Public transportation and loud music don't mix

This morning, I sat beside a man on the bus who was listening to his iPod very, very loudly. Usually, this doesn’t bother me, but this particular individual bothered me off for two reasons...

1) It was 7:15 a.m., and I was still half asleep.
2) He was listening to Rammstein.

As I tried to ignore the idiot and focus on my morning bus routine – which is reading fmylife.com – I started thinking about all the different types of music I have heard people listening to while using public transportation. I took the bus 10 times a week for 8 months during my first year of CreComm, and in that time I experienced an array of diverse music. Here are my favourites, for your reading pleasure:

a) Sheryl Crow. (I absolutely hate country music. No exceptions. I’m from Calgary, and if I wanted to hear country music, I would move back.)

b) Celine Dion. (Enough said.)

c) Backstreet Boys. (This actually made me smile and dance around...)

d) Bad polka music. (I didn’t know that polka music still existed. The kicker is that the person listening to it was a 14-year-old girl.)

e) Spice Girls. (OK, I was dancing around...)

To each their own, I guess. I wonder what would happen if I brought a “boom box” on the bus and turned on a Backstreet Boys song. I think people would either find it funny, or I would be beaten up within an inch of my life and my boom box would be stolen or broken.

It would be an interesting sociology experiment...

My online world is expanding

Sometimes, people actually read my blog.

Yesterday, I received an email from my mom, informing me that one of my blog posts had been re-posted on the May Works 2009 Festival website. Apparently, my review of an Aqua Books event last month was so well-received that the individuals critiqued in it wanted a larger audience to read my comments.

Fantastic. That’s exactly what I want. Exposure!

I also discovered that a few stories I wrote for Canada’s History magazine had been posted online. The first was a writeup for a photograph of two people poling down a river. The second was a profile of Lord Durham.

Now, all I need is for the editor of a publishing company to read my blog, call me up, and offer me a large book grant.

It can happen. People read my blog.

I'm 23 and still can't apostrophe!

I have been saving this blog post for the last week of class because it is something that is very embarrassing to admit. In school, we dedicated an entire unit to the apostrophe. We learned when to use it, when not to use it, and what it means. I was paying close attention during this unit - because the apostrophe is something I have always struggled with - but the rules didn't stick.

Honestly, I was beginning to believe that I was one of those people who were destined not to understand how to properly use this very important piece of punctuation.

Then, Lindor Reynolds from the Winnipeg Free Press wrote a column that discussed the apostrophe specifically. She called herself the "Cranky Grammar Lady," and she made some valid points (even though she did make some spelling and grammatical errors of her own). After discussing the article in class, I decided that it was time I learned how to use the apostrophe correctly once and for all.

Over the last few days, I have conducted a self-help apostrophe session. I read the Canadian Press Stylebook, re-read the grammar book from Writer's Craft, and searched online for websites that offered additional information. I think I've finally got it figured out, and now I will explain how exactly the apostrophe works.

To the best of my knowledge, that is...

Let’s start from the beginning. In the dictionary, the apostrophe is defined as "a sign that is used to indicate the omission of letters in a word, to indicate possession, or to show contractions."

Here are some examples of each:

1) When indicating omission: she’d, it’s, ‘30s, couldn’t, won’t, and he’d.

2) When indicating possession: the children’s toys and a person’s legal rights. But, dealing with possession is a little bit more complicated than that.

• Use an apostrophe + s (‘s) with:
• Almost all single nouns: Mr. Bates’s House, the class’s record, and a fox’s bushy tail.
• Plural nouns that do not end in s: women’s rights, the people’s voice, and the geese’s flight.
• Use an apostrophe (‘) alone with:
• Plural nouns ending in s: the two girls’ coats, the boys’ gymnasium, and the parents’ car.

3) When indicating contractions: can’t [cannot], what’s [what is], we’re [we are], and so on...

• Do NOT use an apostrophe:
• With possessive personal pronouns such as his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs, and whose.
• With ordinary plurals or verbs: stores, stars, etc...

The Canadian Press Stylebook has additional information about when to use an apostrophe and when to exclude it, but it’s just too much information to remember at once. My recommendation is to look up specific situations on a case by case basis.

A good way to check if you need an apostrophe is to try and substitute the use of “of.” For example: In the sentence: “Amanda’s house was well-organized,” think of “the house of Amanda was well-organized.”

If you still are confused about proper usage of the apostrophe, here are some games below that can help. They are mostly for children, but are still quite helpful. Try using the “of” rule as you go through and answer the questions.

Basic Sentences game: http://bit.ly/aBnLlp
Re-write the sentences quiz: http://bit.ly/dnVWaf
Apostrophe trivia game: http://bit.ly/cJuiVx

I heart public transportation

Last weekend, a few friends and I took the bus to a birthday party at a house off Corydon Avenue.

Since I started attending Red River College, I seem to be taking the bus everywhere. My recent move to Pembina Highway from WhyteRidge has increased my public transport travels even further, and I can’t remember the last time I drove a car.

Taking the bus is not only easier than driving downtown, but it is less expensive, less harmful to the environment, and less stressful on me. Also, it is one hundred per cent more interesting than driving every day. This may seem like crazy talk to die hard automobile lovers, but hear me out before passing judgement.

When I was in Europe last summer, and Chicago last month, public transportation was the only possible method of travel. I am too young to rent a car, and honestly, why would I want to? Drivers in large cities are absolutely insane, and there was no way I was going to try to brave the busy streets behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. I was perfectly content taking the subway or bus, and I even bypassed taxis whenever possible.

There is something both romantic and exciting about public transportation. Instead of sitting in an air-conditioned, closed-off from the world box, a person taking the bus or waiting for the subway is fully immersed in his or her surroundings. Sights, sounds, smells, and conversations all become part of the experience. One never knows who they will meet, what will happen, or, in some cases (like when travelling in foreign cities), where they will end up. There is the fear of getting lost, or running into undesirable characters, but that is all part of being involved in the world.

I will play Devil’s Advocate with myself and admit that public transportation isn’t always a pleasant experience. Sometimes it’s freezing outside, or raining quite horribly. Occasionally, I am forced to sit beside a person who hasn’t bathed. And, once in a blue moon, I encounter frightening individuals who make me genuinely nervous. That happened once, and resulted in a call to the police and subsequent police report.

(For more information on the last scenario, read an earlier post from February titled WARNING to female bus travellers).

But more often than not, public transportation works for me. Taking the bus makes me feel alive, and makes me feel like I am fully experiencing life. The good days outnumber the bad by far, and I won't start driving again unless I absolutely must.

Tips for bloggers

Last Tuesday, Wendy Sawatzky – online content manager for the Winnipeg Free Press – spoke to our Editing for Print and Online Media class. She discussed her job, what it entails, and what it is like working for the Free Press.

Sawatzky also provided a list of tips and guidelines that a writer should follow when publishing anything to the web. I hadn’t really thought too seriously about my blog posts – and how I format them – but after talking to Sawatzky I realized format is everything. Online editions of newspapers are competing against everything else (Facebook, television, phone calls, email, etc...); therefore, the content must be designed in a way that is easy to read, interesting, and eye-pleasing.

Below, I have included a list of tips for online writers and bloggers...

When writing something to be published to the web:
- Keep paragraphs short (100-ish words or less)
- One idea per paragraph
- Break up copy with subheads
- Bulleted lists are great
- Use active verbs

When writing a headline for the web:
- Keep it short
- Keep it factual
- Include specifics (such as geographical information and names)
- Use key words (this will make a headline more searchable)
- Make your headlines “Elevator door” headlines (If you had to explain the most important information about a story to another person, and you only had the amount of time it takes an elevator door to close to do so, what would you say?)

When including links:
- Make sure they work
- Make sure the site you’re linking to is reputable
- Clearly explain what the reader will find at the link (meaning, don’t simply write “click here”)
- Only link to sources outside your own website when necessary

When including images:
- People look at images of things they want to buy and/or consume
- Most people ignore online advertisements
- Ordinary stock images that look staged are ignored
- Moving graphics and photo galleries are beneficial, but only if the reader is in control of how and when they move (none of that automatically-changing stuff)

When adding a video:
- Keep it short
- Keep it relevant
- Clearly explain what the video is about

Hopefully these tips are helpful! They sure changed the way I format my posts.

Save that extra info

In class, we have been talking about different ways to edit effectively. I have been writing my IPP full-time for just over a month now, and I want to share one of the most important editing tools that I utilize.

One of the first tips my journalism instructor gave me when I started CreComm was to keep everything I write. If an assignment called for 400 words, and my initial draft was 600, he said to keep those extra 200 words because one never knows when it's possible to fit them into another assignment, story, or document.

I started doing this, and continued to do so for the entire first year of school. I kept one Microsoft Word document labelled “Cut Pieces” open at all times whenever I was writing something. Every time I decided to leave a piece out, I would copy and paste the information into this file first. At the very least, that extra stuff might make a decent blog post, I would always think to myself. Now, at the end of the year, that first Cut Pieces document has over 10,000 words in it.

When I started my IPP, I created another Cut Pieces document, just in case. I have been shuffling through my stories lately, adding a thousand words to one, three thousand to another, and removing quite a few paragraphs in the process. Then, on Friday morning, I decided to read through the Cut Pieces document to see if there was anything good worth expanding on. I found a blurb that I wrote three weeks ago. It looked fairly promising, so I copied it to a blank document, and started writing...

It took seven hours, but the blurb I found turned into a draft of one of my six short stories. It is currently 13,500 words, and I’m quite happy with it.

The moral of the story is this: keep everything you write, because you never know when something that was decent in the past will become perfect in the present.

Before I end this post, here's another tip: When revising a document, make a copy and label it as the second edit of that particular piece. Keep the original as it is. That way, you will have a preserved copy of your first draft, in case you can use it later for something else, and also a second copy to make edits on.

My favourite hockey announcer quotes

I have enjoyed watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year, as I was recently in Chicago. I watched a few games on television, in a Chicago bar, surrounded by local Blackhawks fans, and it was fantastic.

My favourite part of watching hockey is listening to the announcers provide a play-by-play of each game. They are fast, efficient, and quite often very imaginative and quirky in their phrasing. As the final round of games progressed, I started compiling a list of my favourite announcer quotes.

Below are my top five. They were said during the last four games, and each one made me smile...

1. "There was a mass of humanity jostling in front of him..."
2. "He lost his stick, so he became a human Zamboni."
3. "When you want to put pressure on the opposing team, you throw the kitchen sink at them."
4. "It's helter skelter here at the start line."
5. "He had great ice awareness..."

And...

6. "No word on the arrival of the Stanley Cup yet. It's always fashionably late."

Congrats, Blackhawks. I wore my "One Goal Chicago" shirt during every game, and I like to think it contributed to the win!

(For more information on the shirt I'm talking about, see an earlier blog post titled Chicago: Part Two from May)