Essay Packet 2

     Over the course of this semester I have read a lot of different kinds of writing starting with poetry pieces and now ending with these essays. I have to admit that i have found myself enjoying reading these essays the most. I think I liked to read the essays because I found myself being able to relate to many of the authors stories. The stories they tell are real and you almost feel like you are getting a glimpse into their life. You have no idea who they are in real life, but reading their pieces for a moment of time they are welcoming you into their memories. I just think that concept is cool and it makes me enjoy reading them all the more.
     The essay titled Crumbling Expectations by Zach Savich was an interesting essay to read. I really liked that the essay was based in Michigan since that is where I have grown up all my life. When they talk about Lake Michigan I can remember myself being there on vacations so I can relate and see these images in my head as he writes about them. I like how in the essay he actually seems to put himself in his dads book as a character and describes what is going on. I thought that was an interesting twist to this essay. I believe the structure of this essay made it a little harder to understand. It is all one big paragraph with no breaks of thoughts. I didn't know when one thought was beginning or one was ending. An example of this would be when he is talking about putting himself in the book and then the next line he is talking about how his grandpa died. It threw me off for a minute. If he would have used paragraphs I would have been able to see the different train of thoughts. Over all I really liked the essays stories.
      The second essay titled Essay on the Sublimation of Dying by Kristin Prevallet had very strong elements of poetry in it to me. They flow of it and the way it was written toke me back to the poetry packets. I really like the structure of this essay. It was like every section was a different story about death. The author did an amazing job however of tying it all together. Every little meanie story tells a story that has to deal with viewing death by the sun and its countries or her killing something such as a horsefly with tape. When you get done reading it you have read many little stories, but also get a bigger story out of it all. This was my favorite essay out of the two I read from this packet.

Essay Packet #1

     Reading this essay packet has really opened my eyes to the different types of elements that could be found in essay writing. Your essay can be non fiction or fiction, but even when it is non fiction you can find hints of non fiction through out the essay. In the essay Mint Snowball you can see some fiction in the line, "The mint snowball tasted like winter". The snow ball didn't really taste like winter, winter doesn't have a taste, but when described like this you get a feeling of a cold winter night.Using fiction elements allows you to use your imagination. I believe this pulls you into the essays even more and allows you to better connect. You can also find hints of poetry in some of these essays. A really good example of this would be the essay Red: An Invocation. The first time I read this essay I found my self thinking it could actually be a long poem. The last line of the essay to me was really poetic, "As the fox slipped away. And yes, I lead my child into that day". I don't know if it was because these last two sentences rhymed, but it sound like it came right out of a well written poem. I think it is cool how different forms of writing still pull from other elements of writing to make the pieces stronger.
     In this packet there was an essay that really stood out to me called Things to Do Today. This essay stood out to me because its structure was very different from any other essay I have read. This essay was written in a numbered list form instead of a paragraph structure. It was still interesting for me to read though because I could still get a sense of story from it. I also liked how some things on the list were real life goals as to where others were so far stretched. Number 17 on the list was to recall mother, which is something you could easily do by thinking up past memories of your mother. As to where number 3 which is destroy the capital with picturesque caress. I thought this combination made the essay more humorous.
    The essay Total Eclipse really caught my attention while reading it. One thing I really liked how it was written in phases, one through 4. It was almost like the different phases of an eclipse. I also liked how detailed the essay was. It was almost like you where up on that hill top with all the other viewers and you could really see the eclipse for the first time. The author also brought in and compared a partial eclipses. This made you feel like you were actually learning something while reading the essay. One thing I found myself not liking about this essay was it almost had too much details to me. There was a whole paragraph in the beginning of the essay about a clown picture at the hotel at which there where staying. It was a well written paragraph, but to me it could have been cut out and the essay would have remand the same. Overall I did enjoy this essay.  

End of Maps to Anywhere

     Upon finishing reading Maps to Anywhere I had a new appreciation for non fiction essays. Bernard Cooper really made it enjoyable to read his essays. He gave you a real glimpse into his life without over doing it. You got enough detail about him and his friends, but he didn't focus in on the little things that don't really matter. His stories got right to the point and didn't add un needed detail. At the same time they were long enough though so you felt like you were really there and you knew what was going on in his life. The way he writes really makes you interested in what he has to say. One of the main things I liked about this book was its connection. This book was made up of many short little essays, but once you got to the end I almost felt as if all the stories connected and you felt like you really got to know his life.
      One of the essays I enjoyed reading was titled Spontaneous Combustion. This story starts off a fire fighter talking at a class assembly about how to be safe with fire safety. I feel like anyone can relate to this and be brought back to their childhood when reading it. It then goes on to talk about how for weeks after the children check there home and count the number of doorways in the home. As the story continues I believe it has less and less to do with fire safety and has started to become more about children escaping their small towns and branching out to follow their dreams. I felt this way because there is a line in the essay that states, so burning their desire for a world beyond the walls. The essay's also ends with the line.. The wise children leap from ledges, disappear into another life, into cool cerulean blue.
     Another essay that I enjoyed from the end of our readings was Gravitation Attraction. This essay the sexual pull you have to someone, a gravitational attraction. I really enjoyed this essay because a lot of them you read were about his childhood. This one you could tell was about him being an adult. It was nice to read something that was a story about later in his life, but still connected with the other stories. The flow of the writing and the words he chose while writing also made it fun for me to read.

Maps to Anywhere

     When i first began to open the book Maps to Anywhere I though I wasn't going to enjoy the essays at all. Usually essays are boring for me to read, but with this book I found myself actually enjoying many of the essays I read. They were more like short stories to me instead of the typical high school essays I am use to reading. This made them funner for me to read and I in the end was happy I did read them.
     One of the non fiction essays that I really enjoyed reading was called by any other name. This story started out by a couple of kids making a prank call to someone that the chose from random. The story then begins to veer in a way that I did not expect. It begins to talk about how the had chosen the person they were going to call not by random, but instead by his name. Bernard then goes on to talk about his brother and sisters names and how his name was not as normal as the others. He could never find cool key chains with his names on it and his mom would always call his name last when calling the kids in because he felt she couldn't remember it. It then goes on to explain how he and his one of his brothers came up with the name for their kids. This essay to me actually made me think about my own name and what it means. You're name is something you are known by. It is with you for life. It is very important. This essay made you think about all of this.
     Another essay I enjoyed reading was called How to Draw. This essay starts by almost teaching you about art and the different types of art. Most people would find when someone was teaching about art the would need visual example, but I found this essay to be so well written that I didn't need a visual. This essay then turned into how the author began to draw. You also got to get a look into his family and got to know his personal life and why he began to draw.
     The Hurricane Ride was another essay I enjoyed to read. It was written with enough detail to make you feel like you where there. At the same time though it was straight to the point and didn't wander off into a different parallel. I think I liked this story because I could relate to it. It took me back to when I was a younger kid and would go to the fair with my family. Every fair had a ride like the Hurricane Ride and it brought back many memories of the fun times I had on it. This essay was fun to read because it had me take a stole back down memory lane.

Essay's

     When i first learned we were going to be writing essays for the next section in this writing class my first though was"oh no not this". To me essays were always boring to write. When I think of all the essays I had to write non were just because I wanted too. The only time I wrote an essay was back in high school or English for college. I wrote them because I was forced too so I never got any pleasure or enjoyment out of writing an essay.
     When I started to read the Essay introduction I learned that you could write good essays for pleasure. The first couple of paragraphs in this piece almost seem like the writer wrote them in an essay form. They also seemed like a story at the same time. This helped me see that essays can be fun. They don't have to be just for school or on topics you don't really have interest in, but can instead be written on things that interest you as a writer. They can even help you tell an everyday story from your life.  It has shown me that an essay can be interesting to read, wont put you to sleep, and have even brought out interest in me to write one.
     This piece has also taught me that just because they are short doesn't make them have any less value. Each essay tells it's own individual story in it's own way. They are deep and have real meaning behind them. Shorts or essays can be written for magazines, about geography, journal entries, or just to get out your stories. There are many different reasons people write essays. After reading this article I am excited to get started on writing an essay for pleasure about a topic I choose. I'm excited to write it.... not because I have too.

More Fiction

     As we start to wrap up our discussion in class about fiction I believe that I am finally starting to get a grip on what fiction writing is about. When we first started to discuss the first fiction packet I was confused as to how short the stories were. I almost felt as it was just poetry. I now understand what separates these stories apart from poetry. These stories have actual characters in them. There can be just one character or multiple characters, but there is at least one. These characters are what the story revolves around. They create the meaning of the story. In poetry there didn't have to be a charter. It had to just be writing that made you feel something.
     I believe that out of all the readings I had to read about fiction writing my favorite had to be Lamlott Polaroids. This wasn't a fiction story, but was a how to write good fiction. The way that Lamlott wrote out this information made if fun to read, but also taught me a lot which I believe will help me when writing my fiction stories for class. The number one thing I learned from this reading that was you have to let bad things happen to good characters. I think that this hit me the most because when I am writing I really start to enjoy my characters so when it comes time for me to have something bad happen to one I lesson the degree of the "badness" because I don't want to hurt them to bad. This is taught me you have to let the bad things play out how they should in order for a good story to unfold.
    Another thing that I learned was you have to let the story come from the characters. The plot will grow from who the characters are. Their personalities and what they like to do will grow into a wonderful plot for your story and you can take it from there. This is just like with dialogue. Each character is very different because of this when each character is talking they will need to sound different. Just like in real life how you talk is different from how your mom talks or your best friends. There might be some similarities, but over all your personality shines through.  Applying these new things that this reading has taught me I believe my fiction writings with be much stronger now then they would have before.

Fiction Packet #3

     In this fiction packet there is a great difference between the first story and the stories that come after this one. The first story titled When it Rains it Rains a River seems to be written differently then the other fiction stories. This story seems to repeat is self over and over again. The phrases like us brothers, when it rains, and the world Girl are repeated multiple times throughout the story. This story to me seems to be about two boys with wild imaginations. When it rains they like to disobey their mom and go out into the mud and play. The like to make a girl out of mud who seems to come alive. They also seem to see fish swimming and are able to touch the stars. I think this story is light and is just about kids being kids and using their imagination every day to have fun.
     The second story The Falling Girl was the one I seemed to enjoy the most. This story was written to me like any other story. It was spaced like a normal book and did not have repeating phrases like the first story in this packet. To me this story could be about two things. The first think I thought this story was about was the precious of a teenager/ early adult to be perfect in today's society. At that age it is so hard to fit in with all the super models and you always want to make yourself prettier. I thought that maybe that was what this story was about because when she was falling and eager to get to the ball she kept seeing what she said where prettier girls falling faster then her to get there before her. As I got to the end however, it began to have a couple in a lower apartment talk about how they didn't like the view because they only saw older woman falling and could hear the sound hitting the pavement. This began to make me think that the story was now about slowing down and enjoying your life. Stop and take a second to enjoy the little things that you would ordinarily pass up.
     There were two more stories in this packet. The next one was titled August 25, 1983. This story was written like the second one in the sense it was like a normal book. This story to me seemed like a mystery and I wasn't quite sure what exactly going on. To me it seemed to be about a man who dreamed of his older self. It seemed that the younger man was looking for guidance about what he should do with his life. With dreaming about the older him and talking to him it seemed he wanted to have advice about where his life was going and how he would end up. The last story called The Fifth Story was written differently then any of the other stories in this packet. This story with the "first story" which gave you a little detail then each story would build off of that. The actual story itself didn't really seem to have much meaning behind it. It was just about a woman killing cockroaches, but the way it was written was interesting and made me want to keep reading till the end.

Fiction Writing

     When we first got our assignments to read the first fiction packet I was kinda confused. The short stories seemed a lot like the poetry we had been reading. As i read more and read the second fiction packet I discovered there were some differences. Each of the stories actually had a character. The character may have not had a name, but there was a person or character in the story. Also each story seemed to have a theme that went a long with the story. These are actually stories and that is what makes the difference.
     With reading the second packet I noticed many differences with the story besides the actual story itself. In the first story, Internal, you can see it uses headings in each different section to almost break the story up. In the second story, Point and Line, it seems a lot more spaced out then the other two. Some of the "paragraphs" only have one or two sentences in them, which sets it apart from the other stories. There is also writing on almost the edges of the page that are not in line with the other words. I like that feature, it makes those words stand out more. The third story, Close Range, is written like any other normal story I have read.
    Out of all of the three longer stories my favorite would have to be Internal. The first thing that drew me into this story was that it is about the health care field which is something I am interested in. I also like the headings in this story. To me it seems to break it up and lets your mind rest for a minute and take it all in. I also like the over all story. I like how the intern is set out to study two separate patients, which are both the doctors he is working for "brother". As the story goes on and on the intern seems to becoming almost crazy. In the end you are left wondering if the patient he is studying is actually studying him It's almost like a mystery and I liked how it left me wondering.  

Poetry Assignments

Poem I wrote from the new poetry assignment:

August 18th, a day that will never be able to scratch from my mind.  
I was fast asleep on a route to my own version of a fairy tale,
When I was awaken by a "slam" that wasn't kind.
My mom had just gotten a phone call on her Verizon phone.
Loretta Reese was no longer with us.
I felt like a snail moving in a slow motion.
All I could see was red as everyone began to fuss. 
The confusion sank in as I began to wonder how?
The news that my grandma had passed was shock.
I will forever miss her smile and loving ways.
She will always have special place in my heart sealed with a lock. 

An old poem I wrote from the first assignment:

The rain that hit my face made it easy to conceal my lingering tears from a stubborn, shattered, dead heart.

It was hard to stay poised while I could still feel the despondent pain. 

As I sat on an indigo bench,

I could uncomfortably watch the scene play out over and over again like a mirage.

He took advantage of my transparent heart and put it threw his martyrdom ways.

He created what felt like fissures throughout my body and left me feeling like nothing more then sediment at the bottom of the ocean.

Letting him have this hold on me made me feel turbulent and hopeless.

Will it ever get better I asked myself?

Or will I slowly decompose all together from heartbreak.

As speaking those words I had an imminent feeling things were going to change for the better.

There was a break in the clouds and an abundant ray of light broke through catching the raindrop prisms, creating the most beautiful rainbow.

That moment was when I knew I could get through this and he was nothing more then a distant memory now.

Fluorescence

     The poems in the book Fluorescence by Jennifer Dick were hard for me to comprehend like most other poems. The poems in this book are separated into sections and it seems like some of the poems in the section go together and I begin to think that there is a link between them all, then other poems I have no idea how they would connect. An example of this would be the poem In the Garden on page 43. I can see how the poem connects to the next couple of poems, but when I get to the poem Sighted on page 47 I begin to be question if they all go together. I feel like there has to be some sort of connection because they are in the same section. I just don't know what it is.
     One thing that I do like about this book of poems is how the structure can set the mood. The book does a good job at using spacing to set a flow when you are reading and almost put you in a mind set. My favorite example of this is section two that starts on page 15. The first half of the poem is spaced out and seems to have no structure. I believe this is because the author wants you to feel frantic. The second part however is in more of a paragraph form. This is to show a more calm sense. The person is not freaking out, but instead kinda just taking things as they come. Some of the poems also have titles where others to not. I don't know why she choose to do this, but it has to have some sort of meaning.
    My favorite poem/poems from this book would have to be the ones in section one starting on page nine. I want to go into the medical field so these ones caught my eye because they talk about the anatomy of a body while telling a story. It kinda shows her journey through what I got was medical school. Once we talked about this poem in class it made even more sense to me and I began to enjoy it even more. I think Jennifer Dick is a beautiful writer and I found myself actually starting to enjoy reading some of her poems.

Poetry

To everyone poetry can be different. Some people really love reading and writing poetry, where others like me are not to fond of it. My biggest struggle with poetry is I sometimes find it hard to understand or hard to follow and find the whole meaning. I usually like things to be presented in a very straight manner and most poetry is not. One thing I have learned from this class so far though is if I look at poetry line by line I can find beauty in it and actually start to enjoy it.

One of the poems I found my self really enjoying was Shakespeare's sonnet 118.  I like the form of his sonnets with his rhyme scheme. I feel like it makes the poem have a good flow to it when reading it. This poem itself was not also hard for me to understand which was another reason I like it. I believe this poem is about him feeling like love is a sickness. You cant control being in love and there is no cure for it. It just sneaks up on you and kinda happens. My favorite line from this sonnet is, "But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you". I just really feel like anyone who has been in love before relate and find beauty in this sonnet.

Another poem I enjoyed was Emily Dickson's poem that was labeled 377. This poem didn't have a rhyme scheme but instead did something I liked with the first word of every line. The first set of lines all start with the word Under, the second set switches between the words Further and Were, and the third set uses the word Over.  I hadn't seen that in a poem before and I really liked how it made the poem feel. I also enjoyed how this poem made you think the whole poem who she was creating distance between and she waits till the very end revealing it with the line, "Between Ourselves and the Dead!'.

The last poem I found myself enjoying was And What Do You Get by Heather McHugh. Although I do not completely understand the whole meaning of the poem I enjoy how the poem does make you think. It makes you take words and remove letters to form new words to see what you get. I thought this was different then any other poem I have read and I like how it actually gets you to interact with the poem instead of simply just reading it.

Introduction

     Hi, my name is Amber Ivan. I'm twenty one years old. This is my first year at Eastern Michigan University. Before Eastern I studied for almost two years at Washtenaw Community College. While at WCC I planned on going into the nursing program, but when I took my CNA course I found out that wasn't for me. My current major at Eastern is health care administration. At the moment though I am currently undecided if I want to purse this path or venture down a different one.
     Along with going to school I work part time as a receptionist at a hair salon. If I have learned one thing from this job it is that I will never want to do hair.  In terms of what I like to do for fun it's pretty much like any other twenty one year old girl. I like to go out with my friends on the weekends. I also like to go to the movies, I love doing anything outdoors when it's nice out, and I really love to read a good book.
     Writing is not one of my strong points. I believe that I can write pretty good essays, but writing is not something I enjoy to do. Creative writing is something I struggle at though. I'm not good at opening my mind and being able to write things such as poems. I guess I believe I'm scared of taking the risk and people not liking what I write. I hope this class can help me become a more confident writer and actually help me enjoy writing instead of dreading it.