Whose on First

When I run with my roommate she tells me I am active but not athletic. This isn't the stab it would appear to an outside observer but her way of telling me I have some level of talent. I have gone my whole life not being athletic. Athleticism is society's golden child. In elementary school the fastest boy gets all the girls, in middle school the football player hands off his letter jacket to a wispy blond, and in high school colleges offer the athletes thousands of dollars to play for them. It makes sense that athletic ability would affect self -worth, it isn't currently a contingency of self -worth according to a study by Ohio State University the contingencies are familial support, competition, appearance, God's love, academic competition, virtue and morals, and approval from others.
I spent a good part of high school playing the part of the athlete. I wasn't cool enough to play soccer and didn't grow up with basketball so I decided to try softball. They were the underdog sports team so I felt no pressure entering the fold late. I bought my first softball glove when I was 16 and caught my first pop fly later that day. I played on the JV team and was the third worse. It is easy to tell in softball who is the best because it is literally written in list format called batting order. In the higher up ball games batting order is more strategic but at our level it was this is how good you are. Look see, it calls to us, you are actually the worst. I was to my relief only the third worst. I never once made contact with the ball when up to bat but once the ball hit me so I got on base. That is how I passed the two girls below me, they didn't have the good fortune of possessing a large surface area for the ball to bang against. It seemed poor compensation for continually towering over the boys in my grade but it was something.
I was fine that my team was quite honestly pathetic, winning one game a season didn't bother me, in fact I found it charming how much effort we kept putting in. Team underdog was okay but self underdog was not. I didn't feel adorable when I swung and missed and missed and missed. I felt large and gawky when at the plate.  My mom came to one game she brought my grandma. They sat in navy blue collapsible chairs and gossiped throughout the entire game pausing briefly to watch me strike out. I would practice on the weekend. My friend who tried out for the team with me (she played capture on varsity and I promised her I wasn't bitter) would play imaginary games with me. We would laugh as we we tried to remember which figment occupied which base as we batted for them. I played for the JV softball team three years. I had the heart and the effort but those things must be more alluring from the outside.

Kindness comes with Practice

Masquerade was Mennonite's (student lingo for Lancaster Mennonite High School, teachers and administrators preferred LMH) attempt to give us homecoming. They couldn't officially sponsor short dresses, dancing, and inter-sex mingling so instead we got costume party, barn, and bobbing for apples. Mr. Evans awarded prizes to each costume, since declaring one winner was not in true Mennonite fashion. My group got "most expensive" which feels like a fake award, who wants to win "most expensive" what a disappointing adverb.
We had all adorned prom dresses from out mothers closets and neighbors dress up bins. Jackie was the only one of our in-group of strong females with a boyfriend he wore a tux and we were the Bachelor. It was a show I neither supported nor had actually seen but it was a costume that eight girls and one guy could participate in together and in high school every ones greatest concern was being included so we were all willing to settle in order to avoid heartache.
These eight girls, I don't think junior year we were ready to be women no matter what our biological clock was telling us, were extensions of my self. We had the self confident communication and responses of one body. If I told Beks something I knew I could pick up the conversation with Maria. The information we passed around was not gossip but a courtesy. While this dynamic was accepted by all eight of us it didn't create an open invitation to others. Meghan had transferred to our school that year, she had been subject to hearsay of our adventures through Jackie who went to her church and was excited to make new friends. We all liked Meghan but it wasn't as simple as liking her because we were all in a place were our own thought processes and over thinking was the end all.
Assumption was that everyone would come to my house after Masquerade because my house was home base. As we filtered out after the event was over, I saw Meghan trotting self-consciously behind my gang of gigglers. I asked her to join us over at my house. I don't think I was being kind because I asked without thinking, it was a reflex not a conscious act of empathy. Meghan came and joined happily but warily as my friends laughed at jokes we all knew were supposed to be funny and interacted comfortably with my parents and brother. She didn't speak much but ate the grilled cheeses we made at midnight and didn't complain about sitting on the cold tile of the kitchen when the saggy couches and trow pillows were just a room over. She pulled me aside at 12:30 and told me her mom was on the way to pick her up. She had forgotten she had a swim meet the next morning and decided she should get as much sleep as possible. Meghan slipped out without anyone really taking notice.
I don't think I was wrong to invite her but, perhaps, I was ignorant to. Supporting the out-group in reality isn't as easy as making a statement at a basketball game or in a study.

Playing Piano

Child's pose was when I fell to the floor exhaustion and defiance turning my bones to cartilage. They bent with only the slight resistance of my outer ear. I would bury my face into the white carpet wary to avoid the gunky stain which could have been spilled hot chocolate but also might have been mud.I would whine long throaty hums that paralleled the ringing noises of the piano that lead me to this spectacle. Deep Breathes honey my mom would say, the honey standing as more of a formality than a term of endearment. My fits did not spark in her maternal passion. My piano regiment dictated I practice for at least 45 minutes a day. My mother was one to pick in chose her battles so as long as I practiced for 20 minutes everyone considered it a win. Often, however I ended up in child's pose--arms stretched above head, knees bent, spine lengthened, vertebrae stacked, face smooshed into floor.
Milena and Kate and Laura would come to my recitals. I would wear a unnaturally silky dress and play variations of twinkle, "Happy Farmer," and "A Short Story." Afterwards we all eat strawberry shortcake and are careful not to drop any red sauce on the carpet.

Writing Prompt- March 11: In group/out group

Hello Grace,

I know you were never impressed by the fact that I ran, jogged, moved, what have you. I know it was your thing. I am aware I never quite fit the club, I did try though. When I asked you to run with me I was excited to have this shared interest with you, runners are definitely an exclusive group. There is a difference between people who run and runners. Runners, like you, are allowed to wear the shirts that say "Irun" or "Runners High" they can post articles on facebook about how to spot a runner (standing looking pissed at a crosswalk while cars pass instead of jogging in place) specifics I would never intrinsically know as somehow you did. My body isn't made to run, it bangs and bounds and flops, but I run anyway because I like the idea that my body is the one thing in this world that I have control over so if I tell it to run it has to. That's not why you run. I wish I could say here why you do but I don't   know and that's why I haven't yet been invited to be part of your club. If I knew I would work towards that thought process because even though I have my reasons now I want the shared reason so I can join cross-country or track instead of running alone in the evenings. I ran every morning in high school  and you knew. Maybe that was the problem, I talked about it, runners aren't supposed to do that because it is such an internal spiritual matter or something, I am hypothesizing here. I sometimes run with my roommate, she is one of the only people I feel comfortable running with. She is on both track and cross-country but she isn't in the club. Even without being a member I can tell. She runs for company and scholarships. The external rewards that marathoner would scoff at. You have run multiple half marathons and I am so proud. I want to do one someday I don't know if i'll tell you. You would be really supportive but it would make me feel fake.

Love,
ELizabeth

Once More to the Lake
E.B. White

Quality of Voice? The voice talks on the lazy feel of fishing but with a darker undertone, a sense of foreboding urgency. “As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.” The sentence preceding that one uses words such as “vitals” and wince” strong intense words.

What are some of the specific words or phrases that bring this essay into focus for you?  I looked at the boy, who was silently watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes watching. I felt dizzy and didn’t know which rod I was at the end of.” The greater theme of the essay comes through here as the author grapples with how fleeting he is how nature continues and people continue even though he won’t. Time is seemingly endless for nature as he assumes it should for himself though it is no longer him as a child that walks beside him but a new child.

Where does this writer create images and or scenes? “In the shallows, the dark, water-soaked sticks and twigs smooth and old, were undulating in clusters on the bottom against the clean ribbed sand, and the track of the mussel was plain.” The nature centric piece allows White ample opportunity to paint slow specific imagery.

Where does this writer “tell?” “Everywhere we went I had trouble making out which was I, the one walking at my side, the one walking in my pants.”

What kinds of sentence variety, phrasing, etc. add to the quality of this piece? There are many long descriptive sentences that make the piece seem to stretch out. “We all got ringworm from some kittens and had to rub Pond’s extract on our arms and legs night and morning, and my father rolled over in a canoe with all his clothes on; but outside…”

Questions:

Was the detail created by returning to the location or by sheer memory?

There are several instances that you incorporate statements in parenthesis, how and why did you choose to place those comments in parentheses, when the whole essay was your commentary?

My mom can list the name and year of every city that has ever hosted the olympics. She watches religiously and unloads the years of Mennonite patriotism aversion into fearfully intense support. The Winter Olympics are the favorite because iceskating- pairs, singles, and dance. She was always disappointed that I would never watch with quite the level of passion she would but my brother filled that gap. He would stay up until midnight with her watching Sasha Cohen leap and twirl. "I just watch because I like seeing them fall," he has admitted to me. My mother's support is based not just on quality of performance but on what she observes as happiness. This year Javier Fernadez, ice skater, won her affection. His moves were good not great but he displayed unabashed joy about skating.

How to recognize an underdog
1. Possibly born on the "wrong side of the tracks"
2. They have created themselves through shear force of will
3. They are not lucky
4. They are passionate about what they do

Extended Essay New Beginning

Elizabeth Derstine

Ann Hostter

Creative Nonfiction

We never quite know how our parents died. Phoebe sometimes wants to start the story while her parents are still alive and trial through their death but that never interests Iona and me much. It wasn’t that Phoebe’s detailed back stories of her huddled unnoticed in the closet while her parents are stabbed in their sleep scares us. I had seen the torture machine in Princess Bride, I had memorized “remember remember the 5^th of November the gunpowder treason and plot” for my British second grade teacher, I know that evil exists. But, the exposition focuses too much on our parents and the point of our imaginary games is not that they are gone but that we are still here.

During recess a smattering of students play “the ground is lava” on the jungle gym, a gaggle of girls crack the acorns that fall from the great big tree in the center of the macadam and set the soft insides in a pile for squirrels, and our teacher referees several games of four square because they could get out of hand. Iona, Phoebe and I play orphans-- normally orphaned cats. We press into a corner of the court yard, sheltered by the brick walls of the school building, and crawl around on all fours, gravel sticking to our bare knees as our colorful stretchy shorts inching up our midriffs. As we crawl we talk out our story, which always follows a similar plot line—are parents are dead and we were trying to survive on our own. Sometimes a man adopts us but he always turns out to have sinister motives (such as feeding us to his shark or forcing us to clean for him using our cat fur as mops) so we run away and learn how to live by nothing but our own wits.

None of us had read Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Harry Potter, or Jane Eyre but we already knew that orphans were awarded main character. “When orphans succeed against all odds, their success ultimately becomes ours. We can look to orphans and say, ‘you see, there is hope for all of us if even this orphan child can overcome obstacles and succeed (Kimball 559).”  Since the orphan is the epitome of loneliness in literature it is through their own virtue and self- motivation that they overcome the obstacles they do.

***

Let’s say you and I are walking down a city street when a woman approaches you with a handful of ten dollar bills. She tells you that you can keep some of the money as long as you offer some to me and I accept it. The amount you offer me is up to you but if I don’t accept what you offer, then neither of us gets to keep any of the money.  When you offer me a 60-40 split, $60 for you $40 for me, we would both walk away richer than we had been but I feel a strong sense of unfairness. I refuse and the woman walks away with the money.

This scenario, also called the Ultimatum game, is an economic experiment. It led to the discovery of inequity aversion. Even primates demonstrate something resembling inequity aversion. Researchers experimented with brown capuchin monkeys. They would ask the trained monkeys to perform certain tasks and the monkeys, after observing a companion of similar social rank receive a juicy grape for performing the same task, would become uncooperative if offered a cucumber.

                               

David Housman – fairness and equity research

The Hazing of Swans

Suzanne Paola

Tell it Slant

Quality of Voice? “The boys found both self-preservation and swan- watching equally unworthy.” The voice is’nt lacking humor but even in sections such as this there is a certain scholarly quality.

What are some of the specific words or phrases that bring this essay into focus for you?  “I can imagine that we would seem strange, fetishistic to that age, crowding in whale watching trawlers to chase orcas and whatever, blackening out eyes with binoculars.” This drew to mind for me the way people travel in order to see certain animals and natural happenings in the wild and through that process, travel, pollution, are eliminating them.

Where does this writer create images and or scenes? “When swans walk it’s like seeing a piece of your grandmother’s ceramic collection rise and waddle.”

Where does this writer “tell?” “if time fluctuated just a little, these babies, scrunched and out of it, might wear trumpeter swan-skin onesies, be rubbed with ambergris.” This is more of a thought but in it she is telling how she views the fluidity of time and change.

What kinds of sentence variety, phrasing, etc. add to the quality of this piece? Towards the end she includes a scene with dialogue which gives the piece energy. The inclusion of the conversation in a paper heavy on description and fact kept it lively.

Questions:

Was it ever discovered why only some birds in family groups were dying if they all fed together?

What separate threads did you actively create when writing this piece?

A Braided Heart: Shaping the Lyric Essay
Brenda Miller
Tell it Slant

This essay beyond being about the braided form was a "how to" guide in itself. The braid that wound through the piece felt very obvious in an instructional way.

Quality of Voice? “and his email reply said (in a voice so much like the rabbis of my youth! Slightly contemptuous, a little annoyed…) that the Sabbath bread…” This phrase really shows the style of voice the author uses. The parentheses, exclamation point, and ellipses, I think all lead to a very laid back, causal interpretation of her writing.

What are some of the specific words or phrases that bring this essay into focus for you? “the fragmentation, however, allowed me—almost forced me – not to approach the essay head-on but to search for a more circuitous way into the essay.” I also thought her advice on focusing on the silences, the caesuras was descriptive of the essay itself.

Where does this writer create images and or scenes? “ You take the sticky dough in your hands and knead, folding the dough toward you, then pushing away with the heel of your hand, turning and repeating, working and working your entire body—your legs, your abdomen, your strong heart.”

Where does this writer “tell?” “I love the fact their separate parts intersecting, creating the illusion of wholeness but with the oh-so-pleasurable texture of separation.”

What kinds of sentence variety, phrasing, etc. add to the quality of this piece? “Bread had always been a miracle. As has poetry, and language itself, this tremendous urge to communicate.” The incredibly informal attitude of the piece opens it up to creative sentence structure such as beginning with “and”.

Questions:

How obvious to like your thread to be?

How does using or not using headings for different sections effect a piece?

Happiness is divided into three segments pre--activity, activity, and post-activity.

ANTICIPATION: One third of the enjoyment reaped from a certain situation is anticipation. Looking forward to an event is exciting, playing around with the possibilities in your mind awards possibilities hard to glean in reality. Especially if it is a first. There is a power in firsts. I haven't ever kissed anyone and people tell it me it won’t be as a good as I imagine it to me. But that’s the thing, until I have it will be, and right now, in my mind, there are freaking fireworks

ACTUALITY: This is the part people focus on-- the doing. I am bad at planning ahead. On a Thursday I have trouble making plans for Friday, I feel I am at the time in my life that I can truly let the chips fall where they may. I am responsible to no one but me. Due to that, I chose to live as much in the moment as I can. "No Obstacles" is a game my friends and I play. We go outside pick a direction and walk that way for as long as feasibly possible. And we push "feasibly" past its dictionary definition. We shoulder each other over fences, we climb up than down the only tree in a 30 feet vicinity, we trip through streams.

RETROSPECTION: Laughter happens after the fact. It is reminiscing that side stitches and cackles come in. Rosy retrospection my AP Psych teacher called it. I love those who can tell a compelling story, I have a friend whose stories crackle with passion and even the ones that involve negative experiences cause her to sparkle. She told us about the time a dog she was pet sitting felt the call of the wild and trapped her in the bathroom slamming itself against the door over and over again. It caused shivers to run down my arms even as she laughed and laughed describing in too specific humorous detail how the dog would wind up before leaping at the door. Reliving an event can shift it into something more exciting or desirable then it ever had the capability of being in the present. The world takes on a glossy finish.

Three Spheres
Lauren Slater
Creative NonFiction Journal

Quality of Voice? The voice is very reminiscent of a journal entry, very informal and at times meandering. “Of all the hundreds of hospitals in Massachusetts, why did it have to be that one?” I can see this in a journal with the word “that” written all in capitals and underlined several times.

What are some of the specific words or phrases that bring this essay into focus for you? “ I am now a psychologist who, over the years, has learned to give up her Indian print sundresses and bulky smocks for tailored skirts, who carries a black Coach leather briefcase.” The amount of importance placed on appearance when grouping people is acknowledged by Slater. Because she now appears in control she is given the respect people reserve for those who have everything together. Slater’s piece attacks this way of viewing things.

Where does this writer create images and or scenes? “our house swells with raw and echoing sounds, with crashing crescendos and wails that shiver up inside mu skin, lodging there a fear…” “the way night looked as it fell behind the bars and the stars were sliced into even segments.”

Where does this writer “tell?” “Sometimes I wish time stayed solid, in separable chunks as distinct as the sound of the ticking clock on my mantle right now.” “Wound’s, I think, are never confined to a single skin.”

What kinds of sentence variety, phrasing, etc. add to the quality of this piece? “Safe again. Trapped again. Safe again. Trapped aga—“ “ I am standing on the other side of that door—the wrong, I mean this right, side of the door—and I ring the buzzer.” Lines such as these add to the immediacy of the piece.

Questions:

How did she achieve such a easy blending of past, present, and processing?

Where was she career-wise was she when this piece was published? Did she feel exposed? 

Love Letters
Megan Foss
Creative Nonfiction Journal

The first time Foss used "mighta" I was taken aback and intrigued by the linguistic choice. The story is compelling through her use of tension. The line "I never mailed a single one," was chilling in its simplicity at upsetting the status quo from the get go. Foss leads her reader through the story as she slowly reveals who she is. The story itself is part of the story, which creates even more tension. As a reader I was drawn into how she got to the place where she was writing this piece. She creates a camaraderie with the reader when she mentions pieces written for her English teachers as though she expects the reader to have already read them and understand there purpose.

The final section, section 3, was very powerful. My initial feelings of the piece were explained to me, as Foss explained how everything is purposeful. the way she weaves the words together is a expression of where she came from and a blending of lives that society is determined to keep separate and uncomfortable at blending "language was the biggest con of all," Foss says, it is the way one says something not the content that she felt was being considered. "I think I understand that to accept that the drug-addicted hooker that I was could have possessed intelligence and critical thinking somehow speaks to a societal failure as well as my own."

Questions
What is her current attitude on the power of language? Thoughts as a published author?
Does she see her style transforming as she does or is she attached to the blending of languages?

A Possible Beginning 

.Let’s say you and I are walking down a city street when a woman approaches you with a handful of ten dollar bills. She tells you that you can keep some of the money as long as you offer some to me and I accept it. The amount you offer me is up to you but if I don’t accept what you offer, then neither of us gets to keep any of the money.  When you offer me a 60-40 spilt I feel a strong sense of unfairness, so I refuse. The woman walks away with the money.

This scenario, also called the Ultimatum game, is an economic experiment. It led to the discovers of inequity aversion. Even primates demonstrate something resembling inequity aversion. Researchers experimented with brown capuchin monkeys. They would ask the trained monkeys to perform certain tasks and the monkeys, after observing a companion of similar social rank receive a juicy grape for  performing the same task, would become uncooperative if offered a cucumber.