Une promenade à travers l'histoire - My French Capstone Event

So, as many of you know, I have a French major. A big part of this program, and the major itself, is the French Capstone, a large research course taken by all French students as the last class before they finish the program. The capstone may be different in other universities, but for mine, it's this.

You, as a student, can chose any topic or subject to base your capstone on. You can do a paper, a presentation, and video project (almost did one of these but didn't have a good enough topic in mind), or even make an event. This is what I decided to do.

Making a public event is not something that I've ever done before as well, so I thought it would be a great experience to attempt this as well during my capstone. Really testing my skills and knowledge of how to plan events and create something many people can enjoy.

For my topic, I wanted to focus on Franco-Americans and their history. I have always been interested in this topic since I took a diversity of Franco-Communities class my sophomore year of college. I was so interested in the different aspects of the history and culture of Franco-Americans/French-Canadians and I wanted to know more.

So I looked for books, my advisor sent me the same articles that I read in that class, and I started to do my research and event planning. I read a mix of six different books, and about five articles, all which gave me great information and facts about the history and culture (and even the discrimination) of Franco-Americans. Then, when it got time to create the posters and chose my topics, I had a lot of work to do. There were so many aspects and facts that I wanted to feature. But I couldn't have them all.

I decided on having three large posters on Acadia and the Great Upheaval, Franco-American press and other writings, and lastly Franco-American names and their changes. For me, these were the most interesting topics surrounding them that I wanted to showcase. I did have a small paper about the discrimination of Franco-Americans, but I feel that so many parts of history mostly touch upon that aspect of history and I wanted to more show the better areas of their history. I was present at the event as well, for anyone who had any questions that I could answer, whether about the posters or another question off the top of their head. (I can answer some of these questions in the comments as well if you'd like). Here are my posters.

Franco-American names

Discrimination of Franco-Americans

Acadia and Acadian history

Franco-American press and writings

I also wanted to have two different aspects of Franco-Americans at the event. So I made a playlist of music by Franco-Americans (and some Quebecois songs because they are similar and connected in my opinion) and traditional food. For food I has Mulled Cider, Tourtière (pork pie), and Grand-Père dans le sirop (maple syrup dumplings) with ice cream. It was all so good! I think I'm going to make those dumplings when I get home over the summer because it was one of the best things I've ever tasted, if I'm being honest.

The Event

I held the event on the 29th of April, and I was surprised by actually how many people came and were interested in the subject and asked me questions! I felt so good to have my information and research pay off with people asking me so many questions and want more information on Franco-Americans. It was worth it, to myself and my education.

I had two different classes come by and take notes on my information, and most of the food was gone by the end when it was time to pack up the posters. I had so many people who came up to me and asked so many questions, and wanted to know even more than the information that I had hanging up. There was so much planning and research that went into this event, and then it was all over after three hours. It's jarring.

Presentations

me at student showcase

I presented about my Capstone event two separate times, and it was great to talk even more about my event and the outcome of it as well.

Student Showcase of Research & Engagement: This is an event that students can submit their projects and research reports and showcase them to members of the community. It was required for me to also have my capstone there and I thought it was fun to do it!

Celebration of French Achievement: This was a mix of awarding the students who won the Euclide Gilbert French Video award from the Franco-American Center of NH, and for all the French majors to show and their capstone research. I hadn't seen my classmates projects before this and I was excited to see them! They all did really great jobs.

You can watch the video that I made talking about the event (in similar and different detail) and see some of the event in video here on my YouTube channel. And don't be afraid to ask me any questions about my project and research! I'm very willing to answer questions and more of this topic.

À bientôt!

Photo/GIF creds: posters by me, Jordan's photo of me at SSR&E,

Bookish M.A.S.H. 2019

So I saw that Nose Stuck in a Book did this tag again, and is planning to do it every year...and I've needed more content lately, and since I loved the tag before when I did it first, I'm going to do it again too! So this begins my yearly game of Bookish M.A.S.H.!

The rules of M.A.S.H. are somewhat simple...you have multiple categories and four choices in each. Then you choose a number (spiral, number generator, etc.) and count down all the choices until there is only one left in each. That's your answer! If that's still too confusing to understand look at both of the posts linked here or look up the game online, better rules are put there than here.

For this of course I'm going to take all my answers and morph them into a story summary. I think it might be fun to also have some of the crossed out options from my last game as well and only come up with one or two new items for those categories (also at the time of writing this I don't have much brain power to think of other things haha). Next time I'll go completely new without looking back.

My last story summary of Steel-Forged Stars was really interesting and I'm still going to actually write it, just have to change some of the names! Let's see what this year's M.A.S.H. will have in store for me!


M.A.S.H.

Genre
Historical Fiction
Paranormal
Fantasy
Soft Crime

Love Interest
Meredy Crowther
Dakari
Minho
Kili (because the movie version tbh)

Setting
Medieval times
SPACE
Modern day city
Middle Earth

Best Friend
Arya Stark
Uriah
Bella Swan
Robin Goodfellow/Puck

Villian
A demon
Sauron/The Ring
(prince) Hadrien
Government leader(s)

Pet
Cat
Hellhound
Snake
Dragon

Job
Necromancer
Librarian
Hunter
Runner

Transportation
Train
Wings
Giant bird
Water travel

Power
Healing
Object manipulation/Telekinesis
Weather power
Mind control

Trope or Plot Twist
Forbidden love
Deathly Plague
Government experimentation
Secret power(s)

oh boy this is going to be fun to mix all together

The Newest story from Monica Laurette: Hidden in the Sky

Monica stays hidden in the city, not because of her job as a necromancer, but because of her wings and her powers. If anyone but her best friend, Uriah, knew how she could get around the underworld to destroy souls, she would be sent away to a prison island where her magic would not work.

Working with a cat, who also helps out in her work, and sharing a small house in the village closest to the castle, Monica is surprised when the niece of the King, Meredy, comes stumbling through her door during a storm, telling Monica that a demon who had escaped the underworld was now holding her family hostage.

Monica, Meredy, Uriah, and Bello the cat must now travel the lands of the kingdom, and the underworld to stop this demon who could also reveal the secrets Monica has tried so hard to keep in the dark.

Can Monica keep her powers a secret while also saving the royal family? What are these feelings she has towards Meredy? Just how will Monica, along with Bello, defeat this demon? And why does Bello's tail keep getting puffier with each passing day? Follow along the adventures in Hidden in the Sky, but beware your own secrets as well.


I hope you all liked this version of Bookish M.A.S.H.! What did your answers come out to be? Was there a choice you wish you hadn't crossed out (I know there were some for me! but the spiral must be obeyed!), let me know! Should I expand on this idea as well and make it a WIP (as if I need more of those)?

À bientôt!

Book M.A.S.H.

So, I wasn't tagged, but I saw this tag in Nose Stuck In A Book and I wanted to try it out! It was really fun and I spent an alarming amount of time looking at all my books and thinking of all the media that I enjoy to chose the four items in each category, so I hope you like the story that I end up giving at the end of this post because I do.

THE RULES:

• Link back to the original post on Kyera’s Library so she can see all your answers! (Be sure to do this via pingback, she won’t get notified if you just tag the URL)
• Thank the person(s) who tagged you… show the community some love!
• Obviously, come up with your wonderful answers!
• Don’t forget to tag others to keep the tag going!

HOW TO PLAY: *rules copied from Kyera's post*

"For those who are unfamiliar, I’ll (attempt to) explain the game. You have ten different categories and you want to populate each of them with four different answers. Depending on your preference, you can do four good options or two good and two bad. The second makes the game a little more exciting because you are worried you’ll end up with a bad option.

In the classic game, you would be doing this with another person. They would tell you to close your eyes and draw a spiral. When they tell you to stop – you stop and count the number of lines in your spiral. Essentially, if you drew a line through the center of the spiral, how many times would it intersect? That is your magic number.

If you’re by yourself, you can always just pick a number and use that as your magic number.

Starting at M.A.S.H. count each option until you reach the magic number then cross it off. For example, if your magic number was 3 you would count 1 – M, 2 – A, and 3 – S. Then you would cross off S. H would become your new 1. You continue this through each category, crossing off as you go until there is one option left for each category.

What you have left is your YA story! If what I wrote made no sense to you, sorry – you can always go to this website which explains how to play with some pictures."

Now here is my game!

M.A.S.H.

Genre

1. Fantasy

2. Paranormal

3. Historical Fiction

4. Science Fiction

Love Interest

1. Edythe Cullen

2. Rowan (Iron Fey series)

3. Minho

4. Clary Fray

Setting

1. Middle Earth

2. Nevernever

3. Forks, WA

4. Post-apocalyptic world (like Divergent or Hunger Games)

Best Friend

1. Puck/Robin Goodfellow

2. Uriah

3. Gimli

4. Izzy Lightwood

Villain

1. Sebastian Morgenstern

2. Jeanine Matthews

3. The One Who Is The One

4. A demon

Pet

1. Cait Sith/cat

2. Hellhound

3. Weasel

4. None

Job

1. Necromancer

2. Librarian

3. Runner

4. Dwarf smith/Blacksmith

Transportation

1. Giant eagle

2. Portals

3. Dragon

4. Train

Power

1. None

2. Healing

3. Strength

4. Telekinesis

Trope or Plot Twist

1. Forbidden love

2. Deathly plague

3. Government experimentation

4. Long-lost sibling 

My YA Sci-fi summary, I'll even make up a title for you all.

The Newest Sci-Fi Adventure! Steel-Forged Stars

Monica is a blacksmith in the walled society of Mexus, the second oldest planet city created after Earth overheated and exploded hundreds of years ago. With her best friend Gimli, they work and live together in an abandoned mansion left behind by the founding families who have moved on to the newest city development with Monica's pet Weasel, Cougar. 

Life on Mexus seemed to be doing great, until secret dealings by The One Who Is The One, the current elected leader of the solar system, brought new problems and troubles to what was once a quiet and low maintenance city. Edythe, who was sent to Mexus by the supposed long-lost sibling of Monica, there is not stopping the three from traveling by portals to the Solar Center to stop The One.

With no powers besides her smith skills and her brains, will Monica be able to save the world she knew? Or could the whole solar system fall apart? Find out in Steel-Forged Stars by Monica Laurette.

What did your YA M.A.S.H. turn out to be? Let me know in the comments (this is me tagging you to do the Bookish M.A.S.H.)! And this is actually a decent story idea that I might keep it and just change some of the names, maybe add another trope and twist while I'm at it too!

à bientôt!

NaNoWriMo 2017

As some of you who follow my writing twitter (@mlettewritings), you know that I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year. This is the first year that I have ever done this, and let me just tell you that I am very proud of myself and what I have accomplished in the last month.

In case you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, let me explain it a little further. National Novel Writing Month takes place in November every year. Writers from all over the world take the time in October to set themselves up to write, and they start by declaring a novel on the NaNoWriMo site. Once a novel is declared and November starts, writers are given to the last minute of November 30th to write 50,000 words. Now, some people don't complete this goal, and that's fine. NaNoWriMo is mostly about the spirit of writing, and not the goals.

They share pep talks from published authors and ML's from your area (mine is my state of New Hampshire) to give you little moments of inspiration throughout the month and so much more. When you hit a certain number of words you get sent an email with the achievement, and it comes with a little idea to put into the book. I have saved all of these emails because I plan to use all the suggestions in my book, no matter when I finish it.

My total word count: 50,114!!!  I won!

I didn't think that I would get this far at all. I started writing this blog post when I was about 6,000 words behind the goal, and I was ready to finish it talking about how I'm proud of the progress I got done even though I didn't win, but here I am now. How was I, with so many things to do this month and a Thanksgiving break with sometimes non-existent WiFi, able to write over 50,000 words!?

Well, I'll tell you. I wrote all the time. In class, between class, when I should have been doing some of my homework assignments but chose to move them to a later date because they weren't too pressing, and even at work when things slowed down. I never stopped writing. I updated my word count at night right before midnight would strike. And I was always proud of what I was able to accomplish.

I started November with a rough outline and idea of what I wanted to write. And the words just flew out of me. The story just appeared on the pages before me. I'm not even done with the story. I still have so much to do. I have the big drama to write, the final battle, and the love story that my story needs.  Below I will put the synopsis of my novel, titled 'Friendly Fear' and the cover art that I made, I worked really hard on both so please be gentle with me.

Synopsis of Friendly Fear:
Young Joan is saved from the lab she was raised in by a group of mercenaries that are anything but merciless.  She’s a special woman, there is no name for her.  She controls all the elements and when pushed to her breaking point, is a weapon of mass destruction.
   Joan joins up with the mercenaries, but things go quickly awry when the ones who experimented on her her whole life learn she didn’t survive the fire, and they want her back, or dead.
   This novel will explore how a young woman learns to accept herself and learn she is more than her powers, as well as learning more about herself personally through the trust and caring nature of her new found family.

I updated my novel last night, and then posted the photos all over my social media besides Instagram which I will be doing today. Then I went to bed, happy with myself and chugging some water because I was dehydrated. When I woke up this morning I logged on and saw this when I went to my novels page:

Seeing that big winner ribbon my novel made me smile so big it hurt my face. This was a goal of mine since I heard about NaNo. I have about 105 pages of story, and I have so many pages left to do. And I can only say thank you to NaNoWriMo, thank you to my friend Victoria for introducing me to the site last year, and thank you to all my friends and family who cheered me on this month and told me that I could do it. I may have not believed in myself when I was behind, but I managed to get behind my keyboard on the 30th and write 5,890 words, my wordiest day this year.

I don't know where I got the strength to do this, where I got the energy to write every day when I had the time, but I did and I just can't stop saying this, but I am so proud of myself. I look forward to the next years that I am able to do NaNoWriMo. I'm already starting to think if doing it next November while abroad would be an option for me because I loved it so much.

Here's to me writing more and starting the publishing route. Did you participate in NaNo? What was your word count? Was it your first time? Let's chat in the comments.

Here is the certificate PDF that I was given when I finished. This is so pretty and official I love it so much:

À bientôt!

Photo creds: all photos came from the NaNo website and screenshots of my account page, cover was made in my Canva account,

Prose Vs. Poetry

The other day in my Creative Writing class we were talking about poetry.  There were two questions asked at the beginning of class: "What makes a poem a poem?" and "What can a poem do that the other genres can't?"  We began to list the items that constitute a poem; lines, stanzas, rhyme, and more.

At the beginning of the discussion, we went over the meaning of the words prose and verse.  Prose in easy terms is 'to go forward' or to the edge of the page.  Verse (another word for poetry) is 'a turning'.  This shows one of the differences between poetry and prose.  Prose goes as far as the edge of the page, then starts at the beginning again.  Poetry constantly has line breaks.  Most of the line breaks and white space are strategic to the author of the work.  Most of the class agreed that you can easily distinguish a poem from a short story by the format on the piece.

Other points we talked about was the fact that poems are very different from the way we talk in real life.  To quote a classmate "No one just says in normal conversation 'Two roads diverged in a yellow road'."  And that's very true.  But it's funny at the same time.  Poetry is an oral genre.  It existed before writing and before prose too.  So it's not how we talk now but how we once did talk.

Saying something is 'poetic' is normally seen as a positive connotation.  However, if someone was to read your work and called it 'prosy' or 'prosaic' you would think they didn't like.  Because those words have a negative connotation.  How much have you wanted to hear that you sounded 'poetic' while you were writing...but you were writing prose.  Wouldn't it be a better praise to hear that your prose sounded 'prosaic'?

At another point in the class my professor, Liz Ahl, asked again what could poetry do that other genres or prose couldn't.  I raised my hand and described how I thought that poems can tell a story quicker and easier than prose (in most cases, not all).  She asked me to elaborate.  I said that if I was to write the poem I had in front of me as a prose piece, it would have the same meaning.  She countered with the question "So, if I was to take your poem and rewrite it as prose, use all the same words in the same order, but make it prose, it wouldn't have the same meaning?"  She didn't ask this to sound rude or mean, she was just trying to get my thought process on my answer to her original question.  I nodded and said that I did feel that way, then she said: "What an insane idea."  To which I replied:

"Well, I am insane."

So to me, poetry/verse, is a way to tell a story quicker and with fewer words.  It helps speed up the message of the story, whereas prose, is different.  There isn't to say that there isn't a prose piece that quickly and pointedly gets to the message in a few short sentences, they're just a very, very small minority.

One other connection I made in my mind during class had to do with color guard.  I thought to myself, Prose is like the ROTC color guard.  Very stoic and going in a certain order, marching forward at all times.  Verse, however, that's the artful color guard.  Moving and flowing where the music/poem takes them and not really following too much of an order.  I was able to easily connect the two, in my opinion, because in my high school we had both types of color guard (I was in the artful one).

This is my take on the Prose Vs. Poetry question.  Personally, I like prose better.  I like the ability to spend three paragraphs describing a tree (not that I've ever done that...yet).  I am not a hater of poetry, it's just not my favorite.  I like writing it if I come across a nice string of words in my head that would sound nice in a poem format.

What do you think about this?

À bientôt!

Photo creds: inkwell, poetry/prose, fountain pen,