A Little Bit Of Relaxation

With only one day off during my 60+ hour week, I find myself becoming so excited for spring break that it is consuming most of my thoughts. Having time off is a rarity for myself as the semesters progress towards graduation, and I will admit--I am extremely excited for a break.

Having traveled most of the United States and planning most of my oversea travels, I realized why I am so excited for spring break, I have never been to Vegas and that's where I'm headed!

As I was looking at websites for Vegas, I quickly realized that the travel websites are about two things: booze and money... and I'm looking to do more than enjoy a cocktail and drain my money into a lit up machine. However, I came across a different website that was nestled in between links trying to take me to clubs and casinos. The website is called The Other Side Of Vegas.

I am very excited that there is an entire website that has the same perspective on Vegas as myself. Shows, ghost towns, museums, antique shopping. I have everything planned out. Now all I need is for time to fast forward to two weeks from now so I can start my spring break!

Travel Thoughts

For the summer I have been looking at different places to go abroad. I can't wait to travel everywhere but I have to choose somewhere to go first. As I was looking around at different places I found myself leaning towards India as my first choice. Mainly, my grandfather had great things to say about his travels there. As I was looking around for different websites about India I found a website that I thought was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

http://www.panoramas.dk is a website that has 360 degree panoramas of different places throughout the world. As I found myself looking at the Great Wall of China and the Eiffel Tower, I thought I would sneak a peek at the Taj Mahal. http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen/fullscreen23.html. I thought it was such a fun website that I came across when looking for information about India!

Website That Caught My Attention

Being sick with strep throat this weekend has left me bedridden and computer crazy. With no voice to talk to anyone, I have been either sleeping or using Stumble Upon to groggily cruise the internet. Stumble Upon is a website that randomly selects websites based on a series of interests the user chooses when first signing up.

Stumble Upon takes me to many websites and more often than not, I don't find a site that can hold my interest for too long. However, the site FARK popped up and caught my attention for longer than 30 seconds. Fark is a website that displays real news from different sites however, it isn't typical 5 o'clock news that people are used to. The headlines read: "Kansas City is Being Torn Apart By Chocolate Beer," "How you can hide from Google. If you dare," and "Obesity epidemic hits US pets. Your dog wants a steak, but could use a salad."

Overall, I enjoyed the website and their creative headlines that made me read news reports that I otherwise wouldn't have taken a second look at.

Thinking About the Future

As I find myself coming to the end of my college experience, I have been thinking more about the future as a tangible reality. I am a journalism major with a minor in professional writing and I graduate UNM in December. I am currently at my second internship with a magazine, where I gain the best writing experience. I have also noticed that my UNM elective classes (interviewing, editing) are all courses that will prepare me for the "real world" journalism jobs. In my advanced multimedia journalism course, my professor had me put together a virtual resume with all of my work showcasing my various multimedia skills.

Thanks for stopping by my blog,


Kelsie Soward

Hello Writing for the Web Class!

My name is Kelsie Soward and this is my blog that I have used for all my UNM classes since I was a freshman. I am now a senior and I graduate this fall! My  major is print journalism and I currently intern at Albuquerque The Magazine and it has been a great experience so far! My favorite hobby (aside from writing) is photography.

My grandfather was a Master Sergent in the United States Air Force and subsequently he moved my family around a lot. My uncle and aunts were born in Germany and my mother was born in Greece. Throughout his travels he took pictures in every country and documented every moment. When I was 11 years old, he gave me his camera and this my very first camera, and where my passion for photography started. I've been taking pictures and writing down my travels ever since!

Best Story in Week 6

My classmate Brandon Call's story Head coach retires after 16 seasons was my favorite story this week. Not only is this a newsworthy story, but Brandon went above and beyond by finding so many sources to interview with. His story really captured how the athletes felt about Coach Flanagan and the quotes really drove me to continue reading the story all the way through. I would have never even known such an influential coach at UNM was retiring if it weren't for this story, making the journalistic quality very high for this story.

I loved the beginning to the multimedia piece. Its engaging and funny and its not a boring press conference about the coach retiring. You really get to see how humorous the coach was and how much he loved his job. I loved that Brandon integrated pictures from the seasons into the multimedia piece, making it that much stronger of a story. Brandon's written part tells the story of how the athletes feel about Flanagan and the video tells the story of how Flanagan feels about retiring. 

Overall I feel like this story was excellent and one of the strongest multimedia stories this semester. 

The only critique I would give is that no where in the headline or the beginning of the story does Brandon specify that Flanagan is the Girls basketball coach. You eventually in the story will understand what sport Flanagan coaches but maybe Brandon could add it to the beginning somewhere.

Best Story in Week 5

UNM Womens Rugby Goes to Nationals by Priscilla Ramirez was my favorite story this week. I had no idea that UNM had a rugby team let alone a women's rugby team that is on their way to nationals! I knew that this story would be a top contender this week when I was editing her story on Thursday. I really liked how she played up to the fact that they are the underdog going into nationals making the reader not only know about the rugby team but it makes them want to cheer for a team they may have never knew existed.

I really liked her photos in the story. Sports photos are always so compelling because they are action shots that really tell the story. Her multimedia piece flowed well but my only critique is that the audio sounded a bit funny in the story but I loved how the multimedia was different from her story making me want to listen to it all the way through.