Life Is No CircusBy Rachael Victoria Zofcin

InspirationM-term 2009: Circus School

Made two very good friends, Zouhir and Souad-Rhalla

Saw that these children were incredible and talented

Story needed to be shared with the rest of the world

While on the bus leaving the school, we all began to brainstorm about ways we could help the school when we returned to New York.

My Senior Project came into play.

Evolution of an IdeaFundraiser at the Ross School

Container of goods over to the school

Bringing a circus performer child over from Morocco.

Difficult to come up with a solid way to support school

Hard to pull together a successful fundraiser last minute

At this point a little discouraged about Senior Project, but I wanted to do something for the school

Meeting with Frankle, Mrs. Cross and Devon Parkes gave me the great idea to make a book about our M-term experience with the Circus School

Process: Creating A Book

First time creating a book

Unsure I would be able to meet my goals and aid the school with a book

Creating a book which incorporates but the cultural exchange aspect of the M-term as well as the photography aspect.

Book class- Using Booksmart.

A lot more than meets the eye to creating a book

Contacting people to help with book

Souad-Rhalla’s help with as my outside consultant

Technical Design

Sifting through hundreds of photographs from my peers, teachers and myself.

Working on Bridge and Photoshop to edit my images.

ICC profiles simulate the images appearance when printed.

Learned how to resize and reformat images.

Dummy Book: to view the font and the sizing and layout of each section of the book.

Required more to tell the story than merely photographs.

Writing Development

Discussing students stories with Souad-Rhalla.

Wrote down a lot of material, but was unable to tie my words to the images in the book.

Changing writing style from creative writer to a documentary style.

Gathering quotes from the photographers and members of the M-term trip.

Combining peers memories as well as my own newly developed journalistic recaps of our experience.

Book Layout

After collecting quotes, where will they go?

Changing the layout of the book and placing the images.

Intended to be a well articulated story.

Not want a jumble of words and images.

Skills Acquired

Photoshop, Bridge and Booksmart, book planning and creating.

Creative writer to journalist

Discovered how to relate my personal stories to others who have never heard them.

Managing my time and delegating to myself what needs to be accomplished.

Technical Problems

Time management

Ordering books (making sure they arrive on time)

Personal Challenges

Remember Amisep and the circus children.

Wanted a hands on project and was fearful the book was more of a solitaire project.

Worried that the book would not be successful in raising awareness for the Amisep school.

Found a way to aid school through selling book on Blurb.com

What I Discovered

When you care enough about something, even the smallest thing you do makes a difference.

Future After Book

Hope for this experience to lead me towards future cultural exchange experiences not only in Morocco, but across the world.

Thank You!!My Parents

Kerry Sharkey-Miller

Amisep Circus School

Devon Parkes

Alexis Martino

Dr. Kimble Humiston

Vasil Gayler

Hannah Levy

Rebecca Kiembock

Sara Salaway

Lucie Kessler

Natasha Lovaas

The Ross School

Everyone who helped to make this book possible.