Jake Copan

Active Aging Week

2009-09-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

College students tend to choose a Wii over a game of chess. Seniors tend to play communal board games and not know anything about videogames.

Yet seniors attending Active Aging Week at Gordon College this week skipped board and card games to play virtual golf, tennis and bowling projected onto a large screen.

Though activities such as "Wii Sports" attracted some participants, the turnout for most activities failed to meet organizers’ expectations. Both game night at Chester’s place and the showing of the movie “Forever Young at Heart” had no attendees, while only two people attended a spiritual walk around gull pond.

“I thought my favorite event was going to be playing chess and board games at Chester’s, but no one came” said Marie Lucey, clinical manager of the Center for Balance, Mobility and Wellness. “I went home really disappointed that no one came. Some of it was timing, publicity. You just never know.”

Despite advertising on local news stations, newsletters and posters, total attendance, expected to reach 200 participants, remained around 50.
Weak attendance, however, failed to keep participants from having a great time at events like virtual bowling.

Between laughs and staring at a Wii remote, 83 year old Roy Carlson remarked that he preferred virtual bowling to the real thing.
"Yeah, I like it. But- well, real bowling- it's a little different. "

ORANGE SODA AND CIGARETTES

2009-09-15T06:06:00.000-07:00

“You can find a story if you look for it,” said college student Alysa Obert as she described a recent encounter on the Boston metro. A man boarded the train with nothing but a bottle of orange soda tucked under his arm and a pack of cigarettes his hand. “I thought to myself, ‘What’s his story? Why orange soda and cigarettes?’”

In a society where the media consists largely of sensationalist journalism and celebrity gossip, some college students are looking for real, substantive writing about real people.

“I feel a lot of Journalism tends to be a lot of fluff and they don’t get to the story,” said communication Arts student Michelle Webber. “Say what you want to say and don’t make it more complicated.”

In an effort to capture the reader, magazines increasingly resort to colorful language, alliteration and complex sentence structures.

“We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon,” wrote William Zinsser in his book On Writing Well.

The book, written 30 years ago, still captivates the interest of prospective writers and journalists like Obert and Webber.

“[On Writing Well] applies a lot,” said Webber. “In some ways it is very classic […] and could be applied in any time period.”

“Getting down someone’s language is crucial to telling their story,” said Obert of Zinsser’s teaching on clarity of writing and accuracy of reporting. “The moment you bring your scalpel, you are endangering their Identity. Those are their words […] It’s a big responsibility.”

To many shock value journalists and celebrity gossip writers, Zinsser’s teaching restrains creative streaks that are prevalent in today’s journalism. But to writing students that aim to achieve excellence and quality in their writing, On Writing Well is indispensable.

“Now I don’t read gossip magazines or celebrity blogs anymore,” said Obert. “Brad is still with Jenn in my opinion.”

THE TARTAN: THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT, OR, AT LEAST THERE WILL BE

2009-09-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

In the old world handbags were weighed down by cell-phones, low-resolution digital cameras and bulky music players. Now the three have become one, and so much more.

Welcome to the new world.

In the recent past news was painstakingly obtained by physically walking to the corner store, picking up the bundle of informative papers that constituted the news source of one’s choice, and conducting a monetary exchange with the gentleman behind the counter.

The rise of fast-flow digital information has rendered such manners of obtaining news obsolete. Or has it?

Despite the convenience of news stories appearing in real time on the corner of one’s screen, some college students have mixed feelings about online journalism.

As Gordon College’s school newspaper, The Tartan, goes online, some students are hesitant to accept the change.

“I want a hard copy, something to pick up on my way to class,” said Chris Mawhorter, a sophomore.

While Mawhorter prefers a physical paper to read up on the college’s sports team and “hot button issues on campus,” he tends to go online to read about international news.

Another student, Stephen Fletcher, similarly divides his news gathering between a hard copy of local news from his hometown of China, Maine, and the online editions of the Boston Globe and New York Times for breaking news.

In a world of cutting edge technology which delivers breaking news as it unravels, many students strive to remain well informed citizens through the convenience of digital media.

While students like Mawhorter see the transition to digital as good in the sense of rapid information and “going green,” some believe the loss of a hard copy of The Tartan represents the loss of the pleasure of coffee-shop reading that convenient online journalism cannot replace.