12/12

     The keys to writing are: be in a comfortable location in which you can concentrate, avoiding too comfortable places, find an argument that invigorates you, and get your ideas on paper immediately.

     Being in a great location, like Ron Koertge states, is a great idea. One must find a place that fits the person. Also, picking places that are too comfortable can hazard a problem. For example, I avoid writing at places in which people are playing loud videos and chatting. But complete silence, working on my bed, makes me fall asleep no matter what surface I lean against, convincing myself that as long as I am vaguely uncomfortable that I will be fine. That is a bad idea. Personally, I write best in a quiet place that I fill with droning, repetitive music that is away from large, persuasive, comfortable cushions.
     Next finding the argument is the trick. If you don't care, your paper won't, and your teacher won't either. So, essentially: not caring=not caring, definitely=s not caring. The end. But trying to care a little to put time into putting thought into how to change the topic around to care a little is worth a lot. Being angry is actually best to storm your thoughts on paper and then edit. Editing is easy, it's the ominous blank page and the word count number is what gets you down. So be mad America; or just Prof. Lay's class.
     Last point ties in with argument. Just get your ideas down on paper. Just do it. No one could tell you what you are thinking, and you are thinking right? So force your frozen-from-not-moving fingers to haphazard a few words. Just like in (forgive me) stupid Christmas movies- just put one foot in front of the other and soon you'll be walking through the door with a paper in hand. Now doesn't that feel better?

11/12

The four-letter word projects are writing. Writing is anything that communicates an argument and these projects have definitely gotten their points across through images. Also, a visual production can be set up like a paper with an introductory image or two, followed by images that once connected, can make an argument. The main difference is that arguments made by images usually need more images or text to be understood. If you only saw a woman walking in one photo in a project, you would not understand the argument. But if you saw a woman walking alone and then later with a group, the message would become clearer but even more images would help. Writing does not convey meaning as quickly and effectively as images. Images do not have to be translated and usually one glance at a picture provides exceedingly more information than glancing at a page does. Also one has to concentrate more while reading to receive the full impact of the meaning and a mental image while one can generally watch a TV show and understand what is happening even if one zones out for a few minutes.

10/12

       Rodney Jones is arguing in the poem, Hubris at Zunzal, that once something is said, or a thought floats out and is put to words, it is almost impossible to get it back. He likens the thought or thing said to a tasty drink in a coconut. He throws it out to sea, sees its impact on the waves, and cannot retrieve it.
       It is only after Rodney loses the drink that he realizes the sweetness of it. This argues that human nature is focused on trying to get what we don't have. We only want what our neighbor has, and therefore attempting to "keep up with the Jones." Or we want what we just lost. A toy to a child is not half so precious as when it breaks. It is in that moment that the child realizes that it can never be repaired or played with again and its value increases dramatically. This relates to poets and their words. Words are commonplace and ordinary until they are set in a pattern and sent off to the world to accept and enjoy. Hence, "then the idea I was not finished, then the act of reaching down with the idea I would get it back."

9/12

I do really consider that I will have an audience for the text that I am wearing. I am very careful to make sure that I do not offend anyone by what I wear or represent and I also usually know what I am wearing. In junior high, I wore a m&m t-shirt and everyone called it out and I was confused all day. Then I realized that the t-shirt wasn't directed at me alone but to who ever I am near. They day you wear the text is when you make the decision instead of when you buy it. My dad is a teacher who has a wicked sense of humor so some t-shirts he buys but cannot wear it out in public for fear that a student will see it. When I use twitter, I only anticipate my readership is you (Prof. Lay) because you are the only one who cares and that matters on twitter for me. The texts we wear and tweed succeed at making meaning because it gives the argument about who we are. These are as limited as the crayon responses because they both have limitations. For example, putting text under the armpit on a shirt is useless.

6/12

The twitter bird's answer to "Who are they talking to?" is no one and everyone. They are not directing their tweets/ thoughts to any particular location but to anyone who wants to listen/ follow them, therefore the world. I do not wonder who my audience is when I post on twitter because I know it is you. I do not tweet except for this class because I feel that no one is listening and even if they did, it would not affect me at all because my tweet will be forgotten as soon as another tweet is posted (which is all the time). I do feel differently about my audience on online writing environment because that is Facebook. This medium I use to message my friends and find out how they are doing, not the world. So I really don't have a online audience relationship because I just use it for information and an easier way to text. I imagine if I do tweet that the people who are reading are really bored people who are spending their lives reading tweets like mine. By my previous statement, I also doubt the viability of twitter as a valuable tool. The purpose of microblogging is to see how many people one can affect in the most arbitrary way possible.

5/12

Zadie Smith rejects the claim that a president with a two-sided voice might be a good one with the argument for poets. The difference between the poet and president is that while the current president (Obama) might have two voices and duality, poets embody many voices and personas. Therefore the poets surpass the president through the use of imagination. Smith states, "[The republic of imagination] is the only land of perfect freedom. Presidents, as a breed, tend to dismiss this land, thinking it has nothing to teach them. If this new president turns out to be different, then writers will count their blessings..." (193) While great presidents can be good by seeing two sides of an issue, poets can see all angles and so would make a better president.

4/12

1. Zadie Smith in Speaking in Tongues mentions a Reggae bar and exclaims, "But wait: all the way uptown? A crazy reggae bar? For a minute I hesitated, becasue I was at a lovely party having a lovely time. Or was that it?"(194) Why does the author spend so much time focusing on the Reggae bar?

2. "It never occurred to me that I was leaving the London district of Willesden for Cambridge. I thought I was adding Cambridge to Willesden, this new way of talking to that old way. Adding a new kind of knowledge to a different kind that I already had" (179). Is it possible to keep both sides of your identity without alteration or shame?

3. "By the end of his experiment, Professor Higgins has make his Eliza an awkward, in-between thing, neither flower girl nor lady, with one voice lost and another gained, at the steep price of evertything she was and everything she knows" (181). Why couldn't Eliza just be a high class lady in a flower shop like she planned the whole movie?

4. "If you go (metaphorically speaking down the British class scale, you've gone from cockney to "mockney," and can expect a public tarring and feathering; to go the other way is to perform an unforgivable act of class betrayal"(180). Why is accents so important in Britain?

5. "But I haven't described Dream City. I'll try to. It is a place of many voices, where the unified singular self is an illusion. Naturally, Obama was born there. So was I. When your personal multiplicity is printed on your face, in an almost too obviously thematic manner, in your DNA, in your hair, and in the neither this nor that beige of your skin- well, anyone can see you come from Dream City" (184). Does seeming two-sided ensure that you are from Dream City? Do you inherit it? What happens if you are one-sided but look two?

6. "He talking down to white people- how curious it sounds the other way round!" (189) Why does the author's race mean so much to her?