final reflection rhetoric 260 fall semester 2010

As with most things I do that requires adhering to authority, I was initially hesitant with this class. I assumed it would be another writing class that would undermine my RAW TALENT. In reflection, I think the success I experienced in this class totally affirmed and solidified my decision to transfer schools. This course encompassed everything I wanted that I didn’t receive at SFSU. The course was challenging and at times I even felt like I was floundering to meet deadlines, which was exciting. I like to think I employed healthy levels of stress this semester, even if I did email you at odd hours of the evening claming to have had “a nervous breakdown”. To be honest sometimes I employ dramatics solely as material for my forthcoming novel / #1 bestseller. But that’s another story.

I was really impressed by your dedication and organization, not to mention how interested you seemed in our papers and progress in the course. I wanted to put as much time into writing as you did into grading. Your feedback was always impressive, thorough, and thought provoking. But I digress; I think this is supposed to be a reflection about me.

Deadlines used to be my arch nemesis and I could never really figure out how to finish a piece of writing once I had started it. I have total neuroses when it comes to submitting and showing people my work, but being able to practice my writing in mediums I wouldn’t normally take upon myself has given me more confidence to pursue "writing as a career". Not to mention I practiced flexibility in my writing skills to advance my pursuits and launch me into world wide fame.

Is it okay that this reflection is so colloquial? I feel like it should be okay. “Writing as conversation”.

Basically in my revisions I tried to make my language much more concrete and definitive. I wanted to sound like the supreme authority on the topics I was writing about. I think you’ll notice that I took your suggestions and removed a lot of vague/abstract sentences and replaced them with more concrete information. I’ll save the abstractions for my Gertrude Stein phase (crossing my fingers). As far as paper #4 goes, I feel like I should tell you I think it’s a miserable failure. I hope I didn’t come off as some psychotic lunatic. Definite heavy handedness when it came to political comments. It should be known that I am fairly apathetic when it comes to world affairs and politics. I only like reality television. Just kidding. Okay really though I think this reflection is far too casual but I am just going to “go for it” and consider it experimental non-fiction. Thanks for teaching such a good class. Really, it was awesome and I don’t think you could have done a better job. I would have liked to see more "heated class discussion" but that’s subjective. If I ever go into teaching I hope to employ your relational skills amongst other redeeming qualities. I was really impressed. And I am not easily impressed. In fact, I mostly hate everything.

So look for me in the New York Times Book Review or something, I’ll mention you in my extensive list of people to thank for my fame.

PEACE
SARA

you are dancing to soulja boy

you are not being ironic about it because you know the words and even though your stomach feels acidic like it’s burning a hole in you you keep jumping up and down and changing the tempo of your jumping/skipping in place to correlate with the beat of the song.

pretty boy swag pretty boy swag pretty boy swag

you are sitting on top of someone’s bed next to a pair of dirty underwear that are still injeans.looks like they evaporated out of their clothes, and you are laying next to them wondering where they went. people around you are drinking four loko out of cups. girl keeps talking about its offensive flavor which is funny at first but she abuses the phrase then falls out of a chair and onto the floor.

poem my 10 yr old sister wrote via facebook chat

i know dis is just out of the blue
but i stepped on dogpoo today and
brb

things i thought were funny at the mall today

the food court was fucked up

the shoe displays at macys were fucked up

best friend and i decided to buy matching slippers for each other and our other best friend, couldn't decide on a good style, then decided all slippers are bad

drank smoothies on a chaise lounge in cost plus world market

had a successful conversation* with person from high school who was working at victorias secret. said 'good sales' and 'great deals' ~5x

made best friend pose in front of nordstrom with a starbucks holiday cup so i could take a picture. got pissed when girls got in the frame, turned out we went to school with them. had a conversation full of laughter and only one failed joke.

successfully ignored someone by looking down at my cell phone seriously, very seriously.


*successful as in: no bad jokes were made, transitions were seameless, exit route well planned and executed. ("i'm going to go look at that underwear, nice chatting")

smoke weed every day

grande nonfat gingerbread latte

just imagined hitting chicken nuggets out of a tennis ball machine with a tennis racket

frvr

can you microwave a soup can? i feel like this may be the most ideal way to eat soup. i'm feeling sick and i wish i had four other laptops instead of four windows open on this single measly computer. i want to make comics of everyone i have ever known but i don't have enough pens or paper or time, really. homework is whatever life is whatever being outside is overrated.

i don't even know what this

is like really

i feel a lot of pressure writing things. i'd rather organize my desktop. i made a folder titled MEIN KAMPF and labeled it orange. i don't think there's anything in it except maybe a screenshot of a funny question from an online quiz. i'm not a history major or anything. i've been submitting things to places which seems really stupid. everything i am typing here seems stupid like some sort of 'life update' but if i stop addressing the stupidity of things i am sure they will become less stupid.

here is something i found while organizing my desktop. it's funny to me:

fictional characters from movies or television i would like to date based on personality, appearance, and mannerisms

josh from clueless

seth cohen from 'the oc'

nick andopolis from freaks and geeks

olsen twin artwork

"to the tune of 'touch my body' by mariah carey"

"don't judge me"

"it will be chill"

"srsly wtf"

"cocaine"

i hate everyone

"can i hit that"

"no"

"wait what"

two books i have read and four i haven't yet

honored guest by joy williams

© 2004

213 pages

i special ordered this book at modern times bookstore. i got it maybe two weeks after the initial transaction. i lent it to a friend who said it was too depressing to read. i think this reinforced my positive opinion of the book. i liked the first story a lot, 'honored guest'. this is probably a given. i like any story that has to do with mother-daughter relationships, cancer, or death. i like when characters are insulting and try to hurt each other with words. i hope this doesn't mean that i myself am insulting and like to hurt others with words. the first page had the line "like, you moron" which i thought was funny. another story i liked was 'substance'. a friend dies and leaves his posessions to his friends, and a woman named louise gets the dog. in the story each of the characters take turns having parties. it made me feel like i wanted more friends. this would bother me more if everyone didn't seem so depressed.

aliens of affection by padgett powell

© 1998

221 pages

a friend let me borrow this a long time ago. maybe in may of 2010. i'm not sure. it took me a long time to start reading it but he insisted i keep it. i'm glad he was not persistent about getting it back becuase when i got around to reading it i liked it a lot. one of my favorite stories was 'dump'. it seemed to be about finding love. he writes in a way that seems complicated, like it requires outlines. ("i shall eat this pork chop and wine. breakfast of chop and wine, blue wine pink chop, sweep the floor clean house. dust-free environment in which to begin breathing. down. wine and chop. chop. wine. purple.") in his author photo he is wearing an all-denim outfit. it seems like someone who wears all-denim rarely outlines. i also liked this line: "i want a girl impervious to harm, petty or grand."

mona minim and the smell of the sun by janet frame

© 1969

107 pages

i had heard a lot about janet frame from somebody that interned with me at 826 valencia. i found two of her books at community thrift and i thought the covers looked cool. the pages are very thick and the book generally has a good feeling to it, physically. this is a children's book about ants. it seems very sweet. i haven't gotten around to reading it yet but this is one sentence from a random page i just opened to that makes me look forward to reading more: "so they sat in the warm sitting room, sipping honey and combing their plaits and talking about what it would be like to have wings and fly, and the three things they wished for most in all the ant world, and before mona knew it she felt drowsy and barbara took her to her new bedroom and mona was asleep in almost no time and only once did she wake, to see her new aunt phyllis bending over her, and she didn't seem a fierce soldier any more, she was kind and gentle, pulling the pretty sunflower-petal coverlet over her where she lay in bed, to keep her warm all night."

owls do cry by janet frame

© 1961

167 pages

this cover is intruiging to me. the first page seems to talk in depth about nature which is averse to me, usually. most of the dialogue is presented in this format, sans quotation marks:

-and this is my dinner service from the mortons. and this is the teashower. isn't it lovely? i'm showing you all these because you say you are not coming to the wedding. i'm really having an evening to show off my presents. and look at all the handkerchiefs and salad servers.

she was overwhelmed and excited.

i like that, 'she was overwhelmed and excited'. when i bent back the pages of the book the binding broke a little and it seemed like the pages were being held together by some sort of tacky glue. makes me rescind my thoughts on the good physical feeling of the books. hope to read this soon but the margins are quite small so it might be hard.

black coffee blues by henry rollins

© 1992

141 pages

i bought this at the san francisco public library bookstore. there are maybe two poems in here, a list of '61 dreams 1986-1989' which is interesting to me. most of it seems like journal writing, which is cool. i like reading stories about women. i liked reading one part, where a girl is kissing a boy and a milk commercial comes on the television. the girl repeats what the girl in the commercial says ("ummm, yummy") and takes the boy's penis out of his pants. she talks into it like a microphone. the girl leaves because she's going to go see "that new ted bundy documentary". she says, "have you ever seen him, he is so hot. all my friends want to rip his clothes off. if any of them call here looking for me, tell them i am on my way, bye!"

museums & women and other stories

by john updike

© 1967

282 pages

i bought this at adobe books while waiting for a reading to start. i went alone and felt self-conscious so i looked through the shelves manically. i liked the title of this so i bought it. the girl who i gave my money to said, "did you come for the reading or did you just walk in". i told her i had come for the reading. i felt nervous that she was accusing me of something, like i wasn't an authentic person if i had just 'happened' to walk in. i always try to read john updike. i have maybe four of his books i haven't read yet. this postcard was inside of the book. maybe the girl put it there, i don't remember. the title of it is 'there is nothing wrong in this whole wide world'.

i woke up this morning, early morning. 5 am, my alarm clock said. i was laughing out loud. my dream was hilarious. funny things were happening. i thought, 'i should write this down, i won't remember tomorrow.' i didn't write it down, i don't remember.

i walked down the street yesterday and a man stopped me and said, "miss, do the lights look bright to you? or am i on drugs?"
i said i didn't know, that it wasn't that bright, that it was nighttime.

he said, "okay then, someone must have poisoned and drugged me."

he seemed calm and i felt like whatever his situation was it wasn't really 'that big of a deal'.

i asked a girl a question in class. she is a swimmer, or at least that is what her sweatshirt says, which she wears every day. she has a lot of different colored earrings in both of her ears and eats a breakfast burritos in class. i often look at people and think, 'you shouldn't be eating that'. she had to scoot closer to me to hear what i was asking because other people in class were talking loudly. she is a small girl so it surprised me when she turned to tell everybody in class to 'shut up'. i felt embarrassed, like maybe people thought i had told her to do that, or something. she wanted to high five me maybe twenty minutes after this happened, in relation to a question i asked the teacher i wasn't sure if i was right about. it's weird to me when people want to forge connections with you under circumstances where it feels like you will never sustain the connection.

i am sitting in the atrium of my school and everyone seems like they are working on schoolwork. they have highlighters. some are sleeping in tiny wooden chairs and i feel like i am not doing enough. in general. even the people sleeping are more productive than i am. but i have aspirations; i do. i think i do.

i want to see a movie this weekend, so there's that.

a play in three acts from crybaby on Vimeo.

asked my ex boyfriend if he thought i'd be famous one day

he said, "yeah, i think so."

what my dad said about a story i wrote

"Ohhh..... that one's almost like Miles Davis' music. It's all about the silence between the notes. Maybe only those of us who have been there can hear that silence. It makes the music what it is."

this is probably the nicest thing anybody will ever say to me

shitloads of coffee

sometimes i am out of control

craigslist missed connection poem

Wandering eye while reading Dostoyevsky at Food, Inc during lunch?

something to do

marina starbucks

Female Giants Fan on Bart

Short Blonde Hair, No Paint. Dios De Los Muerto Parade.

24Hrs VanNess

Grace (flight attendant for Virgin)

Cute Tall/Thin Asian Man in the Sunset

Gypsy.

what i did the last three halloweens

2008

i was a college freshman and really into drinking vodka. went as a 'cokewhore'. many people did not think i was dressed as anything and expressed concern for my bloody nose. i remember thinking 'i am the only person dressed up'. jumped out of a window at a party because the cops came.

2009

this was the year the bay bridge was down and BART was running all night. went to berkeley with five or so friends. partied at a co-op. seemed cool, had a great time. 'reckless abandon' comes to mind. pictures turned out good.

2010

it's a sunday night, so this halloween involves doing homework and reading things on the internet. probably going to sleep early. the night before i dressed as 'the antichrist' or something, and felt a lot of regret the next morning. like, i am 'actually' going to hell now.

anxieties re:

"if you want to check your email you can check it in the dean's office - when i report you to the dean - for checking your email"
"wait are you serious"
"very serious"

i had an awful nightmare last night i have never felt so frightened before, the dialogue preceding this sentence is not from the nightmare
i don't think

fictional characters from movies or television i can relate to based on personality, appearance, and mannerisms

aldys - never been kissed
leelee sobieski plays a nerdy, cynical, and secretly cool teen. i myself sometimes feel nerdy, cynical, and secretly cool. the only thing is i would never be a mathelete. unfortunately in movies 'smart' people are 'all around smart'. she probably reads a lot of tolstoy and can also do ANOVA tables in her sleep, or something. i wonder if she takes any prescription drugs.

lelaina pierce - reality bites
the instances i feel most like lelaina pierce are when she can't define irony in a job interview or when she spends a week smoking pot and hours on the phone with a psychic. i feel like i would do this. i do not feel like lelaina pierce when she 'can't handle' that her best friend is in love with her and has to choose between two fairly good-looking men, a seemingly endless struggle that ends with her choosing the one who's more literate.

laney boggs - she's all that
like myself, laney boggs is a motherless child that cares for her 'wacky' 'out-there' 'atypical' family, consisting of her dad and brother. the similarities end here as i do not paint and i am not a 'secret hottie' working an embarrassing yet endearing part-time job. i can't escape my stereotype or 'rise above' as laney did in the end (spoiler alert).

annie hall - annie hall
annie hall is ethereal and feminine but does not dress that way, an attribute i can loosely apply to myself. she’s totally neurotic but not as much as woody allen, which makes them probably the best couple in film history. she likes to smoke pot before sex and is a little wild, in a bookish way. also she is a really bad driver.

annette hargrove - cruel intentions
reese witherspoon in cruel intentions doesn't have much in common with me except maybe our haircuts, but i admire her prudishness and reslience. she wears minimal makeup. falls in love by playing 'hard to get' which seems like a good way to approach things in the 21st century.

lisa simpson: obviously

i ate two cups of cereal and i didn't even want it

dakota fanning is doing drugs in an ihop parking lot

In a car she rented from Avis just for the day, just for fun. She wanted a convertible but they gave her an SUV which is fine with her anyways because she is small and the car is large and it just makes sense, like order has been restored in the universe and things make more sense, cosmic galaxies and shit like that. “Shit like that” she mumbles, glancing in her rearview mirror. Dakota Fanning receives about forty text messages a day and sends two on average, on a good day. She is popular and elusive and has great skin, great fucking skin that she takes for granted because baby, oh baby you’ll only be young once and you’ll only have a few more good movies until you don’t, until you’re dying and dead and when you’re dead you’re really dead.

it could happen to you

Wake up. There’s a birthday party. The spiritual and physical presence of those you love are there, though you don’t always believe in spirits. You’re eating foods out of order. Margie feeds you cake. Ted brings out the crab soup. The cake feels stale and dry in your mouth. Other people come; teenagers, your brother’s friends. Someone brought a big black poodle to the birthday party and he begins to whine and pace about, pawing at people’s pants, panting. You grow stern. You would feel much better if everyone left. You grow irresolute but firm, then menacing and feverish. Teenage girls crowd your backyard, chain smoking cigarettes. They throw butts into the dirt. You inform them that you live in a non-smoking household. Teenage girls give you sass. You grab one girl by the hair. She’s black and you immediately consider that someone could interpret this as an act of racist violence. She grabs your ponytail and you struggle with each other’s hair while everybody watches. Go to bed. Hear people talking. Someone is looking for you and you hear him say that you really hurt that girl. Her dad is waiting for you outside your bedroom and hands you a hammer. She needed many more stitches than they thought, he said. Go upstairs. People are sitting around and haven’t gone to bed yet. Looking at the clock, you figure it’s 6 am. You pretend to hit someone in the head with the hammer but stop short, realizing it is in poor taste and adding feebly, “…just kidding.” A woman comes out of the kitchen wearing purple scrunchies in her hair. A man is holding her waist and dips her backwards. She puts her arm out for flair. She speaks with a lisp and grins. She has a face deep with wrinkles. You wonder who invited her.

BOOK REVIEW

THIS WAS A GOOD BOOK

take note

just when da caterpillar thought the world was over he turned in2 a butterfly and..other things happened

news

i'm so nuts

if there was a god he or she or it would be

livejournal and caffeine

dreams

1. get a chopper

2. ride thru america

boo hoo

i gained 400 pounds

feelings

wasabi

teen punx in luv

my wife and i met at a suicidal tendencies concert

i like always repeat myself like always

WHITE MALE HEGEMONY. OR: DEVOTED TO A HAIKU

i'm sorry you're obsessed with attention

it's very unbecoming

only some people matter