Oral History
I don't think you can fully rely on "oral" history. I remember playing the game Telephone in elementary school. We'd get in a circle and a person would whisper something like "I love pie" to the person to his left. That person was supposed to whisper to the guy on his left that he liked pie too, but by the time the message got back to that first person, the message was something like "Olive in the rye" or some crazy thing that sounds similar but is way off track. It's funny for a school game, but when it comes to preserving history, perhaps not so much. Fights can get started over one word getting misinterpreted between foreign language interpreters. Maybe some guy in history who is known to be a hero today was really a d-bag that got glorified for whatever reason. Maybe he paid someone to say nice things about him. Of course, some oral histories were written down at the time that something was said, but people do mishear (is that a word?), misspeak, and write "typos."

So, oral history isn't reliable, but we wouldn't have the knowledge we do today if it weren't for our ancestors passing down from word-of-mouth how to plow the field, or great-great-great-great-great-great grandpa Joe's heroic fight against the redcoats and stuff like that. People say that we can learn from our mistakes, but I prefer the saying "history repeats itself." I'm not a hippie or anything, but if we learn from our mistakes, why are there still wars, why do people still smoke cigarettes when we know about lung cancer, why do people feed their kids fast food everyday when they know about childhood diabetes and bullies at school? On and on this "why" could go on. History tries to teach, but we refuse to learn. 

Chapter 3
I'm taking a journalism class this semester and a required element in every one of our writing assignments is to have a quote from an actual person you interviewed over phone, email, or in-person. In fact, the most recent assignment we had was to do a profile on someone. The professor assured us that we didn't have to seek out someone with a dazzling history, we obviously didn't have time to get an interview with Barack Obama or Johnny Depp. But he told us that we'd be surprised at the trove of interesting tidbits a person has in their life, if you just sit down and listen to them, they'll give you their treasure. It's definitely not easy to interview a person, you have to make them feel comfortable, you have to create an illusion that all it is is a friendly conversation, even though in the back of your mind you're listening out for a good quick quote or some juicy dirt to write up later and publish to the masses. You have to be a snake charmer, a hypnotist, a siren singing a liquid, sweet song, lull them with your lullaby of friendship and understanding and you can get to the dark, creamy center. My professor says that everyone has an epic story, and I agree, because that's what life is. It's frickin' epic, man. If for no other reason, live to tell your tale.....Okay, maybe I am a hippie

I had literally just finished reading a piece by John Dewey an hour before doing this class's reading. I'm taking an aesthetics class, philosophy of art, and we had to read Dewey's "Art as Experience." He talked about how the experiences of the "common people" are key to understanding a piece of artwork. Many of the philosophers we've read so far in Aesthetics class tended to put themselves on a golden pedestal because they apparently had a super brain power to understand and unravel the mystery of Art. But Dewey said that art should rise from real experience and so it's not this unobtainable thing that only an elite few can understand. 

For "Situating Narrative Inquiry" Clandinin talked about how the product comes from understanding experiences. Dewey seemed to be the opposite in that he said experiences result in the product.

Quotes:
Numbers, scientists sometimes assert, are less ambiguous than language, and thus their interpretation is more straightforward.

Plotlines, character, setting, and action (Bal, 1997) provide ways of holdingmeaning together in more complex, relational, and therefore more nuanced ways than flowcharts or number tables.

Multiple views make for closer attention to a wider variety ofhuman experience.

I especially understood the metaphor of the 3-dimensional space after the story of Ming Fang writing her dissertation in Canada. When the author wrote “at the intersection of place and time” and “at the intersection of looking inward and place” it made me think of a complex system of roads that twist and lead in different directions but they all lead to the same location, understanding. It’s not just one straight, easy road to understanding, you might have to stop at an intersection and turn left to look at place before moving on to time or looking inward to get the entirety of a person’s experience before understanding that person. A person is made up of intricate systems of veins, nerves and mind, so it makes sense that understanding his experiences will be just as difficult as the organism himself. I don’t think we can ever fully understand a person but narrative inquiry is a step towards trying to.

For my Twitterive place, the technology that helped me keep track of my observations was Twitter. It was especially helpful to link my phone up with Twitter and Twitpic because I don’t carry my laptop around campus with me and I guess I could write my observations down on a piece of paper, but my memory is so ridiculous, I would forget that I wrote things down by the time I got back to a computer. It was really helpful to be able to tweet literally a second after I saw something. That way, I had more tweets to choose from to write my Twitterive….even though I only used ten.

My weebly blog helped connect me to the class because we are supposed to comment on each other’s posts, ask each other questions about our writing to better it. It’s nice to get feedback from other people about your writing, whether it’s positive or negative, it’s good to have feedback. You can’t improve your writing if no one points it out. Sometimes I get so caught up in what I’m writing, that of course it makes sense to me, but I’m so close to it that I can’t tell whether or not it might make sense to someone else. And that’s important because writers don’t just write for themselves, they hope that someone will read their work. We are given that opportunity through our weebly blogs.

My online identity only represents half of my real-life identity. I have two halves, the charming, social me, and there’s the introverted, antisocial me. The first me is what you see on my blog, a person who has a lot to say and isn’t a nervous nelly about saying it. The antisocial me is what you get in class and especially in my Twitterive (if you read my Twitterive, you’ll get it). That’s the person who would rather listen than to talk and sometimes that weirds people out, but there you go.

P.S. If you’ve read my Twitterive, I just want to let you know that I don’t want to kill you. It really is fictional.

Lil Firecracker makes yet another trip to the gym today, this after going at 5 o’ clock this morning, 12 this afternoon, 6 o’ clock this evening and now 11 o’ clock at night. Clearly, she’s trying to bulk up for the upcoming arm wrestling match between her and defending champion Latina Heat this Thursday. I guess the steroids weren’t doin’ it for her. Hey, everyone’s thinking it. I’m simply writing it. Of course she denies it, but so did A-Roid—I mean “Rod.” How else do you explain her rocky home life? A neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, swears she hears Firecracker physically abusing her husband on “a regular basis.” Hellooo, Roid Rage, people! Come on! Why hasn’t she been tested yet? Seriously, this is appalling. If you look back on the great arm wrestlers of the 30’s and 40’s, they didn’t need illegal substances to win. They did it on pure strength. And look at the guns on Latina Heat! You better keep pumping that iron, Lil Firecracker, ‘cause the Arm Wrestling Federation is closing in…and so is the fight for the title. If you can’t handle the Heat, get out of the kitchen.

On a related topic, Latina Heat, the current arm wrestling champion, was seen out earlier today with a hunk who looks suspiciously like Lil Firecracker’s husband. That is, her current husband. If you recall, her ex is currently in rehab.  Since Firecracker’s current residence is the fitness gym, it’s understandable that her husband would go looking for companionship. And who better than Firecracker’s archenemy, Latina Heat? Scandal! But I can’t help but worry for his safety. Everyone knows that Firecracker’s husband is rolling in money. His blood is probably green. So is Latina Heat planning on seducing him, marrying him, and then killing him for his money? I don’t think arm wrestlers make that much money. But then again, maybe I’m overreacting. Obviously, L. Heat isn’t as good at killing as she is at arm wrestling. Her first stab at homicide wasn’t exactly successful (though she was successful in wriggling out of life in a jail cell). Perhaps she is trying to hone her killer skills to relieve her nervous energy caused by the upcoming match. Good luck with that….with the match, I mean.

Characters: an unnamed girl (the narrator), and zombies

Connection/Disconnection with place: She has a physical connection with her new home in the woods, she has a mental disconnection with society and other people

When: This is a post-apocalyptic story, so it's set sometime in the (near?) future, but the narrator also flashes back to before the Incident

Where: the narrator lives in a tree in the woods

Why: The Twitterive is based off of my found poem, which is based off of 10 tweets about winter weather, I included the apocalypse element because of a line in the poem that goes "Something is really off." I immediately thought of 28 Days Later

How: It's going to be a narrative, but it will be split into sections, each section is headed with a line from the found poem

Direction of piece: I'm going to continue on with what I was doing before this interview, except I still need to figure out the logistics of the zombies (how fast they move, if they can climb, their mental prowess), and exactly why my character is an outcast, what makes her prefer the post-apocalyptic world full of living dead people that like to eat flesh over her old life

I remember when I wrote my blog post for the Billy the Kid reading, when I was pondering over the two poems at the beginning and end. The first one was very literate and the last one, I thought at first was a trainwreck. But the more I read it, the more it grew on me. My writing process for the blog for this piece was a little chaotic as well. I remember working out that second poem on paper and at first I was planning on deleting the parts where I admitted that I was confused and didn’t like it. But at the last minute I kept it because I liked how the poem instilled some kind of emotion in me. I think that if a story doesn’t make the reader feel something, the writer did something wrong. I’ve officially added “confusion” to the list of acceptable emotions to have for a piece of writing, because it’s certainly better than indifference. And I think it’s interesting that I was intrigued enough to try and figure the poem out instead of just leave it.

I liked the Anzaldua readings even less than I liked the Billy poem, but not for a lack of good writing on Anzaldua’s part. I know the point of the piece was that she shouldn’t have to translate her native language for English speakers because she’s proud of her culture, but there really was a lot more Spanish than I had expected. The first sentence I came across, I was going to type it into an online translation dictionary, but then I didn’t because I realized that would defeat the purpose of the piece. Plus, there was a lot of Spanish, it would have taken way longer to read if I translated. By the time I finished reading it, I was so frustrated that I had been left in the dark for a lot of the reading that I went on twitter and ranted for 140 characters. Interestingly enough, part of that tweet is going into my Twitterive. So, thank you Anzaldua.

For my microfiction story Tell Me, I used a line from Anzaldua that goes “Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out.” Anzaldua was talking about people who speak a language other than English and how they are forced to learn English. I knew she meant that the Spanish people are proud of their heritage and won’t let go of it without a fight, but my twisted mind immediately thought of a literal meaning for this phrase. But I think, in a way, it comes down to the same thing, so really, I’m not all that crazy. She started it….

I’m surprised that I was even able to complete the found poem assignment because when I went back and looked at all my tweets, on first sight they looked like the inane ramblings of a crazy loner (which I am). There wasn’t anything cohesive, like I didn’t tweet about a place I had gone to or an outing with friends because I didn’t do any of that stuff. Mostly I stay in my room, with periodic trips outside for fresh air, exercise and food. And that’s where most of my tweets came from. Fleeting observations as I walked quickly to the cafeteria, which is right across the street.

But then I noticed a pattern, which was winter weather. What was initially nonsense became a poem about winter and people’s mood about winter. So I collected all the tweets about the weather and incorporated the whimsical style in which the tweets were written to form an admittedly strange poem that, to me at least, makes perfect sense. I’m using my found poem to write an equally unusual Twitterive.

Stay tuned.

In this post, I have two poems. The first is a haiku based off of the microfiction in the previous post. The second is a found poem based off of ten tweets.


Vulnerable

Tell me what you know
with those perfect clear blue eyes.
You’re vulnerable.




Wild is Beautiful

The trees are throwing snowballs.
Isn’t that wild?
That’s one way to do it.
Snowdrops swoop down
like albino hawks
as I make my way to
the warmth of my secret lair.
Something is really off.
I hate it when people bitch
about inclement weather.
Each mind perceives
a different beauty.
Have you figured out how to make
happy little bluebirds?

In this post, I have two 250-word microfiction pieces. In the first one, I used a line from Gloria Anzaldua's piece How to Tame a Wild Tongue, to inspire my story. The line is: “Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out.” The second microfiction story is based off of one of my tweets: “Alaska is so different from California…we don’t have freeways and we don’t have people.”

Tell Me

“Tell me what you know!”

I don’t know anything, he says. I’m innocent, he says. I have no idea what you’re talking about!

Well, I’m not stupid. I know when I’m being lied to. I’ve done this before and I know how to get the information I need. This little prick isn’t going to stand in my way. I will get what I want. I need to know what he knows. What did he see? What did he hear? Did he tell anyone? Because if he did, then I’m in deep shit.

Another dunk should do it, I think. He’s always been afraid of drowning since he—fell—into the pool last summer. And maybe this will speed up the potty training process. I’m sick of him crawling into my bed and pissing on my sheets. It is not cute!

I pull his head out of the toilet when his body starts convulsing. He gasps and spits and cries and begs for me to stop.

“Tell me what you know!”

I look into his dripping face, with those perfect clear blue eyes, and adorable little button nose splashed with freckles and his rosy mouth filled with straight baby teeth.

I’m starting to think maybe he didn’t tell Mom anything. In fact, I’m almost sure of it now, thank God. But I need to make sure he continues to be quiet. There’s only one way to do that. Butter or butcher, I haven’t decided yet. Either way, it’s going to be wonderful. Oh, that pretty little face.

I’ll find a way to stay out of trouble. I always do. No one ever suspects me.


They

They’re out there, roaming the streets. Shuffling, staring, mumbling. Brainless things out to infect everyone They can find. They’ve learned our ways quickly, like They’re trying to fit in, be inconspicuous. But I know They’ve infiltrated our governments and our daily lives. And now They’ve come for our safe places, our homes. They get you when you least expect Them to come, when you feel comfortable, when you’re vulnerable, at your weakest. Nobody thinks it will happen to them and then bang, you’re dead. On the inside, at least. You can still walk around, but your soul is gone. You don’t know anything, you don’t really do anything. You just are.

They’ve been doing this since the year 2000. Everyone laughed when the computers didn’t malfunction like they were supposed to, but I didn’t laugh. I knew that was just a distraction from what was really going on. They won’t be satisfied until we’re all like Them, til we’re all members of Their diseased army. There’s no way I can stop them. It’s too late, there’s too many of Them. But I have been able to take some of Them out, to at least try to lower Their numbers with my rifle. You have to get Them in the head, it’s the quickest way. They won’t have the chance to see where the shot came from. That’s how I’ve survived for so long, but I got sloppy. I ventured too far from my house and someone saw me. They know I exist. They’ve surrounded my house.

Here They come.