Fifteen "T" Things

From Oct 27th notes:
Fifteen things that start with the letter "T"
1. Tuesdays
2. Tarot Cards
3. Turtle Eggs
4. Tazers (police and keychains)
5. Top hats
6. Turn tables
7. Tire gauges
8. Toast (buttered or french)
9. Tall girls with short boyfriends
10. Telling secrets
11. Telling lies
12. Tractor trailer accidents on the highway
13. Time's hastening and slowing down
14. Tacky shoes (crocs)
15. Toga parties

Gesture vs Narration

from Oct 22nd notes:
In a freshman year English class (which will not be named) I was constantly steered away from gesture writing and it was partially due to the fact that I realized that the majority of my audience was completely ignorant and could not understand anything unless it was completely laid out for them. I was thrilled that it was encouraged, in class today, to gesture towards an implied meaning instead of narrating it. This is also part of why I tend to stay away from dialogue. I was under the impression that if I did not explain how I felt about the dialogue, it would be impossible for the reader to understand why it was there. I grew into an awful habit of summarizing dialogue, which ruined many essays aesthetically. I'm going to begin to give the reader more credit, and assume that at some point in their lives, they've tried to make sense of something and succeeded.

Scott Russell Sanders

from Oct 6th lecture:
The first thing I thought of when listening to his lecture was Ed Begley JR, environmentalist extraordinaire. I never watched his show, but there was an episode of Amazing Cakes where his wife forced them to put thousands of windmill turbines on a cake for his birthday. I assumed he was nuts. I felt like Sanders was talking to us as though he knew that we were constant wastes of energy and space. Granted, he was at Sweet Briar, so it was a reasonable assumption, but I know that I personally don't take electricity for granted, and I am aware of how I'm killing the earth slowly with my two cans of hairspray for Halloween, trying to perfect by beehive. Honestly, what I remember most from the lecture was my novelty Cheshire Cat mug going very well with Meaghan's Beatles mug, and Griffith's Three Stooges. And also that I should plant more flowers. The most fascinating thing I found was that Sanders was really multi-talented. Since I am scientifically and mathematically impaired, I thought it was wonderful that Sanders was able to write so beautifully.

5 Possible Beginnings

From September 24th's class:
5 Possible Beginnings to Essays that Create Common Ground
1. Dressing up for the 5th Grade play as Mrs. Clause
2. Expecting a text and receiving one from the wrong person
3. The first family reunion where I was aware enough to realize how insane everyone is
4. Dying my hair pink (Disappointing my grandmother)
5. Going to court for a speeding ticket

Exposition

Christmas lights stay on all year on the screened-in porch, giving her safety to sit in her living room and see the outdoors through the glass door. Childhood pictures of my boyfriend's brothers and cousins are strewn about, and she wishes she saw more of them than their pictures. It's better in the summertime, when they come to swim. I would come to sit with her at the kitchen table, smoke a Virginia Slim, and discuss the neighborhood gossip. She recently recruited one of her grandsons to repaint the kitchen an Americana shade of blue, and her floor had just been redone by the insurance because of the "accidental" fire two years before. The large window next to the table allowed us to watch as the made-for-water basketball repeatedly missed the hoop, and as body slams put more of the pool water on the lawn than remained in the pool. We knew that we were different, not indulging in the sun or doting upon the things that they cared about. We learned to keep to ourselves, at the football games and weekend outings to Williamsburg. Our opinions stopped mattering awhile ago. I don't really think mine ever did.

The Past Does Not Exist

One of the first quotes from On Some Verses of Virgil really struck me because it is something that I have been dwelling on lately.
The soul craves what it has lost,
And wholly throws itself into the past.
PETRONIUS
I can't seem to live in the moment. As desperately as I try, I find myself always wishing I was somewhere that no longer exists. College is very difficult for me in this respect, people staying the same but the surroundings being unfamiliar. Comforting dorm rooms that I turned to for days on end for a whole year can quickly disappear in hours. I can return to the places but they are not there. My childish features and auburn hair of freshman year, it will never again be that healthy and my face will now look hopelessly exhausted. Dark rings under my eyes can't return to their blended creamy state. Old relationships can no longer be my solace. Listening to songs for the eighteenth time will never feel like that first brilliant burst of energy and inspiration. Today will never satisfy me.

Journey of the Mind

From September 8th Reading:
A line from pg 99's description of Petrarch's essay particularly struck me "Francesco Petrarch, climbed up a mountain in southern France simply because it was there." It reminded me of art for art's sake, which I've found really relevant in many of the readings that I've been doing in this class, and in other classes.
Petrarch took journeys of the mind and it is questioned if a journey of the mind is less significant. I find a journey of the mind to be entirely MORE significant because it uses the imagination, something intangible, something personal. Something that no one else can truly see. That is why it becomes much more fascinating to describe, because no one else can simply walk up to it and perceive it themselves. They rely solely on the person who invented it. Our minds are really all that we know. Even with material journeys, they don't exist to us unless we see or hear about them. I've been wondering for quite awhile about the mind and existence. Is something there just because we think it? Do we invent everything that we see? Nothing exists to US unless we are aware of it. I could talk in circles for much longer but I think I'll just let you come to your own conclusions.

5 Lines that Describe This Room

1. Bold clock on a bland wall ticking slowly
2. Elongated grey tables pushed harshly together
3. Cluttered bouts of information scattering the walls
4. Sharp molding framing what was once an entrance way
5. Open windows revealing clangs of what we can't see

I VIOLENTLY HATE WHEN PEOPLE WALK IN AND TURN ON ALL THE LIGHTS
man it sure is bright in here

1. Movie posters desperately trying to cover the stark white
2. Soft black shag rug hiding ant surprises
3. Further swimming in circles amidst Buddha
4. Large air conditioning structure emitting dripping noises throughout the night
5. Black and white pillows promote contrast


I am highly concerned that I have been poisoned due to my conspiracy theories. If I die, know that this message holds the truth.

Why do certain words make a difference?

It is the eternal question of a writer. How do I make my story matter? How do I make something that is important to me, feel important to everyone else? My dog died, but why would you care? If I have learned anything from the past couple years of studying under excellent writers, it is not the situation, but the story that makes the difference. If Susan Sontag can keep me intrigued through an entire essay of different definitions of "camp", we can make anything interesting. Unfortunately for me, structure is one of my biggest issues as a writer. I know exactly what I want to say, but I can't for the life of me know WHERE to say it! My impact ends up being entirely at the beginning, drawing the reader in but never keeping them. I want to matter to people, and for them to have that resonating feeling that Vivian Gornick has after attending the doctor's funeral. An important part of this is making every word count. My job has recently involved sitting down with an English professor to write emails that I would otherwise not think twice about. Requesting videos from a vendor that we've used before, asking students when a convenient time would be to meet...things that would take me barely any time. However, as I backspace and re-type phrases multiple times, I realize that every word counts, even in something that seems rather meaningless to me. She asks my opinion on which phrasing seems best because even words in short emails reflect how apt the person is to respond, or how important that they are noticing this situation is to the person sending them the email. It is vital to figure out what you are trying to convey before you try to say it. And though I know all of these things, the difficulty is applying them when it's time to write. I know that I have poor structure but I continue to place things where I want them instead of where they make sense. I know that every word matters but I instead vomit out sentences that mean something different than what I had intended. Instead of reliving the entire story, I recall most of it.
With nonfiction, things are more complicated than fiction. As Gornick notes, the unreliable narrator is perfectly acceptable but in nonfiction, the reader must believe the narrator. This is also difficult for me, like Hunter S. Thompson, because of our eccentric and frequent drug use. When I see moving, colorful stars on the ceiling...I'm seeing them, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're there. I must find a proper way to differentiate reality from MY reality. I need to find the right voice, the one that makes the reader aware of what is happening without taking myself out of the vivid reliving of the moment. I have to create a persona, someone who can tell the story for me.