What this blog is about (outside of narrative journalism):

final process piece

I found this class more difficult than I thought I would. I came in with a background in Creative Nonfiction, and absolutely no experience in any kind of journalism, and as I've realized throughout the quarter, there is a lot that I don't know about the differences between academic and journalistic writing. I still don't think that I know as much as I should, but I do know a lot more than I ever expected to. Hopefully what I have learned reflects in my final revisions. It's been interesting, balancing the way this class feels (more academic writing than creative writing) with the way that journalism actually works on the page.

I come to this class having had experience working on a podcast in the past. My role was largely in coordination, but I also ran the "mailbag" segment and recorded and guided several discussions. I found myself, throughout the quarter, making comparisons to what that work was like. Pursuing interviews was ultimately very similar; editing together the audio also was similar, and I think my experience editing segments for the podcast helped out with that. It also hindered me a little bit - that, and my psych background/interest in clinical psychology, and to a lesser extent, my exposure to Kenyan culture regarding conversation styles, has made me the kind of person who uses minimal positive encouragers when speaking to people (mhmms, yeahs, smiles, nods), and it was hard to turn that off when I was recording.

I have found the process of pursuing a story intimidating... and invigorating. At first, I was uncertain about interviewing contacts, and, more importantly, pursuing further contacts. I'm still uncertain about what to do when people reject interviews - which has happened once or twice with the Building Blocks piece - but overall I like to think that I have learned a little bit about the interviewing process in general, including what kind of questions to ask to get to the heart of the story. I've had a wide range of experiences interviewing, from interviewing completely strangers (KMRHS) to interviewing a man who I am very close to on a certain level (Kim Cummings). The approach to getting to a point of trust and to get to the story with both of these people was so different, and yet so similar - with the KMRHS men, I had to build from nothing; with Kim, I had to work around our existing relationship in order to get to the heart of things.

Coming up with my story ideas was very easy. I know what interests me and although I did not come into the class knowing what I wanted to write about, as I learned more about each assignment, the path I wanted to take became very clear. I don't really have any problems talking to people, and I like learning exhaustively about specific topics, so the research was also easy for me. Writing was a little harder; I had difficulty distilling what I wanted to say about each topic into one specific piece, and I often came up with two or three possibilities before deciding on one (like I did with my audio visual slideshow too!).

Because I was not as familiar with the journalism approach, I really appreciated the feedback from my peers as a guide to where to go and how to adjust my output to better fit journalistic styles, et cetera. However, also through this class, I became quite acquainted with what I like to see in a story :P so when the advice of my peers was in direct contradiction with my personal preference or with my gut feeling, I went with what I felt more strongly about.

Writing for this course helped me sharpen skills that I'm sure I'll use for the podcast in the future. I also learned that the kind of creativity needed to write journalism pieces comes more difficultly to me, so that, should I pursue more of it in the future, I will need to be sure to address that.

Finally, on a lighter note - this course, and the research I did for my pieces, gave me a much, much deeper appreciation for the research my uncle Glenn has to put into each of his Fact-Checker articles.

Building Blocks revision

Kim Cummings, professor emeritus of the Anthropology/Sociology department of Kalamazoo College, is the lifeblood behind the Kalamazoo Building Blocks program.

The Building Blocks program has existed, in some form or fashion in Kalamazoo, since 1995. Today, it is a fledgling course at Western Michigan University. The program is experiencing difficulties recruiting enough students to participate, but neighborhood residents, as well as the program's financial backers, are passionate about keeping it running.

Building Blocks, officially listed on class registration forms as ANSO 224: Neighborhood Organizing Practicum, began as a class at Kalamazoo College in the spring of 1995. Originally designed as a way for students to develop advanced organizing skills through working on community-based projects, Building Blocks, by its last years at Kalamazoo, functioned as half-theory, half-application intensive life experience. Students, in groups of three, worked specific blocks of houses in neighborhoods in transition in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Given anywhere between $2,500 and $3,000 in grant money – depending on how generous donations, taken from a number of churches and companies local to Kalamazoo, were in any given year – student organizers worked with neighborhood association managers and resident advisors, themselves previous Building Blocks participants, to rally neighborhood residents. The cover story was that residents would be given money to make exterior home improvements – maybe to buy paint, or flowers, or shrubs to pretty the place up; maybe to fix that hole in the porch; maybe to replace the window sills. The catch was that they had to work with their neighbors to actually get the work done. The goal? Building social capital, and creating a network of neighbors that each resident could potentially rely on if the need arose.

When Kim Cummings retired, one of his stipulations for retirement was that he be permitted to continue teaching Building Blocks, as well as his winter course, How to Change the World. The department could not afford to pay Cummings to teach these courses; as a result, he opted to take no salary for How to Change the World, and to take salary for Building Blocks from grant money from the program itself, rather than from the school. According to Cummings, he was promised five years of adjunct teaching, at which point the programs would be re-evaluated.

This lasted for three years. In the spring of 2010, however, Cummings was informed of the Anthropology/Sociology department's decision to eliminate the Building Blocks program. He started seeking out alternatives to hosting the program. The Philosophy department was briefly considered, but, with just two professors, it did not have the resources to support a class of the Building Blocks magnitude.

The source of the final decision to no longer support Building Blocks on Kalamazoo College campus is unclear. Rumors abound: philosophical differences between Cummings and other Anthropology/Sociology professors; fights between Cummings and school Provost Mickey McDonald; and demands on the part of the fledgling Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership to remove the program so they could start their own, similar, courses, are just several of the theories circulating about the issue. Unfortunately, no one involved in deciding to remove the program could be reached for comment.

During the ninth week of Kalamazoo College's ten-week-long spring quarter, several weeks after he was informed of the decision, Kim Cummings sent an email to all past participants of Building Blocks with the subject line, myself included. "Calling all BB/09ers: Sad announcement to make." The contents of the email were brief and to the point: "I'm calling all BB/09s--sophomores, juniors, and seniors--to meet at the end of tonight's BB seminar, 10:00 p.m. in Dewing 310. I have a very sad announcement to make."

I was unable to attend the meeting, but according to other participants who did manage to be there, he revealed to Building Blocks classes past and present that Building Blocks was going to be removed from the curriculum. And then, Building Blocks 2010 participant Allie VanHeest said, "he sat down and we organized. We held discussions with administrators, rallied in Red Square, and led a letter-writing campaign."

There was a lot of heartbreak and, yes, drama surrounding the decision to discontinue offering the class at Kalamazoo. Most people have no idea why the decision was made, and even less idea why it was enforced. The decision sparked a flurry of strong responses. The residents of one of the target blocks of Spring 2010, Lowden Street in Oakwood neighborhood, wrote a group letter to the editor in the Kalamazoo Gazette stating that "We're sadden by the late breaking bulletin from Kalamazoo College Provost… about the possible demise of the Building Blocks Kalamazoo Program. We can only pray that he will reconsider and acknowledge the impact that this stellar program has had…. Let's save Michigan with neighbors helping neighbors." The letter was signed collectively, as a block, rather than by any individual residents, presumably as an effort to showcase one aspect of the program's success.

Students rallied. Petitions circulated campus. People wrote alumni who previously participated, begging them to contact the Provost's office and ask them to reconsider the decision. During those final hot and sunny days of the 2010 spring quarter, students with clipboards set up shop in several high-traffic areas of campus, calling to every student passing by, asking them to sign their petitions. I confess to playing my part by signing the petition and joining the group of students going around telling the story of their Building Blocks experiences to students who had not had the chance to enroll in the course. All of these actions were to no avail.

Student Ben Ensroth remembered the situation differently than any of the protesters. As one of the students on the interim committee for the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, he had quite a few formal and informal interactions with the Provost and the President's staff. This gave him a unique insight into their reactions to the Building Blocks controversy. "They weren't going to change their minds," he said. "I didn't come down strongly on either side of it. The argument that it didn't really fit in with the curriculum held a lot of water. But still - did I wish they kept such a unique program? At the end of the day, yes, but it doesn't matter. Because it was such a hot button topic – the things I overheard from working with the president's staff and a lot of people from within anthropology/sociology on other things – the decision had been made. They weren't going to keep the program. It was going to get cut. There was really no hope of saving it."

Luckily, hope was not lost for the program. Cummings found his solution at Western Michigan University. The school of social work took Cummings – and the program – in. He recruited several K students, Allie VanHeest and Nicole Allman, to serve as TAs for the first year at Western. According to Cummings, "Western was wonderfully receptive. Don Cooney from the School of Social Work knew about the program well… and was quick to encourage the school of social work to pick it up." A lot of that actually had to do with how students at Kalamazoo were rallying to keep the course. "People at Western were seeing how hard students were fighting for it at K," Cummings said. He sees that as instrumental in Western's decision to pick up the course.

This spring marks the first year that no Kalamazoo students have been involved in Building Blocks since its inception. His current TA is a Western student, Erin Kaplan, and all of his students are also Western students currently attending Western Michigan's summer intensive session.

This transition, beyond Western's quick decision to integrate it into their curriculum, was not easy for Cummings, or for the program. "What's been hard is to get the number of students. I don't have the same connections at Western that I did at K."

He went to 22 different classes across several departments at Western and advertised the Building Blocks course to all the students in each class. "Kalamazoo is really unique," Cummings said. Western is a lot larger, and as such, word of mouth is not the driving force in drawing students to the program that it was at Kalamazoo. Still, many Western students seem to be interested in the program. Unfortunately, according to Cummings "Western students are more likely to be employed, part time or full time, or they have other classes, so they can't spend as much time in the neighborhoods." Because of this, and the fact that Western's summer session is several weeks shorter than an academic quarter at Kalamazoo, he has had to make the course less academically demanding.

Additionally, students have less wiggle room to deal with possible setbacks. "They really have to do everything exactly on time because there's less forgiveness in the schedule," Cummings said. Whereas, while the program was at K, students had several weeks to coax residents of the neighborhoods to participate, at Western, "they just have to do it, and if residents don't sign up at the start, it's really hard to integrate them."

The biggest problem arose with the fact that Western's summer session is not covered by financial aid. Many interested students had to withdraw their applications to participate in the Building Blocks class for financial reasons. As it stands, rather than three students per participating blocks, now only two – and, in one case, one – students are on a team.

The community overall is still grateful to the program. Present Building Blocks TA Erin Kaplan worked in the Fairmont neighborhood when she took the course, and when she was there, largely through the efforts of her block, the Fairmont Neighborhood Association was dissolved and re-formed as the West Douglas Neighborhood Association. Although Kaplan did not speak about the politics involved in the transition, she did reveal a little of the backstory. "Before and during the project, my residents would complain that Fairmont Neighborhood Association was 'shady'… However, I continue to run into residents who say 'I hope you know—your project [Building Blocks] fixed more than the street, but the Association as well.'"

Others agreed about the importance of the program. One resident of Vine neighborhood was overheard saying, "I saw the Building Blocks signs go up the other day. It's always great to see them there."

The Building Blocks board of directors is excited about the program's new home at Western Michigan University. Students are, too – Kaplan said "I think the project is going as well as it could be going." Still, Cummings is keeping his eyes open for other possible opportunities, in case it just doesn't stick there. As for the future – "Who knows?" he said. "If we just can't get enough students, maybe we'll move to resident organizers."

In any event, it seems that – for the time being – even though Building Blocks no longer has a home at Kalamazoo College, it will continue being a community presence for as long as possible.

Audio Slideshow

On writing the final narrative

This was difficult to write, mostly because a lot of people are either not very forthcoming about the building blocks controversy at all, or about any criticisms of the program in general. Also, in my interview with Kim, there was quite a bit he said that he later asked me not to put into my piece. Several people I've approached who were instrumental in getting Building Blocks kicked off campus have refused to talk to me at all. Still, I'm going to try to get more interviews to flesh it out.

Still, I feel pretty confident about this. I think I'm coming into an actual journalistic writing style - feel free to tell me if I'm wrong :P - that actually works.

What I want to know is: what is this missing? I was omitting stuff from previous Index articles about the transition because I did not want to rehash, but I might need to incorporate that later. Did it make sense? Was it interesting?

Building Blocks Lives On at Western Michigan University

(I have more interviews scheduled within the next week to flesh this out for the final draft)


May 24, 2010. Monday. 9th week. Spring Quarter. Kim Cummings sent an email to all past participants of Building Blocks with the subject line "Calling all BB/09ers: Sad announcement to make." The contents of the email were brief and to the point: "I'm calling all BB/09s--sophomores, juniors, and seniors--to meet at the end of tonight's BB seminar, 10:00 p.m. in Dewing 310. I have a very sad announcement to make."

At the meeting, he revealed to Building Blocks classes past and present that Building Blocks was going to be removed from the curriculum. And then, Building Blocks 2010 participant Allie VanHeest says, "he sat down and we organized. We held discussions with administrators, rallied in Red Square, and led a letter-writing campaign."

Building Blocks, officially listed on class registration forms as ANSO 224: Neighborhood Organizing Practicum, began as a class at Kalamazoo College in the spring of 1995. Originally designed as a way for students to develop advanced organizing skills through working on community-based projects, Building Blocks, by its last years at Kalamazoo, functioned as half-theory, half-application intensive life experience. Students, in groups of three, worked specific blocks in neighborhoods in transition in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Given anywhere between $2,500 and $3,000 in grant money – depending on how generous donations were in any given year – student organizers worked with neighborhood association managers and resident advisors to rally neighborhood residents. The cover story was that residents would be given money to make exterior home improvements – maybe to buy paint, or flowers, or shrubs to pretty the place up; maybe to fix that hole in the porch; maybe to replace the window sills. The catch was that they had to work with their neighbors to actually get the work done. The goal? Building social capital, and creating a network of neighbors that each resident could potentially rely on if the need arose.

There is a lot of heartbreak and, yes, drama surrounding the decision to discontinue offering the class at Kalamazoo. Most people have no idea why the decision was made, and even less idea why it was enforced. The decision sparked a flurry of strong responses. The residents of one of the target blocks of Spring 2010, Lowden Street in Oakwood neighborhood, wrote a letter to the editor in the Kalamazoo Gazette stating that "We're sadden by the late breaking bulletin from Kalamazoo College Provost… about the possible demise of the Building Blocks Kalamazoo Program. We can only pray that he will reconsider and acknowledge the impact that this stellar program has had…. Let's save Michigan with neighbors helping neighbors."

Students rallied. Petitions circulated campus. People wrote alumni who previously participated, begging them to contact the Provost's office and ask them to reconsider the decision – to no avail.

Student Ben Ensroth remembers the situation differently than any of the protesters. One of the students on the interim committee for the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, he had quite a bit of informal interactions with the Provost, and the President's staff. "They weren't going to change their minds," he says. "I didn't come down strongly on either side of it. The argument that it didn't really fit in with the curriculum held a lot of water. But still - did I wish they kept such a unique program? At the end of the day, yes, but it doesn't matter. Because it was such a hot button topic – the things I overheard from working with the president's staff and a lot of people from within anthropology/sociology on other things – the decision had been made. They weren't going to keep the program. It was going to get cut. There was really no hope of saving it."

Kim Cummings is the lifeblood behind the Building Blocks program. One of his stipulations for retirement was that he be permitted to continue teaching Building Blocks and his winter course, How To Change The World. He was informed of the decision to eliminate the Building Blocks program a while [check how long] before he informed his students. As soon as it was clear that Building Blocks would not be able to remain at Kalamazoo, either in the AnSo department or in the Philosophy department, as was briefly considered, Cummings started looking for alternate options.

He found his solution at Western Michigan University. The school of social work took Cummings – and the program – in. He recruited several K students, Allie VanHeest and Nicole Allman, to serve as TAs for the first year at Western. "Western was wonderfully receptive," he says. "Don Cooney from the School of Social Work knew about the program well… and was quick to encourage the school of social work to pick it up." A lot of that actually had to do with how students at Kalamazoo were rallying to keep the course. "People at Western were seeing how hard students were fighting for it at K," Kim says. He sees that as instrumental in Western's decision to pick up the course.

This spring marks the first year that no Kalamazoo students have been involved in Building Blocks since its inception. His current TA is a Western student, Erin Kaplan, and all of his students are also Western students currently attending Western Michigan's summer intensive session.

This transition, beyond Western's quick decision to integrate it into their curriculum, has not been easy for Kim, or for the program. "What's been hard is to get the number of students," he says. "I don't have the same connections at Western that I did at K."

He went to 22 different classes across several departments at Western and advertised the Building Blocks course to all the students in each class. "Kalamazoo is really unique," Cummings says. Western is a lot larger, and as such, word of mouth is not the driving force in drawing students to the program that it was at Kalamazoo. Still, many Western students seem to be interested in the program. Unfortunately, "Western students are more likely to be employed, part time or full time," Kim says. "Or they have other classes, so they can't spend as much time in the neighborhoods." Because of this, and the fact that Western's summer session is several weeks shorter than an academic quarter at Kalamazoo, he has had to make the course less academically demanding.

Additionally, students have less wiggle room to deal with possible setbacks. "They really have to do everything exactly on time because there's less forgiveness in the schedule," Kim says. Whereas, while the program was at K, students had several weeks to coax residents of the neighborhoods to participate, at Western, "they just have to do it, and if residents don't sign up at the start, it's really hard to integrate them."

The biggest problem arises with the fact that Western's summer session is not covered by financial aid. Many interested students had to withdraw their applications to participate in the Building Blocks class for financial reasons. As it stands, rather than three students per participating blocks, now only two – and, in one case, one – students are on a team.

Still, the community overall is still grateful to the program. The Eastside neighborhood has not applied to be part of the program for several years. Still, neighborhood association director Pat Taylor says, "People keep coming by the office and asking if it's going to be back this year. They really miss it."

Others agree. One resident of Vine neighborhood was overheard saying, "I saw the building blocks signs go up the other day. It's always great to see them there."

The Building Blocks board of directors is excited about the program's new home at Western Michigan University. Still, Kim is keeping his eyes open for other possible opportunities, in case it just doesn't stick there. As for the future – "Who knows?" Kim says. "If we just can't get enough students, maybe we'll move to resident organizers."

In any event, it seems that – for the time being – even though Building Blocks no longer has a home at Kalamazoo College, it will continue being a community presence for as long as possible.

KMRHS

Edited profile piece

Model railroading is a relatively hidden hobby to those who do not have friends or family members already involved. It is frequently passed down from parent to child. Generally, parents buy basic train sets for their kids; sometimes, enthusiast parents "drag their kids along to all these shows," (large fairs where people familiar with the history of various specific railroads and trains are interspersed with multiple vendors sell locomotives, cars, and pieces of scenery) "whether their kids want to go or not." Mark Tomlonson, an unassuming man with dark hair and glasses who operates as treasurer of the Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society, tells me that most enthusiasts are bitten by the train bug at a young age, and that "once people get interested in it, especially, say, if they're older than 13 when they become interested in it, they tend to stay interested in it for their entire lives."

Prior to my spontaneous decision to attend a model train show last fall, the only exposure I'd had to model railroading was through the generic magnetized-connection wooden sets belonging to kids that I have babysat for. I thought it was something that old men and young kids liked – I didn't realize that trains.com, the "#1 online destination for train enthusiasts!" has a directory of over seven hundred USA-specific model railroad clubs looking for new members, of all ages and genders. I thought it was more of a basement activity – I did not realize that clubs can be huge – up to a hundred members, in some cases – or that there were model railroad attractions such as Minatur Wunderland in Germany, which has over 39,000 feet of track. Something drove me to check out the model train show, however, and when I was there, something about the passion enthusiasts have for trains, and the camaraderie that people involved in model train clubs share, bit me. Since then, I have driven out to the Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society four times, to find out more about how model railroads work and, more importantly, to get a read on the dynamic of the members of the society. On my last visit, several of the members started making noise about me applying to join the Society.

The Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society is a one-stop shop for model train enthusiasts, with a respectably-sized railroad and a comprehensive library with shelves full of books and movies on the history of both model railroads and actual railroads, and full collections of Trains, Model Railroader, and Railroad Model Craftsman magazines. It is also really difficult to find – fitting, perhaps, for such a socially-hidden hobby. Located on Riverview Drive, to the north and east of Kalamazoo proper, reaching it involves driving through the small town of Parchment, Michigan, past neighborhoods and an airfield where stunt planes fly in twice a year, to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it driveway located in the middle of a sharp bend in the road. The first time I drove out to KMRHS, I missed it once. The third time I drove out, I missed it twice.

The driveway is long, marked only by a wooden contraption reminiscent of a hanging tree with a hand-lettered sign on top reading simply "KMRHS." The building at the end is unassuming, save for the large red caboose parked just outside, behind a transplanted Railroad Crossing warning post. This building has been the home of the Society since 1971, when the Kalamazoo Model Railroading Club moved out of its 20-year home in founding member Maury Highler's basement. Inside the main entrance is a true work of art: just over 212 feet of track laid out in a 20 feet by 40 feet area. There are tunnels and mountains, cities and shipping yards. Every bit of the scenery is accurate up to the year 1960 – hence the historical in the title of this organization – and all the trains are connected to a digital command center that helps coordinate everything. There are multiple towns, stations, and yards scattered about the layout, and during operating sessions, up to seven trains can run at once. Model train fall under a number of various scaled-down versions of real-life trains ranging from the model trains used to transport people around zoos to complex layouts that can fit inside a briefcase; the trains used at KMRHS are on the popular HO scale, meaning that every inch of track on this layout represents 87 inches, or just over seven feet, of actual real-life trains.

Scattered around the layout are examples of the sense of humor of scenery-building Society members: tiny little scenes, almost like the Easter eggs found in many computer games and DVD menus. Visitors are encouraged to take a slip of paper from a stack sitting by the wall. Each paper has a blurb reading "The Cooper Park & Eastern is filled with 'mini-scenes'. How many of these can you find? Some of them will take a bit of detective work, but all are in plain sight," followed by a randomized list of ten possible scenes, including the favorite of many members, "The 'Bare' Hunter," a scene where a bear is standing by a hunter squatting over a log with his pants down, and my personal favorite, "Movie Set," where a crowd of people surrounds a Marilyn Monroe figurine – skirt, of course, flying up – standing next to a pink Cadillac.

Mark Tomlonson, chief engineer for WMUK during the day and treasurer for KMRHS at night, is a lifelong enthusiast. When I ask him how he became interested in model trains, he says, "No idea. I, you know, I – the very first house I lived in, up to the age of 2 and a half, was just a couple hundred yards from a railroad track, and I think that might have something to do with it. But I have no idea what it's like to look at a train and not be interested in it." Later, I will ask if his family has any factor in his interest, and he will tell me that his "dad was interested in helping me, but he wasn't interested with trains." Mark joined the Society after the Battle Creek Jazz Ensemble imploded and freed up his Monday evenings.

Bill Geresy, an air force veteran with long grey hair and big glasses, has also been interested in trains since his "parents bought me a train set when I was a little little kid." A member of multiple model train clubs in other locations prior to living in Kalamazoo, his enthusiasm extended to actually working on the railroad "down in PawPaw" for five years, working the "whole package – I could work any job on any train" from freight to passenger to dinner trains. He joined the Society in 1985 and has been a member – save for a period of time when he was called up for National Guard duty – ever since.

This lifelong fascination with trains, though apparently the norm – these two men and David Hayes-Moats, the heavyset dark-haired president of the club, all have it. David tells me that he's "always liked trains." Even though he's had periods in his life where he has not been actively involved in model railroading, the fascination has lingered. The same seems to be true of the club's youngest member, a 15-year-old boy who has taken the narrow-gauge track on the layout on as his personal project and completed it, now running that track exclusively during operating sessions. He's been a member for several years, apparently, and is passionate and dedicated, though unfortunately could not be reached for comment.

Russ Barr, wide-grinned webmaster whose hair is in the process of turning from sandy to grey, sits down with us after he finishes painting scenery behind the track that runs through the bathroom. His story is different – although "I had a train set when I was a kid, managed to destroy it pretty good," he didn't really become interested in trains "until my wife dragged me to a hobby show, said I didn't have enough hobbies. I disagreed, but I kind of liked the challenge and a couple of the guys I met – we were really comfortable to talk to, so I built a small layout and joined the club, then abandoned the small layout because I've got a big one here."

However people come to model railroads, the hobby demands a lot of commitment once they become involved. "The most expensive part of model railroading is the time," Mark tells me. Although good HO cars cost about $50 each, with locomotives at around $100, it takes hours to keep trains going. The society has 37 regular members, ranging in age from 15 to 93; the average member puts in at least five hours a week, making sure the track is clean enough, that the electrical wiring is in order, painting cars, making sure the engines are running right, and setting up operating sessions, where a lot of members come together to run the trains based on a set schedule. Every month, the Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society has five set work sessions for maintenance, one business meeting, and two operating sessions.

The operating sessions, which Russ describes as " like a computer game, but in 3D, and not as fast," are very regimented. Trains are set to run on a schedule, departing certain stations at certain times, picking up and dropping off "loads," like flour, at various train yards and in various cities. Some people man the train yards, switching cars and sending trains out at certain times. Some man specific trains, running them from one station and town to the next. One person is always the dispatcher, telling others when they are permitted to go and helping make sure that there are no collisions between trains. Each member possesses a small, leather-bound rulebook with some hundred-odd rules that detail what exactly proper behavior is, for every conceivable manifestation of model railway usage. These rules range what things train operators can say during an operating session (and how that changes if there are observers who are not members in the society) to which cars can be historically accurately hooked up to which engines and the preferred electrical wiring configurations of the track. The first rule in the book is that model railroads should be fun, and that everyone is to ensure that the experience remains fun. And members do, though God forbid anyone not start their train on time or run it at the appropriate speed and thus throw off the timing of the maneuvers within each session.

Still, during our interview, I get the same impression that I got the first time I stepped into the world of model railroading – that train show at the Kalamazoo Expo Center during the last week of October last fall where I first felt the attraction to this type of hobby: the point of this society is the sense of community that members get. New members have a probationary period (one member jokes that I've practically entered that period at this point, what with how many times I have visited, despite the fact that I have yet to run a single train) before they become full members of KMRHS, to make sure that they get along with everyone.

The system is imperfect – at the operating session I attended, there was a near-collision and two members got into an argument over how fast one member was running his train, and several comments that Russ makes about how long it takes to come to majority decisions in meetings give me the gut feeling that there is some tension within the ranks – but I do not get the impression that the glitches in the system are truly a problem. After all, as Mark tells me, "It's nice to pay the monthly dues just to have some place to go and talk about trains where people don't look at you funny."

Reading Response: The Events of October

I'm going to be completely honest here: I could not finish this book.

It is not because the book was not well-written or well-researched. On the contrary, I found it to be hauntingly, distressingly good. The research seemed thorough to me, and no rock was left unturned. Gail approached the subject with nuance and respect, and I was impressed by the judicious way she examined the complicated and myriad aspects of the murder-suicide that occurred on this campus in 1999.

When I took Creative Nonfiction my sophomore year here, Gail had just wrapped up the years of work that went into writing this book, and as such, she was able to use it, and the process of writing it, as way to give us context in how to approach works like this. Even then, just by the way she discussed collecting memories from the persons affected by this tragedy, I was struck by the care she put into creating this book. I told myself then that I would read it someday, because I felt like it would probably be a perfect example of what I would eventually want to do myself with something I wrote.

And I was right. I read the majority of the book. I had to steel myself before every chapter, because while reading a narrative about such a traumatic event is difficult no matter what, reading about one that happened in the place you call home and hearing about the responses of multiple people you've grown to love and respect, is even harder. I managed to get through most of it. In the end, though, some stuff came back up when I was reading it I had to make the personal decision to put the book down and step away until I am mentally prepared to pick it up again. Maybe that will be tomorrow before class. I hope that it will be - I would like to engage in any discussions about the last chapter and a half that may arise.

I think, though, that this is a testament to how effective Gail was in telling the story of what happened before, during, and after the so-called "events of October," as well as conflating the events with the larger-scale societal implications of the matter. I found myself drawn, breathless, into the discussion on monsterizing Neenef, the debate about how to memorialize Neenef and Maggie, the question of bringing the term "violence against women" to this event.

I have no issue with the way this story was researched or presented. It seems extremely well done to me, and I do not think that my perception of it as a very well-written narrative is overly biased by the fact that I know and respect the author. The subject matter was just to volatile for me to finish right now.

Reading Responses

The Marriage Cure
I found this to be a very interesting article. It was probably one of the more effective ones I've read this quarter in that even though I've only been to Oklahoma City once (and never to the areas mentioned), there was a universality and also a good detailed description enough for me to be able to vividly picture what was going on. I felt like none of the information given was unnecessary; I also felt like I had enough information to completely understand the article.

I think what made this effective was the way Boo made the problems faced by Corean and Kim as accessible to the New Yorker's general audience as possible. The effort to make sure to tell two stories that are ultimately both quite bleak, but frame one in as much hope as possible, was an interesting one, and I have to admit (because I always want more), I'm curious about the statistics of the people living in Sooner Haven - actual numbers associated with the problems that Boo tells us about through the lives of Corean and Kim - in addition to these admittedly very touching and thought-provoking stories.

As depressing as it was to read, this is one of those articles that made me want to learn more about the projects of Oklahoma City in my spare time. I do feel like Boo provided us with enough to tell the stories she knows, but this has sparked my interest (as I feel a good, strong piece of narration should). I'm sure that any number of housing projects in any number of cities around the United States could have been chosen, many of which the readers of the New Yorker might be more familiar with than Oklahoma City. I like the decision she made to pick a place that is more out of mind than most, and I think it added a dimension (e.g. with the "Indian option") to the narrative that might have been missed had she chosen to profile women from projects of a more regularly-thought-about city.

The French Fry Connection
In response to the article that Tanj and I picked for everyone to read, I thought I would talk briefly about the context for the piece. We located it through the google book version of Storycraft and the chapter provides a lot of interesting insight and context into the process that Richard Read went through in order to create the story. It portrays the series of articles as a labor of love, as apparently, The Oregonian did not have much interest in posting that kind of series of articles - newspapers and magazines were doing spot treatments of the issue, and the article Richard Read proposed took too much time and effort. He managed to convince people that an explanatory piece on the Asian economic crisis was important, however, and purportedly worked quite hard to manage to get so many "ins" in order to tell the complete story, starting with allowing the Hutterite community to become familiar enough with him to share the secrets of their farming to following the potatoes (and fries) on to their ultimate destination McDonalds.

I know when I was browsing everyone elses' blogs earlier someone - I forget who - mentioned that his article was not well-sourced. I would agree that it came across like that. However his sources are made clear in the contextualizing chapter within Storycraft - an American couple booked passage on the ship that sent everything from the farm to Hong Kong, and Read convinced them to take detailed notes of the passage before flying over, himself (There's more, and the chapter is actually quite interesting if anyone has the time to read it).

In response to the article itself, I feel like it does an effective job at portraying the Asian economic crisis in a context that is accessible to American readers, though I agree that it can be a little bit repetitive. I wonder if I was more okay with that because I read the context chapter, though, especially because the chapter provided insight into the general narrative arc of pieces like this.

Aaron Aupperlee's articles
I found this collection of articles quite interesting. I especially appreciated seeing the ways in which audio slideshows were constructed for the stories of Dylan Radabaugh and Paul Powell and the Chittock street article.

I especially appreciated these articles as concrete examples of how to maneuver within word count limit, something that I know that I, personally, struggle with, and that I'm sure others struggle with as well. I was left unsatisfied at the end of most of them, because I always want to know more, but ultimately I am happy with how the stories were portrayed. My dissatisfaction - the article about the Grass Lake boys was great for depicting their friendship and recovery, but I was constantly hoping to find out what different accidents happened to each of these boys to put them in the same kind of place, but I can say that I did like the treatment of their injury in matter-of-fact terms so much better than I liked the piece on brain surgery that we read at the beginning of the quarter. The article about Chittock street felt somewhat short and topical even with the added audio slideshows, though I do think that Aupperlee did a good job at humanizing the street ultimately. I have fewer contentions with the story about the alcoholic mother, though I feel like since there was such an emphasis on her role as a cancer survivor in the headline, it should have been more emphasized within the narrative itself.

Overall, I do appreciate these examples of human interest stories that are made to fit within a certain wordcount, but which are augmented by multimedia presentations, though.

Captive Audience
The thing I like best about radio journalism is the way that different voices can flesh out a narrative by providing a better mental image of how the story is going. In this specific context, the presence of the accents and of the Spanish (which I'm no longer as familiar with as I should be) helped, in my opinion, to craft a sense of immediacy. I think it would have worked less well if the narrator of the segment did not provide loose translations, however.

I think that the story of Viviana and the story of the narrator work decently well together, though I do think that the way they were woven together could have possibly been restructured and still been effective. I'm not sure how that would best be accomplished, however.

I found the story very compelling and interesting, especially the information that the radio segments that the loved ones of kidnapping victims record and put onto the air actually reaches the kidnapped people regularly because guards allow them to listen to the segment to keep up morale. Overall, I walked away from listening to this piece feeling like I learned a lot about something I previously knew nothing about, which is really what a segment like this should do.

Like with the Marriage Cure article, I think it's a good decision that a story that could be construed as a success is portrayed alongside a story that has an uncertain outcome in order to both leave the listener feeling hopeful but to caution them that these problems are ongoing and messy and not easily resolved.

Yemen series
I have to admit that I went into this reading biased - my roommate is/was a peer leader this academic year, so we had the summer common reading book sitting in our place all last spring, and I would pick it up when bored for a while, and I felt like a lot of the ways the story was told were inappropriately paced or placed. So I was not really expecting much from the Yemen readings.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the Yemen articles. They were an easy read and full of rich description. [more forthcoming; i have it written down in longhand so i just need to type it out]

CYOA - French Fry Connection

For our CYOA, in anticipation of our next assignment, we decided to find an example of explanatory narrative. We considered choosing the Ted Conover article, but while we recommend everyone read that anyway at their leisure, we instead opted for Richard Read's Pulitzer Prize-winning four-part article "The French Fry Connection," which follows a shipment of McDonalds french fries from potato crop to preparation in McDonalds locations in Asia, and explores the Asian economic crisis through this lens.

This narrative was originally published in The Oregonian in four parts over the course of four issues in 1998. The first part can be found here, at the University of Chicago Press website; each subsequent part is linked at the bottom of each page.

As you read, we urge you to consider the following questions:

1. How effective is this as an explanatory/enterprise-type narrative?
2. How does Read develop the relationship between the Pacific Northwest farmers and Asian business partners in his narrative?
3. Did this capture your attention as a reader? Could you follow the narrative with your current level of familiarity with the subject matter?
4. After reading this, have you taken away more knowledge of the world economy? Did the subject matter explored in this narrative change your understanding of the intricacies of business relationships?

Happy reading!
Saskia and Tanj

On writing the profile

I found this easier to do than the personal narrative. The difficulty I had with writing my profile piece was in trying to find a conflict to focus on, which I don't think I managed to ultimately do. I have so much information on them - and I'm going back during an open house - but I don't think any of it is personal enough to really make the story hit home, you know?

I'm debating about which way to direct the focus of this, what I want to highlight, etc. I'm hoping to be able to figure that out during workshop today!

the roughest rough draft of a profile on KMRHS

I know this needs a lot of work. It has a little bit of an identity crisis going on right now, due in no small part to the fact that I'm pretty sure I haven't gotten the actual story here yet. I have plans to keep going back until I do, however.

------------------

"Model railroading is a hobby that, once people get interested in it, especially like say if they're older than thirteen and they're interested in it, they tend to stay interested in it their entire lives," Mark Tomlonson tells me, over a can of pop (his) and a bottle of water (mine). We're sitting in the workroom-slash-library-slash-office of the Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society. Despite the rain outside, the light coming into the room is bright. The air smells of the paint Mark was using on model train cars when I arrived.

The Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society is really difficult to find. Located on Riverview Drive, to the north and east of Kalamazoo proper, reaching it involves driving through the small town of Parchment, Michigan, past a series of pre-fab houses with dirt-cheap rent and beautiful mansions alike, past Triple H, an airfield where stunt planes fly in twice a year, to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it driveway located in the middle of a sharp bend in the road. The first time I drove out to KMRHS, I missed it once. The last time I drove out, I missed it twice.

The driveway is long, marked only by a wooden contraption reminiscent of a hanging tree with a hand-lettered sign on top reading simply "KMRHS." The building at the end is unassuming, save for the large red caboose parked just outside, behind a transplanted Railroad Crossing warning post. It has been the home of the Society since 1971, when the Kalamazoo Model Railroading Club moved out of its 20-year home in founding member Maury Highler's basement.

Inside the main entrance, however, is a true work of art: just over 212 feet of track laid out in a 20 feet by 40 feet area. There are tunnels and mountains, cities and shipping yards. Every bit of the scenery is accurate up to the year 1960 – hence the historical in the title of this organization – and all the trains are connected to a digital command center that helps coordinate everything. There are multiple towns, stations, and yards scattered about the layout, and during operating sessions, up to seven trains can run at once. The trains they use are on the popular HO scale, meaning that every inch of track on this layout represents 87 inches, or just over seven feet, of actual real-life trains.

Scattered around the layout are tiny little scenes, almost like the Easter eggs found in many computer games and DVD menus. Visitors are encouraged to take a slip of paper from a stack sitting by the wall. Each paper has a blurb reading "The Cooper Park & Eastern is filled with 'mini-scenes'. How many of these can you find? Some of them will take a bit of detective work, but all are in plain sight," followed by a randomized list of ten possible scenes, including the favorite of many members, "The 'Bare' Hunter," a scene where a bear is standing by a hunter squatting over a log with his pants down, and my personal favorite, "Movie Set," where a crowd of people surrounds a Marilyn Monroe figurine – skirt, of course, flying up – standing next to a pink Cadillac.

I email ahead of time to make sure that coming in during one of their work sessions is okay; Russ Barr, the webmaster, tells me to come on by. When I walk in through the unlocked door and pass through the layout room into the adjoining workroom-slash-library, with its paint station, fridge full of pop, and shelves full of books on the history of both model railroads and actual railroads, and full collection of Trains, Model Railroader, and Railroad Model Craftsman magazines, however, everyone is surprised to see me. Russ has forgotten to tell them that I am coming.

They are still flexible, however, so once Mark finishes with his current coat of paint, I sit down with him. He's the treasurer and librarian for the Society. An unassuming man with dark hair, I find out quickly that he is the chief engineer for WMUK when he's not with the trains and literally making sure that the Society – and the track – keep running. I start to suspect that he has a sneaky sense of humor when he tells me about the Amish romance novels his sister writes; my suspicions are confirmed by the railroad history stories he chooses to tell me throughout our interview.

He's also seriously into model railroads. When I ask him how he became interested in model trains, he says, "No idea. I, you know, I – the very first house I lived in, up to the age of 2 and a half, was just a couple hundred yards from a railroad track, and I think that might have something to do with it. But I have no idea what it's like to look at a train and not be interested in it." Later, I will ask if his family has any factor in his interest, and he will tell me that his "dad was interested in helping me, but he wasn't interested with trains."

This lifelong fascination with trains, though apparently the norm – he and David Hayes-Moats, the president of the club who joins us halfway through the interview, both have it. David tells me that he's "always liked trains." Even though he's had periods in his life where he has not been actively involved in model railroading, the fascination has lingered. The same seems to be true of the club's youngest member, a 15-year-old boy who has taken the narrow-gauge track on the layout on as his personal project and completed it, now running that track exclusively during operating sessions. He's been a member for several years, apparently, and is passionate and dedicated.

Russ Barr, webmaster, sits down with us after he finishes painting scenery behind the track that runs through the bathroom. His story is different – although "I had a train set when I was a kid, managed to destroy it pretty good," he didn't really become interested in trains "until my wife dragged me to a hobby show, said I didn't have enough hobbies. I disagreed, but I kind of liked the challenge and a couple of the guys I met – we were really comfortable to talk to, so I built a small layout and joined the club, then abandoned the small layout because I've got a big one here."

However people come to model railroads, the hobby demands a lot of commitment once they become involved. "The most expensive part of model railroading is the time," Mark tells me. Although good HO cars cost about $50 each, with locomotives at around $100, it takes hours to keep trains going. The society has 37 regular members, ranging in age from 15 to 93; the average member puts in at least five hours a week, making sure the track is clean enough, that the electrical wiring is in order, painting cars, making sure the engines are running right, and setting up operating sessions, where a lot of members come together to run the trains based on a set schedule. Every month, the Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society has five set work sessions for maintenance, one business meeting, and two operating sessions.

The operating sessions are very regimented. Trains are set to run on a schedule, departing certain stations at certain times, picking up and dropping off "loads," like flour, at various train yards and in various cities. Some people man the train yards, switching cars and sending trains out at certain times. Some man specific trains, running them from one station and town to the next. One person is always the dispatcher, telling others when they are permitted to go and helping make sure that there are no collisions between trains. Each member possesses a small, leather-bound rulebook with some hundred-odd rules that detail what exactly proper behavior is, for every conceivable manifestation of model railway usage. These rules range what things train operators can say during an operating session (and how that changes if there are observers who are not members in the society) towhich cars can be historically accurately hooked up to which engines and the preferred electrical wiring configurations of the track. The first rule in the book is that model railroads should be fun, and that everyone is to ensure that the experience remains fun.

Still, during our interview, I get the same impression that I got the first time I stepped into the world of model railroading – a train show at the Kalamazoo Expo Center during the last week of October last fall: the honest-to-God point of this society is the sense of community that members get. New members have a probationary period before they become full members of KMRHS, to make sure that they get along with everyone. It's imperfect – at the operating session I attended, two members got into an argument over how fast one member was running his train – but I do not get the impression that the glitches in the system are truly a problem. After all, as Mark tells me, "It's nice to pay the monthly dues just to have some place to go and talk about trains where people don't look at you funny."

reading responses, week 5

The Most Dangerous Gamer
I was very confused by this article. The supplementary material did not flesh it out - I watched the video, and it did not clarify my understanding of the matter at hand. Like Cam, I felt like this was more of a profile of the author's appreciation of Blow's work than an actual profile of Blow himself. I did not come away with a sense of understanding him - he was as elusive on paper as he apparently is in person - or his games. Perhaps a more focused video would have aided with that.

I also did not completely understand all the philosophical and technological details of the games described in this. Perhaps it would be easier to do so if I played video games :p

That said, the subject matter was interesting enough. I just feel like Clark may have gotten confused about what his focus was in the process of writing this.

This Must Be The Place
These videos, I think, are an example of things improving with practice. Though I did not connect very well with the chronologically earlier videos, both the profile of the burger joint in Manhattan and the profile on the man who lives in the abandoned Packard plant (now demolished?) have stuck with me for the 24 hours since I first watched them. I found it accessible and, more importantly, interesting - there was definitely a conflict there of 'why does this man live in an abandoned factory?'

I wasn't clear on whether it was more of a profile on the man or the place- though the name of the webseries indicates the place, "Hill" struck me as more of a story about why the man came to live there rather than the factory itself.

I also felt very connected to Prime when watching it - the way that the restaurant was described made it feel very relateable and accessible, even for people who may have never been there or even near there. The way it was described was as an everyrestaurant with something special, which I felt was a good, effective approach and helped the viewer to place it in an approachable context.

The other two videos struck me as rougher and less interesting.

reading responses, week 4

Wonder Town
I feel like this would have been much more comprehensible if I knew anything about Sonic Youth or about their scene. Although the imagery is technically quite good in this piece, I felt alienated from the piece as a whole, considering I was unfamiliar with much of the terminology. Certainly I can see how this would be a compelling read for anyone familiar with the topic, or with a passing interest in the band and its members, but, as I have neither, it fell flat to me.

Considering my unfamiliarity with the subject matter, although I found certain descriptions compelling, I also found them disturbing - though I suppose there's really no way to sugar coat, for example, a re-enactment of the Manson murders.

I did like the imagery of the band members being more like "conductors" than "players," though, and the description of how they could turn their instruments into a "choir." I suppose this piece is effective, in that after reading it, I looked up some Sonic Youth music on Spotify. Still, since I was largely unfamiliar with everything during my first read of the article, I found my mind wandering. I'm interested to see how people who are in the target audience responded to it.

Shooting an Elephant
I suppose I cannot lambaste Orwell for referring to the Burmese citizens as "yellow," considering the article was written in 1936, but that kind of language was still jarring enough to throw me out of the piece. That aside, the imagery was quite vivid, and I could easily envision everything that happened in this story. I especially appreciated the movement across time and space - I could definitely sense Orwell's representation of himself and could picture myself moving with him through the town, could sense his anxiety and his reactions to everything going on around him, from the death of the villager to the shooting of the elephant.

The death of the elephant was the most vivid part of this essay. Although lines like "The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die" made me question how, exactly, blood could seem like velvet - that doesn't seem like a likely comparison to me - they also served as very concrete and strong examples of what, exactly, it was like to watch the bullets rip through the elephant's side.

I am only unclear on one thing: Orwell discusses how the best way to kill an elephant is to shoot through the ears. He also continuously talks about what a bad shot he is. I found myself expecting the shot to misfire and actually shoot the elephant in the best possible way (if one can consider any kind of elephant-shooting to be "good"), and I would have liked a little more description about where each bullet landed in order to have a clearer mental picture of how Orwell presumably fell short of the ideal.

Telling True Stories
Although I found much of this repetitive, a lot of it is still at least on the edge of being useful. I agree with Ellen that much of this is "more poetic than technically helpful, more inspiring than informative." I did like the caution Merina puts on reporting other cultures. I also found the question about whether or not to tape interesting, especially after last week's class.

I found that a lot of these little essays and anecdotes gave good advice. However, I walked away from the passages thinking, "well, that's all well and good to hear, but could you provide some concrete examples of how to address these issues" more than once. Don't just tell us that it's important to do something; suggest a way in which to do it effectively. I know that, as a budding writer, I will need to make my own mistakes and learn from my own trials and errors. It would be nice to hear more concrete examples from others about the difficulties they faced too, though, in order to better determine a good starting point.

I also find myself wondering, regularly, how these journalists can afford to follow people around so much when they don't have a book or article deal, as was the case in several situations. I have some strange aversion to so-called "Gonzo journalism" and have not yet been able to identify where these feelings come from - perhaps my Cultural Psychology class primed me to be wary of people who try to immerse themselves in a culture, especially when they are immersing themselves as an obvious outsider - but I know that I will need to work past this aversion in order to be completely able to throw myself into journalism and this class.

Trina and Trina
This was a very compelling, if entirely depressing, story. I was anxious throughout the entire thing - I understand that LeBlanc had to be removed from her subject in that she couldn't really give her money or intervene, really, but I kept thinking, "I don't know how she can be involved in Trina's life and not want to do more to help her." The matter-of-fact tone helped a great deal in the telling of this; it could have easily run to too sentimental.

Part of me wanted more focus, maybe on just a specific stretch of time within the narrative, but I don't see how LeBlanc could have successfully done that - I know that if only a year of Trina's life, or a month of Trina's life, or one encounter with Trina was told, I would have wanted to know how everything turned out.

I really liked the way this piece ended with the voicemails and nothing else. I think it would have been interesting for LeBlanc to bookend the narrative with voicemails or written missives.

The American Man Age Ten
I find it interesting that Orlean chose to do her profile on random boy Colin Duffy rather than Macaulay Culkin. I think she did a very good job, though, especially of capturing the voice of a ten year old boy. Although her flow and style were somewhat convoluted - the way that this took the form of almost a list of preferences and attributes made it hard to follow - I found this to be a good look into a ten year old's life.

I feel like a lot was glossed over, though. Does Colin not want to be Chun Li because Chun Li is a girl? That's implied, but not explicitly stated. I would have liked to see Orlean go deeper into some of the things she brings up in passing instead of making this an overall superficial expose of the child's life, such as in the Street Fighter scene and also in her observations on Colin's preoccupation with money.

I found the voice of this to be wry, in a good way. Overall an enjoyable read, if a little superficial.

Profile Pitch

I intend on doing exactly what I described in class last week: I plan on doing a profile on the Kalamazoo Model Railroad Historical Society. KMRHS has been active for fifty years, and the rules of participating - and the layout of the model railroad tracks - have stayed consistent throughout (some mountains have moved in the tracks, but everything is still accurate to the year 1960 - no models are from after that year). I am interested, specifically, in what draws people to a place and an activity that one of its members described as "like a computer game, but in 3D, and not as fast." Members put in considerable time and effort to make sure the tracks and trains are running smoothly (and accurately; this includes keeping the electrical wiring up to date and functional) and into refurbishing their prize possession: a real, full-size old caboose that has been restored to its original glory and is now used as a main method of attraction. They also make sure the headquarters are open to public for certain set hours twice a week, and attend regular Operating Session where they run the trains according to a specific schedule.

I am interested in what drives people to spend this time and effort on model trains. Previous encounters with KMRHS members have made it clear to me that they find this an important creative pursuit. I want to know more about how participating lets them express themselves, and whether there is a common thread in the pasts of the members that draws them to participate. I'm also interested to see what comes up when I'm interviewing members. I plan on interviewing two or three to get a good sense of KMRHS.

Revision

Problem/Situation: I'm trying to make a good impression

First development: I'm running very late – resolved by my arrival
Second development: I am too tired to be very present in the conversation – resolved by our discussion of Waffle House, and by my going to sleep

Resolution: I fail to make a good impression

I am running desperately late to dinner – five hours late, in fact. I've been re-routed twice, and so I am arriving at 12:30 AM, rather than 5:30 PM, as I promised the woman I'm meeting.

For the fourth time in six weeks, I'm on my way to the home of a stranger named Jessica, my overnight bag in the trunk of their car. This time, I'm in Atlanta, my winter coat bundled under my arm, the windows of the car rolled all the way down because the night breeze negates the need for air conditioning. I'm in the back seat next my host. Driving tonight is her roommate's boyfriend, a burly type who is currently speaking loudly over the noise of the highway at night. We've already exhausted the topic of how tired I am after my travels (very), and how frustrated I am that I'm getting in late (not very). The boy driving the car has already asked me "does poor dear need food? Alcohol?" and, even though the only food I've eaten since this morning is the cheese and crackers snack I bought on the plane, even though we're driving past multiple 24-hour restaurants, I say no.

I'm not here for a romantic entanglement, but it might as well be one. After a good night's sleep, my time in Atlanta will be spent going through essentially the same motions I did in Lexington, Kentucky and Oxford, Ohio: I will butter up to this girl, asking questions about her life and her interests, for the rest of the night. In the morning, we will head downtown, where I will spend the day in thirty-minute sessions with a number of different people, again painting myself in the most attractive light possible, conscious of my body and whether the way I'm holding myself conveys enough interest in the people I'm talking to, asking insightful questions that display a sense of familiarity with the work of the people in question. We will eat together, laugh together, and spend the better part of the day trying to impress each other. I'm pitching myself to them; they are trying to sell me on their program. It's important to like and be liked, here: if everything goes well, these people will be key players in the next five-to-seven years of my life.

I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open, and an even harder time following the way that the conversation ebbs and flows around me. The boyfriend – I can't remember his name even though I was introduced to him not fifteen minutes ago, and I’m too embarrassed to ask for a repeat – cracks a bad joke, and I spend the next five minutes fighting through the haze of travel in my brain to try and remember a favorite joke to share, in turn. A question directed at me jolts me out of my reflection.

"You're from Michigan, right? Do you even know what Waffle House is?"

And here's my in. These meetups, if you can call them that, are all about talking up my own best attributes. Most of the time, this means discussing my research experience and interests, but I like finding points of connection outside of that – with the first person I spent the night with, I connected through music taste. The fact that, despite my best efforts, I couldn't really find anything with the second just made it really clear to me how important it is to find similarities outside of academics, which led to my desperate leap toward connecting with the third over our first late-in-life experiences driving in winter weather.

"I actually grew up in Kentucky," I tell him. "Waffle House is totally my jam." And the four of us – the girl I'm staying with, her roommate, and the boyfriend – lapse into a very intense discussion about how each Waffle House has its own personality, to the point where one is almost a completely different restaurant from the next. I mention my personal favorite in my hometown, where the employees bring in tomatoes from their gardens in the summer and the late-night waitress uses the singular noun "honey" as a plural to address groups of people. I also bring up my least favorite location, where I am consistently neglected by the waitresses no matter when I go and where, once, a cockroach fell from a light fixture into my cup of water.

Atlanta is the promised land of Waffle Houses – I count six on my way from the airport to their house, each one associated with a detailed story that I listen to avidly and, regrettably, forget as soon as we hit the next one. Still, by the time we finally get home, I know which ones to avoid and which ones to seek out, and when each one experiences its morning rush.

I could be interviewing for any type of job, or preparing for any type of informal dating: hooking up, bind date, speed dating. The fact that I'm waiting to interview for a clinical psych PhD program is almost unimportant to me right now. I'm still sitting in the backseat of this car, struggling to keep my eyes open. I still can't remember the joke that I want to tell. When we get to Jessica's house, I crawl into bed and fall immediately asleep.

I'm half in love with the program well before lunch the next day, enough that when I am eventually put on the alternates list, and ultimately fail to be offered admission, I still plan on re-applying.

I remember the joke halfway through an interview with the head of the program the next day, and have to hide a smile. Discussing the importance of a diverse population base for both research and for clinical practica is not the time to tell someone that the Revolutionary War general told the cowardly private, "Chicken, catch a Tory."

reading responses, week 3

Emergence (podcast)
I find it difficult to just sit and listen without multitasking, so that was my biggest stumbling block in consuming this narrative. Still, as an individual who works on a podcast (recording and editing segments - I don't put together the finished product but I do know the work that entails. I think it would be safe to say that I'm more interested in the production of audio segments and podcasts in general than the product), I have a lot of appreciation for the final editing of this radio segment. I felt like the extraneous sounds detracted from the overall message - when there was music playing behind the discussion, I found the music distracting me from what was being said. There were also some discordant sound effects, especially towards the beginning of the radio segment, that pulled me out of the narrative and made it difficult for me to become re-involved.

The way the narrative was constructed, though, both within description, and the way that actual vocal inflection could be directly heard, was quite compelling.

My issue, however, is that I am a visual learner - books and images stay with me a lot better than audio. I have listened to the segment three times, and I still can't draw any major points away from it. Maybe the issue is the length - when I was younger, I listened to NPR religiously when driving to and from school, and I always found the five-minute segments quite interesting and easy to attend to, and the longer segments more difficult to take in.


Jacob's Ladder (Atlantic article)
As someone who is actively interested in Africa, African politics, and African history, this piece automatically appealed to me. I appreciated that it provided background on South Africa - I know a decent amount of South African history, but nowhere near as much as I know about Eastern Africa. Although very little of the information given was new to me, it was nice to have a refresher, and I'm certain that what was given would be especially helpful for people who are unfamiliar with South African history and politics.

I know this was a piece on Jacob Zuma, and it is a well-executed piece. However, I kept finding myself wanting more of Khumalo's story - what are her thoughts on Zuma's life, and on her own life? How did she react when Zuma went into politics after promising he wouldn't? What are her feelings on the rape scandal and subsequent trial, and especially to Zuma's form of "protection" against HIV? I would have also liked more opinions from lay people, including the woman with the cross mentioned towards the end of the piece.

I guess this is what Franklin would refer to as not telling the story at hand - though the story told was very interesting and very well-done, I kept finding myself attracted more to the "silent women" that Zuma and the author of the piece, Douglas Foster, referred to than to Zuma himself. I would have definitely appreciated a little more about others an their reactions to him, and a little less about Zuma, himself.


Writing for Story
I have some serious problems with this book (I livetweeted them, actually, but rather than re-posting the tweets here (most of the tweets are visceral, knee-jerk reactions to specific passages I found questionable or even offensive, generally for personal reasons), I will incorporate some of my tweeted points into my response to this book), so I'm going to be honest here: I felt like, though the message was important, the delivery left a lot to be desired. Technically, the book is quite useful, especially when Franklin breaks down the parts of the narrative, and the best way to approach each part. I even appreciated the story he told of the adolescent writer. However, the devil is in the details and I must say that I'm disappointed with much of what I read. I definitely feel like the vehicle for making the points Franklin made was lacking. For starters, although the chapters on Polishing and The Nature of Art and Artists had really salient content, I did not feel like his points - especially about the need for consistent clarity - were met in the writing samples he gave. Maybe I'm just a product of my education, with irrelevant preconceptions that arguments are made stronger when you bring in outside evidence rather than just using your own points, but I thought that he would have been able to make his case a lot better had he used writing samples produced by other people, rather than himself. As it is, I felt that his holding his own writing as an example of what writing should be came across as very cocky, and rather unfounded.

I understand that they are technically good pieces, though I felt like they were quite vague in areas. Especially in the case of "Mrs Kelly's Monster" - I read that narrative twice before continuing onto the chapters about structure and outline, and still, when Franklin pointed out exactly what "clever choices" he made with his structuring and polishing of that piece, it was inevitably something that I had either not noticed, or felt was very heavy-handed.

I still did manage to bookmark several things that I know I will draw from as I continue on in the future. I already have a strong outlining system that has served me well in the past, but I will be taking on aspects of his, especially with regards to matching up the introduction and resolution of conflicts. I also found the list of no-no verbs quite useful, as well as the concept of identifying and removing "woodwork" from the final product (unless you have a flair for making it work after years of practice).

Also, as a side note: I realize the book is copyrighted 1986 and that times were ultimately different then, but by 1972, the officially-sanctioned term for Trisomy 21 had switched from "Mongoloid" to "Down syndrome;" a change not echoed in this work.

Questions for the Class

1. Do you consider the outlining structure Franklin proposes to be effective for your writing style? Do you think that there's another way of outlining that works better for you? Do you outline your works now, and, if not, do you now plan on starting to do so? How can you adapt the outline structure he provides to best suit your needs?
2. Have you been guilty of "woodwork" in the past? If so, what actions did you take in order to eliminate it? It can be difficult to decide that a beautiful passage that you've written is woodwork, so what suggestions do you have for noticing woodwork in your own future pieces?
3. Consider both "Mrs. Kelly's Monster" and "The Ballad of Old Man Peters" in the context of what Franklin says about Polishing your work, and about The Nature of Art and Artists. What about these narratives worked for you? Did anything not work for you? Why/why not?

On writing the personal narrative

I found it somewhat difficult to write my narrative on the interview process, especially at Georgia State, to the extent where I have a Word document with around six different starts, three different endings, and a whole heck of a lot of discarded paragraphs. Nothing was really coming out the way I wanted it to; I ultimately just selected the draft that felt the most complete with the knowledge that I could workshop it to pieces and end up with something stronger.

One of my biggest struggles was that I wanted it to be a Modern Love-type piece, because of the analogies between blind dating/speed dating/hook up culture and the interview process for clinical psych programs. However, I was too uncertain about doing something like that, and ended up sacrificing a lot of potential quality detail in order to fit it into the constraints for a Lives narrative.

The other issue is that I do not want this to come across as a story of failure; rather, I want it to be a somewhat humorous reflection on how crazy interviews really are: you meet with complete strangers for a very condensed amount of time wherein you have to consistently stress what a great fit you are. There is no time to be "off" in this process, and you have to rely significantly on making a good first impression because there's not time for much else - much like first dates. This is why I don't want to mention how the interviews actually went (uncertainly; I am an alternate at several of the programs I applied to and won't find out if I will be invited to the programs for a while yet).

Overall, I know I have a solid start, but I also have a lot of ends that don't really connect. In workshop, I hope to forge those connections and make a concrete decision about what to keep and what to discard. I also hope to decide whether this work would better identify as Lives or a Modern Love submission :)

I know that this needs a lot of work. I initially wanted to extend it and make it a riff on a Modern Love essay, but I wasn't sure that it was relationshippy enough, but since I shortened it, it might not be action-heavy enough.

This is therefore intended for the "Lives" section of the New York Times.

Personal Essay: The Unifying Force of Waffle House