Post on "Relatable"

When reading this, my first thought was how much I disagreed with this teacher's statements on the subject of the word "relatable". I love the word relatable, and I really love using it because it is a much better way to describe something that you can relate to than just saying "I can relate to that". I think that there is a point to how relatable a piece of writing can be before you feel like you are just reading about your own life, and that is definitely a problem if it is. However a piece, whether fiction or nonfiction, needs to grab the reader's understanding on some level, and writing about things that relate to the readers lives as well does a great job of doing that. Our culture does overuse the word in everyday life and on social media, I will agree with that, but if used correctly in a mature academic setting I don't see any problem with writing something that the reader can relate to or using the word to describe and discuss.

Post About Solnit.

When I read "The Faraway Nearby", I thought that the metaphor behind the apricots is a good example of our inconsistency. According to the apricots in the book, we change over time, even when we cannot see ourselves that anything has changed. We age, we learn, and we sometimes become entirely different people over time, often when least expected. Like Solnit's mother's Alzheimer's, which could not  be anticipated at first, the disease changed her mother as a person entirely. Day by day nothing had really changed, but back over weeks or months, it is apparent that everything has changed, much like the apricots. First, they are picked fresh off of the tree, then they could follow a few different paths, like us with our paths in life. The fruit could get set on a kitchen counter, being forgotten and rotting within a week or two. Or, they could be canned and stored in mason jars, lasting for a year or more before they begin to expire and eventually turn into a pungent liquor. This is how our lives go, different choices leading us down different paths, determining our fate in a way that we can often not predict.

Short description of who I plan to write about.

This is in a way, the beginnings of my essay. For my essay, I plan to interview Vicki Butcher, who was the advisor of Kappa Phi last year and lives in Athens. This is a description of her from my point of view, before I interview her.

Vicki is a person who reminds me a lot of my grandmother. She is patient, kind, and loving toward all of her Kappa Phi girls. Maybe that's why we call her "mom", because she cares about us as if she were the mother of our whole group. Vicki is somewhat short, wears glasses, and dyes her short hair a shade of brown. She lives in Athens, but I don't think that she has always lived here her whole life. I know that she has kids. I forget their names, but she talks about them all the time. I remember every week at chapter meetings she would sit quietly in the corner of the room in what we all called "Vicki's chair", which was an old rocking chair that was painted black with gold detail. She would just watch the meetings, just smiling and keeping to herself as us students discuss details of our service projects ad socials. I really only knew her for one semester before Michelle, our new advisor, took over. However, even though I only knew her for a short time, I was sad just like the other girls when she announced to us that she was retiring. She comes back every now and again to see how we are doing, and Michelle is a wonderful advisor too, but all of us miss "mom". 

It is very obvious that I need to gather more information and perfect this... a lot.

Review of Gary Smith piece.

This one was much better than the last, no crazy ranting review here! I must say I actually kinda liked the bitter-sweetness of this essay, with Takes Enemy's basketball fame to hitting rock bottom to rising up again was certainly more uplifting than the piece about cannibalism. I also enjoyed how the author makes a contrast between the past and the modern age of the Crow tribe, as well as his explanations of the expectations that are present for those in that community. I do think though, that while basketball is certainly a central theme here, I think that Smith relied a little too much on this one aspect to tell a story that was much bigger.

Response to the Piers Paul Read Piece

Okay, okay, okay. This piece I am just not okay with. Just visualizing this cannibalism stuff in my head in all of that detail was flat out disgusting. To be quite honest, I couldn't even finish reading it. I tried, I really did, but I just got too queasy at the thought about 4 pages in and I just couldn't do it! I do have to appreciate the author's very detailed descriptions that paint a very vivid picture, so he did his job well in that department because believe me, the picture in my head was VERY vivid. It is really gritty non sugar-coated facts, and honestly I think that is what bothered me the most, knowing that it actually happened and knowing all of the details of it. I also must give the writer props for being able to write about it without being too disturbed, that would take some talent. Overall, Alicia's review here says that out of all of the survival stories that I have read, this one was not the best, I mean, I couldn't even finish it and the whole thing was about cannibalism. Maybe I just couldn't see the deeper meaning because I was so grossed out, I don't know.  1 out of 5 stars.

Short response to "the Night Trucks"

I have to say that I can relate to "The Night Trucks", and that once again, it makes me think of my youth spent at my grandparent's farm, and how one particular memory comes to mind about the same sort of subject. A lot of things that we have read in this class makes me think of those days! My family's farm is not as large of scale of a farm as Kent Meyers' was, with our main emphasis being soybeans and corn, not so much livestock. But, we did have some, mostly consisting of cattle, swine, and a few chickens, just enough for the family and to occasionally sell meat to a few local friends. When I was about eight or nine years old, there was this one little piggy that I really loved. It was the runt of a litter of pigs born on Christmas day one year, with a black and white saddle back pattern and a long scar running down its back, and I named it Holly since it was born on Christmas. The spring and summer of that year I watched her grow up, finally catching up to the size of the rest, but still keeping her gentle nature, being especially nice and patient for a pig. I was the only one who could feed her, mostly since the other pigs would get to it all first since she was so passive. So, every day, I would take her out of the pen and give her her own scoop of food. But then, quite some time later, My uncle Scott came in with the routine bucket: the bucket filled with cheap beer and sliced bananas. I knew what that meant; it meant that the pigs, including Holly, were going to be fattened up to be sold or slaughtered. As a little kid, I was devastated. Holly was my friend, as weird as that sounds. I took care of her ever since she was born, and the day I saw them loaded into that rickety brown livestock trailer, I cried and sat in the house, unable to watch them drive my piggy away.

Mini Essay Inspired by "Street Haunting"

Old books have always fascinated me. They look interesting, with their yellowed pages and often frayed and faded binding. They even smell good to me, for if literature had a smell, that would be it. I remember going through my grandma’s attic as a kid, looking at all of these old books. I don’t remember the titles of any of them off the top of my head, none were any that I had ever heard of, but what I do remember and still have today is my desire to read each and every one of them. I want to unlock magical worlds trapped between the pages of those tattered and ignored volumes, worlds that my friends will most likely never enter unless they come across some old books too. This is why I love old books.