Proust Questionnaire

What is your most marked characteristic?
An exceptional capacity for empathy.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Kindness and compassion.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Kindness and compassion, and confidence.

What do you most value in your friends?
Honesty. I would rather have friends who tell me like it is than friends who only say nice things.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I can never say no. I feel an obligation to everyone.

What is your favorite occupation?
Reading.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A quiet life, doing only things that make me happy and the world a better place.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
To live a life devoid of meaning.

In which country would you like to live?
I would rather be a citizen of the world, claiming allegiance to no country in particular.

Who are your favorite writers?
Salinger and Vonnegut.

Who are your favorite poets?
T.S. Eliot and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Holden Caulfield.

Who is your favorite heroine of fiction?
Lucy Pevensie and Charlotte.

Who are your favorite composers?
Beethoven and Mozart.

Who are your favorite painters?
Degas and Georgia O’Keeffe.

What are your favorite names?
Anything unique or old.

What is it that you most dislike?
The cruelty of humankind.

Which talent would you most like to have?
Making people feel safe.

How would you like to die?
Knowing that I have left a positive impact on the world.

What is your current state of mind?
Simultaneous bliss and panic

What is your motto?
Just be kind. You never know who is going through what at any moment in time. 

USA TODAY - Nov. 4

November 4, 2014

            On the front page, the story on immigration uses italics to denote television show titles, AP style is quotation marks. Again, in the George Bush story, the paper uses italics to denote the title of his book, which should also be in quotation marks. Since, it occurs three times, it may be a USA TODAY style choice.

            Widows were wide-spread on pages 2 and 3. There was a missing period in the endnote for the story on the top of page 2. On page 3 in the story about laundry ‘pods,’ I deleted the word “very” from the lead paragraph, journalists try to avoid “very.” The magazine title “Pediatrics” should have been in quotation marks instead of italics, according to AP style.

            On page 5, the story about the president, uses “today” in the lead, it should be replaced by the day of the week, according to AP style. In the small plane crash brief, I rearranged to the lead to read: “A small plane crashed on approach to the island of Grand Bahama and all nine people on board were killed, the government of the Bahamas said.” The reason for rearranging it was that what happened is more important than who said it, so that information should come first in the lead.

            The use of art on page 6 for the Berlin Wall and the George Bush jump is excellent. It really draws readers into the story and makes them more interesting to read. The entire paper would benefit from using more pictures on every page more often.