Mirror Lake in the Wintertime.

This picture doesn't do it justice. 

This picture doesn't tell enough.

Of the memories I've shared here.

Of the reminiscing. 

Tough, bitter mornings

 Of the windy, lonely cold. 

Of the flesh and of the beating. 

All these stories aren't told.

It doesn't tell of fires that rage within the water.

It doesn't show how winter's icy breath 

made cold air  hotter. 

The way your cheek felt warmer, somehow ,

 thawed out in this place. 

The way I pressed against your jacket. 

 The way I pressed into your face.

To delight in arms that held me. 

As a girl denying who

I truly was in  Lake's Reflection.

Without solace.

without you.

And I have seen this mirror's secrets. 

I have run along the lines

of the patterned, worn out pavement

Aged as it's 

transcended time.

Held up to the rattled freshmen

who, drunken with their youth

and free with new derision. 

Jumped together.

Inside you. 

And I have watched you,

Mirror Lake. 

Remain so glittered in my path

that I've often sworn I heard

inside your water

Mem'ried laugh.

And as I sit among the benches, 

among your silent water's chill, 

and I bend to see if I can 

see the moments on the hill

that I have spent as an old child. 

 and with whom I've shared my heart. 

A girl who felt the time go by. 

And somehow found her art...

I looked upon my left side. 

And I glanced upon my right. 

And in my sweet depravity, 

in the winter, 

on this night. 

I relived all the places 

and the love that I had lived. 

On this campus. 

In these winters. 

By the lake I sat within. 

And I bled for those who loved me. 

And I bled for what I lost. 

And I sought some sort of solace 

in the gravity of cost. 

But the irony of Mirrors

Is that when you shatter glass..

You leave behind the flecks of 

all the pictures of the past. 

So many will run through you. 

and they will then leave and live. 

But you'll remain a frozen part 

of heart that we did give. 

As children of the tainted world. 

We'll all return to say.

We walk such different paths now. 

Still bleeding

scarlet and grey. 

The History of my Pageant Career : Read on! It's kind of Interesting. And not that politically correct.

Alright, friends of the social blogging lifestyle.
This is my first official "non-school-related" post on blogspot.com..which means..
I have joined the ranks of obsessive writers and information- givers alike!
Be patient with me as I attempt to navigate the site and figure out how I want to run this blog.
Be it Platform Based, News Related, PR Directed, or filled with useless personal thoughts and goals of my own (that one will probably sneak in there most days), this is sure to be a therapeutic experience for me, because I really do get a lot out of writing. It's how I have been wired.

Anyway, this post is also about my last pageant, Miss Maumee Valley 2010! It was held at the Maumee High School Performing Arts Center last Saturday, October 30th. Yes, we wonderful contestants decided that it was collectively more beneficial to pursue our personal desires and goals by competing in a scholarship program for money, than by getting dressed up and making a series of potentially dismantling decisions on all Hallow's Eve.
That being said, it was my first pageant since 2009, and that means that I have had quite a long break since I came back to this scene.
Let us go back in time with a few pictures:

Miss Heart of Ohio 2007. My first title ever! I was barely 18, and it took me four tries to win this first local. Before that I was 1st runner-up in Miss Greater Dayton (of which the current Miss Ohio, Becky Minger, was crowed the previous year). She was the first "local queen" that I had ever met, and now she's Miss Ohio! Blows your mind, doesn't it? Anyway, this local led to my first year at Miss Ohio. I had a blast. I had no idea what I was doing..Which is probably why I had a blast.


One memory.....So the Miss Ohio System operates on a collaboration of volunteers and sponsorships, right? Held in Mansfield, Ohio, local sponsors from all over the area help us out with scholarships. So we pay them back by volunteering, making appearances, and wearing rehearsal shirts with various sponsorship logos on them. I was told to bring black pants and jeans by another contestant. Sabotage. lol. (It's okay though, maybe she honestly made a mistake.) I show up and have No pants to wear. Seriously. This actually happened. Melanie saw my dismay and went to her own suitcase and let me borrow a skirt, pair of shorts, and pants in white for that week. I will never forget that. She'll always be a very respected Miss Ohio in my book :)

Miss Miami Valley 2008. This picture was taken at Miss Ohio 2008, during an after party. Melanie Murphy, Miss Ohio 2006, posed with me and her crown. For any fellow Miss Ohio-ers out there, I wanna ask you this question: Do you ladies remember the very first Miss Ohio that you ever met? The one you had never personally gotten to know or competed with? The one who's butt you hadn't helped put glue on or snuck late night brownies with in the snack room? The Miss Ohio that you met and you were like  "Wow, what an amazing woman. I want to be like that." For me that was Mel. (See story above for more unnecessary details.)

Miss Ohio 2008 was an interesting competition year for me. I hadn't gotten to the physical shape that I had originally planned, and I was dealing with a series of personal issues that I had not yet learned to compartmentalize.
A word of advice to anyone who wishes to compete in Miss Ohio: Learn to Compartmentalize. It's not you and your boyfriend, or you and your mom, or you and your sorority sister up on that stage. It's just you. 
A culmination of factors led to a breakdown in the bathroom, and I experienced a lot of behind-the-scenes soul searching. That year at Miss Ohio was a huge growing experience. As difficult as it is to admit, I learned a lot about myself that year. But: I was not finished learning! Onto Miss Ohio year 3:

Miss Scioto Valley 2009: This was taken shortly after crowning at my first local of the year. It was the first time I had won a local with sister crowns= made the experience a lot more bonding for me. Winning a title with more than one queen doesn't take away from your own internal appreciation, it enhances it. It's like "we're in this together, let's go do it!" Miss Ohio that year was better for me in a number of ways, but I was still struggling with some issues that, unfortunately, I was not able to leave behind the stage.

I was the only girl to wear a one-piece that year.
Anyway, after year three of competing and not exceeding my own personal expectations, I decided it was time to take a year off. So I did .

I will pick up next time with pictures of my year off, why I decided to jump back in the saddle, and details of Miss Maumee Valley that you would only know if you were backstage too :)
 

And plus, my coffee's cold. 

In love and coffee grinds, 

-Alyssa

PR Blogging: What is it, is it effective, and how can I get in on that?!

I recently evaluated the information contained in several different online PR blog posts and found a number of similarities as well as differences.
Hang on. I just realized that I'm writing in my coffee blog with no coffee.....
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To anyone who is reading this..I feel much better now. Blogging and no delicious, rich, caffeinated beverage is like Christmas morning with no bedroom slippers.
Anyway, as I was saying, there were three blogs in particular that had a significance that I feel like discussing. With myself. Because that is, essentially what blogs are, right? (Clearly it is evident that I am new to this. )
Basically, I wish to talk about the unique perspective that each of these websites bring to the world of strategic online posting.
So. Let's talk about Blog #1.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ is a very informal, largely simplistic, rant-type blog concerning personal views (which is common) and interesting facts about life as Seth Godin sees it. Now I'm not sure who Seth Godin is. I should probably know. But I was primarily turned off to this blog initially because of the format. The stark white background made me feel like I was reading an advertisement and I found the layout to be uncomfortably plain in general. The blank space on top of the most recent post is screaming "Put something here" and there is no description that deals with the content of his posts. The reader does not know what to expect.
That being said, I think that Seth did a great job with the artwork and labeling himself as an author on the sides of the page. I was inclined to click on all the various links that he posted. In terms of what he actually wrote, however, I found no real relevance or significance. Most of it was like a journal entry. It it was meant to be read by others, it certainly wasn't meant to be analyzed any further than the simplistic, bare minimum undertone of sarcasm that he projects in his posts.

Now, in contrast to Blog #1, Blog #2, http://www.davidwmullen.com/, set the tone of his company's blog with a snazzy layout, lots of graphics to keep the reader entertained, and a varying but complementary font template to catch the reader's eye. The headline clearly reads: David Mullen on PR, Integrated Communications and Social Media, which I thought was great. Not only did I enjoy the headline, but he integrated his company's logo into the headline and then posted his own underneath. That makes me want to have my own logo...hmmm.
Mullen's approach to PR blogging is definitely not personal but professional. He caught my interest my posting about job opportunities: what PR professional doesn't stop and at least graze over a line about a new job?
All in all, I enjoyed the professionalism of his posts, and thought that the information was valuable for a PR person individually and as a person working for an organization.

This brings me to Blog #3:http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/. Or, The Diva Marketing Blog. I was immediately drawn to the unique use of colors, the martini glass logo, and, of course, the name of the blog site! This blog was my cup of tea. I mean coffee. Toby Bloomberg, the author of this blog, is a seasoned PR professional, with awards and recognitions up the "wazoo." But her approach to writing is captivating and possesses a sense of fun and flirtatiousness that lacked in the other two blogs.
This could be for a number of reasons, but I suspect that it's mainly because:
1)Toby is stressing the PR market for women because she is one. Not as easy to do for males. Nor is it as fun.
2)Her approach integrates a diva-style approach to marketing, and I suspect she has spent a lot of time developing this position and has found that it worked. I really love this approach. I am inspired to create my stance on marketing utilizing her format. 

But what is it, really, that I love so much? Is it her savvy content about the Friday Fun Bathroom Blogfest?
Is it her seemingly numerous links on the right side of the page, or do I just feel a sense of wittiness and female aggression emanating from her lipstick and compact graphics? I think that a culmination of these factors make for a truly great blog, and what I like so much is that I am not only interested in what she had to say because of the way she presents it, but I like the way she appealed well to a particular PR audience. This equals a higher level of absorbancy for those of us who, well, wear lipstick and drink martinis.

So there you have it. A brief analysis of three blogs that I found to be of particular interest/disinterest within the PR world. What, then, can we ultimately take from reading other's blogs and noting the surrounding elements?
In PR, it's all about the packaging. 

In love and seasonal peppermint mocha creamer,
Alyssa

My relationship with Twitter

In my meager social media experience, I have noticed that, for the most part, displaying one's life publicly is  part of the sacrifice that one makes to get a glimpse into the lives of others. Generally speaking, I post a status on facebook and it stays up there for three or four days. I post a picture album and my friends go through it and "like" all of the pictures that have my face angled properly, or a funny look, or an  interesting picture of scenery. Either way, nothing is kept a secret from the world anymore. In a society where reality tv reigns supreme, the generation behind me is growing up with a sense that there is nothing off limits, and to an extent, maybe this is true.

This week I was challenged to create a Twitter account and follow my classmates, as well as various organizations in the media, all while "tweeting" my activities and thoughts throughout the day. The first few posts on my part were a bit generic, stating that it was my first tweet and such. I grew into posting song lyrics by the third post. I found that Twitter is, while relatively easy to navigate, quite difficult to follow in terms of my friends' tweets. The organizations (especially those news and politically related) cluttered up my feed, and I found myself constantly presented with very short lines of text followed by a link to get the "entire story." I found this frustrating, as most posts were, in general, trying to get me to vote for something, or go to another web page, or "care" about their organization. I did, however, gain access to some pretty interesting internship opportunities, a few of which I plan on applying for.

The concept of Twitter is to manage simple thoughts and ideas; to paraphrase and generalize basic ideas and statements of individuals as they see the world, as well as to perpetuate and navigate the realm of "headlining." I personally feel that my relationship with Twitter is obsolete if I do not forward a link onto my profile. In terms of interpersonal connections, twitter doesn't add up. It does, however, provide an extremely useful tool for networking for businesses and A business that can appeal to me on a networking site has a better chance of reaching me than through another type of advertisement. And unlike facebook, Twitter is more interactive, because there is a social media coordinator/celebrity/real person on the other side of the "tweet," which is interesting. It is going to take some time for me to really iron out all of the "kinks" of tweeting, but I will keep my account, and I will keep on fluttering, because as a Strategic Communication, it is my job to know what is going on in the PR, marketing, networking and communication venues of society and business.

But for all intensive purposes, and for the sanity of my brain....
I think I'm pretty much sticking to facebook.

-Alyssa