Round Four = Robyn Ringler

The first essay I read was Dissection. After reading the whole essay, I really liked how she named the title Dissection. I also liked the line "I tried to joke so they would like me and fight hard for my life." since she is a nurse. But would you really have to like someone to fight hard for their life? Not sure if it's supposed to be humorous or I'm just slow. I wonder what goes through her mind when she's working with a patient who might not make it. 


The next essay I read was Hanging With Horses. I thought the last line was funny, "Dan stood unfazed." I used to be scared of getting off of horses. I'm surprised the horse didn't freak out a little bit, though (if she was freaking out), because of how horses react with human emotion. If you stay calm, so will they, and vice versa. You just have to assure them. 


The essay Letting Go was heartbreaking. After reading this, I really enjoy Mrs. Ringler's writing a lot more (not that I didn't before). It's nice of her to share these rough moments of her life with everyone, like the death of her father. I look forward to having a discussion with her.


1/12 = *****

Round Three = Stephen Leslie

I liked Stephen Leslie's writing right after I read the first haibun called Her Voice. "Sometimes I wish she was more cordial, but our relationship is all business. When it is time for us to part she is silent ... but I know I will hear her voice again." I really love the way he wrote that, mostly because he's talking about a GPS. I thought it was humorous.


The next haibun, Joe, reminded me of my father. My fathers name is Joe (Joseph, but he goes by Joe). My dad's always been fascinated with history, and his father was in Vietnam. The words "I touch Joe's name" are so simple but at the same time so powerful.


From those haibuns, it seems like most of Stephen Leslie's writing is serious, and heartfelt. I look forward to discuss with him what inspired those haibuns.


My Haibun:


Maxwell Edison


There he lay, softly with his brother and sister. Their different spots splatter their new born body. One of the males rubs up against my leg, begging to be picked up and cradled like the others. He's fragile, and suddenly my hands feel like bear paws.


Picking the one with the black spot on his left side, carefully lifting him into my lap as we stare out the window together.


Maxwell Edison
my Jack Russell Terrier 
best birthday ever


1/10 Speaker = ****

Deb Smith - Travel Writer

1). I read Sit Up Straight about Asissi, Italy. It seems more fancy (the meals), at least the restaurant that they went to does. “Look, it’s Italy. You drink the water fizzy here.”
' “I don’t drink fizzy water. I don’t like olive oil. And I’m not eating pigeons.”
“You don’t have to. But get your head up off the table and decide what you dowant to eat. And close your mouth when you chew. Do you want people to think you’re an American with no manners?” '

It's obvious that there is a difference in the meals. I can really get a feel of Asissi, Italy in this article by the way she talks about the geography. 

2). The audio essay offers more tone of the author than a written essay would, because the author will speak it how they meant it to be interpreted if it had been written down. I listened to the essay Soccer Addict by Deb Smith. The way she said "....or sometimes skirts, and that was the men...." put her tone into the essay more than it would if it was her just reading it aloud. I preferred this rather than reading it because I feel like I would understand her better by listening to her speak the essay. 

3). To Deb Smith:

When you're traveling, are you always focused on the details around you and how you could write about it?

What is the favorite place you have traveled?

4).  1/6 speaker = ****

Round One = Therese Broderick

Therese Broderick is a writer with an MFA degree, who lives in Albany, New York. She is a wife and a mother to a teenage daughter. Broderick wrote a collection of poems about her daughter, called At April's End. "Most of these poems are autobiographically actual, to the extent that it is possible for my memory or my journal notes to be factual."(At April's End) Broderick writes a lot from her own personal experiences, so you can tell that she is open about her personal life as a writer. "NOTES: This poem was inspired by a car trip I took last Saturday."(Come November) I like how she puts notes at the end of her poems on her blog. It helps to know what she was thinking, and it helps the reader interpret it how it she meant for it to be interpreted. "When I write any new poem, I intend for it to be a beautiful work of human language (spoken/heard) that leads to wonder about the human condition" and "Since I have very little control over the readers of my poems...."(Interview) shows that no matter how the reader interprets it, she has worked hard to make it beautiful. You can tell she takes her time with her work. “Choqpee” is an invented name similar to “Chicopee,” an indigenous word for river rapids.(Selenes) This makes me think if Mrs. Broderick does any research before writing or coming up with ideas for her poems, or if she just uses knowledge she has gained over the years.


Questions:
What made Mrs. Broderick want to write a whole collection of poems about her daughter, starting off as when she was born until she turned 18?
What made Mrs. Broderick want to get a blog to post her work?

How does Outliers connect to MY life?

While I was reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, I was thinking about how it is so irrelevant to my life. It was still interesting though, for the most part. As I thought about it more, I realized I can relate to the book more than I'd like to admit. Gladwell makes some really  good points throughout the book.


"By the time they had their first burst of success in 1964, in fact, they performed live an estimated twelve hundred times." (50) I can relate to The Beatles' dedication to doing what they love, and practicing an extreme amount of time to get better. I have my own theory, that no one is particularly born with talent. As I like to say, Jimmy Page didn't come out of the womb improvising the solo to Heartbreaker. I think that people are just born with passion. An old friend of mine, Rachel Gingrich, is a fantastic artist. I was so jealous of her, and I had always envied people who could draw well. I'd always ask her how she became such an expert, and she'd just tell me that she would practice constantly. She showed me the amount of sketchbooks she had gone through, and I completely understood. This also relates to me learning guitar. When I got my first guitar, I didn't play it much. Mostly because I had no idea how. "We got better and got more confidence. We couldn't help it with all the experience playing all night long." (49) The Beatles, as well as myself, were very committed to get better. Once I learned all the basics, I practiced every single day. It's the truth, practice does make perfect. I believe that's one of the main ways to success in anything. Now, like The Beatles were, I am extremely confident, and so proud of myself for coming so far. It feels so good in the end knowing that you've achieved what you thought was the impossible, such as playing all of Stairway To Heaven! Also when I'm done learning a new song, I play it over and over until it's perfect. You have to really love something to be successful at it. I can also relate this to playing lacrosse. I used to love sports a lot more when I was younger. I had played softball until the 5th grade. My brother is very athletic. He plays lacrosse, football and basketball. Lacrosse always seemed like a fun sport, so I gave up softball to attempt to learn. I played youth, and to be honest, I was horrible. I was shy, I had no confidence and my skills and knowledge of the game weren't the best. Eventually, I pushed myself, and I ended up making the modified team both years, as well as the JV team last year. 


"Parents with a child born at the end of the calender year often think about holding their child back before the start of kindergarten: it's hard for a five-year-old to keep up with suspects, think that whatever disadvantage a younger child faces in kindergarten eventually goes away. But it doesn't." (28) My birthday is November 4th, 1996. I'm young for my grade, but I'm before the cut-off date so it's okay. My parents decided for me to attend kindergarten instead of holding me back a year, which would make me 16 years old right now. I know plenty of people in my grade who are born in the fall and are already 16, so I guess it was normal for parents to hold their kids back. Anyways, I had difficulties in elementary school. I was mature enough to attend, but some of the material threw me through a loop. I wasn't a good reader at all. I got special help until about third grade. Also, my parents read to me when I was younger all the time, so I always enjoyed reading. I was just having difficulties. Same with math. Math has always been a weak subject for me. I got help with math all the way up until fifth grade. Eventually, I got better at the subjects, and ended up become a really good reader. I still struggle with math sometimes, but I've come a long way. "The small initial advantage that the child born in the early part of the year has over the child born at the end of the year persists." (28) I'd like to believe I am at the same level as people as people who are a year old than me, but it's hard. It may just be my self-esteem. I feel like I process things longer than other students. I get decent grades, but I have to work hard for them. Unlike some of my friends, who blow off school, everything comes natural for them. I don't feel the brightest at times when I'm with them. I'm not sure if it's the month I was born in, the age I was sent into kindergarten, or if that's just how I was born. 


"But Renee persists. She experiments. She goes back over the same issues time and again. She thinks out loud. She keeps going and going. She simply won't give up." (245) I believe that I am similar to Renee. I hate giving up. It doesn't make me feel good about myself. I like to try new things, and experiment, and learn something. I've had Photoshop for some time now, and I've always wanted to make gifs. Gifs, or .gif images, are moving images. My mom always seems to think that they're videos, but they repeat themselves. One day, I decided to learn. I downloaded KMPlayer, a video hosting program, and figured out how to screen cap part of a video(in my case, a movie). Screen capping takes every frame and puts it into individual pictures, which make up the scene that you're capping. I imported the frames into the animation section, made the .gif without really putting any color, curves or contrast in it. I tried saving it, but when I opened it, it wouldn't play. I was already pretty frustrated to begin with, but I didn't give up. I realized that you have to go to import for web & devices. Once I did that, I saved it, opened it, and it played perfectly. I even made the coloring look really good. So I decided to upload it to tumblr. Once it was uploaded, it wouldn't move again. A few hours had already passed, but I just wanted it to work because I spent so much time on it. Then, I looked at the tumblr rules for .gif images, and they have to be under 500KB. That destroyed me, because it's really hard to make gifs look nice, when they have to be under 500KB. I made it under 500, and made it look the best I could. I'm still learning, but that's something that stuck out in my mind about me not giving up.


I learned a lot from Outliers. It had a lot of interesting theories, some that I agreed with and related to my life, and some that seemed a little ridiculous. It must have taken Malcom Gladwell an extremely long time to write the book, because of all the research he must have had to do(assuming he didn't know all of that before he wrote it). He must have been really determined. I actually prefer non-fiction over fiction, so I enjoyed reading this book.

Perspective Poetry Prompt

The building, no longer standing tall. The people who have passed in and out, and the tragedies it has seen over the decades. It's odd, trying to describe the changes. Part of you sees it how it used to be, and the other part notices it's new flaws. The sound of protesters surrounds you, as you stare into the building. The second window from the left, on the fourth level. You remember what it was like looking out of that window. Together.  This is all you have left. From the moment you saw him get on the plane, to the moment you received the news. You take off your cap, and reminisce. 

Microfiction: The ringing phone filled her with dread.

She knew who it was. She just didn't want to face them. She'd been driving for days, but for what reason? She had to leave the small town, where she had just been completely humiliated. Not even her best friend, her soul mate, could help her with this one. She had been trapped for years, and now it was all over. She had planned for it to be a bit more elegant.

She gave into the phone call. Her Amy Whinehouse ringtone wasn't helping the situation.

"What, Britt?"

"San? San is that you? Where are you? Hello?"

"Yes, it's me, now what do you want?"

"Hello? San?"

She looked at her phone. Call dropped.

She should have expected that. She didn't even know what state she was in anymore. She saw bright lights in the distance, and realize she needed to stay at a motel for a few hours. Then maybe she'd pick up the courage to find her way back home. 

She pulled into the motel and checked in. It was awkward, she didn't have any bags with her. She really didn't even think about packing, because she figured she'd be home right now.

She turned on the TV, and flipped to channel 31. It was fuzzy. She turned it off, washed her face, and got into bed. She didn't have enough money to stay here for long.

She woke up to sound of the door creaking. It was freezing inside of the room now, so she got up to close the door and decided to take a hot shower.

All of a sudden, her vision blurred and her knees went weak.

"Santana? Santana?"

She woke up, an IV attached to each arm. 

"What happened?"

"You passed in the shower, hit your head, and lost a lot of blood."

"Of course...what state am I in, again? And do  my parents know?"

"You're back in Ohio, and yes, they're just outside."

Santana turned her head, only to see Brittany asleep in the chair next to her.

She would, Santana thought. She giggled at the blonde and slowly fell back asleep.