ENGL 324 (Spring 2018) Writing the Radio Essay

After thinking a lot about what gives me and a lot of people I'm close to unique perspectives on life, I thought that the best idea was to record a documentary on my Portuguese American upbringing and how growing up within a deeply celebrated culture gave me something personal and special to me that has followed me my whole life. Everything from the "festas" my family and I used to attend, to the food my grandmother and all her sisters used to cook, to the dances I was forced to learn from a young age, even to the bilingual household I grew up in. I'm lucky enough to have childhood friends who also experienced this here with me at Boise State, so I could interview to see what it's like for a Portuguese kid to grow up in the U.S. and go through the American education system with parents who may or may not have totally understood it. I think I could even make it pretty humorous, as there our culture can be pretty over-the-top at times and there are lots of cultural ...

It's a Wednesday and you're sitting in English 324. Suddenly the lights begin to flicker before the entire building goes dark. It's eerily quiet until you begin to hear the faintest sound. Within a few seconds you're drowning in the sound of screams. You hear footsteps racing through the hallways and outside of the building. You grab your stuff, jam it into your backpack and race into the hallways only to see hundreds of students and faculty all running the same way. A young man grabs your shoulders and screams "RUN!" You don't know what's going on, until you see what they're running from. It's an apocalypse--zombies, aliens, soldiers--something is chasing you and wants you dead. Where do you go? Will you stay on campus or try to go home? Do you find your friends, call your mom, or find weapons first? For my documentary, I want to interview students and perhaps some BSU faculty to find out what they would do in a harrowing situation that ...

This pitch is more of a proof of concept than anything else, but I think it would be fun. I asked Bruce whether or not a 'mockumentary' was a valid interpretation of this assignment, to which the response was a semi-enthusiastic "pitch it!" So here is the pitch. A parody of the audio series 'Serial', the investigation into the murder of a teenage girl that went viral a few years ago. Uncreatively, the title of this parody would be 'Cereal' and it would chronical the investigation into who ate my box of Strawberry Honey Bunches of Oats. I would 'interview' my family and friends with a ridiculous amount of production and decoration, acting like I was trying to get to the bottom of a murder, but in reality just trying to find out who ate my damn cereal. This may be too narrative-y, but the climax I image would be a removal of the façade and me attacking my little brother for eating my cereal. Trust me, it's really funny in my he...

If you hadn't guessed, I have a lot more material on my second story. There are so many directions to go with it. But I think I'd like to make a single-case examination/study into how hoarding affects one family: my family.  What’s the trouble? An explanation of the problem, issue, conflict, dilemma, or question that you think is at the heart of the story, the thing that makes it interesting to you. Hoarding is isolating, debilitating, misunderstood. It is much more frustrating to deal with than people might imagine. I experience isolation from my family for how I deal with this mental illness, for how much I push it with them. I see it cultivating codependency. And it kills me, given how common hoarding actually is, to see it so often misrepresented and misunderstood. My willingness to call out issues (or, as my mom calls it, 'stir things up,'   Characters or interview subjects. Who are the characters in the story? If you’re not sure, what ...

The problem or issue I want to focus on is the misconceptions about Greek life. This is interesting to me because before I was apart of a Greek organization, I had so many misconceptions about all of it. Now, it is one of the most important things in my life. It has given me so many incredible service opportunities, my best friends, the greatest support system, leadership opportunities, and allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and achieve things I never thought were possible. I want the heart of the story to focus on what being apart of a greek organization positively impacts your life instead of the negative misconceptions many believe in. The individuals I want interview consist of some of my sisters within my chapter, our leadership consultants, other Greek students, alumnae, others who have misconceptions and possibly share my own personal journey before and after going greek. Obviously I will have to narrow this list of individuals down, however, I am just brainstorming a...

Hello Everyone,  I have five tattoos, two on my wrists, one on my left shoulder, one on my left foot and one just above my right ankle. I have grown up around the subject of tattoos my entire life. My mom was always an avid anti tattoo spokesperson as her family from rural central of Montana had raised her. My dad on the other hand has tattoos all over his body including a half done vampire biker chick with full blown 80s hair on his chest. The battle of the tattoos was a never ending subject in my house, and it continued long after my parents divorce. According to my mom " You'll never get a job", and then that took a an interesting reality as I started my job at a movie theater where even the idea of a small nose ring caused a controversy that involved an employee uprising. Me being super close to my mom took her side. To my utter shock my mom was the reason I got my first tattoo. My mom, sister and I got one together, our names in an infinity symbol across our foot. S...

Pitch #1: A documentary focusing on African refugees who have made their home here in the United States. I know several people born in the Congo, and had to flee to America under violent regimes. One of them witnessed his grandfather get executed. These folks have made a home here in America and have become an integral part of the community here. An angle I think would be interesting to explore is: how does their perception of world and political events inform their view on America's current situation? Many prominent government officials - the president, attorney general, president's advisors, etc, have been accused of or have a provable history of racist behavior. What are these folks' thoughts on America's current political situation, with the perspective they have from a much more violent country? I plan on incorporating backstory from their experiences before coming to America. I may choose to completely focus the story on their experiences as well, withou...

   What is the trouble?  I remember an experience in middle school. I ate a chicken noodle goulash that was very questionable, but I was hungry. It made me throw up on the school bus while headed to a track meet. It was the worst experience. I want to talk about a few good and bad school lunch options I had available at the time I was in public school. I want to take a closer look at how far school lunches have come since then or if they are still lacking in nutrition quality. I want to examine the budget and research funding restrictions and why the quality is less than satisfactory. I will ask two individuals how they feel and ask what their worst school lunch meal was and approximately what year that was. I could ask an older individual, as well as a person still in middle school or high school.

What is the trouble? In my family there is a letter that has gained quite a bit of infamy. The letter is from one of my relatives directed at his father in law, and is really quite a gem. It contains a poorly spelled indictment of the author's own father in law for such grievous offenses as lying about height and being an all around ass hole. The letter calls the subject, "the littlest man in the biggest way." I don't even know the author very well, but this letter has circulated to the whole extended family and has become a joke among everyone who reads it. While I was thinking of this letter I got to thinking about writing letters to people in general, and angry or regretful letters in particular. I might want to do a story about the letters, messages, or texts that can't be taken back but we wish could! Just recently my brother tried to text me a message telling me to, "suck on deez nutz," but he accidentally sent to it to a woman who he was going...

When it came time to think of what to do as a documentary piece, I was conflicted. My first instinct was to retread some semi-old ground and examine the Jewish identity in a place like Boise (with its rather small Jewish population), as well as taking a look at my own Jewish identity. As my commentary piece showed, I have some unresolved feelings about it, and I would like to examine what different people's perspectives on what makes someone Jewish is. I could interview someone who's involved at a Synagogue or Jewish Center here in Boise, I could talk to my rather secular Jewish family, and I'd also like to go at this from the angle of non Jews. I'd like to ask what makes up Jewish culture and traditions from all of these different points of view, so I'd essentially be talking to a diverse group of people. Obviously my stake in all of this is that I'm Jewish, but never had a Bar-Mitzvah or celebrated many Jewish holidays outside of Hanukkah or Passover, and ...

My first documentary pitch has to do with childhood wonder or imagination. I remember so many times in my childhood where my imagination would take control of my days and I would have so much fun but growing up you always lose that childhood wonder. Imagination is a huge part of many "art" type majors in college but if you grow up and lose that sense of childhood wonder and imagination, I want to know where people grab their creativity from. I think there needs to be more sense of imagination in the world nowadays but it seems in alot of areas, it is lacking. I understand this pitch is not very tied together but I really like this topic of imagination and childhood wonder. There were so many times that my best friend and I wandered through our days just creating worlds that we would imagine we lived in, everything faded away and the days passed so quickly. I miss those times where all we needed to get through the day was imagination.

The other day, while discussing St. Patrick's day plans with a friend, she said, "Well, I'm a Murphy, so you know we have to celebrate!" It got me thinking how we each have an idea of how we should act by where our ancestors came from (or think we came from). So I think it would be cool to interview a bunch of people around campus or in Boise about where their ancestors came from and if it affects them or their identities.

I was thinking about investigating the quality of care (or rather the lack thereof) provided by the worst nationally ranked VA hospitals. There are a handful of these medical centers that are consistently low ranked by the VA each year, whereas other's ranking fluctuate from year to year, and another handful are consistently ranked at the top. What’s the trouble? An explanation of the problem, issue, conflict, dilemma, or question that you think is at the heart of the story, the thing that makes it interesting to you. I would like to investigate the differences between these two institutions to see where the disparity lies. One possibility I have considered, is the difference in the size of the client population. 50,000 service members make their home in El Paso and Fort Bliss, and there is a sizable population of military retirees living there as well. I don't know how the veteran population of Boise and the surrounding area compares, but I think it m...

     Hey, I figured out the Blogger system this time!      The idea that I had for a documentary essay is centered around one of my very first memories ever - playing one of the  Donkey Kong Country  games on my Super Nintendo.  It was one of my favorite games growing up, and it's also what got me into video games at a really early age, like waaay earlier than I probably should have been playing them at the time.      Here's the thing though: I don't remember which one of the three Donkey Kong Country games I actually played.  My parents have told me conflicting things about which game it was (e.g. "You always played as Donkey Kong!" and "There was a ship at the beginning of it", but those would be two different games), and they've told me that they only ever owned one Donkey Kong Country game.  Years later, when I played the original three games again, they were all very familiar yet never completely matched u...

What’s the trouble? An explanation of the problem, issue, conflict, dilemma, or question that you think is at the heart of the story, the thing that makes it interesting to you. So I was out to coffee with an individual that claimed a hatred for cats, a view that I thought was somewhat over the top (the individual did not know I own cats... They still do not know I own cats...) . My thought on the whole thing is that it is an entire species how can one know that they hate an entire species, every member. It seemed a little overly simplified, but it got me thinking about the whole cat people and dog people thing. What makes a person a cat person or a dog person? Are there common trends among either group? Are there arguments made for why anyone falls on either side? Is cat pee really brainwashing cat owners? Is there a way to predict propensity to cat or dog preference? Are bird people a thing?  And importantly why some people claim a steadfast hatred for animal...

So, about a week or so before this project is due, my 20th reunion is taking place in Caldwell, Idaho, at the small religious private school of Gem State Adventist Academy. Mainly what this means is that I've been listening to a lot of Weezer, Marilyn Manson, and Nirvana lately, along with other staples of 100.3 Pirate Radio, which is what it was before it was The X. But the other thing I've been doing is considering where I'm at in life, and where I could otherwise be. What’s the trouble?   Unlike the other graduates of Gem State, I didn't grow up going to Adventist elementary schools or even in a city. I grew up on a ranch, and until high school I attended Owyhee Combined School on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. Now, the students who graduated in 98 from OHS are also having  their  reunion, and even though I was only with them from K-8, they've invited me to attend. Unfortunately, they won't actually be meeting until after the school year ends...

Pitch one: I've had a lot of different hair lengths in my life for a lot of reasons. From ages 4-7 I grew out my hair so I could donate it to locs of love, an idea I got from my preschool teacher. A few months after I turned 8 I lost my few remaining inches to my moms kitchen scissors after an outbreak of lice. I had a pixie cut for a few years and a bald spot for a few weeks. I buzzed the side of my head in 11th grade and then dyed it purple. A few months later I cut it all off after coming out. Now I'm growing it out again. I've often told people that my hair is unnameable when really, its very easy to tame, one stroke of the brush makes it smooth and silky, but I wish it was wilder. I think I can tell an interesting story of my identity and changes in it through my hair as the two have fallen together it seems. I think I can find some interesting nuggets of truth in interviews as well as hair and appearance are often tied to identity and hairstyles are one of the biggest...

Over the course of this semester, I have really enjoyed the assignments we have been given. Writing is one of my favorite things to do and while I would much rather be traveling the world than going to school, this course has provided an enjoyable college experience. The narrative essay was easy for me to come up with ideas for, however, it was a lot more difficult to solidify my choice. I ended up choosing a more personal story because for some reason it is easier for me to write about personal experiences. The only issue that arose while drafting and editing this essay was trying to contain the words in a way that would allow me to stay within the time frame of the audio file. Even after turning the file in via Blackboard, I still have a lot of editing to do if I want the audio to be exactly how I envision it to be. Now, when it comes to Audacity I have spent hours upon hours messing around with the tools and effects to try and gain a better understanding of how the software work...

This project was a lesson in time management. I started playing with the Christmas tune two weeks before the assignment was due, breaking it down and making it sound, if possible, even more grating. However, I ended up spending the bulk of my time on this project (longer than I’d like to admit) trying to cut and tighten my piece. It was originally thirteen minutes! Yikes. There was too much that I felt was integral to the story arc, and I was reluctant to cut it out. I felt that the quality of my first two audio recordings were much better than this one. I recorded this essay as five pieces. Parts 1, 3, 4, and 5 were crisp and clear from my phone to Audacity. However, Track 2 sounded perfectly clear when I was listening to it through Media Player, but when I uploaded it to Audacity, it became clouded and grainy. I didn’t have time to re-record it. When I merged all five pieces, the poor quality and quirks of the second recording really dragged down the other ones. I’ve decided that ...

Well hello again, I think the title of my piece pretty much speaks for itself, but please allow me to expand. I am hoping that I am not the only one who thought that this piece was a challenge. For me the challenge was more so in the writing of the piece all together. The concept of finding the perfect music to go along with a story that helps tell the story, seems simple enough but for me my mind kept going to fiction. This is where it got difficult because obviously this class is focusing on non-fiction pieces about ourselves. I found it difficult to stick to the prompt, I had plenty of ideas, but was having a hard time finding the soft, and being able to contain it into a three act structure. I kept going a different direction in the pieces i wrote, an pretty much wrote three different stories and having to pick one that went the smoothest in regards to the three act structure. After I finally got the piece picked out I had to pick the music, I wanted to use the same music througho...

   I only have one music track on my draft right now but I really enjoyed the process of trying to find music that would work for my piece. At first hearing my own voice was like hearing nails on a chalkboard. It was almost unbearable. Now that I am getting more familiar with the technology, I am more comfortable and can record a few different takes. When I first started out, the editing process was not fun for that reason, hearing you voice over and over, but now that I am getting past that, I enjoy editing. The software is touchy and froze on me, but other than that, I am happy with the capabilities of the program. I have really enjoyed this project so far, and I can't wait to explore more music options. The music aspect can be overwhelming, but will give our pieces an extra edge and I am glad music is incorporated on this assignment.

        I had so much fun making my narrative essay. Like a ridiculous amount of fun. It probably helped a lot that I not only had a script that I was fairly happy with, but I got to score my piece using music from Star Wars , which I loved on like five different levels. One thing that I found really interesting was how I didn't really place my music based on thematic shifts, or changes between acts, but rather a general feeling for where the music belonged. Of course, that "feeling" is very informed by the shifts in theme and the pace of the piece, but there seemed to be moments that called for music, and some that didn't quite as much.         The most difficult part of this whole process was, however, actually getting the music in. I had a library of soundtracks to choose from, but finding the right piece with the right tone was important, and then bringing it in at the right moment, fading it in and out and doing everything else that the proj...

Still the most challenging element of these radio essays remains the “SOFT” of the piece. I’ve prided myself over the years for the variety and volume of stories I have collected: band stories, film stories, traveling abroad stories, etc... but when run through the “SOFT” test, I found many of these anecdotes fell short of containing a greater, more compelling meaning. They may resonate at parties or around friends, but become much harder to pull off under the critical ear of some unknown stranger listening in. I found myself writing out stories I’ve told dozens of times only to find them fall flat in this more challenging form. I didn’t have as much trouble placing music cues. I’m sure there’s a science behind it, but beyond breaking up acts with cues, it seems to be more of a gut-feeling process than anything else. Placing music cues is a lot like editing film in that regard: there are techniques and strategies to be sure, but the biggest test is simply whether you think the move ...

I had a fun time making this essay, and I particularly enjoyed working with the music to punctuate the story. During revision I tried to rearrange my piece to better follow the three act structure. Whether this was very successful or not remains to be seen, but I decided to try to use music to underscore these transitions. My piece also had a few scene changes that were nice for music placement. I decided to limit the amount of time I spent talking over the music and use the music as breaks and 'signposts' as one of our readings referred to them. Writing this actual piece was difficult, and I went through a ton of revision. I'm still not as satisfied as I could be about the final product, but I ran out of time! The activity where we cut up pieces of our essay to rearrange or discard unnecessary pieces was really helpful to me. Writing for me feels really final even when it should be movable and free to revise. The activity helped me see my writing in a different way and r...

This narrative assignment was much harder than the last. My narrative was never where I wanted it to be in cohesiveness because my narrative would not have made sense without talking about different portions of the same event cycle. This essay involved narrative plus background music and that in and of itself was much more difficult. Before it was just recording our voice reading what we had written, this time we not only had to record but we had to choose music that fit the mood of the narrative, choose where the music should fade in and out and pause to create emphasis. It was a lot of different concepts being mixed together and it required a lot of attention. Personally, I struggled with my narrative due to the way it was organized and keeping everything concise and making sure nothing was too drawn out. Revising my draft, I would pay more attention to the areas I felt were not as concise in the beginning even if it takes me over word limit. There are some areas that might be able t...

This project was so much different than our last. After the last assignment, I realized that it would be very beneficial to take advantage of the Audio room in the library. I prepared my script and rented a microphone as well. The quality of my recording was so much better, I didn’t cringe (as much) at the sound of my own voice. I chose to tell a very personal story for this assignment. It was difficult choosing to be that vulnerable, and I felt like there was a lot more on the line for me. If my project was a mess, then the story I was trying to tell would be lost. So I did my best to piece together a cohesive script, with all three acts, and delicate music. The musical aspect of the assignment was pretty enjoyable. I listened to hundreds of songs before I chose the one I used. In the end, I think the music was a little bit too loud during the last half of the second act. During the recording process, however, I didn’t notice this. I’m wondering if converting the file from AUDX...

General reflection I don’t know what quite failed with this piece but something did. I must have gone through 8 drafts trying to get the emotion and soft to come through and it just never did to my satisfaction. I tried to create a three act structure but I wonder if a 5 or 6 act structure might have worked better. I wanted to add in so many more moments that just didn’t fit and I would add them and cut them and add and cut them again. In the end it was Sunday night and I just had to stop writing and record the dang thing. I was fairly impressed with audacities ability to remove the crappy quality of my laptop mike most of the way and also remove the fuzz of the falling snow just outside the window. Even with a lot of noise reduction it still didn’t have the best quality and this needed a ·          If you were to revise your draft, what problems do you need to solve? How might you solve them? I would add more reelection and record wit...