Tradition of Silence Free Write

Edit; 9/14/07 12:23pm

Um, I would say that I like to be detailed, I like trying to paint a picture for the reader. I did notice that I tend to repeat myself over and over, the catch is I word each sentence differently so it's kind of hard to notice. I think I do it b/c I can't get what I want to say on paper due to my vocabulary, but in away it's good, I accidentally rewrite the sentence with different words and if I do catch it I collaborate them. I do really think though I'm a plain John writer.

I don't really have a "tradition of silence" like Anzaldua says she has. I really can't comment on anything that like that. I just I just have a regular writing style like everyone else does.

Experience Free Write

Edit: 9/14/07 11:48am

The guy who took us was working for the time we were in Bombay/Mumbi so my pastor and I were on our own. The 1st day we were there we (pastor and myself) took a walk around the hotel we were staying in just taking everything in that we could. A "holy man" (he is considered a holy man b/c of what he does but not a true one b/c he expects money for it) came up to me, did this ritual; tied a yarn around my wrist, dotted my forehead, and gave me these white pebbles to eat, no I didn't eat them but my pastor Tom did, kind of ironic. Then after asked for 20 AMERICAN DOLLARS, I just passed the buck on to my pastor saying he had all of my money.

The 2nd day we were there we took a city tour, which lasted 8.5 hours and it was only suppose to be 5hrs; it was worth it though. We say so many temples and monuments and tombstones I can't remember what they were all for. We got to go to the market place, nothing like ours, no beef b/c cows are sacred part of their religion they rome free. The chickens were live and pigs not pre-packaged like here. People were walking around balancing big trays on their head filled with fruits and veggies. Mostly farmers selling their produce and grains then all of a sudden we would see a little Americanized store about 7ft by 7ft with glass case displaying everything in it like at a movie theater. There was Butterfinger, Snickers, Crest toothpaste, Oldspice deodorant, all American items, just didn't seem right to be there. We also say were everyone would wash their cloths, in this 3ft by 3ft concrete basin, it wasn't just one they spread out about 7 across and 50 down with everyone being used, hand washing, just sitting there spending hours, to me, wasting time but they can't help it.

Driving was unreal, it was as if lanes, road signs, stop lights and signs, speed limits didn't exist. Our driver would weave into the other lane even with on coming traffic to pass a car, person, cyclist, or rickshaw. And everyone gives crap to teenagers when they 1st get their licence, I don't' think you need one there.

I look back now, thinking of myself and how I was, I would love to admit that I wasn't selfish but I was. I wish I had learned more and appreciated more from that trip at that time. I do now but it shouldn't have taken me 7 years.

I have traveled in my life but not to the extent that I would like to. I
was an army brat the 1st five years of my life and after that didn't travel much
do to my family not having much disposeable income. Then the summer after my
sophomore year in high school a youth leader in our Church that I was attending
took the pastor and myself to India and Nepal which was an experience I'm trying
not to forget. I look back now wishing that I hadn't been so immature and
selfish when I went, that I had taken more pictures and video while I was there.
There are sites, sounds, smells, and tastes that I can never forget like they
way the cremate their loved ones, nothing in the way that we do it. The naked
kids coming up to the window holding out their hand. Homeless adults taking food
away from some kids that just found it on the street, or walking on the Taj
Mahal. It is a place that I'd love to go back to, with the experiences, views
and ideas that I have now.

In Search of Our Mothers' Garden

I don't understand why some words are capitalized; Creators, pg 678, Art pg 678, who and what is she referring to?

It seems like Alice really respects her mother for what she had to go through and what she did day in and day out for her family. I think she also wishes that it wouldn't have been like that, she wanted her mom to do something for herself, "there was never a moment for her to sit down, undisturbed, to unravel her own thoughts; never a time free from interruption. . ."

I like the metaphor of the Garden to a woman's ability to be creative.

The Achievemnet of Desire

So far one of my favorite essay's. The way it was written reminded me a little of Henry Adams because Richard referred to himself in third person on a couple of occasions. The idea of the essay was great because I can relate, to the opposite side. I was never much of a reader until two months ago and now I love it. I get the same feeling that he got, ". . . anything to fill the hollow within me and make me feel educated." I do feel like that but not to his point of obsession. I wish that I had read more, and I feel like I'm starting to do that. It is quite funny though that his parents didn't really support his reading but I do like the fact the he says, "He is the great mimic; a collector of thoughts, not a thinker; the very last person in class who ever feels obliged to have an opinon of his own." This reminds me of the movie Good Will Hunting, there is a certain part in the movie that encompasses this quote from the essay:

[Sean (Robing Williams) speaking to Will (Matt Damon)]
"So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, 'once more unto the breach dear friends.' But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. You're an orphan right?
You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you?"

I think this is how Richard felt in some of his years of reading so much and just being that "mimic" and not having a fresh idea or any time to think on his own. He does later realize it though.

Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight

Rather interesting how at first they were invisible to everyone but once they took part in the activities people took to them and recognized them. The essay seemed like he wanted to talk about the betting and how it worked more that the tradition and culture of why cockfighting took place. Betting is really the same everywhere and what ever the activity is, I don't think there was a need for so much of the betting.

"The slaughter in the cock ring is not a depiction of how things literally are among men, but, what is almost worse, of how, from a particular angle, they imaginatively are." It works as a comparison because life is chaotic, aggressive, and intense.

Stranger in the Village

This was a 180 degree turn from what I thought it might be. Usually you read essays like this (blacks professing their hatred towards whites) but James Baldwin took both sides of the story. he made the obvious points of the black point of view but he naturally made points of the white point of view. I usually get a little upset when I read this subject but James was very objective and didn't anger me at all. It was like he didn't take a side which is what most do when writing about this topic.

How to Tame a Wild Tounge

I was expecting something completely different when I was reading this essay. I was expecting something more along the lines of slang and cursing, not depicting which dialect to use depending on the social atmosphere that she was in. In the end it seemed like she was just trying to justify why she could or would speak so many dialects. It almost seemed like she was a little ashamed of it.

Entering into the Serpent

This is a very intriguing essay. I love the changes in writing from informative to story telling to poetry. I've never come across anything like this. I think it was a fun read and the metaphors behind sexuality and the serpent or nothing that I've ever heard before but I guess people interpret things differently. I never would use a metophor of a serpents mouth to a vagina with edged, pointed, or tooth-shaped projections.

Introduction

The introduction was overwhelming with information as well as completely boring. It just kept going on and on, I feel Ike it would have been shortened. They shouldn't have used so many examples of the essay's of analogies and metaphors is should been straight forward information. I do appreciate what they did say about no one being able to remember everything that they read. I'm the worst at reading something (that doesn't spark an interest) and realizing a paragraph later that I have no idea what I just read. So I do understand the reason behind the second readings and rereading something is always a helper. You come across things that you didn't in the first place, just like watching a movie for the second time.

Education of Henry Adams

I found the essay a hard read only due to the fact that I really didn't find it interesting. Trying to pay attention and reading everything was definitly a struggle. Some of the concepts and theories were amazing because I have thought that way myself.

". . . he felt no sensation but one of unqualified joy that this experience was ended. Never before or afterwords in his life did he close a period so long as four years without some sensation of loss-some sentiment of habit-but school was what in after life he commonly heard his friends denounce as an intolerable bore."

I can remember when I felt like this but I hadn't been attending college for four years. I think I felt like this because I was young and imature. Now a-days I have a different attitude only because I know where I will be if I don't go to school.