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OlIVia Persyn

Portfolio twenty sixteen

Cover Letter Olivia Persyn 5224 E Thunderhawk Rd Cave Creek, Arizona May 18, 2017

Lori Hart Cactus Shadows HS 5802 E Dove Valley Rd Cave Creek, Arizona

Dear Mrs. Hart, My experience as a team member this year makes me your ideal candidate for a team leader.

This yearbook is not as reputable and appreciated as it should be; the members of this class put in a lot of work that should not go unnoticed, and I believe that with me as a team leader, next year we will finally receive the acknowledgment we deserve.

I have taken several leadership roles while still cooperating as a subordinate to my own team leader this year. I love taking on huge amounts of work, but do not stifle the efforts of my fellows. I was recognized this year by my team leader Samuel Kulliver as the quintessential team member and would like to follow in his footsteps.

I look forward to contacting you in the coming days about an interview. Should you have any questions, you can reach me at oliviapersyn@gmail.com or (480)-436-9375.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Olivia Persyn

Resume Olivia Persyn Team leader with a year of experience. Possesses exceptional written and verbal communication skills and leadership qualities.

5224 E Thunderhawk Rd Cave Creek, AZ, 85331 (480) 436-9375 oliviapersyn@gmail.com EXPERIENCE YMCA, Cave Creek, AZ — Referee March 2017 - PRESENT I referee community volleyball games every friday and, on occasion, coach camps and clinics in volleyball.

Yearbook, Cactus Shadows HS — Team Member August 2016 - PRESENT I worked in a team of journalists to complete articles and take pictures.

EDUCATION Cactus Shadows HS, Cave Creek, AZ August 2014 - PRESENT I am a rising senior at this school.

SKILLS I am a very good communicator and love taking on complicated leadership roles.

I am very open minded and have an egalitarian mindset of the world.

I love being creative and thinking out of the box.

I find kindness and selflessness the most valuable qualities.

AWARDS National Honor Society a group I was invited to as a result of my good grades.

Pen and Quill International Honor Society I was recently inducted into this honor society for high school journalists

Reflection one This year has been a whirlwind. It is an undeniable axiom that our yearbook turned out remarkably well, and now that it is completed, we are all indubitably proud. However satisfying the result may be, it was the work that I completed to achieve that result that was the most notable. I have learned an amazing amount from the staff of the Shadows this year, and for that, I am indubitably grateful.

It started beautifully. Not. I was thrown into yearbook because the only other class that fit my schedule was 3D art and there was no way I was getting myself into a class where the only thing I would produce would be a clump of sticky paint and halfhearted paper mache that really did not look like anything, at all. So I was in yearbook.

My skills, since my last portfolio, have not really changed. I am inarguably mediocre at photography though I am pleased with my writing and the growth that my design has shown. My stories got longer and more elegant second semester, and, though they lacked real direction (as the angles sam and I came up with were just as boring as the topic), were much more organized and cohesive. I have tried to take emotion and opinion out of my writing though I know that is unachievable; I am simply too verbose for journalism, something I need to work on next year.

Deadlines, to me, are a party after long weeks of hard work. Though I was much too lax on scheduling my interviews for Sam, I always got everything done before deadline night and would spend it doing the dirty work that everyone else had not finished yet. I very much enjoyed late nights (to a certain extent) and cannot wait for next year to start up.

I love my team to my core. This year was amazing and I had so much fun with them. Though we did not always see eye to eye, and he may get a bit

tired of me from time to time, Sam and I have a beautiful relationship that I can only describe as wonderfully paternal. Ceci and Emma have always been ready to help when I needed them, even when what I asked warranted a few complaints. I was so lucky to be gifted with a group this year that kept a beautiful attitude through thick and thin.

This year, of course, was one of the hardest to keep true to journalism ethics. The tempting easiness of making up a quote for a caption on deadline night almost broke me more than once. However, I persevered along with the help of my team and tried to keep the story the pictures were giving as close to the truth as possible.

I loved this staff and this book dearly. I do not believe that there was any other thing in my life, academic or otherwise, that took precedent to yearbook. I spent almost every day cultivating sources, writing, and taking pictures for yearbook. I tried to help with everything I could, even though I could get a little too involved on occasion. This class and everything we do has just caused me so much joy it is unbelievable. For that I am forever grateful.

I have undeniably learned a lot about myself while making the yearbook. I learned that I can be more confident than I used to, and that confronting strangers is not as daunting of a task as I once thought. I learned the value of organization and planning, and how to control my time wisely.

Not only this, but I learned the value of comradery, the necessity of banding together for the common good. I feel as though I could really improve on my attitude next year. Not that I had one, of course, but being less of a doormat and more of a doer. Also, I think I need to chill sometimes, as told to me by Sam on the daily. I just have so much uncontainable enthusiasm for this class, and I absolutely cannot wait for next year.

Reflection one My favorite story above all I composed this year was “Speak Out”, my article on the fall dance show. I was enamoured with what the girls had said in their interviews, and was so delighted that I was able to write a story that practically wrote itself! The material presented, i.e. the fall dance show, was not originally the most appealing to me. I thought that writing a story on the princesses of pom and friends would be boring and cliched. I soon found that the dancers were genuinely wonderful people with interesting beliefs and outlooks on the world. It was amazing to see a perspective to the ladies of Falcon dance that I had never seen before.

My original meetings with Ashley Mesenbrink had been accidental at social gatherings; I knew her just as ‘Sam Miller’s Girlfriend’ and nothing else. After I interviewed her, though, I was laden with inspiring prose that nonetheless was derived from that which she spoke. Ashley’s quotes are mainly what my story rode on, her interesting morals and beliefs that were, surprisingly, derived from a strict Christian faith. She showed me a whole new outlook from the church that, raised in my similarly strict Christian family, I had never seen before. I believed that her words spoke levels that would just as equally impact my readers’ lives as they did mine.

In composing this piece, I went through several drafts to truly give the dance justice. I had the hardest time trying to stay away from emotional words or just explaining how I felt, as the dance was that powerful to me. I prevailed, nevertheless, still with a sentence or two that could be convicted as opinions, though there was still less than I had before. I learned journalistic restraint while still being able to truthfully convey my feelings in word. I believe that this in itself was the greatest lesson I could learn this year This was an easy story to write, yes, but that does not devalue it. I love how it turned out, as most comes right from the dancers themselves, with little other explanation than necessary. I wish the whole year could be this easy, as though I attempted to find interesting angles, I failed a few times. I hope that next year I can only try harder to find leads as good as these and write about them with as much passion as I did “Speak Out”.

Rough Draft

“I speak for religious freedom because my faith shouldn’t be decided for me.”

“I speak out for gender equality because women are still paid less than men.”

“I speak out for the right to say no, because rape is not the victim’s fault”

Exploring a myriad of current day issues that burden the world, the company dancers of Elissa Ericson’s dance class opened their annual Fall Dance show with a piece that not only moved hearts, but minds.

“I think the dance made an impact on my classmates in the same way it did for me. It was kind of a call to action for us as dancers as well as the audience, to use our freedom of speech to make a difference in the world. It was cool to be able to use dance to spark that kind of motivation for change,” said Ashley Mesenbrink, a senior.

The performance, titled Speak Out, focused on the importance of freedom of speech and what sparks the gravity of this liberty: everything from rights for refugees to the underappreciation of our teachers.

“The dance really impacted me because each group in our class was able to come up with anything we wanted to say and neither Lincoln or Ericson stopped us from using our voices and opinions in that way. It was cool to see the issues that everyone feels so passionately about and it really put into perspective for me the abilities we have, especially in America, to speak out and make a change in the problems we see in the world,” said Mesenbrink.

The piece was performed in complete silence, the only music being the voices of the dancers themselves. The intoxicating sound of the company dance troupe rang through the Fine Arts Center in the final moments of the dance as they all shouted their phrases, which impassioned not only the crowd, but the dancers.

“My favorite part of the dance was at the end when we all had the tape off of our mouths and spoke at the same time, even though you could not really understand what we were saying at that point, it showed that everyone can speak out on different issues,” said Shannon Smith, a senior.

Though the recital days were brief, the impact of the Fall Dance show and the students’ advocacy for innovation will be endless.

final draft

Reflection three

I really love the pictures I took for the dance page. They were not the highest of quality, but they focused in on the aesthetic of the rehearsal and a group of friends that were having fun doing what they love. I feel as though capturing that enrapturement in the moment supersedes any blurriness or grain that might be found in these pictures; they are able to tell a story that words would only make a mess of. Not to mention, the purple in the main photo turned out to be stunning in print.

Even though my IB mod was credited to Emma, I was pleased with what I had accomplished. This was my first time truly designing a mod, and to my delight, the editors left it, only changing the colors of the bubbles. I had the most amazing time using my creativity to through something together that was just for me, and it was even better when I found out others wanted to use it. I was a bit peeved when I saw that, like a few of my stories, the mod had been credited to another one of my team members. However, all that matters is my own happiness with my work.

I really enjoy the “Man of Heal� short story. At the beginning of the year, I had injured myself playing volleyball and became close with the trainer, Joe Harvey. When I found out that S-Club did not exist anymore, I immediately thought of replacing it with Sports Medicine Club. I got to write this short blurb on Harvey and why he is so great and to me that meant the world, giving a man who helped me get back in the game the recognition he deserved. It was cheesy and cheeky, but in the end, the blurb turned out exactly as I would have wanted.

Tear Sheets

my work in pink