Where has the time gone?: A Revamped quirkyhuman, dedicated to all things collegiate

It’s been nearly two years since I last posted. Crazy how time flies!

At present, I’m readying for collegiate life at Rochester Institute of Technology, Class of ’21, picking out school supplies like apples and having to play Tetris in order to maximize space. (Thank goodness for vacuum storage bags!)

From here to the foreseeable future, I’m going to be keeping track of my college journey – what supplies, methods, and hacks work, and which ones don’t, through trial, error, and personal anecdote, posting at least once a week.

Welcome to the whirlwind!

(T-Minus 67 days until move in!)

The End is Near: Brian Lamb, Museums, and the Night We’ve Been Waiting For

Hello world! My name is Ashley Hum, of Blue Crew, reporting live from WJMC 2015!

This is it. This is the last full day of WJMC. Where has the time gone? Speaking of time, there’s no time now to reminisce – that’s for tomorrow and the weekend ahead – I want to get to bed. Rather, this is the time for reporting.

“The man gets up at 3:30am”, said April of CSPAN’s founder, Brian Lamb. Thankfully, we did not have to get up at such an hour. We got to sleep in until the lovely hour of 5:20 or so. We had to report to the courtyard by 6am, in order to grab our boxed breakfasts and head to the Arlington Mason campus to hear Brian Lamb himself speak. On the bus ride over, we seemed to be equal parts elated and exhausted.

Once we got to the venue, Blue Crew was surprisingly in the front for once! Which of course meant that we were in danger of “having microphones shoved in our faces”. But at the very least, we would finally be visible in pictures.

Brian Lamb, much like Tom Jackman, had a very distinct lecturing style, as April had explained to us earlier. Rather than expound upon himself for the time we were to be his audience, he talked with us, wanting to know about first our knowledge of CSPAN, and then about us personally, what got us started, what we wanted to achieve, what made us tick. It was a refreshing teaching style, but I personally wanted to know more about him. I could find out about my fellow National Youth Correspondents on my own time, but what about him? How had he gotten to where he was? He spoke a little bit about himself at the beginning, but then it got rather lost. Of course, I could always Google the man and learn all about him, but there’s just something quite intriguing about hearing talk about their own past.

When he was done with us, I waited in line to get a picture with him, because my grandmother is a huge fan of his, and I knew it would tickle her to no end.

After everybody had filed out of the auditorium, we piled back onto the buses and rode to Capitol Hill for a group picture. We all squished in and got a massive picture of all the National Youth Correspondents, and even had time for a quick color group photo!

The atmosphere was very relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, at least for those of us going to museums. I’m sure the correspondents who had Congressional appointments weren’t nearly as calm. I chose earlier this week to sign up to go to the Holocaust Museum. However, that tour didn’t start for another hour and a half, so my fellow Blue Crewers and I ambled over to the meeting place at the Air and Space museum to grab a bite to eat and chat for a while.

On the way to the Holocaust museum, we walked past the Smithsonian castle, and the botanical gardens. It was a very scenic route. We were walking in a massive gaggle comprised of correspondents from all different color groups, and it hit me that there were many people at WJMC 2015 whose faces I had never seen before. 291 people is a lot of people.

At the Holocaust Museum, every word – written or spoken – and every visual – artifact, photograph, video – hammered away at the hearts of all who were there. It was very somber, and very sad. In particular, there was one space, about the size of an elevator shaft, lined from floor to ceiling with family pictures of the dead. These were pictures of people going about their everyday life in the days before the Holocaust, oblivious of what was to come.

There was also an entire wall dedicated to the left arms of survivors, where their number will remain until the day they die, and even then until their flesh finally rots away.

But hidden amongst all this despair and suffering were stories of hope. Stories of brave people in Germany and all over the world, who opened their homes to the Jewish and other persecuted peoples, harboring them at the threat of their own safety simply because it was the right thing to do. This wall, readable on both sides, preserved the names of these rescuers.

One notable exhibit that was missing, however, and one that most people say is the most impactful for them, was the shoes. This was a bit of a disappointment, but hopefully the next time I make it to the Holocaust museum, they will have finished whatever renovation is underway and returned the shoes.

Something curious I noticed while in the museum was the plethora of languages being spoken there. I heard French, Spanish, possibly Russian, and various other languages I did not recognize. In a bit of irony, I even heard German being spoken!

Overall, the Holocaust Museum has really humanized the Holocaust for me. Before, it was indeed a tragedy in facts and figures, but I did not truly understand the human toll that was taken. Now I do, and I shall not forget.

After the museums and appointments, everyone reconvened into their respective groups and once more piled onto buses to head to the White House and take some photos. These photos were supposed to have been taken n Tuesday, however they had gotten rescheduled, since on Tuesday they closed the street to the White House and we were forced to turn back. Unfortunately, our schedule was tight and we were unable to get a group photo in front of the White House. We did manage to take selfies, however. (Selfies were definitely a frequent occurrence during this conference!)

We headed back to campus early today, because we needed to get packed up before we left for the gala, since the Faculty Advisors knew that no one would be in the mood for anything productive after the gala. I didn’t take long to get packed up, so Hailey and I trooped over to the Johnson Center for a look at the bookstore. There were so many comfy-looking clothes there (not even to mention books!). After that, we meandered back to the dorms to finish our packing and get changed for the gala. The gala was held at a hotel, and looking back, I sure hope they had earplugs.

We bussed over to the gala, and walked up the brick walkway (quite a trick for the girls in heels), past the foyer with the marvelous chandelier (which looked perfectly capable of holding someone swinging like a chimpanzee), and into the ballroom where we were to eat and dance.

We opened with a formal dinner, and though all the various silverware was daunting, it was a lot of fun just to sit with my friends and talk about how crazy and fun the week was. There was lots of laughter, storytelling, and bantering going on! Afterwards though, is when more fun began.

As soon as they called that the dance floor was opening, whoops rose up from all corners of the room as we dashed to the dance floor. When everybody started moving, we got a surprise – the floor started moving as well! It looked to me like this was a portable hard floor, laid on top of the existing carpet and taped down, though it seemed to have met its match with the couple hundred teenagers currently occupying it. Almost every song that came on warranted a loud cheer from the group, as everybody let loose!

After a good bit of dancing and removal of shoes, Hailey and I decided to explore out in the game room, where there were people who really didn’t feel like dancing. There, we got into a very intense game of beanbags. Half the time we were actually trying to score, whereas the other time we were just having a lot of fun winging beanbags at each other! Of course there was some foul play, like catching the beanbags, blocking the hole with a foot, but it was all in good fun. We bounced on and off the dance floor for the rest of the night, just drifting around and having a great time.

The night ended on the dance floor, with everybody singing “Don’t Stop Believin'” at the top of their lungs, and some of us losing our voices (in my case, nearly losing what little voice I had left). Of course, we didn’t make it back to campus in time for 11pm bed checks, but at that point I don’t think anybody cared. All in all, it was a great last night.

When I got back to the dorms, my roommates were already there. We talked about how our nights went, showered, and now I’m here blogging. I don’t think I’m going to get much sleep tonight, but that’s okay.

This is Ashley Hum of Blue Crew, signing off for now.

Recruitment and Career Day / Press Conference

Hello world! This is Ashley Hum of the Blue Crew, reporting live from George Mason University’s WJMC 2015.

Today was a big day for all National Youth Correspondents. Though we didn’t travel off campus, we were traversing it all day listening to various speakers.

Recruitment and Career Day (part 1)

First up was David Culver of NBC, who spoke to us about rediscovering his Cuban roots. He played for us a documentary of the process that had aired on NBC previously, entitled Rediscovering Cuba: A Journey Home. I’ve always found it interesting when reporters use their journalist skills to delve into their past (such as David Carr in his book The Night of the Gun). Human memories can fade, but records are – generally – accurate and long-lasting. The documentary was full of emotions and people, two ingredients that inevitably make a good story.

The next person to speak with us was Carol Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, spoke to us about her photographs and the stories behind them. In her speech, she was quiet and sad, though her passion still showed through her script. The slideshow she showed us after her presentation was incredibly moving, covering mostlu the major disasters and tragedies of the past 30 years (though there were some more personal stories and happiness hidden in there as well). Before she even got on stage, April and Melissa (Blue Crew’s Faculty Advisor and Junior Faculty Advisor, respectively) had warned us that we would cry. They knew what they were talking about, for tissues were passed around, and I could hear sniffles throughout throughout the classroom. My eyes began to water and  tears began to roll down my cheeks. This was the most moving session that has taken place so far this week. What finally broke me was the 9/11 pictures – seeing the abject terror and anguish on the faces of the survivors, and the incredible amount of damage sustained by the people and the place.

Press Conference

After we had dried our eyes and given Carol Guzy a round of thunderous applause, it was back upstairs with us, to yet another Color Group meeting. This meeting was to be the longest meeting we would have this week, because it was time for the press conference. Since the press conference itself only took about 12 minutes, we had time beforehand to prepare. Depending on our positions in the press conference, we prepared opening statements, strategized how to keep order in the meeting, prepared questions or prepared to answer questions.

The press conference went off without a hitch, although I’ll confess that I for one was pretty terrified being up in front of everybody answering questions. The reporters asked some hard questions, and ended up getting fairly annoyed with the answer “This is an active investigation, and so we cannot comment at this time”. However, they worked with what they had, and what we didn’t have. The city manager in particular was great at thinking on her feet and providing answers. We all learned how hard it is for officials to answer questions, and developed new insight as to why they often dodge the question completely.

After the body of press conference, those of us who had to answer questions were done. Having nothing else to do, we rehashed the process of the press conference amongst ourselves while the reporters busily worked on their stories.

Now, one of the cool parts about this press conference were the roles of the reporters. The scenario had been designed so that the news outlets from which the reporters supposedly hailed were wide and varied, from the St. Louis Dispatch to Fox News to Al Jazeera America. Nor were they all bound to print sources either – there was a radio station and a TV news report included in the pool as well.

Besides the press pool, there were the roles of Mayor, City Manager, Police Chief, Press Secretary for the City of Ferguson, Press Secretary for the ACLU and the representative of the ACLU of Missouri that all had to be filled.

Roughly 45 minutes later, the reporters had their stories ready to present.

 

Recruitment and Career Day (part 2)

After the press conference, we dove right back into classes. Sitting in the cinema, Amy Takayama-Perez, Dean of Admissions for George Mason University, talked to us about going to Mason. She told us about scholarships, programs, etc. and learned what we were looking for in colleges. One interesting thing she noted was that as WJMC alumni, if any of us apply to Mason, get accepted, and attend, we automatically get an $8000 scholarship, to be paid in $2000 increments beginning freshman year. Certainly puts a positive spin on things, doesn’t it?

We filed back into Dewberry hall then, to learn about entertainment journalism. Kevin McCarthy was the speaker, an entertainment reporter and film critic for Fox News. He ranked up with Sonya Ross in terms of engaging an audience and making them laugh, while still getting the point across. WJMC certainly attracts dedicated speakers, as he Skyped in from Spain just to talk with us! He did a great job with the stories in his speech and the answers to our questions. He even accepted a promposal from one of the girls! This was definitely one of the more entertaining sessions so far this week.

The last sessions of the day were breakout sessions, with roughly twenty correspondents in each session.

I attended the session held by Tom Jackman, a Washington Post reporter. He’s been on the crime beat for many years, but I found out that he’s really trying to get away from that, though the stories won’t stop falling in his lap. He has a unique teaching style in that he showed us what he did, not merely told us what he did. He created mock story about automatic license plate readers and proceeded to interview half the class. He also recounted various stories of cases he’s covered and people he’s met. He’s met so many interesting people! For example, he once covered the story of 7 (now 11) year old boy who had seizures and raised money in order to buy a seizure-detecting dog. He also wrote a story on Virginia woman who opened a burlesque club in China. He was incredibly interesting, and when I got a chance to speak with him after the session, he was very willing to talk to me and give me his business card. (Score for the elevator speech!)

The last thing on today’s agenda was the color group meeting. We briefly debriefed on how we thought our press conference went (pretty darn great, though necessarily vague), and went over tomorrow’s schedule (which will be even more exhausting than usual; stay tuned!). We were dismissed early – woohoo!

All in all, another thoroughly exhausting but most definitely fun and information-packed day at WJMC 2015.

This is Ashley Hum, of WJMC 2015’s Blue Crew, signing off for now.

NatGeo, Politics, and other Q&As

Date: 14 July

Hello world! This is Ashley Hum, reporting live from George Mason University’s WJMC 2015.

We National Youth Correspondents began today like any other day. Breakfast at an ungodly hour of the morning followed by a Color Group meeting.

At our meeting, we played 2 Truths, 1 Lie which was a lot of fun. We learned a bit about our fellow Blue Crew members and had a bunch of laughs along the way. We also rehashed yesterday’s visit to the Newseum, writing on sticky notes what we learned and what our favorite parts of the museum were.

Our first speech of the day was at the National Geographic museum, and given by Susan Goldberg, the first female Editor in Chief of National Geographic Magazine. The pictures she showed us were truly amazing. Her speech seemed a bit daunting, describing the often trying conditions endured by NatGeo photographers and journalists, but I think it was on purpose, in order to inspire those adventurous spirits in the crowd. (During her speech, she may also have revealed to us what the upcoming NatGeo issue covers look like. But then again, she may not have.)

After a quick boxed lunch, we were off to explore the NatGeo museum. First up was the Indiana Jones exhibit. It was a curious mix of both  actual props from the movies (in particular, I loved seeing the crystal skull) as well as actual historical artifacts. For reasons still unknown, the labels in the museum were bilingual, displaying French along with English.

The second exhibit was the Monster Fish exhibit, describing both prehistoric and current monster fish. This exhibit was more interactive, with games and things to climb on (always a worthy pastime, even in business attire). It was geared more towards children in my opinion, but aren’t we all children at heart?

After a boxed lunch, the next stop on today’s itinerary was the National Press Club, where we got to hear from a panel of political reporters. In attendance, there were only two of the three reporters who were supposed to be there, but that was okay. Jen Bender of the Huffington Post was quite personable, and I enjoyed hearing about her nontraditional route to her journalism career. Richard Wolf, the other person on the panel, had a more traditional route to journalism, and proved himself to be quite informative in terms of answering questions.

By far though, my favorite speech of the day, and possibly the week, was by Sonya Ross, Race and Ethnicity Editor of The Associated Press. She was extremely engaging, hilarious, and perfectly genuine. Her style of speaking appealed to me, since I enjoy a good laugh and a good story. Honestly, when she was talking, I completely forgot about how tired I was. I could’ve listened to her for a good while longer.

The speaking sessions weren’t over yet. We bussed back to campus for dinner, then gathered in Dewberry Hall to listen to a panel talk about sports journalism. Mike Foss of USA Today, Phil Murphy of ESPN, and Lindsay Simpson of DC United all answered questions from the correspondents, regarding things like scholarships and how to become a sports journalist.

The day ended much like every other day, with a Color Group meeting. This time, we covered more about a press conference simulation that we’re doing tomorrow. I was assigned the position of Police Chief for the City of Ferguson. Stay tuned for information on that!

This is Ashley Hum for WJMC Blue Crew, signing off for now.

Museums, Discussions, and Monuments, Oh My!!

Hello world! My name is Ashley Hum, reporting live from George Mason’s WJMC 2015. We National Youth Correspondents kicked off Day 2 of WJMC quite early in the morning (for example, the Blue Crew went to breakfast at 6:45am) before departing on a 4-hour trip to the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue in Northwest DC.

Above: Meet the Blue Crew of WJMC 2015!

In the Newseum
In that one museum packed so much information, 4 hours was not even enough to take it all in. We started on the 6th floor with the observation deck and today’s national/international front pages and worked our way down. We saw one of the newer exhibits on the Vietnam War, the ordeals of war correspondents, and the press’s involvement in public opinion (fun fact: there was a lot less gore publicly broadcast than what exists in popular memory).

We also messed around in a room full of “modern media” technology, such as touch screens and interactive on-screen games and story boards. We pretended to be reporters in front of a blue screen (funny thing is, some of our shirts disappeared into it and made it look like we were just floating heads!). We quietly mourned in the 9/11 memorial section. We educated ourselves in matters of the First Amendment. While learning where freedom of speech does and does not exist, we also learned about the journalists who have risked their lives and even died for their profession.

There are so many faces, so many names on that wall.

Without warning, “Amazing Grace” began to play in my head when I walked around the corner and saw all these names and pictures hanging up on the wall. Just seeing the sheer number of journalists who gave their lives for their craft had a huge impact on me. I stayed there for a solid amount of time, unable to tear my eyes away.

With that, the last exhibit of the floor, we took a little break for lunch, which was amazing, Museum food is surprisingly good!

Afterwards, we took a quick trip around the gift shop, checked out the Berlin Wall, and headed into a 4D movie complete with 3D glasses and moving seats.

The last exhibit we saw today was the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs. That was the most powerful for me, right next to the wall covered in photos taken of dead journalists. There were so many horrific moments captured in these photographs, so much pain and suffering, but also so much of the near-indestructible human spirit that allows us to survive even the worse ordeals. If the path I make for myself in life leads me to photography as a profession, I aim to capture moments like the men and women who took these photographs did.

One of my favorite things about the Newseum was what April called “the quote blocks”; stone blocks in the walls engraved with quotes such as “If a person goes to a country and finds their newspapers filled with nothing but good news, there are good men in jail.” (Senator Daniel P. Moynihan)

I also loved all the interactivity of the museum. My favorite game was one in the Family Ethics Center. In the game, you hover your hand above a touch screen and catch small virtual office people in order to read and answer the questions they’re carrying around their small virtual office. If you get enough questions right, you fill up a newspaper and beat the team on the other side. Honestly, waving my hands around like that made me feel like a wizard! Who says you can’t learn by playing a game?

Overall, I loved the Newseum and I wished we’d had all day to just explore and read everything. I will definitely return someday on my own time to walk through and take my sweet time in doing so,

Discussions

Technically, I suppose this segment of the day was meant to be a lecture or a speech, but the speakers – Ms. Jamie Smith, Executive Vice President of Medi Strategies at Edelman, and Mr. Michael Shear, White House Correspondent for the New York Times – were so personable and engaging that it really seemed more like a conversation than a lecture.

They began by introducing themselves and telling some stories about their experiences and opinions before opening up the floor to questions. I went up today, and asked how they got their news (via social media, hard copy newspaper, etc.). Ms. Smith replied that when in the White House, you were a bit spoiled in that regard, since they hire whip-smart kids straight out of college to sort the news and send thousands of clips up the chain. Mr. Shear replied that he gets his news from a variety of sources, such as the big daily newspapers (The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc.) as well as Twitter and Playbook’s email updates.

During the course of the Q&A session, they touched upon some really good points concerning ethics and career choice. “Never lie” was one bit of advice from Ms. Smith, along with “stay true to yourself” (don’t take a job that you hate just for the sake of taking the job) and “always report the truth” (don’t compromise your own integrity to the interests and agendas of others).

Sounds like a lot of “don’ts” doesn’t it? There were also “do’s”, don’t worry. Do know your stuff and do your homework. Do have the confidence to ask for what you want. Do be flexible in your skill set, working on both weaknesses and strengths.

Overall, I loved the dynamic this class had. Though I was quite tired at the time (as I’m sure at least half of my group was as well) we were kept engaged and interested by the speakers. I believe this is a lesson not only in journalism, but also in public speaking and life in general.

Monuments

We ended the long day with an even longer walk. (Admittedly, it was a fun walk, but that didn’t stop it from being long.) We began at the WWII Memorial, walked to the Lincoln Memorial, the MLK Memorial, and ended at the FDR Memorial. The sheer size of these monuments put me in awe of the monuments themselves, but also of what and who the monuments stood for. In our wanderings, I captured some lovely photographs of all of these monuments, as well as some from the walks in between. I will upload these pictures into an album on Facebook.

Afterword

There was no Color Group meeting tonight, as everyone was completely exhausted. After bed check, my roommates and I (and I’m sure, the rest of the National Youth Correspondents) hurried to take showers, blog, and get to bed!

That’s all for tonight’s report. This is Ashley Hum from WJMC 2015’s Blue Crew, signing off for now.

Sharkbait! Blue-ha-ha!

Hello world! My name is Ashley Hum, reporting live from WJMC’s Blue Crew. Today was Day 0 for all 291 National Youth Correspondents, myself included.

The check-in process was fairly streamlined – sign in, drop your stuff off in your room at one of the residence halls, take a college tour, and get ready for dinner. In reality, however, things didn’t go nearly so smoothly for me (note that these complications were in no way the fault of WJMC or its faculty, rather it was my own fault).

I was one of the later Correspondents to check in, since I had to rush from Encampment (a boot camp-style summer program held by the Civil Air Patrol, at which I was staffing). Be that as it may, I thought I actually had time to unpack before the tour (I didn’t). After the tour, in my effort to rush towards the Hub to meet my faculty advisor, April van Buren, I managed to lock my access key in my room. That meant I had to call the front desk of the dorm down the street, run to get a loaner card, and then run back to my room to get dressed in under 5 minutes. Miraculously, the Blue Crew hadn’t left yet, and so everything turned out fine.

While waiting for dinner, the Blue Crew played an ice breaker game in which one person says their first name, followed by an animal that begins with the first letter of that name. The next person has to say person 1’s name and animal, followed by their own name and animal.

Example:

“Melissa, manatee.”

“Melissa, manatee. Will, wallaby.”

“Melissa, manatee. Will, wallaby. Doug, dolphin.”

I was near the end of this line as well, so I had a LOT of names to remember! It was a good memory exercise, however, and provided a funny way to remember each others’ names. (Bailey continually referred to Doug as “Dolphin”.)

Dinner itself was delicious! It was a lot of fun getting to know my fellow National Youth Correspondents over a meal of rice, baked ziti, and rotisserie chicken.

Afterwards, we had a speech followed by a Q&A session with Ms. Nicole Livas, co-anchor of WAVY News 10 in Hampton Roads, Virginia. She was a very personable speaker, offering us insightful personal anecdotes in response to questions posed by the National Youth Correspondents.

This is one of the things I look forward to this week – getting to know our speakers not just as famous names, but as ordinary people, and learning lessons from their experiences.

The day ended with our first Color Group meeting, at which we devised the chant that is the title of this post. Finding Nemo, anyone?

At this same Color Group meeting, we went over some housekeeping things such as reading assignments for the upcoming press conference simulation, as well as tomorrows schedule and basic rules for WJMC (exe: no leaving your room after 11pm). We also worked on our “elevator speeches”, introducing ourselves and our dreams in short and concise statements. (I was told by my fellow Blue Crew that I seemed the best prepared and most polished, and that I had an amazing handshake.)

After the required business came the fun! We played a game called Train Wreck, in which players sit in a circle, with one less chair than there are people. One person stands in the center and says a fact about themselves (exe: “My name is Ashley and I am an oldest sibling”). All of the rest of the players to whom that fact applies must get up and switch seats, and the one left standing in the middle has to give a different fact about themselves. It’s a fast-paced, crazy, and hilarious icebreaker!

After the fun and games, we were sent back to our rooms for bed checks, showers, and blogging. I’m all psyched and ready to go for tomorrow! Tomorrow, the main event is visiting the Newseum in Washington, D.C. We’re gonna hit the ground running!

That’s all for tonight’s report. This is Ashley Hum of WJMC 2015’s Blue Crew, signing off for now.

Texture of (Wednesday)? : Fast!

Sorry, everyone! Posting completely slipped my mind yesterday. But here today is a poem with a snappy beat that just might get you into a productive mood for the middle of the week. After today, you’ve got a nice downward slide into the weekend. Make the most of it!

From A Railway Carriage

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart runaway in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever!

Until next Friday,

~Ashley

Friday Files: Who Lives on Mars?

In my opinion, Ray Bradbury has a bit of a Mars obsession. He likes to colonize it in as many ways as possible, with: actual Martians of various kinds, black people driven from Earth, and people with deadly illnesses. However, for the purposes of the story in question, Mars is populated by long-dead authors, resurrected from the dead and accompanied by their various literary creations for the sole purpose of keeping such things alive.

Let me explain.

Earth and Mars: Year 2020

Books are banned by the hundreds! (Not to mention Halloween outlawed and Christmas banned.) “Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allan Poe. Dracula, by Brain Stoker. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving. Rappaccini’s Daughter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce. Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. The Willows, by Algernon Blackwood. The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. The Weird Shadow Over Innsmouth, by H. P. Lovecraft. And more! Books by Walter de la Mare, Wakefield, Harvey, Wells, Asquith, Huxley—all forbidden authors.” Of these books and their compatriots, only one copy each remains, “kept for historical purposes in the locked museum vaults”, according to the captain of a rocket ship, a century later.

This destruction of literature summons their authors out of whatever limbo they had been kept in, in order to save their beloved creations. The antiseptic earth won’t listen, however, and they have no choice but to “wait out the century here on Mars, hoping Earth might overweight itself with these scientists and their doubtings”, as Mr. Edgar Allan Poe explains so clearly to Mr. Charles Dickens a century after the fact.

On Mars, they all live in the Emerald City, thanks to The Wizard of Oz, along with all their creations and imaginations. But troubled times come the kingdom before long. In the fictitious words of one of the authors, “For what are we but books, and when those are gone, nothing’s to be seen.”

Earth and Mars: Year 2120

Those who do not learn history are bound to repeat it. For that matter, even if you do learn history, it doesn’t immunize you from repeating it. The men in the rocket ship bound for Mars are taking part their ancestors’ quest – unwittingly they’re seeking to drive the authors from their Martian refuge, though they know not that the authors live there. Since before the start of their journey their psyches have been plagued by the authors, though again they know not who or what are behind the attacks. Everything will come to a head once the rocket lands.

Now, I’m not going to tell you how it ends; you’ll have to find that out for yourself, however, I will tell you my reactions to this short story.

My initial reaction, in all honesty, was to break out into a massive grin and freak out in the best way possible. I love it when my favorite things come together, which, in this case, was sci-fi and classic fiction. I thought the whole concept of the story was highly original and creative. I loved how Bradbury portrays each of the different authors he mentions – Edgar Allan Poe as the vaguely drunk but very passionate leader, Ambrose Bierce as the gleeful announcer of their impending doom, and Algernon Blackwood as the slightly hysterical Chicken-Little-type, along with others. I don’t know how historically accurate these portrayals are, but I still find them quite entertaining. It’s interesting to think of an author existing only because of his book.

Speaking of authors and stories, as a whole, Ray Bradbury’s stories tend to lean more towards the cerebral side of reading – they make you think and question and think some more. “The Exiles” was a bit less of that, and more straightforward storytelling, though that’s not to say it doesn’t still make you think. I personally began to wonder about the future of the Earth if we continue to ban books we deem “dangerous”.

Overall “The Exiles” was an amazing short story, and is now my absolute favorite. (You should really go read it if you haven’t already.)

Until next Tuesday!

~Ashley

The Texture of Tuesday: Snow

As I sit here staring out the window, there are 8 inches of powdery snow cloaking the world. This calls for a well-known snow poem by Robert Frost that would not have been out of place late last night, as the whiteness came drifting steadily down through the trees.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Until next Friday,

~Ashley

Friday Files: Can I Please Be A Rithmatist?

Note: Normally, I would have a new review for you guys, but I’ve been extremely busy this week, so I’m posting a review I wrote last September. It was published that same month on the website for the Young American’s Library Services Association, called The Hub. You can read the article and review here if you like, or just keep scrolling to where I’ve pasted the review in this post. 

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Can I Be A Rithmatist?
a review on The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

I’ll start off by saying that this is my favorite kind of book. There’s a fantasy world, with its own brand of magic, rife with epic duels and battles, with a pinch of murder and crime solving thrown in for good measure. What’s not to love?

In the book, Sanderson thoroughly develops his world, describing it in geographic, historical, and cultural terms. The United States has turned into an island nation of sixty small island united only in name. Through the character’s dialogue, we learn a little bit about the country’s history, such as the first Rithmatist, and the origins of the Battle of Nebrask that rages in the West. Culturally, the tension between Rithmatists and non-Rithmatists is developed through the author’s tone and events in the story. He also describes Rithmatics, the use of chalk lines for both defense and offense in duels and battles, very clearly. He explains through the characters’ dialogue as well as through diagrams.

The characters themselves are extremely realistic, with distinct personalities and behaviors. They don’t stray from character; they’re actually quite stubborn in sticking to their personalities. Joel is the son of the deceased chalkmaker at Armedius Academy, one of only eight schools in the Isles to teach Rithmatics. He’s quite bright, but only pays attention and studies subjects that catch his interest, i.e. Rithmatics. Melody, when we first meet her, is fairly whiny and annoying. But she grows up a bit over the course of the story, and turns out to be not so bad. She just needs a little more confidence and a little less drama. She and Joel make a great team. Then there is Professor Finch, a scholarly teacher of defense and Joel’s mentor of sorts, who doesn’t mind teaching a non-Rithmatist the art of Rithmatics. He’s smart as a whip. The characters in this book seem to have a life of their own!

The storyline definitely kept my attention. Rithmatists from Armedius are being murdered with chalklings. Their defenses are found chewed to pieces, and there’s blood in their defensive circles. There’s also a strange new Rithmatic line near each of the crime scenes. Joel, Melody, and Professor Finch must race to find the killer – and the meaning of the new line – before any more Rithmatists have to die. The revelation might surprise you.

The only thing I don’t like about this book is the fact that it ends in my least favorite sentence: “TO BE CONTINUED.” But of course, that means there will be more books, which is a very good thing. I can’t wait!

I would recommend this book to anybody who wants to escape this world to dive headfirst into another one. But don’t forget your chalk, because if you do, the professors have the authority to make you scrub floors for two hours straight.

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That’s all for this edition of the Friday Files! In two weeks, you’ll get another (hopefully more current) review. However, check back next Tuesday if you want to read some good poetry! No, I’m not the one writing it – you’ll get the likes of Frost or Henley or Carroll, depending on my mood. 

If any of you have an idea of something I should review, or a poem you want to share with the world, leave a comment and I’ll take it into consideration! 

Until next week,
~Ashley