses, it doesn't exactly seem that foreign. I realize it's difficult and that you must be creative in your search for work and take what's given (in other words, even if it doesn't seem perfect, it might lead to something better, so go for it).

Also, just out of my interest of music, Coachella happened this weekend. I missed that, but it's still interesting to me. I think the idea of the festival is cool, in that a bunch of old bands go perform on the same stages as new bands. For the new bands it's an amazing opportunity to get their name out, play for a diverse audience from their normal audience, and for the festival-goers it is just a sweet time to go enjoy. I didn't know about it until last year, but I like the idea --although, to be honest, I would probably get tired of the loudness and standing and want a nap by midmorning. Whaddya do?

News Story: Deaf Studies Today! Conference

April 8-10 marked the 4^th Deaf Studies Today! Conference held since its founding in 2004. It is the largest Deaf Studies conference in the U.S., and was founded by UVU faculty.

Held bi-annually, the conference is a conglomerate of local, national, and international professionals in the Deaf Studies field, as well as deaf community members and American Sign Language students.

According to the conference website, “[it] has also become an important cultural ‘place’ where Deaf people gather to create, renew and maintain relationships.”

For the conference, all ASL classes were canceled and students were required to attend workshops and volunteer, whatever their signing level. Beginning and intermediate sign language students were allowed to photograph, greet, and answer questions at the information booth, while students with higher levels of signing competence introduced and assisted speakers.

Ingrid Butron, who graduated from UVU with her B.A. in deaf studies last December, has been a part of the conference since its beginning, and was able to help organize it this year as a student intern.

“They really put me on an even field with the faculty,” she said.

For the months leading up to the conference, she became a personal assistant, volunteer coordinator, and even helped create the logo for the conference’s “Engaging Theory and Action” theme.

Rebecca Allred, the ASL Club president and a deaf studies major, was also involved in the conference. She introduced several speakers and attended the conference all weekend.

“It’s a great place for those who are wanting to get into the interpreting field,” she said. “We had some of the best interpreters in the U.S. fly in.”

This year, over 35 workshops were held over the 3-day period, and a film festival was introduced to the conference schedule. The conference ended with a tribute to Dr. Lawrence R. Fleischer, the father of the deaf studies discipline.

...to Art inspires reflection on Utah's Capitol Hill

Ernesto Pajol's "Awaiting" performance at the state capitol looked amazing, and this article's pictures and interviews made me wish I had been there. I loved the idea of the performance, or performance, whichever is correct, and interestingly, at the time of reading this article I was reading the newspaper as a time-filler, a way to avoid "a waiting" as the choreographer Pajol put it.

Besides that little irony, I liked what he had to say about modern people. He said,

We are in the habit of checking e-mail or going online in our hands. There's not even a waiting anymore. We are always so efficient, always working … and we forget that the real meaning and direction and depth of life lies not in this kind of frenzied activity, but in knowing who we are.

I tend to agree with him. I think that while one may become more efficient by using technology to communicate, we also forget how to wait, how to be patient, and what's probably more damaging is that we have forgotten how to treat other people face-to-face. How often do we see people come home from school or work, hop on their laptop in front of the television and spend their night interacting only virtually, and besides a few quips between commercials and loading web pages, fail to acknowledge the wonderful opportunity for live exchange with those with which they live? I have seen it in my apartment time and time again, and it seems to be a very normal and accepted thing.

So to get back to Pajol's idea of waiting being a good thing, I do wish we knew better how to wait, and how to enjoy that waiting. In his research of Utah he found a history of waiting, and he gives examples of the pioneers, the military families in the state, the Mormon, and he is positive that this waiting is in no way a bad thing, but a positive experience and reflection on the community.

...to Bye, Bye, video stores

I thought this article was interesting, and like any other story about a company or store going out of business, it made me a little sad.

Yeah, okay, it's dumb that a story about a corporate giant going out makes me sad, but somehow I just hate seeing that happen to anyone. What about the employees? What about the stockholders that will lose money? What about the people like myself who don't subscribe to Netlflix but want to find classic movies that the Redbox kiosks don't offer? This sucks for people like me, in a sense.

Now sure, I DID stop and see what moves I could score for six bucks. Because hey, if they have my favorite Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn (let's not forget about Cary Grant and Steve McQueen, either) film, I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity to snag it --even though it's a little heartless.

But perhaps what makes this most saddening is that it's just another shadow of what's going on all around us. Businesses are closing, people are losing their jobs, and people's retirements are being lost with the foreclosure of these business. Maybe that's what actually makes me sad about the whole deal. I'm trying to imagine what is just going to innovate and change (for example, Blockbuster is installing Blockbuster Express kiosks similar to the Redbox), and what is just going to end (Hollywood Video).

But the fact is, in ten years, I'll have mostly forgotten about the downtown Provo Blockbuster, and probably the crew of Hollywood Videos, too. By then I'll probably have my own active Netflix account, and I will anxiously await the next batch of DVDs to arrive. I'm not going to resist change.

...to Round 2 of floods hits Northeast

I'll be honest, I had no idea this was happening. When I read about it though, I wondered why I didn't, since people's homes are being destroyed and stuff.

Despite this case probably just being my own fault, it still made me think about agenda-setting, and how often things don't get reported if they're not catastrophic and will supply the news agencies with days, sometimes overextended weeks, of coverage. I think too that with the earthquake in Chile, which is said to be one of the most powerful earthquakes ever, making it quite literally a bigger deal than the recent one in Haiti, it has received less coverage, even weeks after Haiti.

So why is that? Geologically, this is AMAZING. Any nerd with a geology fetish is going to want to talk about it and what that means in terms of science. But why are people not talking about it? If the agenda-setting theory is right, then it's because the media hasn't told us to think about it.

Therefore, we don't.

So I'm wondering, what other kinds of stories either get downplayed or just don't get reported. But then again I wonder, do people care? How many of us that did something for Haiti (donated clothing, shoes, money, adopted a kid, whatever) actually stopped to consider what we could do for those in Chile? And now, what about those in the Northeast? Sure, people won't be living in shacks and attempting to rebuild them, but more expensive repairs will have to be done to these American homes in order to make them livable again.

To get back onto the topic of the floods though, this is supposedly "round two". How did I not hear about "round one"? Again, I'll admit, it was probably my own blindness. But let's talk about this for a moment. I'm a journalism student, I talk about news with the people in that department at school, but this has never come up. Perhaps I should specifically bring it up and see how many previously knew about it.

Just some thoughts though.

...to Spring has sprung gardeners, and 3 in 4 Americans can dig it

In this article, gardeners talk about their passion, and the upcoming season full of gardening opportunities.

When I "grow up" and have my own house, I want a garden almost as much as I want an amazing kitchen (and if you know me, I really want a sweet kitchen). In fact, ideally, my huge kitchen window would overlook my vegetable and flower garden, and I could open my window every morning and get a whiff of my wisteria, acacia, or lavender. Talk about perfection.

When reading this though, it brought to mind the importance of planting what will grow in the area in which you live, especially when considering the watering patterns of the plants. While many people would probably love to have a lush, rich, colorful garden, it may not be possible for that dream garden, depending on your geographical climate. They talked about the benefits of native plants, and how, when your imported plants will die if a fluke winter or summer happens, native plants will fare better.

I think it's becoming more popular to grow one's own fruits and vegetables, especially with the movement of natural and organic foods. But what impressed me most about this group of gardeners though, is the passion they had for gardening --planting and interacting with the ground at their homes. I liked what the story quoted author Vita Sackville-West writing that said, "The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before". I think that is true. When my family had a garden, every year we looked forward to adding something we didn't have last year. Our perennial flower gardens expanded and filled-in, and our vegetable garden was filled with new and different produce each year. I think that's the joy and intertwined challenge of gardening.

...find story ideas for your beat.

1) Rob Carney

A better representation of religions and the diverse religious activity in Utah --not just the Mormons.

Profiles of those belonging to other denominations among the Mormons.

2) Lisa Black

Correlation of Utah laws and Mormon doctrine --are they influential or are the laws just law?

3) Janessa Fisher

History of religions --ancient traditions being practiced today

4) Ivan Amargo

Profiles of leaders in area and event coverage.

5) Garit Heaton

Ancient religions (Why did they worship planets? Why do the planets' names come up all over the world? Why are we finding the same symbols in caves, pyramids, and hieroglyphs?)