Boston Marathon Runner Want Their Finish

While searching for a article to write my blog post about, I decided to change it up and look on different websites so my teacher and TA don't get bored by me. Well be proud, I found an interesting running article instead of something out of Cosmo!!

With the tragedy of the Boston Marathon, many people have focused on the bigger stories like the bombers and survivors. What some people may forget are the runners that were not able to finish.

As a 5-time half marathon participate, I know the amount of training that goes into half of a marathon and the sense of accomplishment at the end. When the Boston Marathon bombing happened, I could only think about the runners that were still a long ways back just trying going a mile at a time. An article on Runners World brought me answers for the people that were too far behind to finish their race. 

The Boston Marathon is a tough race to get into. You need to be a serious runner with a qualifying time; they don't mess around in Boston. So for the runners that were not able to finish, it is understandable they would be nervous they may not be able to get into next year's race. 

"The petition proposes a fourth wave of starters for this year's non-finishers. The petition says the runners want guaranteed, but not free entry."

 It is a good idea to point that out. It shows how much the runners are just trying to be runners. They want to finish. They want to feel the joy of seeing a finish line. They want to see their family's joy as they cross the line. Most of all they want to feel like they deserved their medal. 

"While we appreciate the finisher’s medallion and estimated finishing time, we feel our journey is not complete," the petition on Change.org reads in part. "We worked hard to get to the finish line and greet our families with tears of joy. We trained for 100s of hours through the winter to be able to say that we finished the Boston Marathon. Now we cannot say that. Instead we have to say we almost finished."

I understand this... 

I think they should be able to participate again. I can already feel the heartbreak that those runners would feel if it is said they can't.

So for the magazine class- I honestly don't have much criticism on this. I have none at all. The writing is normal; it's just an informative piece. Why did I chose it then? It's pieces like this that may pass under the radar but need to be noticed. It is the quality of the information inside the piece that need to be focused on, not the quality of the writing itself.

Bruning Successful Again

Sarah Bruning flew into my radar once before with her article in Cosmopolitan about proper etiquette in the work place, and she is at it again in the most recent issue with her newest article.

She Did What at Work?! is the second article I have ever read by Bruning and once again she has shown the world things we should all really know. Obviously there are still people struggling considering this article Bruning used real life stories as examples.

Bruning went straight to the reliable sources for her article by asking different people in charge of various fields about work horror stories.
People who "jerked around helpful contacts", left for cats, swore at clients, and dressed inappropriately were called out by the bosses in the article.
In addition to the stories, Bruning added both her comments about what can be taken from the story and also some expert opinions.

I have to say, adding the opinions of Kristina Moore (worker at the Corporate Fashionista blog) and Ron Alsop (author) brought in a different feel to the article. It allowed there to be an outside opinion from people that have dealt with difficult work situations.
To add more, Bruning also added the opinions of how things could go differently from two of the office higher ups that provided the stories.
I know my Dad used to tell me all the time what employers will be looking for seeing as he hired people himself. I think the opinions of the CEO and Executive Vice President are important because they know exactly what they are looking for; they are the real life people, not just experts.

I personally don't find anything wrong with this article other than the fact it has to be written.
What does that say about society that one of the opening lines is "You know not to sleep with your boss (right?)" The first story is about not dressing for work like you are dressing to go out to a club...

I mean, isn't this stuff we should all just know off the bat? It kills me that articles like this have to be written, but Bruning steps up to the challenge and tries to knock around our common sense.

Important issue gets the attention it deserves

This month's edition of Cosmopolitan gave a well-deserved 10-page spread to Ralph Blumenthal to attack the issue of domestic violence.

The first page alone was enough to grab attention for the people that just flip through, and it was also imaginative on the layout perspective. Since I can't take the page off the article (or maybe I can. Who knows, I'm horrible with technology), I will try to recreate what they did a different way:

STOP

CALLING IT

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.

IT'S

INTIMATE 

TERRORISM

The title of the article is a statement and an attention-grabbing sentence. In addition to that, the layout makes it so if you are reading quickly you read, "Stop Intimate Terrorism". I find that ingenious because not only is it a statement, but it is something that not many people will label domestic violence as. If this article were just titled "domestic violence", I don't know if people would stop to read it. I know I would hesitate, where as the "intimate terrorism" stopped me in my tracks. 

Well now if we can get pass the first two pages, we can start to focus on the actual article. Blumenthal set it up in a way that was attention-grabbing like his first page. He starts off with the heartbreaking story of Ashleigh Marie Lindsey. Starting off with her story allows the reader to be brought in with a relatable story as compared to just throwing statistics in the their face. 

Blumenthal also has an interesting way of handeling the people in the story to appeal to the readers more. For the victim and anyone attached to them, Blumenthal uses their first names when referring to them after the first mention. As for the attacker and anyone attached to them, the last names are the only thing used after the first mention. In the first story, Ashleigh stays Ashleigh throughout while her ex-boyfriend is only Mahaffey. This allows the reader to see the victim and friends as people and the abusers as only a name, nothing more. 

To keep the readers in the long feature, Blumenthal put other stories in with the statistics and Ashleigh's story in the form of box inserts. In the middle of the columns he placed other people's stories (as told to Liz Welch) to get the reader to see domestic violence can be found anywhere. With examples of a hotel in Las Vegas, an Orlando salon and a spa in Wisconsin, Blumenthal points out that domestic violence can happen at anywhere at anytime. 

The last part, and perhaps one of the most important, is a  piece from Liz Welch put in at the end about what to do when violence does come into the workplace. She gives perspectives for the target, the boss and the coworker, along with advice on how to handle the situation.

An article like this is needed to show the nation what to do and how certain situation can hurt and kill people. Domestic violence may be something you think you will never have to deal with, but it is a problem that can show up in your life in a moment. 

20 Questions Gone Wrong

Question and answers are a great way to get to know each other, but putting them as an article did not work for Lena Dunham's interview with Playboy.

In the rather jumpy article, we get to know more about the woman behind the new hit series 'Girls' in many different ways. The first couple questions are the ones that would be expected about the show and the explicit sex that comes with it. In that sense, I think Playboy succeeded in trying to get more unique questions as compared to 'how do you come up with the sex scenes' and 'was it weird to film these'.

One question I have to give them credit for is asking about writing men's characters as a female writer. Dunham came across as very interested in this question and gave a great response:

"It’s important to me to create fully formed characters who don’t feel just like good guys, villains, creeps or sluts. I want it to feel real. I want my male friends to feel just as much of a connection to my work as my female friends do."

Another interesting question followed shortly after:

Playboy: If you woke up tomorrow in the body of a Victoria’s Secret model, what would you do for the rest of the day?

Dunham: I’d be really disoriented and wonder what had happened in the night. Which enemy had dragged me to the doctor? I don’t think I’d like it very much. There would be all kinds of weird challenges to deal with that I don’t have to deal with now. I don’t want to go through life wondering if people are talking to me because I have a big rack. Not being the babest person in the world creates a nice barrier. The people who talk to you are the people who are interested in you. It must be a big burden in some ways to look that way and be in public. That said, I probably would want to see if I could get free food at restaurants. Then I’d call a doctor and see if she could return me to my former situation.

I found this to be a controversial and amazing question on Playboy's part. Dunham is not a woman with a smaller body type. She has tattoos, a stomach and boobs. It is not like 'Sex and the City' where all the women are thin and model-like; Dunham is a normal sized woman doing sex scenes on HBO. It is something I know she must get criticized for; I hear people talk about her size during the sex scenes all the time. I enjoyed seeing her answer to this question and respect her a lot more after reading her answer. That is the type of role model that I feel all women need these days.

For me, it was hard to start paying attention after this question. Playboy seems to jump around a lot in their questions, and it was something that made it confusing for me to read. They went from 'what type of guy has a chance with you' to 'is it bad to receive all of this acknowledgment (Golden Globes) at such a young age' to 'what is your grocery checkout routine'. 

If I was Dunham and that was the actual order they asked the questions, I would be sitting there completely confused. As the reader I am confused and trying to figure out why we are jumping all over the place in this article. 

While some of the questions may be good, I find it hard to like this article because of the way it is set up. It was difficult for me to get through, and I think Playboy could have structured it in a better way for the reader. It has amazing content, just a poor structure. 

Stranger in a New Land

"Evgeni Malkin knew about 10 words in English, and none of them were appearing in Pittsburgh International Airport. As he took off his iPod headphones, the white noise buzzed around him. He was living inside a broken television. Static."

It was an opening that was able to catch my eye and keep my attention just in the 10 seconds it took to read it. While doing some research for another blog I was going to write, I ran across an old article from the December 2011 issue of Pittsburgh Magazine focusing on Evgeni Malkin. As a Penguins fan, I love reading about the players and their past histories. Malkin is no exception, especially with his extraordinary story on how he came to the team. Out of everything I've read and known, Sean Conboy went above the norm in this article and I wish I came across it sooner!

While Malkin joined the Penguins in October of 2006, this article was just published in December of 2011. Conboy manages to make Malkin's story stay alive despite the fact that he had been here for about five years by that point. That fact alone would make it a great story, but Conboy goes on to make it intriguing for the fans.

Imagine going into a foreign country not knowing anyone or the language around you. Scary, right? Almost hard to imagine. Conboy brings it to life with Malkin's story. It is not a simple overview of the hectic couple days Malkin had leading up to getting to Pittsburgh, it is putting the reader next to Malkin hiding out in Finland. It is giving the reader the anxiety Malkin was feeling trying to get to his dream. The heartache he felt leaving everyone he knew behind without a hint he was going. It put the reader inside Malkin's head and that can be a difficult feat to accomplish.

The different places the story is split up allows the reader to focus on the moment and turn the page to get to the next. It is enticing and exciting throughout all the parts. Conboy is able to show Malkin raw and without anything to hide behind. He keeps all quotes exactly as Malkin says them, even if it means broken English and different grammar:

“At first, I don’t have car, so Gonch have to drive me everywhere,” Malkin says. “He have to speak for me, translate. It was tough. I come back from practice and stay all day in house, talking to Russian friends on Skype or watching movies.” 


It is a great interview with a player that has worked hard both on and off the ice. It shows the fans that there is more than just what they see on the tv. It shows the struggle this man had to get to the place he was and I think Conboy did an amazing job with it. It is the type of relationship between reporter and interviewee that everyone should aspire too. It takes a good writer to get someone still getting used to the English language to talk as openly and honest as Malkin did. 

“Tell fans thank you for supporting Penguins and Steelers,” he says. “And sorry for my English.” 

Magazine Post 1

An article that recently caught my eye was in the March 2013 edition of Cosmopolitan called The Modern Work Etiquette by Sarah Bruning.  As a senior looking for a job or internship, I realize that I will be going into a very different environment than I am used to. It is good to know that there are other people going through the same thing and because of Bruning's article some etiquette can be adressed.

In a generation obsessed with social media, there are many ways to hurt your position at your job. One area of the article that was helpful on this front was the Social Media Wins (and Fails). What we put on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. are out to the public and many people can forget about that. Employers look at that now when they go to hire a person. 

I remember my Dad telling me the importance of controlling what I put out for people to see. He used to hire people for his company and mentioned that they do look into all of the social outlets to get a better feel of the person.

I enjoyed how this article was set up. I enjoyed the way it was written and I found it to be very helpful. The listing of the different scenarios was better than just a paragraph with all the same information. The set up allowed me to look around and still keep my attention.

What I didn't like was how short it was. I also didn't like how hidden it was in Cosmo. I think the editors may have made a poor choice on that, this was one of the most informative articles I have ever read in the magazine. It was useful for every woman (and man) reading it, not just specific to one person. 

I know it's been a long time...

I know it's been a long time, it's been hectic. I can't help but feel a need to write now.

I just got back from attending my first memorial service since my father's funeral.

It was for a 22 year old German student that was stabbed outside his apartment December 1st.

Thomas Heinrich was a classmate that came to Griffith College for the semester with a small group of students. Tragically he lost his life after getting into a fight with two Irish kids and his friend was injured.

I did not know Thomas but after going to the memorial today I saw how he was. I heard stories, I saw his family and most importantly I saw how many of his fellow classmates showed up. The auditorium was packed full that the staff spent the first 15 minutes getting more chairs. I saw people all around me crying for a man that they have known from the span of the two months to years. I couldn't help but cry myself over the shock, emotion and the pain his family and friends are feeling.

Then his father spoke. He spoke of the pain they were feeling but what amazed me was how his words managed to calm everyone a little. He was sure to tell the people that were there in his sons last moments to not beat themselves up thinking they could have done more. He talked about how while there may be anger to not want revenge. He spoke with such sadness but kindness in his voice that it was calming. It was moving.

I read in a book the following, "when a person dies suddenly, it's because they've completed what they came here to do and have no reason for prolonged illness."

I only got to hear a little of what Thomas did. I heard his teachers talk, his friends and his parents. I saw in the crowd today how many people he managed to touch in the short span we've been here. I like to think of that quote in this moment.

The entire time I sat there I could not help but think, this was not what I anticipated happening when I studied abroad. Time to learn from it I suppose, the biggest thing I've learned is tell everyone I love them constantly.