Krista Ramsey

     I think that, by now, everyone who has had English during third trimester has seen a little bit of Krista Ramsey's lecture on journalism. You could argue different points to prove the true message she wanted us to get out of her presentation, but I think that they would all eventually lead to something along the lines of voice being the key part of your writing. Without voice, writing lacks personality and nobody likes to read anything without personality. As she went on, she became to sound less like a teacher and more like a mentor. She began to talk about the power of average stories about average people doing more-than-average things without notice. About halfway through her lecture, she said, "Shame on us as writers if we underestimate the power of good people, (Ramsey). This was probably the most impacting line she said through the seventy-two minutes she was talking. I know this because after she said this, every pencil was raised, every head dropped, every eye focused on lined notebook paper, and every hand scribbled down her words. I would bet money that there was not one person in the Harvard Room that chose not to quote that statement.

      So, why am I writing about this weeks after the presentation? Well, it's because of our current studies of columns and creative nonfiction. Especially our creative nonfiction paper. We have our first rough draft due soon, and I've been working on it every night. Each night referring to the notes I took during her presentation. We all had to pick a topic that we feel especially drawn to and strongly connected to. It doesn't have to be a huge, worldwide issue that you could write about for years trying to solve with your words. But that's not the point. Krista Ramsey probably doesn't have a deep connection with her subjects when she first gets her assignments, but you can tell that she has a more powerful bond with the people she writes about than Gorilla Glue on a cracked Nutcracker. I think our teachers gave us the columns to study and set up Krista Ramsey's presentation before we started writing so we would understand how we can use our voice to emphasize a small topic enough to make it appear to be just as exciting as anything we could see on TV.

     Speaking of TV, my creative nonfiction piece is on how music, television influences us as we allow ourselves to be impacted by what we see and hear (this was an easy one to connect to myself and Fahrenheit 451, everyone in that book is brainwashed to the max). You may not think about it a whole lot, but the sources of entertainment we are exposed to greatly impact how we mature and how we act. I know your parents think about it, mine do for sure. Everybody changes over time, that's normal, but what you chose to be exposed to is what you choose to grow up to become. Krista Ramsey has certainly grown up since becoming a writer, there is no way in heck that she was that influential and could move people so well with her voice before she exposed herself to her sources. Now, music and TV may have had little contribution to how amazing a person she is today, but it does prove the point that we are impacted by almost everything around us (it just so happens that music and TV are among the top influences of teens).