Sunday, June 13, 2010

Visual Narrative

I chose to do my narrative on ghosts and haunting, and with the pictures I decided to write a small story to narrate the pictures and tell the story of Stella the ghost, and her road to finding happiness. I decided to create a picture of why I think one reason that ghosts are still among us. The pictures I took followed Stella the ghost and her lonely world, where no one sees her. The sequence helps the viewer understand her world even though they are not in it. I think that maybe ghosts may not understand why they are what they are or why no one will talk to them. I was largely influenced by the television show Ghost Whisperer, where the main character can see ghosts who have unfinished business and help them to cross over. Most of the ghosts she encounters do not know that they are dead or cannot remember what happened to them. The girl mainly gets justice for the deceased that they could not other wise have, but I kind of went the other way in my story and put a twist on the viewers side of a happy ending. Love stories are timeless, whether or not they deal with the dead or the physical world. I believe that no matter what love transcends time and space, and so any story may deal with it, but not always with a happy ending.




Stella could never remember how she got here; she just knew that she was lonely. She would talk to people and try to be nice but no one ever talked back.

But she figured that was what life would be like from now on, considering she was a ghost.

She spent her days moaning around looking for a nice person to be around so she didn’t feel so lonely.

Then one day she met Jason. Oh how funny and loveable he was. Stella knew he would never know she was there but to her just being around him made her happy.

So she began to follow him wherever he would go, to school, to work, and she even sat around and watched him play videogames.

Well one day Jason met a girl named Alyson and he started spending lots of time with her. Stella became very jealous and angry, because she wanted him to herself. Whenever Stella got mad things would happen, like things falling off the shelves and lights flickering. But no matter how much Stella did this, Jason wouldn’t stop seeing that girl. Soon enough Stella could not imagine her life without Jason and she began to become sad, because they could never be together. So Stella decided she’d had enough of being lonely and angry.

She loved Jason and would have him to herself, and only to herself. And one day while Jason was outside skateboarding and hanging out with Alyson, she became so mad that Jason’s skateboard came flying out from under him and BAM…

Jason woke up to a strange sight, a smiling ghostly figure standing over him, looking very happy to see him. Who are you, he asked the girl. Stella, she said, nice to finally speak to you…

So Stella got her wish. She and Jason could be together, forever.


Sunday, May 23, 2010

INTRODUCTION: Self Portrait and Statement

My name is Alyson Snodgrass and I am a history major, in my junior year. I love to read books, especially American lit and any movie ever made I will watch. As for my feelings towards the direction that popular culture is moving is that I am glad that our culture is becoming more tolerant and open minded. There will always be the ones stuck behind not willing to let us progress as a society because of ignorance or fear, but with media in all forms, the world is becoming smaller and smarter. As long as there is someone willing to push the norm, there will be an ever more growing popular culture influencing the next generation. The only thing that I think is wrong with popular culture today is the strong hold the media has on body image. American culture pushes this need to be perfect ideal to anyone who can watch tv, and it has had an enormous impact on both men and women and how they see themselves. This affects children as well and can make them grow up with a completely wrong idea of what it is to be beautiful and make them messed up for life. Change in popular culture is inevitable, good and bad, it will always happen, but with out it, our culture would not be able to flourish and nurture new generations and we would not be able to share our culture with others nor would we be able to accept new ideas from other cultures.

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