...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?)

...to Facebook helps movements unite

After reading this article, I started thinking about McLuhan's theory about the medium being the message. I think that perhaps that is the case with this story --the Facebook medium is the message, not so much what is being rallied for.

For example: more often than not, when I'm invited to join any controversial groups on the site, I ignore the invitation. It can be something I completely believe in, but because of the public nature of a social-networking site, I prefer to remain "virtually" neutral. For me, I feel like the medium allows me that neutrality, and despite whatever content is posted, my right to neutrality remains. However, I believe that is my own interpretation and use of the site, whereas others can use it in completely the opposite way, and it is true enough to their own interpretation of the medium. As we see with the young man who eventually got enough support for his cause (a $500,000 skate park) to enact action, or president Obama's use of it to gain votes, it can be used in a successful way to support causes or rally people together. For myself though, I feel like any virtual proclamation of my beliefs would not only be contrived and insincere, but also so far one way or the other that I would feel trapped by the group creator's beliefs of the subject.

But besides all that, I guess this case's application of Facebook was cool enough.

News Story: Senior Project

For graphic design major Jalise Hinton, a senior project wasn’t just something to finish so she could graduate --it was an opportunity to push herself and gain real-life experience while raising awareness of something she cared about.

Hinton’s design, a photo of a driver texting the message “c u l8r” with the slogan, “Will these be your final words?” addresses the dangers of texting while driving. In her research, Hinton found that texting while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk.

She chose to design the series of display signs and billboards because for her, billboards are a difficult design.

“I tend to always do something I struggle with.” Hinton said.

When she expanded her project and decided put her advertisements up around town, she took on another challenge altogether. To post her signs she had to have space donated, pay for printing, and spend the necessary hours working on the design. For help paying for the printing she turned to a student service provided by Utah Valley University, the Center for Engaged Learning.

“Jalise…has taken what she’s learned in the classroom and applied it on her own.” Said Vincent Fordiani, director of the Center for Engaged Learning.

Since 2007 the center has provided 328 engaged learning opportunities and 1.2 million dollars for students around the school, according to Fordiani. Like Hinton, many of these students partnered with a faculty-member sponsor and were able to carry out their projects with aid from the center’s grants.

“Most companies didn’t take me seriously until I had a payment.” Hinton said.

Once she had the money for printing, Outdoor Promotions helped get her design installed on donated bus benches and shelters in Provo. Taking it a bit further, Hinton contacted Yesco about a billboard and eventually got a spot in Salt Lake. She is pleased with the results.

“I can graduate happy now because I’ve used the school in the best ways I could.” said Hinton.

To see more of her design: http://textfreeroads.info/

For more info about the Center for Engaged Learning: http://www.uvu.edu/cel/

...fake obituary

DISCLAIMER: I am not dead. It was just an assignment in my reporting class.

Celeste Tholen, 19, a Utah Valley University student and dear daughter, died Thursday evening, March 26, in Orem after a head-on car collision.

Celeste was a caring person, and involved herself in the community as often as she could. At the time of her death, she was volunteering at the Orem Literacy Center as a literacy tutor to children, and serving in her church as the ward choir director. Her ambitions extended through her schoolwork, having been awarded with several scholarships, and also into her hobbies. She played the violin beautifully, had a passion for writing and reading, and was frequently putting herself in situations she referred to as making her “sickeningly nervous”. Her most recent endeavor was participating in the Marie Clegg Speech Competition at UVU, where she spoke about another of her passions, American Sign Language and Deaf Culture.

She will be missed by those who knew her, and is survived by her father and mother, Dwight and Joy Tholen; brother and sister, James and Megan; as well as three grandparents, three aunts, four uncles, and numerous cousins.

Graveside services will be held at Wasatch Memorial Tuesday, March 30 at noon. The viewing will be the night before at the Millcreek 6^th east L.D.S. from 6-8 p.m.

...to Miss. school prom off after lesbian's date request

This article about a teenage lesbian wanting to bring her girlfriend to her high school's prom isn't something I normally would want to write about, because it is such a controversial subject. However, today, I want to talk about a couple of things I notice about the situation, although it's doubtful I'll come to any real conclusion.

First off, although I do not support homosexuality, I think that this student does have the right to practice her own beliefs. While these practices may make other students uncomfortable, it does not interfere with their safety, which should be the primary concern at a school activity.

Secondly, the girl and her girlfriend already face opposition in the community, and school should be a neutral environment in which she is free to make her own decisions about whom she will date.

On the other hand, the community does have values to which they adhere strongly, and the school is within the community, even an integral part of it. It can be argued that the school, being this driving force in a community (For example, small towns are extremely loyal to the high school's football team, traveling all over to support that. Parents with adequate education either full-time or substitute teach at the schools, and also head committees), is a place where values will be reinforced and shaped. Keeping this in mind though, how can a lesson about acceptance be a negative experience for students --especially as they prepare to break into a larger pool of people, with diverse cultures, values, and beliefs?

...to Forever blooming: Amazing daffodil garden is closed, but her serigraphs are alive in a new book

I loved this post about a woman and her daffodil garden. Gene Bauer, from San Bernadino, California, has planted millions of daffodil bulbs behind her house, and every year until this last year, she allowed people to come look at her garden. As she has gotten older though, she hasn't been able to keep up her daffodils, and as a result has closed the garden forever. As part of her love for botany though, she has created a series of serigraphs, which have recently been published along with her poetic accompanying thoughts in a book.

What I liked about the story though, was the fact that a woman would plant 20,000 bulbs a year, and then go out and write what some have referred to as love-letter like essays about a plant, and make a serigraph to go with it. Bauer would create a sort of pamphlet from the two, and then mail them to her botany-club members. The book has been compiled from these pamphlets which she sent out. It's people like that who make me wish I was more creative and maybe a little bit more ambitious.

However, I feel like there are things which we will each do to leave a legacy behind us. I hope one day, my kids or my grandkids look over my writing (school papers, journals, freewriting, whatever), and feel that I left something of myself with them. If I could be more visually artistic, I would love to leave a graphic and bold picture for them to look at, as Ms. Bauer has.

News Story: ASL Club Workshop and Interview

Thursday night was the Utah Valley University American Sign Language Club’s I’m a Deaf Studies Major, Now What? workshop, offered to the campus, but particularly to those majoring in Deaf Studies.

Several of the department heads presented, entirely in ASL and interpreted by students, about the options for students pursuing a Deaf Studies degree. Lectures about interpreting, linguistics, and education were presented in the two-hour workshop, with question and answer sessions after each presentation.

Events like these, sponsored by the ASL Club, are at the heart of the Deaf Studies program, and everyone with any interest in learning sign language is encouraged to come to the frequent activities put on by the club, the school, and the local Deaf community.

Rebecca Allred, president of the ASL Club, said, “The ASL Club, and any ASL class on campus for that matter, is a “Safe Zone.” No one will look down at you for having less than stellar skills – we’ve all been there and remember what it was like.”

According to Bryan Eldredge, ASL and Deaf Studies Program Coordinator, the involvement of Utah Valley’s Deaf community is responsible for UVU’s success in becoming the largest Deaf Studies program in the world.

About the engagement with the community, Eldredge said, “We’ve made a conscious effort to make that connection.”

In fact, many of the teachers Eldredge has hired are deaf and native signers. He himself was a child of a deaf adult, or a CODA, and when he was in graduate school, wrote his dissertation on ASL linguistic anthropology, which drew heavily upon his background with Deaf people. This unique dynamic of the program has helped hearing students become more involved with the people they eventually are going to work with.

Allred said, “Going to an event where there are many Deaf (meaning culturally deaf people) is just like going to an event where there are many Korean people. When the hearing community is able to understand that the Deaf belong to a culture group it becomes easier for them to feel at ease.”

Her views are shared by the program’s faculty and many of the ASL students on campus. Like other language classes, much of an ASL class discusses the culture of which the language is a part. Involvement with the community is a requirement in many ASL classes, and teachers encourage students to get out and sign with native signers, those who are culturally Deaf. Deaf people have made the decision to distinguish themselves by the capitalization of Deaf when referring to their culture or people, as opposed to the lowercase deaf, referring to the condition which separates them from the hearing community or culture.

For more information about UVU’s Deaf Studies program, click here. To join the ASL Club, contact aslclub@allredonline.com

...to Hospice care: A new American way of death?

This article, talking about the increasing rate of Americans which die in the care of a hospice, interested me because of my grandmother and great-Grandfather who were both cared for by a hospice. My grandmother actually spent the last week of her life in the hospital, but my great-grandfather died at his daughter's, my maternal grandmother, home in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was cared for during the last six months or so of his life by my grandma, my mother, and several loving hospices. They came to his funeral and joined in our mourning, even if it was more of a contract termination than a deep loss, it meant a lot to my family that the gentleman who came cared enough to do so.

In the article, this paragraph really stuck out to me.

Once, death was played out in the community. Families took care of their dying. And few people, including children, were shielded from the harsh realities of deterioration at the end of life.

I felt that while it may be generally true, the statement was not true for my family, and what the reporter was describing as uncommon, was common in my family. With every death we have experienced, care has been taken by the family, and in many ways, we have readjusted our our norms to reflect the current needs of a brother, sister, mother, grandmother, and grandfather before their deaths.

Nonetheless, the article pointed out some interesting things about how our society deals with death.

Father Wayne Wilson, a police chaplain said, "We have separated ourselves from death."

This fact is only more powerfully illustrated by the statistics in the article, which report that 40 percent of terminally-ill Americans die in hospitals, but 5,000 hospice programs exist for the care of our family members, and these programs are being taken advantage of in the event of illness and potential death.

...to BYU graduate may have found draft of U.S. Constitution

When reading this article from today's headlines, it was interesting what feelings came out of me within the its 21 paragraphs. The excitement of finding a document so integrally part of our country's history would be overwhelming, but also, the stress of it being unimportant and not what Toler thought it was would be tiresome. Still, if whatever it proves to be, she has something to look forward to, which almost makes most things worth the distress.

Another thing, perhaps not as significant to those which it isn't as close to, but the fact that her love of history and particularly the history of our forefathers came from learning about it as a home-schooled teen is really neat. I was home-schooled from the fourth to tenth grade, and it was a great experience for me, but is something that many people look down on. They assume that because I didn't go to public school that I am somehow not up to par, or just generally expect less of me, when that is not the case at all. It is nice to see someone who came from a background of home-schooling making headlines and attributing part of her success to this alternative method of education.

Ideally, this story would end up happy, with her proving the document legitimate. However it ends though, I hope that mothers and children involved with home-schooling with come out with a better reputation because of it.

Now if only a great "people person" would emerge out of its realm and attribute their social success to it, the home-schooling community could be seen as well-rounded, too.

...to Hogle Zoo investigating zebra deaths.

This story about the death of the Utah Hogle Zoo's two Zebras, Taji and Monty, was really sad to me. Not only does it upset me that Taji's death was sudden and mysterious, and his partner's following death is also upsetting.

It led me to ask a lot of questions though, which was positive. First of all, there was report of nosebleeds and "possibly blunt force trauma" to their faces, according to the Deseret News. These are certainly alarming symptoms or conditions, and it makes one ask who or what could have caused that.

The second question brought to mind, although addressed in a roundabout way toward the end of the article with success stories of prolonged life at the Hogle Zoo, concerns the living conditions of the animals. The enclosures at the zoo are mostly concrete (at least from what I remember of a few years back), a spawning place for germs, and they are also outdoor. The zebras, while wild animals regardless of captivity, are not horses with natural protective qualities against cold.

Hopefully, whatever did happen, whether natural or not, will be found out. While I may not generally be an animal rights advocate, I care for animals and their treatment. This story caught my attention because of the possibility of mistreatment and abuse, and it makes me sad to hear that these zebras died in a fitful and painful way.

...to McKay name removed from Utah Valley University events center

The recent removal of David O. McKay's name on Utah Valley University's event center, as cited in this article, leaves the building face sad and without the familiar identity. While the initial reaction to the spots of the weathered letter marks may be a mixture of bittersweet feelings and discomfort with the change, the replacement of them over on the education building seems a sweet and overdue acknowledgement of McKay's true passion, that of educating and "the application of learning," said UVU School of Education Dean Briant Farnsworth in an interview with Deseret News. As with making the transition of Utah Valley State College (or UVSC) to UVU, this change of name and identity will certainly take the community some time to with which to become familiar.
As for the education building and its new namesake, the change seems to be sweet. With the first masters in education class graduating this year, it marks a rather significant accomplishment of the school, that of obtaining accreditation for a masters program and as a university. This time of growth and transition is an exciting time to be in Utah Valley, and the removal of the old name and eventual renaming of the events center will further the progress the people in the valley are seeing.

...to Finding Stability

I read this article in the Desert News, which was about the celebration of the Utah Foster Care Foundation’s tenth anniversary, and I was touched by the impact one couple can have on a kid's life, and even more impressive is the opportunity they have to continue taking children in, blessing many more.

I have thought about fostering a child in the future, and I have seen the challenges and joys of friends who have taken in small children, but this got me thinking about teen foster children and their situation. I was surprised to hear (although looking at it, it seems painfully obvious now) that many teens aren't in foster care because they have misbehaved or have special needs; rather, they were in the same situation as younger kids, being abused or neglected by their parents. The predominance of this negative stigma has probably kept far too many children from having a chance at a healthy and happy life that a kind foster family could help them have. The Ballesteros boys, who were highlighted in the article, were certainly among the more successful stories, and the bond with their foster parents was sweet. Their achievements, although private and personal, were being celebrated throughout the city, and I think it gave hope where it's needed.

...to Josh Wolf

It's hard for me not to see this story objectively. I feel that by keeping his sources private, Josh protected the integrity of his journalism. He never intended the story to be an expose, or proof of crime, which is what it ultimately became to the SFPD.

However, to deny that he is, in fact, withholding evidence would be foolish and wrong, however romanticized a view one may have of the duty of journalists.

This situation is very unusual though, in that had he forfeited the footage, he could have subjected the innocent in the video to inconvenient and invasive questioning. While the police force has every right, even a responsibility to the city it protects, to make sure that consequences are given to those who break the law, the consequence for Josh Wolf seemed far more dramatic and lengthy than necessary.