The Official Website & Blog of Paxton Allewell. Communications Specialist, Educator, Writer and Designer.
Posts tagged blog
So long Eva Markvoort – aka 65_RedRoses
Apr 3rd
Eva with her laptop at the hospital
I’m sad to report that Eva Markvoort, subject and STAR of the documentary 65_RedRoses, passed away on March 27th. On her blog it said: “Our beautiful girl died this morning at 9:30. She is at peace. Will write more later.”
It hurt to read it.
Eva had battled with the genetic disease Cystic Fibrosis her whole life and recently went through a double lung transplant hoping to be cured (the story of the documentary).
With what seemed to be a successful transplant, Eva’s life was hers again and it was so incredible to see and experience indirectly, but unfortunately her body rejected the lungs and she has since passed only months later. The documentary made note of the serious possibility of rejection, but she seemed clear of that issue. So it was very surprising to hear that her body had rejected the lungs.
I remember seeing the amazingly cool photo of Eva Markvoort on the front of NOW Magazine in Toronto, and also on the cover of the Hot Docs film festival. See pic here >> – (More pics from her visit to Toronto are on her blog as well).
I was fortunate enough to meet Eva in person after a viewing of the documentary 65_RedRoses at the Bloor Cinema during the 2009 Hot Docs festival. I didn’t think she was going to make it as I heard she was heading back to Vancouver that day. But she was in attendance, and I was so happy to spot her just a few rows back from me. I peeked over a few times to see her expression and I could see her looking around at the audience a bit trying to evaluate their experience. She had such an innocent, humble yet movie star-like quality to her. (She was an actor as well).
After the film I got to say hello and shake her hand which was special. I was so impressed with the amount of love and courage she had. The film highlighted her love, her q&a talk after the film highlighted it, her blog highlighted it. Love ran through her like fire and she wasn’t afraid to show and admit it. Her passion and openness about love was inspiring and contageous.
Since last fall I’ve checked out her blog every once in awhile, and I was shocked when I discovered that her body was rejecting her lungs, and that she was going to die. It was so sad, and I literally cried, which I don’t do often.
But she fought so hard throughout her whole life and she’s left a legacy of love that will long outlive her. I hope you can take a few minutes to learn more about her.
Make sure you check out her popular blog: 65redroses.livejournal.com. Also, below is a video of MP Joyce Murray’s Statement on the Life of Eva Markvoort and you’ll also the find the official preview of the documentary 65_RedRoses, which was named after her blog.
Blogging at Brock / ‘Please Check My Blog’ Song
Feb 20th
So I had class 1 of 2 for my ‘Build Your Own Blog’ class today. There were a bunch of sandwich board signs pointing students to the class, so I snapped a quick shot of one of them on my way in.
I had tweeted and posted on facebook that I would do a live blog from class, but unfortunately it didn’t happen. Maybe next week?
Overall the class went well. Leading the class today – and seeing it through the eyes of newcomers – I must say it made me pretty proud to be a blogger.
Blogging is in some ways very easy to do, but in so many other ways it’s actually very challenging and requires a lot of learning to do it well.
Basically the class went like this: I told my personal blogging story and background, I took them to a custom blog that I set up just for the class which had videos and links etc. related to the class. From there we visited a bunch of examples of various types of blogs that are out there, we watched a couple useful videos explaining what blogs are, and then for the second half of the class, the students finally got their hands dirty.
Everyone in class learned how to sign up for an account with WordPress.com and they all then set up a test blog in their account, so that we could play around a bit. We ended up only touching on “posts” and “pages” so far for their test blogs, but I’ve given everyone homework to come back with some names for their new blogs for next week where they’ll be able to start building a real blog, and also learn a bunch more tips and tricks on how to run and market their blogs. They’ll be a lot to cover next week, but it should be really useful to the students.
When researching for my class I came across this fun video called “Blog Song”. I played it at the start of class and it got a few laughs. It reminded me of the fun side of blogging. Enjoy!