Friday, April 18, 2008

What My Students Found

Assignment to my journalism students I teach twice a week: Google me. Take what you find and use it to compose a profile. Use no previous knowledge of me to complete this–only what you find online. Read my blog, look at my Flickr, and my old college newspaper.

Here are their findings; some true, some definitely not.

Sarah Truckey:

An Internet Archive
(AKA: Trucky-ology)
 
            In this day and age, trying to find someone is as easy as looking up their name on Google. It is ridiculous how much one can find about someone, just looking for their name and things they know about them. The average person, unless they do not do anything public or notable, have any contact with their computer, or just keep away from technology, is well documented for anyone to see. From public records to blogs, everyone is well viewed. For example, let’s take someone we know. Sarah Truckey, Girls’ Tennis Coach and teacher of Journalism here at Crossroads College Preparatory School. Searching Google, one might find over two thousand results, but let’s narrow them down to just a few, shall we?
            Let’s start with the overview, including thoughts, beliefs, and opinions.. Sarah Truckey; journalist and teacher. We find her blog, filled with her inner thoughts and ideas. She’s a twenty two year old irish woman, who can be found almost constantly wearing a hat and eating vegetables, which she says she eats regularly. She’s irked by people who leave the price tags on their fake flowers in the yard. (Completely understandable.) When it comes to her movie choices, they could be a little bit tweaked, according to this writer, but she has rated quite a few movies, expressing interest in others. (The fact that she hasn’t seen The Matrix should quickly be rectified.)
            Next, we find her history, like from her days in college. Not too long ago, Sarah Truckey attended Webster University of Saint Louis, Missouri, which was more than openly informative about her and her studying abroad. She also played tennis during her time at Webster, including some benchmarks that were very noted. Two very prominent ones were her match against Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2004, and her match against MacMurray College in Jackson, Illinois, in 2005.
            From this little snapshot of our very own Sarah Truckey, we are reminded of the powers of the Internet, for good or bad. 

___

Sarah Truckey
 
I have only known Sarah Truckey for a few months, since I came to Crossroads, but every Wednesday and Thursday, I come into room 17, the writing lab, and become one of her loyal minions on the Voice staff.
     Affectionately dubbed ‘Truck Stop” by the majority of the Voice staff, Sarah is a very trustworthy, creative, and smart intellectual (yes, there is a difference between being smart and being an intellectual.) Almost every issue of the Voice she puts out has something that challenges authority in it. (Last issue: freedom of the press!) And yet, she always includes something for light reading, for the haggard student who just has enough time to glance at C.D. Duncan’s cartoons before he runs off to discuss the presence of philosophy in the 387th line of Beowulf.
     Sarah is very artistic, as you can see in her blog (http://truckey.blog.com/) when she is describing her travels to Barcelona, Spain. She is poetic, and wrote the poem on her blog, Sticky Notes” She has a great sense of humor, accepting “Truck Stop’ and Michael Jay’s slogan for her: “The Truck stops here!”
            At yet, through all her hard work with writing, she always has time for the students of Crossroads. Several weeks ago, she participated in a Voice kickball game    celebrating the signs of spring. Back in December, Sarah Truckey was the bar tender for the Voice staff in the Multi-cultural Holiday Party (non-alcoholic drinks, of course!) She coaches the girl’s tennis team in the fall, and just a few days ago, she gave up several days of her life that she will never get back to escort 80-something 7th and 8th graders to Carbondale, Illinois so they could be in Land For Learning.
Sarah Truckey: Artist, Poet, Tennis Coach, Writer, Selfless Helper, and Friend.

___

Sarah Truckey has a lot of interests, she like St. Louis, her writing, your writing, and St. Louis. She has a blog called Off the Record, which is kinda cool sometimes. She writes articles about places she goes and things she does, and apparently she will not drink green beer on St. Patrick’s Day, which is probably a smart choice; Food coloring is never healthy. Sarah Truckey had a lady tell her that she looked like Jodie Foster while she was wearing a silly hat, I don’t think Sarah Truckey looks like Jodie Foster and that’s probably a compliment because Jodie Foster looks like an old lady who rescues kids off planes in mediocre movies now.  Sarah Truckey probably likes Wes Anderson and Y Tu Mama Tambien although I cannot be sure. That stuff is all pretty cool though. Sarah Truckey isn’t very old although I don’t know her actually age she apparently likes the Wisconsin Beer Cave as it is shown here http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1286/939211025_452cbd17eb.jpg?v=0
I don’t blame her though, I love the wallpaper there; very classy faux log cabin. Sarah writes on the Internet a lot, I count almost a blog entry a week give or take. She hasn’t been writing lately though; maybe she carpal tunnel syndrome. That wouldn’t be good. Sarah Truckey likes tennis. Well I don’t really know that but she coaches a girl’s tennis team so I would assume she likes it. She went to Kirkwood with Adam and Joe; they are still in touch. That’s about all that I can concretely say about Sarah Truckey because I haven’t been in journalism that long. She seems like a cool cat though. Does she like Wonderbread?
P.S. Sarah Truckey and I are going to have a tennis showdown this summer. It is settled.

__

Off The Record, On The Record 

      Sarah Truckey, arguably the best freelance writer in the St. Louis area, in my opinion.  But don’t just take my word for it: read her blog, http://truckey.blog.com/.  She adds a witty sense of humor with a serious and more somber side.  On the 11th of April she is compared to actress Jodie Foster…three days earlier she has written what seems to be a poem pretty much stating that her inspiration for said poem is a fake person who would not even be a distant memory in 50 years if he/she were not written down.  So who is Sarah Truckey, really?  Let us delve into her blog of words and of photos to find out more…

      I clicked on a link that took me to a profile or a record of all of her activity on this particular blog site.  Basically, it showed me all of her pictures (40) and from that I have concluded that she has a witty side…and a fondness of pictures of herself.  Each picture was different, but in each picture her eyes had a sort of mischievous look behind them.  Like she was planning to do something later, but not planning on telling anyone what it was so that no one could get blamed for it.  Or something of that nature.  So far, I have found out the Sarah Truckey may be a serial killer…interesting and kind of disturbing thought.  Next place to find info: her blog.  I learned about her stalker: Dan Gray, who I have learned nothing else about.  She has posted pictures in the place of actual blogs to document her trip to Spain and other outings.  In addition to the pictures, she has posted long and insightful blogs about her adventures in Spain with her friend Annie.

      She spends a lot of time thinking about the things and the people that some people wouldn’t give the time of day.  She also makes parallels to her life to things that other people wouldn’t even think of.  In short, Sarah Truckey is amazing.  She spends her time doing what she loves: writing, adventures, and being herself.  And let me tell you, she does it quite well. 

P.S. readers, she’s not really a serial killer, I promise.

__

Mr. And Mrs. Truckey finally found their infant, Sarah, in the depths of the Central East African Plateau. Mr. And Mrs. Truckey were both on safari trying to declare if the black rhino was endangered or not. It was a very risky trip, especially for Mrs. Truckey who was nine months pregnant, but decided that she was strong enough to continue the trip. Sarah was captured by a family of prairie dogs, who took her to their underground habitat. Luckily, she was found three days later. Sarah’s life just took off from there. She was accepted to the Oxford Academy for elementary school, where she studied in the fields of metaphysics, biology, rocket science, and calculus. Sarah was named the Valedictorian of the class and took her sterling resume to Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Harvard, Sarah received her masters in International Studies and her doctorate. The next stop in Sarah’s life was the presidential election of Croatia. The Croatian royalty scouted Miss Truckey’s talents and hoped that this very educated woman would be their new leader. Sarah declined immediately because she was not fond of the Croatian cuisine. As of now, Sarah Truckey has taken her skills to Crossroads College Prep High School, where she is in charge of the Journalism department and Tennis team. That’s right, she can ball y’all. Some ESPN analysts believe that she is the next Monica Seles. Personally, I was thinking more of the next Pete Sampras plus Andre Agassi plus Zeus. One thing for sure is that everyone at this school definitely appreciates her presence and hard work that she puts into the Journalism program. We all have a lot of fun! Thank you very much Sarah for everything!! I only need ten more words for three hundred words.

Posted by Sarah in 21:14:28 | Permalink | Comments (6)