Month: January 2011

The symphony starts with the sharp ding of hard boots on metal, the solidly weighted heel sitting firm in the cupped stirrup, the exhalation of air through the seams in the leather as an ankle flexes; Then everything is motion, swinging limbs, sinews, leg hair prickling against light cotton fabric, bracing against the abrasive cold … Continue reading Symphony of Horse Snorts →

108-- Passage chosen in book This piece is a jumble of impressions, twisted together like the threads from a tapestry to show a bigger, more complete picture of life (cliché, yes I know). The run on sentences "whimpering before he was awake, an inarticulated soprano speaking through not quite weeping in complaint to his mother … Continue reading Exercise 5 on Page 131 →

Curiosity. It means many different things depending on who you are. To the Merryweather men from A Little White Horse, it is the downfall of all women. To me, it is the desire to see into my boyfriend's thoughts. And to many people, in many instances, it is the thing that killed the cat. So … Continue reading Q2: Curious →

It's hard enough to teach when you're staring down a crowd of not-so-eager students. It's even harder when your career is on the line. Taking these factors into account, our first potential teacher (whose name I forgot as soon as it came out of her mouth) did an admirable job. Although I felt that her … Continue reading Power →

In writing this blog right now, I am eating my vegetables first-- If I were, that is, an eight-year old child who doesn't like to eat vegetables; which incidentally I am not. Reading about editing (and how not to let editing interfere with ones writing) has given me a desire to skip to dessert and … Continue reading My Vegetables →

Time. Time is my greatest limiting factor when it comes to writing. Biology textbooks, dishes, and sleeping consume the time I have for putting pen to paper. Or rather, in my case, putting text to Word documents with the tapping of fingertips. But if I do not have time to write in a physical form, … Continue reading Spark →

Evans' photos, much like Agee's words, are a tangle of children, places, grim faces, death and exhausted animals. It is easy to find patterns, but they are fragmented and littered with exceptions. While we cannot be sure that the photographs were organized with intent, it is assumed that, since the authors both had goals that … Continue reading Snapshots of Life →

While untangling the knot of words and sentences that compose "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," I was interested to find that the author was aware of my presence as a reader and the role that I would play by completing his writings with my own experiences. The sensitive nature of the photographs and descriptions … Continue reading “Reflexes of Sympathy” →

First to start off with a confession: I have rubbed shoulders with ideas similar to the ones in Words and Images in readings before, and they immediately raised my hackles. Perhaps I was reading too much against the grain, or perhaps it was the context of the course I was in at the time: an … Continue reading A Confession →

In the words of Bartholomae and Petrosky, putting together your thoughts on a reading "requires that you work on what you have read, and that work best takes shape when you sit down to write." So here I am, sitting down to write and preparing for the act of writing to complete my reading. As … Continue reading The Power of the Pen →