Posts tagged story

How I Became A Writer | Merry Farmer

By on February 15, 2012

Here it is, folks!? In honor of ORIGINS Blogfest (a fabulous idea created by DL Hammons which hundreds of writer/bloggers are participating in today) I present you with my origins story ? how I became a writer.? Or rather how I knew I was a writer.

I?ve included the one sentence version of the story in many a bio I?ve written:? I have been a writer since I was 10 years old and realized one day that I didn?t have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something.? But that?s just the tip of the iceberg.

Three year old Merry & her Granddad

I was in third grade.? It had been a rough couple of years for me.? My dad had walked out on us when I was 6, we moved halfway across the country to live near my Mom?s family, my Granddad (who had become a beloved father figure) had passed away very suddenly of a heart attack, and when my dad remarried he took my two older half-brothers (his sons from his first marriage) away to live with him.? Trauma!? I was struggling in school that year too.? It sounds so silly to an adult, but my best friend from second grade had been put in a different classroom than me.? I also had to learn long-division, which nearly killed me.? Everything pretty much sucked far more than your average ten-year-old deserves to have things suck.

My third grade teacher was Mr. Morley.? I adored him.? One day we were given a creative writing assignment.? I don?t even remember what we were supposed to write, but I ended up writing a story about a girl who made friends with and probably fell in love with a wasp (yes, a wasp) named Michael Greer.? Now Michael Greer was a boy in my class that I had been in love with since he kissed me in first grade.? This was the first instance of me making a character out of someone I knew.? I?m sure it was also the first time I used fiction to express and work through my emotions.? There was probably some deep psychological meaning to the fact that I would write a story about myself falling in love with a wasp (I was and still am to this day completely terrified of wasps) named after a boy I had a crush on.

Well, when we did these creative writing assignments in third grade we generally read them aloud to the class after they were graded.? I still remember Mr. Morley asking to speak with me at recess.? He was very tactful about saying that while he liked my story he didn?t think I should read it aloud.? I knew what he was talking about and agreed.? Thank you Mr. Morley for helping me to dodge a bullet that would have meant third grade social suicide!? I loved him even more.

Young Merry coming up with ideas to write about

But this first critique of something I had written got me to thinking?.? I had written a story and enjoyed the process of writing it, and even though I had handed it in to the teacher it hadn?t been read aloud like the rest of the class?s stories.? So that meant that not everything I wrote would have to be on display for my class.? And if I could write something for a class that then wasn?t shared, who was to say that I couldn?t then just write something for myself alone to enjoy?

That?s when I started writing.? Granted, I didn?t do it a lot, just every now and then.? Until something else coincidental and wonderful happened when I was in fifth grade.? My Mom took a job as the secretary of the elementary school that I attended.? When she was cleaning out the office she found a bunch of old school supplies that no one wanted.? One of these items was a small spiral-bound three-subject notebook.? I asked if I could have it.? She said yes.? For the first time in my young life I had in my possession the tools to write as much as I wanted.? This was a notebook that wasn?t earmarked for schoolwork.? It was mine to do with as I pleased.? I believe I wrote another story in which a boy in my class who I had a crush on fell in love with me.? And I think there was some time-travel involved too.? Either way, the tide had turned.? I was a writer.

I have boxes and boxes of spiral-bound notebooks with stories I started, ideas I?ve had, and boys I?ve had crushes on.? I suppose I was always meant to be a romance novelist at that.? Those notebooks lasted up until I got my first computer.? I have a few ancient floppy disks with stories on them (that may never be able to be recovered).? Nowadays I have a flash drive with everything I?ve written for the last five or so years.? But really, it all goes back to those heavy, obnoxious boxes of spiral-bound notebooks that I?ve lugged from apartment to house to apartment to state to state for the last 25 years.? And yes, I still have the original notebook.

I was born to be a writer.? It?s as simple as that.? And I?ll be a writer until the day I die and then some.

[Medieval Monday will return next week as I begin an exciting new series on Awesome Medieval Technology!]

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Source: http://merryfarmer.net/2012/02/13/how-i-became-a-writer/

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Should Parents Go Underground for Affordable Prekindergarten …

By on February 3, 2012

Across the country, parents are filling out applications for public and private preschools and even camping out in hopes of getting a coveted spot.

That’s what dozens of Florida parents did Sunday night. They hauled chairs, hammocks and lap tops to a prestigious church preschool in Wellington, hoping to ease the wait until registration opened at 7 a.m. Monday for 70 available spots, according to news reports.

Waiting in line for coveted spots in popular preschools is a fact of life for some parents. Many that I know have their own stories or offer up those of friends who’ve camped out or waited desperately at home to hear whether their child had been selected by a chosen school.

While the lack of high-quality preschool for low-income kids is well-known, a recent story in The New York Times suggests “there is a growing middle-class gap when it comes to pre-kindergarten.” The story quotes Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, who says, “Access is actually lower for middle-income people than it is for people that are poor.” That’s because cost can be a big issue for middle-class parents who can’t get their kids into public programs.

So what are these parents to do if their child doesn’t make the cut or they are priced out of preschool options? Some parents in New York City think they’ve found the answer: create a prekindergarten co-op.

In the Times story, a mother writes of her family’s experience after her older child wasn’t selected for a spot in the city’s public preschool programs and the family was unable to pay for private options, which can run $30,000 or more a year.

Soni Sangha and her husband decided to join other families in running a co-op group out of their homes. At a cost of about $30 per week, the price was right.

“In a co-op pre-K, parents work together to create a school that matches their educational philosophy and worldview. They also run it, finance it, staff it, clean it and administer it — whatever is necessary to keep costs as low as possible. Often, schools operate from members’ homes. Some pupils are taught by parents; others by professional teachers. The downside to such an arrangement? It’s a lot of work,” Sangha wrote.

And there’s the legal issue. Co-ops aren’t likely to be held in locations that meet safety and occupancy codes governing public and private schools. Or to use teachers who have undergone criminal or child-abuse background checks. And what if families end up disagreeing on other issues, such as educational philosophy or how much authority a teacher should have? That’s what happened to Sangha’s group.

Being forced to go underground so your children can have an affordable preschool option seems antithesis to the country’s ongoing education reform efforts, which include discussions and research on how best to evaluate early childhood education programs. Just last November, President Barack Obama unveiled new standards for Head Start, the federal early childhood education program for poor kids, to increase quality and improve accountability.

Sangha’s story highlights the pressing need for affordable early childhood education for all. If we could meet that goal, maybe parents won’t have to turn their family rooms into classrooms.

Source: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/early_years/2012/02/should_parents_go_underground_for_affordable_prekindergarten.html

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Protesters demand apology from Lowe’s

By on January 3, 2012

Yeah, sadly, things aren’t always fair–even in America. But it’s way better here than in other places.

Don’t forget that it is often/usually the media (and politicians) that whip us up into an emotional “frenzy” over stories like this, by reporting stories in different ways depending on their (the network’s) political slant (and they ALL have one) and who they percieve their audience to be. After all, the big media outlets are ALL “for profit” businesses whose primary goal is to make money. They will always slant news stories to fit their audience’s preferences or political biases or to intentionally evoke emotional responses in us (maybe by making a bigger deal about the Muslim protestors and giving them much more coverage), because they derive ALL their HUGE profits from their ratings (how many people are watching). If they can report something they think their audience will find controversial, or unfair, or fear-inducing, or tear-jerking, or heart-warming… they will do it because that will result in higher ratings, audience loyalty, and… greater profits.

And since most people will usually watch news-type reporting with political slant that they agree with (and the networks know this), it becomes easy for the networks to purposefully slant news stories in order to gain our trust, make us faithful watchers of their network, inflame our emotions, sway our political views, etc. Often times, networks simply choose not to even report on a particular news story if it goes against their political slant. Sad, but true.

Also, much news is regional. What’s big news in one part of the country may not even be reported elsewhere. Even if it’s a national story, it may be reported somewhat differently in different regions of the country because of regional differences in how people are believed to look at certain things.

I try not to get too fired up about most things that get reported (though often it is hard), because the media is not an impartial participant in the discussion (as they would have us all believe), and we can never really be certain that we’re being told the unbiased whole story. Let me rephrase that… Since ALL news outlets and other media have something of an overarching political slant that drives what they report and how they report it, we are rarely told the unbiased whole story. :-)

I guess what I’m saying, is that I don’t think that the American people are the problem (even those who react verbally to a story like this by expressing their opinions), as much as the decision-makers in the media are the problem, by doing SO much to evoke such strong emotions in us, to divide us as a people and to sway our collective thinking, for their own profit and political goals. Very sad.

If their was an imbalance in the coverage, and a resulting imbalance in the comments by posters here and other places, I think it was largely because the media knew they would get more controversy out of the story of the Muslim protestors, so they reported it and spun it up as far as they could. You know how they are…

I agree that both groups should have gotten identical coverage (or no coverage at all, because neither story really matters in the grand scheme of things).

Just my opinion. I hope all that made sense. It’s getting late and I’m falling asleep at the keyboard. :-)

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/18/9542170-protesters-demand-apology-from-lowes

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Florida senator denies embellishing family history (AP)

By on October 23, 2011

MIAMI ? In Florida, where Cuba and Fidel Castro can be highly combustible political issues, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is defending himself against allegations he embellished his family’s story in saying his parents left the island after Castro came to power.

So far, prominent members of the Cuban American community are standing by him, including the head of one of Miami’s oldest and most respected exile groups, who said Friday that he is willing to give the rising GOP star and tea-party favorite a pass.

The 40-year-old freshman senator has always publicly identified with the exile community and has a strong following within it. Rubio’s biography on his Senate website says he was “born in Miami to Cuban-born parents who come to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover.” And in a campaign ad last year, he said: “As the son of exiles, I understand what it means to lose the gift of freedom.”

But The Washington Post reported that Rubio’s parents actually left Cuba in 1956, nearly three years before Castro seized power in a revolution against dictator Fulgencia Batista. Rubio’s father was a store security guard when he and his wife left, according to Rubio’s staff, and came to the U.S. for economic reasons.

Rubio responded to the story with a statement saying his parents had tried to return to Cuba in March 1961 but quickly left because they did not want to live under communism.

“After arriving in the United States, they had always hoped to one day return to Cuba if things improved and traveled there several times,” he said. “In 1961, my mother and older siblings did in fact return to Cuba while my father stayed behind wrapping up the family’s matters in the U.S. After just a few weeks living there, she fully realized the true nature of the direction Castro was taking Cuba and returned to the United States one month later, never to return.”

In addition, Rubio has said publicly on previous occasions that his parents left Cuba before the revolution.

Rubio’s staff said it would change his Senate website.

The issue is magnified because of the formidable political clout of the Cuban exile community in Florida and the fierce passions in Miami that still surround Castro and the communist island, and because Rubio is often mentioned as a potential vice presidential pick. Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich have said he would make a great running mate.

Democrats are trying to make an issue of it, saying it calls into question Rubio’s character. The Florida Democratic Party accused Rubio of “self-serving deception,” and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said Rubio has a credibility problem.

“The latest bombshell confirms that Rubio seriously struggles to tell the truth and can’t be trusted,” said DSCC spokesman Matt Canter.

But Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the GOP National Committee, said the attacks will only strengthen Rubio by causing Republicans to come to his defense. The conservative was elected in 2010 after an upset over the GOP establishment’s choice, Gov. Charlie Crist.

“There’s no question he has an amazing life story. His family came here to pursue a better life, and that is all accurate. There’s folks out there who have seen a great success story and are plotting to figure out how to take him down,” Spicer said.

The head of the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, Pepe Hernandez, himself an exile and longtime opponent of Castro, said Rubio’s parents’ initial departure date was unimportant.

“There were a number of people who came here during the Batista regime because they were against Batista somehow,” he said. “Then they returned to Cuba when Castro came in because they thought now things were going to change, and then after some time they realized this was not going to happen.”

“Maybe their case is not exactly the same. They really came here as immigrants, but the second time the reason was that they couldn’t live in Cuba under those circumstances. I don’t see any difference between his parents and myself and everyone else who came here.”

Former Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who left Cuba as a teenager after the revolution, said the Post story showed “a gross lack of understanding about the Cuban exile experience. The fact is that they would not have left Cuba permanently if not for extreme fear of persecution and in search of freedom, like so many of us did.”

Fernand Amandi, a pollster whose company specializes in Hispanic public opinion and works more often with Democrats than Republicans, said the episode alone might not be that damaging, but it could invite further scrutiny of Rubio’s record.

“It’s a chink in his armor of what was somebody who up to this point had almost uniformly positive and favorable coverage,” he said.

___

Brendan Farrington reported from Tallahassee, Fla.

Farrington can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bsfarrington

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111021/ap_on_re_us/us_rubio_family

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