Alyssa Wojcik’s Job Has Perks

March 6, 2014March 6, 2014Leave a comment

For original post visit http://tyler.temple.edu/blog/alyssa-wojciks-job-has-perks

Alyssa Wojcik has been working at the United Zion Retirement Community in Lancaster since she was sixteen years old. When she went to Tyler she continued working at the retirement community in the dietary department.

“Before United Zion, I did not have any real art education experience other than very small projects that I had done in the National Art Honor Society in high school,” Wojcik said.

After she received her degree in Painting from Tyler in 2012, she applied for a job in the Activities/Recreational Therapy department at the retirement community.

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Morgan Gilbreath’s The Ground Beneath My Feet

March 5, 2014March 6, 2014Leave a comment

For link to original story, visit http://tyler.temple.edu/blog/morgan-gilbreaths-ground-beneath-my-feet

Senior Morgan Gilbreath came to Tyler because she wanted to take on a double major, a school that was not just an art school, and to be in an urban environment. She is currently pursuing a BFA with a concentration in Glass, a BA in Art History, and a certificate in Community Arts from Tyler.

In the past year, Gilbreath has been awarded the Tyler School of Art Partner Scholarship, had an article published in Cleaver Magazine, and had an original piece installed in Temple Contemporary.

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More to Come

February 23, 2014April 30, 2016Leave a comment

Man, first I want to apologize to myself for not keeping up with this like I planned. I didn’t anticipate how busy this semester would be for me.

I am keeping up with reading, more for school than for myself, but I haven’t found the time to sit down and write about the readings the past week or so.

I’m currently enrolled in an 18 credit semester, which is basically as many credits as they’ll let you take in one semester. I needed to do this so that I could graduate on time this May. Most of my classes are fine and I can handle their course load, however I’m also enrolled in my capstone journalism class this semester. It’s been a lot to handle and I’ve been so busy and behind on so many things.

I’m writing this mostly for myself, to remind myself that this is something that I need to take the time to do. I promise that within the next week I will be up to date on everything and have new posts about what I’ve been reading.

This is my resolution, so I need to take the time and get it done.

In other news, the first story that I wrote for my capstone, Philadelphia Neighborhoods, was actually on the front page of their website the other day. That was a pretty cool moment for me.

My story was the one about Casinos. It’s a very difficult beat to cover, but also very rewarding when something gets accomplished.

The Jon Lennin Xperience by Rachel B. Glaser

February 10, 2014Leave a comment

This story was pretty strange. Everything from his sister virtually dating Kanye to Jason worrying about being able to give Yoko Ono an orgasm was definitely different.

I liked the story and I’ve definitely been caught up in that sort of virtual world where you can basically do anything that you want. I hope that it hasn’t effected my life in the way that these characters have been affected but I guess it could happen.

Something that was pretty interesting was that these games always had an ending that wasn’t necessarily good, but definitely final. Jason’s sister kept having to break up with Kanye and Jason ultimately had to kill John Lennon.

I’m interested to see what my classmates think about this story.

Final thought – Once again the story assigned has a sexual element to it. I’m seriously curious about why my professor assigns so many sexual stories. Does he think they’re easy to relate to? Does he even notice that he’s doing this?

The Healer by Aimee Bender

February 10, 2014Leave a comment

I’m a Game of Thrones fan, so I couldn’t help myself.

I absolutely loved this story. I guess when I read, I tend to go for supernatural or fantasy elements and this story was right up my alley. I would even go as far to say that I would recommend it to someone.

There’s definitely underlying themes in this story like be thankful for what you have and to be helpful to others, or to not judge people by their cover. But I just really enjoyed the story for what it is.

It’s a pretty interesting concept to come up with and to make into a complex story about feelings and friendship. I loved that the ice girl and the fire girl were able to cancel out each other and be normal, and how after the fire girl sort of left, the ice girl had to leave too. It was sort of like one couldn’t be there without the other.

Man, I feel like I’m fangirling all over this story. I hope that people in my class like it just as much.

Last comment – the mutant girls totally reminded me of X Men. I wonder if there was any sort of inspiration from that.

Sea Oak by George Saunders

February 10, 2014Leave a comment

Last Thursday, our reading was the short story “Sea Oak” by George Saunders. My professor let us know that this was the first story we were reading that would stem away from realism and have some supernatural elements, so I was really excited to read this.

First of all, I should probably explain my choice of photo for this post. If anyone has read the story, they know that the narrator works at this weird sex restaurant-type place where the male “waiters” strip as they bring out food. It has a pilot theme apparently. I’m not sure if places like this actually exist, it seems pretty unsanitary. Anyway, all I could think about was Magic Mike and male strippers. It’s relevant, I promise.

This story was pretty interesting overall. Without spoiling it, the whole twist was pretty shocking and I’m not sure that it was completely believable for her to act that way after dying. However, it did give the family the push they needed to improve their lives and they probably would not have done that if all of this didn’t happen. I also thought it was pretty gruesome and awesome that she continued to decay after coming back.

It’s definitely something that I would be interesting in hearing how George Saunders came up with the idea and what it was like writing scenes like that. Something about the craft of writing is so interesting to me and I guess that’s why I take so many creative writing classes even though I’m a journalism major. I guess that’s a lot of writing too.

The only thing that sort of bothered me about this story was that the sentences were sort of difficult to read until I got used to them and the dialogue seemed sort of unrealistic. But, the whole thing I think is supposed to be sort of a parody, so I guess it makes sense then.

The Girl on the Plane by Mary Gaitskill

February 10, 2014Leave a comment

I’m a little behind on posting about my readings. Snow, electricity, and whatnot have been delaying everything in my life right now. I read this short story for class about a week ago (I believe the reading was due last Tuesday).

I actually really liked this story, despite what it was actually about. I’ve never actually been on a plane, but I’ve been on plenty of train/subway rides to know how awkward it is to sit next to a complete stranger and be unsure what to talk about if you even talk at all.

At the beginning of the story, I kind of liked the narrator, even though he was sort of a jerk. However, as the story progressed I felt really bad for the women in his life and couldn’t believe what he did to Patty, embarrassing her and then raping her, even if he thought that he wasn’t really raping her.

On a sidenote – that actually says a lot about rape culture, because clearly the girl in this story had been given some type of date rape drug and then man after man continued to have sex with her while she was basically passed out, and then the narrator thought it was okay for him to have sex with her after all of this because she didn’t seem like she was refusing anyone. It’s really terrible, and it upset me that this guy still didn’t fully realize that what he did was very wrong and that he did in fact rape this girl who was in love with him.

Anyway, the story was very strange and definitely shocking. Something that we talked about in class was the way that Mary Gaitskill used flashbacks to tell the story. My professor wanted to know if we thought the use of flashbacks was successful when, in all honesty, she could have just written the story about the narrator and Patty without the whole storyline with the girl on the plane.

I think that it was necessary to tell the story in flashbacks because the narrator needed that woman on the plane to trigger his memory of Patty. The girl on the plane also opened up to him about her alcoholism and that allowed him to remember getting drunk and pushing Patty away and drinking and raping her.

Overall, the story was interesting and definitely something different to read. I’m not exactly sure why all the stories that my professor assigns have some sort of sexual storyline, but maybe we’ll move away from that eventually.

Corinne Bishop Finishes Diamond Research Scholars Project

January 31, 2014March 6, 2014Leave a comment

Diamond Scholar recipient Corinne Bishop has spent the last semester working on researching, finding inspiration, and creating her jewelry collection, “Material Lineage.”

The Diamond Research Scholars Program gives Temple students the chance to focus on a research or creative arts project during their summer and fall semester while registered for an independent study/research course. Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies, Emily Moerer, explains that the faculty-mentored research program promotes high-impact activity to enhance student learning.

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A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger

January 29, 2014Leave a comment

I think that J.D. Salinger is a very good writer and that he succeeded with making the dialogue in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” really sharp, in order to make up for the lack of inner monologue. Not having that step into the characters’ heads really allowed for me to think about what was going on and figure things out for myself, which I really like. It also gave the reader a sense of mystery, I found myself wondering what was going to happen. I definitely did not expect that ending, but looking back it makes sense for him to die after talking to the little girl about how bananafish gorge themselves on bananas and then die.

I think that I knew something was wrong with the soldier when the girl’s mother kept asking her if she was okay and if he had done anything to her. At first it seemed like she was just an overbearing mother, and that is how the girl kind of portrayed her by blowing off all of her questions. However, it seemed like the mother was being serious and that she was really worried about her daughter.

I also found the conversation between the soldier and the little girl very interesting. I’m sure that it was meant to show that he could better communicate with children and that he felt more at ease around those who had not yet lost their innocence. This is definitely something that would make sense for a person who was probably suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder and could no longer relate to the “grown-ups” around him. However, in a modern day and age, and I guess my own modern views he bordered on creepy for me. I guess back then it was socially acceptable to leave your child on a beach alone and maybe for people to interact with that child, but the soldier kissing the child’s feet borderlined on pedophilia a bit too much for me. Maybe I’m just taking that the wrong way and its supposed to just be this sweet moment and last connection the soldier makes before he decides to kill himself.

Aunt Jemima’s Old-Fashioned Pancakes by Mary Miller

January 27, 2014Leave a comment

So, I really didn’t like this story. I’d love to hear from others who have read it, but to me it just didn’t have any literary quality whatsoever.

The storytelling was exactly like a stream of consciousness. When my creative writing teachers ask us to sit down and write this is exactly the kind of thing that I write. I guess that’s the point of this story, but its annoying and could have probably been a much better story if it was set up more like a story.

That’s confusing, but hopefully it made sense. I definitely see why my professor assigned us this story and how it relates to the last story, but I still hated it.