Hele on to Helium!

From: Mary Therese Perez Hattori [maryh@hawaii.edu]
Date: Fri 5/16/2008 8:56 AM
To: ‘Jim Shimabukuro’
RE: Helium

Helium pays their writers – not much, but based on hits to your article, you might earn 5 cents in a month and it can add up. They also have periodic payouts to those who write and rate, so there are some small incentives that may motivate students to write. I even got excited when I earned my first penny!

The rating process is a great exercise for students – to rate articles in topics in which they themselves write is an awesome responsibility. Reading the writing of others is inspiring in some ways, because one can be inspired by the good writing and get a self-esteem boost by the bad writing. I know email can’t express what I mean by that last comment re: bad writing. I don’t mean that in a negative way; reading articles that are meant to inform but missing critical info inspires me to write more thorough pieces as a service to others. For example, the articles I contributed on distance learning seem to be a good service to students – they are the most popular based on hits. I think more KapCC faculty can make similar contributions to the public – you’d be a great contributor and I’ll send you an invite.

As a computer programmer at heart, I don’t see myself as a writer and most of my creative pieces are still in books under my bed or in the back of my desk drawers. After I put a few poems on Helium, I immediately felt foolish and a knot developed in my stomach – I could not believe that I actually put my writing out there! I held my breath and assumed I’d be at the bottom of the ratings. To watch my poems move up in the ranks and earn a few pennies each month has been very rewarding – it makes me think that I touched a chord and made a connection to those who read/rate the pieces. I think this kind of experience can be extremely motivating and perhaps even life-changing for our students who write. Oops, sorry for rambling……

I’ll keep the emails for your blog coming – maybe once every other week??? This is so much fun!!!

Thanks,
mary

Comment: Hi, Mary. Thanks for the insight into Helium. This is the kind of “look” that you can’t get by just going to the site. Re postings, yes, once every other week is fine! Don’t feel pressured, though. Whenever the spirit moves, go for it. Every day, once a week, once a month — whatever works for you.

Re writing — we tend to forget that there are many different kinds of writing. I have a feeling the “schooling” experience that all of us go through brainwashes us into thinking there’s only one type — academic. And it comes with a nasty association — grades. Consequently, most people equate writing with testing and all the stress that comes with it. It’s no wonder that, after many, many years of schooling, people come to hate writing. All English teachers have a common experience: as soon as people find out what we do, they involuntarily cringe and shrink back, reacting to years of pain and torture. I guess it’s the same way I react to beets.

But as you say, writing can be fun, especially when it’s not being done as an academic exercise and just for a grade. I think of writing as an extension of ourselves. It is just another means of smiling at, shaking hands with, and conversing with others. It’s a way to express ourselves to others, to participate in the dialogue that is life. For anything more than hi’s, goodbyes, and how’s the weather, it is one of the most efficient means of expressing complex thoughts and feelings. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it would probably take a thousand times that to explain a picture. In fact, I’d go out on a limb and bet that, without writing, we wouldn’t ever really know who we are. So, in all those notebooks in your closet crammed with poems, short stories, and essays meant for no one but yourself, I think you’ll find the person you really are, deep down inside.

Thanks for the Helium invitation. I will accept it. It’s a novel way to drive home the point that writing is also a form of communication that’s not complete until the intended audience reads it and responds. A penny for our thoughts tells us that our message has gotten through, and a nickel, that it also made it in style. -Jimmy