#assignment for class

[gnc-objection]

Final environment concepts

[bedheadandsleepmeds]

Faeries?

[btheorator]

The silence

It engulfs me,

waiting until the right moment when I am too enamored

with what’s going on around me.

I appreciate its sound,

a melody of nothingness

that surrounds

me with a magnitude

unparalleled by an voice,

boom,

crash,

or blare.

Resonating

in my bones I am quiet,

volume cannot surpass the bliss

of being alone,

at home

with the silence I

welcome with open arms

and a warm temperament,

as if it were the love

I was waiting

for after a long trip.

Do not be disturbed

by the quiet moments,

the still,

the emptiness,

the world left bare,

and the peace.

Simply embrace

the silence. 

[wwbioteach]

What Did You Say?

A lot of things in life make me angry

but when people attack my profession

and say things like, ‘But you have summers off,’

or say, ‘But you get lots of vacations,’

I just want to scream.

When people say, ‘But it seems so easy,’

or they say, ‘At least you’re done with college,’

or, God forbid, they say, ‘You just give grades,’

I just want to scream.

 Why is teaching not a valued career?

Why do people say my job’s so easy?

Why do they think they know how to do it?

Can I start screaming?

When was the last time I went to their jobs,

and told their bosses they sucked at their jobs

because I didn’t like the product made?

Should I start screaming?

 Why is my job monitored by people,

making money off standardized test scores

and textbook sales to prepare for the tests?

I should start screaming.

And what about the politicians here

that say we’re failing the nation's children

so they can pitch education reform?

Now I’m screaming!

-wwbioteach, What Did You Say?

[gregorgy]

language of intimacy

There is nothing intimate about an iPhone.

There is nothing intimate about the way it beeps, the electronic ding of a bell or the break of a chime that I always hope is calling for you.

There is nothing intimate about the way the blue and white bubbles fill up the screen of our conversations, the way the messages slowly seem to repeat themselves.

There is nothing intimate about an emoji, about an emoticon, about a semicolon and parenthesis, about a little yellow cartoon that really looks nothing like either of us.

There is nothing intimate about “talking.” And I don’t mean communication, but “talking” with the air quotations, the distinct connotation our generation is stupid enough to encourage, the hazy area before dating. Or was it before being official? Or between friends with benefits and being together? What the hell does any of that even mean?

This is not the intimacy I speak. If I could speak the way I’d want to, I’d use words – words spoken, words whispered, words that come with breath and life, that aren’t black serif letters on a bright iPhone screen.

And I would speak in words only my hands, my eyes, my lips could shape, the unspoken language we pass to one another through look and through touch…

I scream when my eyes dart to yours with furrowed brows, I whisper when I gently trace the outline of your lips with my own, and I laugh when my fingers find themselves interlocked with yours.

This is the intimacy I wish I could speak to you everyday.

But instead, I push empty words together with my thumbs and hit ‘Send,’ waiting for your little bubble to pop back up.

There is nothing intimate about an iPhone.

[zuzumes]

I believe in books.

Books have the power to take hold of your mind in the best way possible. As you turn the pages, you become more and more engrossed in the story until you are no longer you. All the problems you have in reality fade as you connect with the characters and grow to care for them, understand them, love them, or hate them. When you reread a book, it's like falling in love all over again.

Without books I would have never ventured to Hogwarts with Harry, Ron and Hermione. I would not have been reaped for the Hunger Games with Katniss and Peeta, or went through Dauntless initiation with Tris and Four. Elizabeth Bennett, Mr. Darcy, Hazel Lancaster, Rubeus Hagrid, Cersei Lannister, Atticus Finch, and Annie Cresta. These are only a fraction of the many characters I have grown to love through the stories held in the pages of my books.

I have traveled beyond the Wall and back, ridden the Hogwarts Express, entered the Capitol and visited countries both real and imaginary. I have been able to escape the stress, struggles and pain through my life with books. I have run to them the way others run to a friend, family, music or sports. 

My heart belongs to books. I have laughed and cried. I have thrown books in anger and spent nights lying in bed after I finish a novel, thinking. People come and go from my life. People have hurt me and wronged me, and I've learned nothing is consistent; nothing is guaranteed. The friends I have now may be long gone in ten years. But ten years from now, I may crack open my copy of Sorcerer's Stone and still find Harry waiting for me, ready to take the journey with me to Hogwarts once again, because books are always patient. They sit on their shelves waiting for you to join them again, and they are never hurt that you've neglected them- they are simply happy to see you. As long as I have my books, I am content.

This I believe.

[mangocarl]

MY SKILLS IN PROFESSIONAL WRITING

For one of my classes, I'm supposed to write a report about my skills as a professional writer, so I figured it would probably be a cool idea to write about them in the place I write the most: my tumblr. I can't really remember the first time I decided I loved writing. I feel like it was middle school, but it probably stems from my childhood. I reflected on it earlier today, when my friend Teagan said: "I can't be in one room for that long, I don't know how you guys do it." Well, that would probably be because as a kid in elementary school, I grew up with a brother five years younger than me, and I didn't live super close to any of my friends. As a kid, it was important that I was amused. My mom was mostly preoccupied with my brother, so I ended up occupying myself most of the time. 

This meant playing pretend, which, thinking on it, I can attribute to my parents also. I grew up with what every little girl has, castles and princesses and fairytales, my mom actually used to find fairytale dresses for me when I wasn't old enough to choose for myself. On top of that, she started me on video games when I learned how to read, I was probably about 4 or 5 when I was first able to start playing the Super Nintendo we had (old, I know). I rose from Super Tennis to Spyro quickly (with the coming of the PS1, of course), and from Spyro on, I found myself immersed in a fantasy video game world. It affected my interests, to be sure. So when I was on my own, I would create these beautiful worlds in my head and play act like I was a part of them. It moved on to writing when I became "too old" to play pretend. Stories were like an extension of the game. They were a way to keep playing pretend and not feel foolish.

Anyway, this created a passion in me early on for writing. I used to fill notebooks with really juvenile stories, but they were fantastical and there were stories of worlds made of silver and people-animal hybrids inhabiting them. There was magic and war and happiness and every color you could imagine. Foods with omnipotent properties, trees that spoke and rivers that danced. If it was imaginable it was in my head. I loved every minute of it. While I've found myself with less time, I still love writing. I didn't really know until this semester that I love it in all forms. Weaving words together, in any form, is my passion. Even the driest memo or report is fun for me. In some ways, I think that is probably a skill that I have. The fact that I enjoy everything about writing, about words in the English language. That's an abstract sort of skill, but I'd still count it as something I would put in my skillset. I have a passion and a talent, and together they have much potential.

Growing up this way, I became a bit more shy than I started out. When I was very small, I was very talkative. I would mortify my mother by talking to any random person who happened to be around. As I grew into the awkward middle and high school years, my innocent confidence faded. It's not really that I got teased, but I just didn't really succeed at making people laugh. For some reason, this was my ultimate goal as an elementary school student. So basically, I was really quite shy by the time the most hormonally unstable and awkward point in my life came around, and it stayed with me for a while. I wasn't even able to really talk to waiters or people who worked behind the counter at stores. It was physically difficult and very terrifying for me, as I've mentioned in previous posts. Somehow, in the last two years, I've grown out of it. I'm still not completely gregarious, to be sure, but I can make and carry conversation with people I don't know, and even explain things to large-ish groups of people. That confidence that is steadily growing is also a skill, at least at this point, if it gets too high, I could see it easily becoming a problem if it got too high, because it becomes an ego at that point.

Over the semester though, if I'm thinking about more realistic or tangible "skills", I would say the different formats and programs I've become more accustomed to. I use Google docs like it's my job--it kind of is, I work with groups in two of my classes, and probably more from now on--and I've experimented with Word formatting enough that I know now that when I thought I deeply understood the program I was sadly mistaken. I've not only learned the existence of things like Prezis and other PW-essential programs, I've learned how to use the programs I already use more effectively. My eye for design has improved too, though I don't know if that's something attributed to my time in the class or a change of taste. As a skill, I'd think my wide knowledge of resources, while the application needs development, is definitely an asset.

That was quite a bit lengthier than I'd planned, to be sure. If you made it this far, thank you and congratulations! :D