doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
Archive for May, 2006
foot in mouth disease
0
I have it. I swear I do.
Or maybe I should stick my foot in my mouth to stop me from talking and talking and talking.
I’ve thought about this a lot. And it’s funny. I’m not actually a big talker. I don’t talk a lot in most situations (and it’s not just me saying this – family members say I barely talk at all in social situations).
But lately, at work, you can’t shut me up. I don’t know why. I just keep talking and talking.
I think part of it is because I really like these people and I want them to know me and like me, too.
I think part of it is that I don’t talk for hours (or days) on end, when I’m home (and, for instance, this last weekend was 4 days alone, with only Dakota to talk to). So, when I get to work, I’m happy for the socialization and want to talk.
But I talk and talk and talk. And I don’t really say anything at all. I’m dorky. I mean, really dorky. I say the most inane things and then wonder where it all came from.
And sometimes I get so excited while I’m talking, and want to share so fast, before the person escapes, that I run out of breath while I’m talking and am trying to catch my breath and keep talking a mile a minute – almost like this sentence…running on and on and on.
Maybe I need to be gagged.
favorite books
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If you could have only read four books during your grade school years, which four would you have chosen?
I was a voracious reader. I still am, I suppose.
It would be impossible for me to choose just four books from my grade school years. My tastes and my reading levels changed so much that I went from very basic kindergarten primers to very advanced, higher level high school reading by the time I was in the 8th grade.
If I think back, though, on the books that brought me the most joy, it was typically Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys. I loved the adventures they went on and the mysteries they had to solve.
I also have a fondness for “Charlotte’s Web”. I saw that a new movie was coming out this winter and I’m looking forward to seeing it because of the fondness I have for it.
talismans
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I was cleaning house today – one of those really good, deep spring cleanings where you move all of the furniture, flip the mattresses, get down into the areas where carpet meets walls kind of cleaning.
My house is nice now and I love walking in when my house is this clean. It makes me happy.
What is interesting about these kinds of cleanings is the things you find that you missed but then forgot about. I found two of those things today.
The first one was my favorite cup that I put chai in. It was clean but it seemed to have rolled under my bed somehow and I never saw it. Weird. I had wondered where it went and was mourning the loss of it.
The second was a little more important. I found a rock.
Now, let me explain a little.
I have a little bag full of rocks. It’s like a medicine bag and it was given to me several years ago as a gift and I started putting my collected rocks in it.
The first rock that went into it was a rock that my sister gave me as I departed to live in Britain. It’s a green rock with a hummingbird carved into it. The hummingbird is said to symbolize a messenger or stopper of time.
When she gave me that rock, I held on to it so tightly. I cried as she gave it to me. It meant so much – and still does. It’s one of those connections to my sister that no one can ever take away.
I wonder if she remembers.
I have a deer (love, gentleness, kindness), an elk (strength, agility, freedom), a buffalo skull (sacredness, reverence for life), and a spider (creative, pattern of life); all given to me by people who understood how much they would mean to me.
I have some clear rocks with words engraved: green (money) and blue (enthusiasm).
I have a buffalo fetish that looks like it’s made of the same red rocks that surround the land I live on.
I have a piece of sea glass from the Huntington Beach beach.
I have a black flat stone from a hike in the mountains.
And the rock I found today is a round black stone. It was picked up on a hike along the railroad tracks in Deep Bay, on Vancouver Island. Jonathan found it and gave it to me.
It has a groove in it that fits my thumb just right and it is almost like a worry stone that I can rub for good luck.
It had been on my nightstand and in my backpack during the time we were dating. It went everywhere with me – like it was a piece of him with me.
When things ended, I guess I no longer needed that stone to be with me every day and it didn’t follow me everywhere.
When I found it today, though, it was a joy. I rubbed it and smiled. It made me happy. It was like welcoming back an old friend.
It has gone into my bag of worn, treasured rocks.
My talismans. My connections to others. My links to a time and place in my life.
remember
05 years ago
by dawn
in just a thought
Memorial Day is not a day to honor those who are currently serving in our armed forces, although it is nice to remember them. It’s not a day about picnics or time at the beach or any other number of things we may do on this extended weekend in the United States.
Memorial Day was created to remember those who have given their lives in service to our country.
On this day, I would like to do that. Will you join me?
this is where it all began
05 years ago
by dawn
in sexual violence
My entry into the sexual world began in San Diego. At five years old, I knew more about sex than any five year old should know.
My kindergarten was across the alley from the house we lived in. If my parents had been watching, they could have seen me at all times.
That school was one of the open types of schools, much like others that would play a part in my sexual life. All of the hallways are on the outside with doors opening into the classrooms. Everything takes place outside except class time.
The closest people to my brother and I were two boys who were a little bit older. I think one was ten and one was eight. They lived behind us in another rundown home.
These two boys were more aggressive, more rambunctious, and more worldly than my brother and I. They had been around the proverbial block.
One day, they decided I would be the latest conquest. My brother was off doing his own thing. I have no idea where my parents were – or for that matter, where anyone else was.
The school was quiet that day. It must have been a weekend or the summer. I remember it being cloudy.
I remember the cold concrete below my body. I remember how it felt against my skin. I remember the posts around us that supported the overhead hallway ceiling.
I remember hands around my arms, holding me down.
I remember a bigger boy above me, pinning the rest of my body down.
I remember my dress up around my waist and my panties down around my ankles.
I remember penetration.
That’s all I remember.
the education of a poet
05 years ago
american life in poetry: column 061
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate
Everywhere I travel I meet people who want to write poetry but worry that what they write won’t be “any good.” No one can judge the worth of a poem before it’s been written, and setting high standards for yourself can keep you from writing. And if you don’t write you’ll miss out on the pleasure of making something from words, of seeing your thoughts on a page. Here Leslie Monsour offers a concise snapshot of a self-censoring poet.
The Education of a Poet
Her pencil poised, she’s ready to create,
Then listens to her mind’s perverse debate
On whether what she does serves any use;
And that is all she needs for an excuse
To spend all afternoon and half the night
Enjoying poems other people write.
Leslie Monsour’s newest book of poetry is “The Alarming Beauty of the Sky” (2005) published by Red Hen Press. Poem copyright (c) 2000 by Leslie Monsour and reprinted from “The Formalist,” Vol. 11, by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
hold the presses
05 years ago
A week or two ago I talked about not wanting to turn my blog into this personal journal where I pour out everything that a twelve-year-old (apologies to Erin) would write in her little pink diary with a key.
The reason I wrote that is because I know someone who says that blogs are just personal journals written in a public space as a part of exhibitionism. They are a way to show off and toot our own horns (okay, actually two different people have said this very thing to me).
I heard someone else say something about the “personal diary” type of blogs, as well, just the other day. And I started wondering what the aversion to this type of journaling is.
Who usually writes those kinds of blogs? Is it women?
I’m wondering this because the people who have said that they hate personal blogs were men – very technical men, at that.
In my blog training, I show very different ways of using blogs. I show personal blogs, work blogs, educational blogs, political blogs, and various others.
I think all types of blogs have their place – even those that deal with the very personal issues that we deal with in our every day life.
Maybe a blog is helping someone work through some issues s/he had while a child. Lili talks about her life as a child prostitute. This is an issue that more people should be reading about and discussing. It is highly personal. It is highly relevant.
Erin talks about everything under the sun…politics, movies, work, life, and travel. Today she even talks about school and curses me (hey…I’m just trying to get everyone in the world to join my gang…can’t blame me, can you?).
The point is, personal journals have a place in this world, too. I keep in touch with some of my favorite people by reading their blogs – especially when life gets crazy and we just don’t have the time to send e-mails or snail mails or even pick up a phone. I like that part of social networking. We are making a community.
And if we share a little piece of ourselves in the creation of that community, is that so wrong?
the funniest things…
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I’ve been busier than heck at work this week. We’ve been hosting a conference for educators and I had to give some sessions, help with labs, be the photographer, and, when I could, attend sessions.
It was a lot of fun but also a lot of work. I’ve been coming home totally exhausted at the end of each night – with barely enough energy to post a photograph, let alone type something up.
A few things happened during the conference that really made me laugh or feel like the center of attention.
Yesterday, I gave a session on blogs. It’s a beginner’s look at what blogs are, what people use them for, a history, and some links. I quickly show the participants how to set up a blog in under 5 minutes using wordpress. We use wordpress because it is the easiest one to set up with privacy and is clean and nice…and I’m a huge supporter of opensource softwares and especially organizations that are really great at supporting social networking. WordPress is both of those things.
As I said previously, I’m a blogging cheerleader. While I don’t think blogs are the answer to everything, there are many things that they are useful for and they can really give classroom settings a different method of expression. That is exciting to me. Anything to get students involved and excited is a good thing.
After the session, I had quite a few people come up and tell me that they wanted to start blogs. Could they contact me later? Would I be willing to give them some pointers? Well, heck…OF COURSE! I’d love that!
Today, Brian Lamb and Alan Levine came to the conference to talk about social networking and social softwares. So you know I’m excited. This is the stuff I LOVE!
The first session, they started talking about del.icio.us. I love del.icio.us. I use it mostly for photoblogs but I really enjoy it. It’s a nice way to connect to others and to see what other people who enjoy the same things I do are looking at.
Then they start talking about flickr and how flickr uses fun APIs. I love flickr’s APIs. They introduced me to a new one, though, that I hadn’t looked at, flickrlilli. It’s cool. They type in Flagstaff and look for Interestingness…and what do they come up with? The image they decide to blog about? It just happens to be my image – and they didn’t even know! I was like…whoa! That’s mine! Big surprise!
At their next session, they are going through their pages and I saw an image that looked somewhat familiar. After the session, I went to the page with Erin and looked at it again. The photograph looked a lot like one of mine. We went to one of my blogs, where I use the image as a header, because I had lowered the brightness on it for a header and was surprised at how much it looked like my photo. I then went to my flickr stream to look at the original to see if it did match theirs. They do look very similar.
I can’t be certain it was mine. There was no attribution. However, I think they are very close. If it is, it’s cool to know it was used for this purpose. If it’s not mine, then it’s cool that someone took a photograph of a scene that is very much like the one I did.
update
I wrote to both Lamb and Levine to let them know how much I enjoyed the sessions and to ask about the photograph. Levine just replied:
Thank you so much for your message and being an engaged participant today…. AND you caught me red handed, I did snag your image and use it and glossed over the exact license in detail (made a modification of it. I am red-faced in embarassment, but it was late last night and I found it right away in flickrlilli.
If you are okay with my use of the image (which I should have asked for), thank you. And my next blog entry will acknowledge this (I believe in showing my warts, well most of them).
You did have gorgeous photos and now I can track them via flickr.
And he did exactly as he said he would. That is awesome. To me, that is what building communities is all about. You talk it out, you create dialogue, and you share things across time and space. Alan Levine is welcome to use my photography anytime – I’d just love to see what he does with it!
regularity
0I've decided that I'll only be writing in this blog once a week. Otherwise, I get too overwhelmed.
Every Sunday, I will add a new post.
Keep checking back.
what i learned from my mother
06 years ago
american life in poetry: column 060
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate
Most of us have taken at least a moment or two to reflect upon what we have learned from our mothers. Through a catalog of meaningful actions that range from spiritual to domestic, Pennsylvanian Julia Kasdorf evokes the imprint of her mother’s life on her own. As the poem closes, the speaker invites us to learn these actions of compassion.
What I Learned From My Mother
I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.
Reprinted from “Sleeping Preacher,” University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992, by permission of the publisher. First printed in “West Branch,” Vol. 30, 1992. Copyright (c) 1992 by Julia Kasdorf. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.