Final Writing Seminar Portfolio

These two pieces I submitted for my final portfolio. The poem is already on here, but it's been significantly revised. The air conditioning essay was born while I was shivering in class.

Go inside a candle.

It is a quiet life.

I am silent, an observer.

I am smooth, cylindrical, and cream-colored.

My scent is citronella.

 

From the outside, I am still.

Inside, I am watching.

I am a tool of sorts, though a decorative one.

My purpose is to safely sustain light,

But I am used to make my surroundings soft and intimate.

 

I have seen celebrations of all kinds:

A child’s radiant smile as the birthday cake approaches,

Romantic couples at dinner,

A fiftieth wedding anniversary,

With the family gathered together.

 

I am used infrequently,

So each event is precious.

I await each one with anticipation,

Eager to enhance the mood

And play my small part in celebrating life’s joys.

Air-Conditioning Misuse

 It happens every spring. I can feel that summer is coming; I excitedly anticipate the approaching days of cut-offs and flip-flops, but every year my hopes are dashed on the first hot day. When it arrives, I don my sandals and head out to meet my friends for lunch. I cross the threshold of the restaurant, looking for my friends, and bam – there it is: the icy blast of air. Once again, the business owners have managed to put a damper on my summer. They have turned on their air-conditioning so powerfully that I am reduced to a scrunched-up ball of shivers and goose-bumps. I find myself wishing fervently for a sweater, of all things, on this glorious summer day. I have always wondered why schools and businesses insist on wasting their money on so much air-conditioning. For the betterment of both the owners and the patrons or students, air conditioning should be used more sparingly.

By turning down the air-conditioning, businesses and schools would significantly benefited financially. Think how much money could be saved if a college turned down the air-conditioning, even if only a few degrees, all over campus. That little bit of work that the air-conditioner need not do, all over campus, every day; they could really add up. The money they would save could be used during the heating season, so that the students and professors could be comfortable year-round. Or perhaps the money could be donated, used to update technology, or put towards an endowment fund. The possibilities are endless, and all from giving the hard-working air-conditioner a little well-deserved rest.

Another way to cut back on air-conditioning, aside from adjusting the master temperature control, is to include an “off” position on the dial of the personal units that are present in places like dorm rooms. This would give the students the option of simply opening the window for ventilation. The air-conditioning, instead of just being turned down, would be completely off, thus saving even more money for much more rewarding uses than maintaining the indoor temperature.

To me, it is perfectly clear that these public buildings have gone overboard with the air-conditioning. It seems that this conclusion is not so readily apparent to them. Perhaps these stores, restaurants, and schools waste so much money on temperature control because they are following the American trend of “the more the better,” leading them to adjust their thermostats as far down as they can while still staying in business. This philosophy is completely at odds with the idea of a happy medium. As many people as there are that dislike being overly warm, there are an equal number that dislikes bundling up in the summer. Thus my advice is to turn up the thermostat a little and save some money. It is not possible to please everyone, so it makes more sense to be consistent with the season, so that, for example, the patrons of a restaurant don’t have to dress for two seasons at once.

In the case of schools, there is another incentive to go easy on the air-conditioning. Studies have shown that students respond to instruction better when they are, among other things, free from distraction and are comfortable. From personal experience, I know this to be true. When I walk into a classroom that is so cold that I literally start to shiver, my concentration level on the lesson is significantly reduced. I become preoccupied with ways to get warm, or I become stiff with cold. I remember the first time I took the ACT, the classroom was absolutely freezing. I hunched over and tried to ignore how cold I was, but it just wasn’t working for me. By the time I got to the last section – Science – I couldn’t ignore the cold anymore, and performed horribly on that section. I ended up retaking the test, and the second time the test room was a comfortable temperature. I was able to concentrate more fully, and found it much easier to get through the last section. I improved my score simply by being free of such distractions as the air-conditioning situation.

Everyone has different temperature preferences. What is slightly chilly for me will be comfortable for another and hot for still another. The best way to handle the situation at college would be to give each classroom or dorm room control over the thermostat. If that is impossible, say at a store or restaurant, the temperature should at least be moderate. When every student unanimously agrees that it is freezing in their classroom, it means that money is being wasted and students aren’t getting the full benefit of their education, not to mention the fact that these public buildings are stubbornly refusing to allow me to put away my sweaters for the summer. The great thing about summer is the liberation from the layers of clothing that are required to spend time outside. Summer is a time of freedom, when I can run outside in my bare feet and a sundress. Imagine how nice it would be if I could wear a summer outfit all day without feeling cold. The power is in the hands of the store owners and the campuses: with the mere turn of a dial, summer could become a continuous state, money could be saved, and I could finally be warm.

Writing Seminar Pieces

In the writing seminar this week and last week, my favorite pieces were the creative ones, and will be the ones that I share, with brief explanations preceding. Please remember that these are mostly unpolished works.

On the first day, we wrote poems describing where we were from, or what or life was like back home:

Where I’m from,

Home is many places

 

Winding Dirt Roads in the woods,

The sand dune that seems to shrink every year,

Train whistles serenading me to sleep

Family gathered round the fireplace

This is my cabin home

 

Twenty skaters moving as one

Bleary-eyed at five am

Shivering as the coach yells, “again!”

Striving to create beauty from exhaustion

This is my skating home

 

Squabbling with my brother

Sharing with my sister

Pancakes for breakfast

And hugs every night

 

This is my family,

My home.

On Thursday the 30th, we wrote an ordinary narrative about a typical school day. Then we chose three places to add exploratory footnotes that went off on tangents. The third step was to add a footnote to one of the three footnotes. It was crazy, but very fun:

                                                                    My Daily Routine

During the school year in high school, my day was very predictable. At exactly 7am my alarm clock would ring. I would stagger into the bathroom, put in my contacts, and attempt to keep my eyes open. Then I would get dressed, beautify myself, make my bag lunch,[1] eat breakfast, brush my teeth, and head to school, always in that exact order.[2] Upon arrival I would stop at my locker to exchange coat for books and head to class.

            After school I would head straight to the Wendy’s parking lot where I met my carpool, and ride for an hour to the rink for practice.[3] The next two to five hours were spent with my synchronized skating team, struggling to forge twenty girls into one, completely synchronized being. Exhausted I would return home, shower, squeeze in some homework, and fall into bed, hoping to sleep long enough to thwart my alarm clock.

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[1] Brown paper bags and I have never gotten along. At my school, everyone used brown bags, but they were very unkind to my poor sandwich. There is no possible way to fit both my applesauce cup and my sandwich into the bag without ending up with a squashed and soggy mess.

[2] I established my routine freshman year, and it’s interesting that I was so dependent on it. If I ever went out of order, it felt weird, whereas later in the day I scorned unvarying routine as boring, unimaginative, and plodding. I tried to include variety in my day-to-day activities, but for some reason, the morning was the exception. Perhaps it is because I function at such a low level at that hour, so the routine enabled me to be productive while my mind remained in a zombie-like state.

·      When I was a child, I was able to bound out of bed, excited and ready for the day to come. As I have grown, I have become more and more reluctant to leave the comfort of my bed. Perhaps it is because my warm blankets are so much more enticing than Pre-Calc.

[3] That hour always seemed much longer than it actually was. Every day my teammate and her mom had something different to argue about. They yelled, insulted, interrupted, and refused to listen to each other. Those rides gave me a new appreciation for my own relationship with my mother, which is so much closer. We’ve always been able to talk to each other, and we both know how to argue respectively. 

On Friday the 31st we described what we could see out of an assigned window pane, then turned it into a poem:

Narrative:

             I am looking out into a courtyard. Mostly I see a building and patio floor, with a potted plant, a wound up hose attached to the wall, and part of a tree, in the middle. I see lots of straight, symmetrical lines – even the shadow forms a clear triangle on the wall. It is a very warm view – the building and patio are yellow and dusty red, and the sun is shining – everything is bright. It seems very alive and inviting until the tree is considered. There is almost no wind – it is very still, and the leaves have a scorched, parched look, as though longing for a long drink from the hose that is its companion. Over the top of the courtyard, I can see the tops of trees looking brilliantly green, vivid and sparkling with lofe, mocking the poor tree that has been alienated from its kind.

 Poem:

A Courtyard.

A potted plant and a wound-up hose.

Straight, symmetrical lines

The shadow a clear triangle on the wall.

 

A warm scene,

Yellow and dusty red.

The sun is shining in.

Everything is bright, alive –

 

Except the tree.

Scorched,

Parched,

Alone.

Longing for a drink,

Alienated from its kind.

 

Yesterday, Monday the 3rd, we took a field trip to the library in the morning. There we were given a library orientation speech, and then we were given a list of things we needed to find or record, including excerpts from the speech, the definition of plagairism, book titles, titles of encyclopedias, and more. then we listed them in any order to create a 'found' poem:

Metacrawler

LexisNexis

“I’m here to answer your research questions”

 

The Wall Street Journal

The Christian Science Monitor

Foreign Affairs

Vogue

“To use and pass off as one’s own”

 

Shakespeare’s Kitchen

The Starbucks Experience

The Value of a Dollar

“The password is ten zeroes”

 

Playground on the River

101 Ideas for a Rainy Day

The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales

Humorous Quotations

That afternoon, after break, we came back to find brown paper grocery bags on our desks. Inside was an object. We scattered, and our task was to describe the object in a poem without saying what it was, or letting anyone else see it. Afterwards we shared our poems and guessed what each other's objects were:

 

Come inside my life.

It is a quiet one.

I myself am silent.

I am smooth, cylindrical, and cream-colored.

My smell is reminiscent of bug-repellant.

 

From the outside, I am still.

Inside, I am waiting.

Waiting to be used.

I am a tool of sorts, though a decorative one.

My purpose is to safely sustain and contain light.

When used, my surroundings become soft and intimate.

 

I have seen celebrations of all kinds:

Birthdays, anniversaries, accomplishments.

I have seen nights only,

The end of an outdoor party.

Romantic couples,

Frustrated families when I am the only resource,

But mostly I have seen my cupboard,

Where I wait.

This afternoon, at the end of our day, we were each handed a jellybean while we closed our eyes. we were told to eat it without looking at it, and then to write about where eating it took us:

This jellybean, which is a very artificially grape flavor, takes me instantly to my grandparents’ house on Easter. I am eating jellybeans, waiting for the egg hunt to begin. My cousins and siblings and I wait impatiently in the kitchen, while Grandpa finishes hiding the eggs in the living room. I have never been a big fan of jellybeans. I only ate them on Easter, so there is a strong memory association. I remember getting a head start because I was the youngest, and I remember that he always hid them in the same places. After a few years, I knew to look in the potted plant and in the lamp where the light bulb would be.