Negative Ode

So, once again I come to you with an assignment from my Composition 101 class. The past 2 weeks we have been doing a poetry unity, which makes the former emo kid in my jump with non-conformist glee. As an assignment, we were asked to write a few different types of poems. These included a poem about your hometown, a haiku, a sonnet, and an ode. I have never really been one for writing sappy sweet love poems, so I decided to see if I could try to write a negative ode, which in itself might be an oxymoron. So, I though I would share my attempt at a negative ode with you. Enjoy!

ode to a mis-imagined person

i could wrap you in metaphor
shower you in flowery words to describe everything i wanted you to be
everything that you weren’t
and you
in my mind
like the black keys of a piano
always an exaggeration of some other note
you
with your hair
silky and smooth
styled perfectly to look as if you had just woken up
you
with that calm voice
an excuse always at the ready
you
with that innocent smile
but a person cannot be judged solely on their teeth
you
that figment in my mind
that strain on my life
that person that i didn’t see

Word Choice

This quarter in school I am taking Composition 101. Most people aren't to fond of Comp (including most of the people in my class). It involves a lot of writing, including essays. I, however, absolutely love it. Writing has always been a passion of mine (I mean come on, I have a blog), and even the essays don't bother me, because I find them very easy to do.

In class this week we had an exercise to help us use more varying word choice. I myself just like using fancy words, so this was exciting for me. I have also been in a poetic mood lately, so most of my writing has been reflecting that. Our first assignment was to write a 6 sentence paragraph, but you were not allowed to repeat any word (this includes I, the, a, etc). Also, it had to make at least some sort of sense. Mine is as follows.


Six sentences stumble though our minds. Confusion lingers over the task at hand. Quiet students jot down phrases. Pencils touching paper echos off dim, yellow walls. Patience runs thin. Words draw near as ends meet.

The second assignment we did was far more difficult. We were to write a 4 to 6 sentence paragraph. The problem, however, is that we were giving a list of the 100 most used words (link to the list here), and while we could repeat words, we could not use any on the list.

Joseph sells inspiration. Bushels, towers, ideas galore. Thoughts overflowing stacks lining walls. Writers block attacking creativity. Thus inspiration withers, crumbling beneath heavy loads.

I found both exercises very fun, and a great way to play around with word choice. Feel free to try either (or both) of these out, and let me know what you come up with in the comments!

Goals

When I was little, I never made goals, I never even thought of them. I’m not even sure if I knew what goals were. Over time, school taught me (or attempted to), that I should make goals, telling me how important they were. I always found this part of the class to be utterly stupid. I would always write some bullshit answer about getting good grades (which, by the way, I did get. You can even ask my mom.)

Now that I am growing into adulthood (I know Mom, I’ll always be your little girl), I find that goals have become a necessary part of my life. I have to get through college to get me degree, so that I can start a career. I have to budget my money to save up to my goal of eventually moving. The more that I think about it, the more that I realize that by achieving these goals, I simply create another goal to do something greater. It seems as though the rest of my life is an eternal process of making goals so that I can go on to make more goals. It makes me wonder what is the point, what is the final goal to end all goals?

This could go two ways really. One way to think about it is that life is a constant, overwhelming struggle. However, you can flip that and consider it a good thing, because you always have something to look forward to, a reason to keep going. I’m not really sure which is the proper way to think of it, or if both are true and right.

But all of this leads me to another, more important question: Is life about the end, or the journey to get to the end. Everything that I know makes me believe that all of the experiences in this thing called life are far more important than the achievement of any final goal.

Rant Blog

I hate group projects. No, I loath group projects (loath is a stronger word than hate, right?) The main contributing factor to said extreme negative emotions is that many people are unreliable. So, if you get stuck in a group with someone (or worse multiple people) who is unreliable, you're pretty much screwed. It is inevitable that that person will not pull their weight, and you'll have to stress out and pick up their slack. Frankly, I hate doing other people's work for them. I also don't like being taken advantage of. Its completely ridiculous that an entire group should look bad because one person is a selfish prick. So, pretty much the point of this post is for me to rant a bit and say to all people doing group projects : Don't be an asshole.

Really? You know who I am?

I always feel weird when people who I don't think know me come up to me and say hi, especially if they address me by name. I get a funny feeling that that sentence doesn't make much sense to most people, so let me explain. Being involved in theatre, and now improv, I know a lot of people I don't actually know. This could be actors from plays, people in other improv troupes, or even just friends of friends. To say the least, I recognize a lot of people in the community that I am no actually acquainted with. Being myself, I automatically assume that people don't know who I am, especially people that I think are really good at what they do (although, I think most people are better at things than me, so this applies to most people.) So when one of the aforementioned people comes up to me and greets me by name, I'm usually thrown off.

For example, last week I was at an improv show (as an audience member) and at the intermission someone came up and started talking to me, asking how I was, etc. This person was the director of a show I had auditioned for. It would be normal if I had actually made it into the show, or saw this person frequently, but I did not even make it past the first audition. I think I had perhaps seen this person twice in the past 3 months, and that was in a large group of people. It seemed very unlikely for him to remember me, considering how brief our interactions had been. But, come intermission, he walks right up to me and says something along the lines of "Hey Melissa, how have you been?"

I'm still getting adjusted to people recognizing me. Having people come up to me and say things like "Oh, I saw you perform a while back, you were really funny." seems so strange to me. The fact that people enjoy scenes I do enough to commit me to memory fascinates and confuses me. I've come a long way, but I'm still the awkward shy person I've always been at heart.

Random Tuesday Sept 14, 2010

1. Its my first day to college today. I'm only taking 3 classes, and only one a day, but I'm still super excited. (a bit nervous too, I've been out of school for over a year.)

2. While baking cookie today, I managed to give myself a nice little burn. It's rather annoying, but on the plus side, its on my middle finger, so I have an excuse to innocently flip people off.



3. I'm more than halfway through the third book in the Artemis Fowl series now. I've been reading so much lately. (Three books in one week is VERY strange for me.)

4. I can't think of much to say in this particular post, so here is a video of me telling my friend Mark that I hate him. (Mark, I don't actually hate you, I just hate your giant light when its in my eyes.)

Random Tuesday Sept 7, 2010

1. I randomly decided to start re-reading the Artemis Fowl series. I'm almost done with the first book. I first read Artemis Fowl when I was in 6th grade. After all of these years, I still love them.

2. I made another t-shirt design this week, and I plan on making more in the next few days. You can find all of my recent designs at my shop.

3. I've been completely addicted to a site called we heart it lately. A lot of it is stupid girl stuff, but every once in a while I'll run across something really cute or meaningful.

4. Its starting to cool down a bit in Vegas, but I want it to get colder faster so that I can start wearing long sleeves again.

5. Insomnia is a bitch.

6. I love tea so much I might be secretly British.