There's No "Bitch" In Biscuit!

The other day a classmate and I took the 25 minute journey from campus to KFC to feast on some fried goodness. After about five or six minutes of deliberation we ordered and drove up to the next window. Once we drove the 20 yards to the window we realized we forgot to order extra biscuits. Because the biscuits are probably the most delicious part of the meal, my fellow classmate decided that we needed to add more to our order. To our surprise the lady at the window refused to add biscuits to our order. At first we thought she was kidding, but kidding she was not! Just as we were about to pay and drive around one more time to order extra biscuits, she gave in and let us order four more.

The point I'm trying to make isn't that I really like biscuits; but that the smallest, effortless thing was, in this instance, frowned upon. I was not rude to this woman at all. There was no explanation for not wanting to help me. It really makes me think of society as a whole. People are becoming less and less helpful from generation to generation. Smiling at someone is no longer an act of kindness, but a look of mischief, and that in itself makes me kind of sad.

Too much does not work in this case

Several days after entering this class and being introduced to what blogging is, I had a conversation with another student about how much information should be disclosed to the reader of her blog. I put that conversation aside until I started reading Blood’s Chapter 7 titled Living Online where she discussed maintaining your privacy and others. I began to ask myself, how much is too much to disclose to your readers?

In the conversation, the student expressed how she doesn’t like talking about her life to people she doesn’t know. She does not want to disclose information about her life that could lead to an unsafe lifestyle. I know for this class, many participates will not disclose personal information such as an address or anything along those lines, but they may find themselves giving out small pieces of information without realizing it. This may include where you like to hang out on a regular basis or where you work.

Sometimes I have to catch myself and erase half of my entry due to the fact I disclosed too much about myself or the people I come in contact with. I want my readers to get to know them like I do, but I have come to realize it is too much information. So the next time you decide to publish a post, look through it and make sure you have not disclosed too much information for your sakes and the people you’re referencing on your blog.

Totally Might Be Crazy

My name is Tiffany Logan, and I am completely infatuated with the unexpected. I love to ignore expectations and visions and assumptions. I play football in high heels. I wear pink clothes and pedicured toes and argue with the boys about why I believe Tony Romo is one of the best young quarterbacks in the NFL. I teach a children’s Sunday School class with my two tattoos and eight piercings. It is my personal goal to shock and amaze people I meet. I enjoy the surprised looks and the raised eyebrows. I love to write because it allows me to express the many opinions I have. I’m a bit of a control freak, and my therapist thinks I need an anxiety screening. Ha. She should talk to me while I’m driving. My mother thinks I’m unusual, but I remind her it’s genetic.

I am fascinated by people.

I love to sit and watch people when they don’t know it. I read the stories narrated by their expressions. The comedies, the tragedies, the sappy love stories. I always have been a sucker for sappy love stories. And then I wonder. What kind of story am I telling? Am I on Oprah’s “to read” list? Or am I the type of reading that people pick up only when they are suffering from insomnia…

Thou Shalt Not Assume

"So, how are you doing?"

Dr. Harrison’s question to the class today about the ‘blogging experience’ had me feeling a tad sheepish.

Not that I haven’t been doing my work; I’ve been dutifully blogging away for the past couple of weeks: researching, surfing the Web, commenting away, revising, rewriting, and reading, reading, reading, ad nauseam.

I guess I never anticipated that I’d like it so much.

Is that odd? It feels strange to me, I’ll admit it. There’s this little part of my brain that keeps protesting: ‘It’s classwork! You shouldn’t like to do classwork! You’re going to turn into that nerdy kid with the pocket protector who reads their textbooks for fun!"

Sorry brain, it’s not like I expected to like it. It just happened. Somewhere between my mental freak-out on the first day of class (Four blog posts a week?!) and right now: POOF. I like blogging.

Remember that adage on assumption?

Yeah. Me too.

Serves me right, I guess. That’s the last time I’ll judge the class by its syllabus. It’s another friendly little reminder from the gods that you never really know how you’ll like something until you actually do it, because your mind, in these cases, is usually an idiot.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some textbooks to peruse.

Behind the Times

The review we read for class struck me as an exercise in redundancy, a tired (but well-written) recap of Blogging and Internet culture 101. It's more of an explanation of how blogs distinguish themselves from print (hyperlinks, irreverence and neologisms, oh my!), and how they function in both the online and offline realm. As I read it, I thought it to be a mere reemphasis of Blood's already outdated weblog manual - perhaps obsolete in the blogger-savvy '08 craze, but informative in the scholastic analysis of the craft. Apparently the point was to recognize a largely ignorant demographic, a group of supposedly informed intellectuals who read The New York Review but fail to recognize the word "blog" as more than infantile jabberwocky. And so my painstaking scrutiny of the article fell by the wayside as Harrison's assignment in "ha ha" mockery invalidated its first half. Contemporaneously informative or not, Boxer found some very funny bytes of online humor, particularly this little number:

[A blogger called El Guapo] writes as a twenty-nine-year-old Guatemalan-American living in Washington, D.C., about such things as helping an oversexed friend shop for bulk condoms at Costco and fending off a gang of muggers with the phrase "Yo Quiero Taco Bell." I desperately wanted it to be memoir.

I'm sorry, but this is just hilarious.

Another Magic Moment

Thank you, Anna for posting that video. I am not interested in reading any of Stephen King’s novels but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect him as a writer. If you don’t read for fun then how are you going to be a good writer? You cannot. For one, you need to know what has already been written about. You don’t want to be accused of stealing someone else’s story. Second, reading is what gives me motivation. Reading a good line in a novel just creates a spark in me. It’s powerful.

There are an infinite amount of story lines out there and millions more waiting to be written. Motivation has to come from somewhere and I know I wanted to be a writer from the authors I’ve read my whole life.

People like Stephen King are our teachers. They teach us by giving us examples of good writing. Everyone has their own opinions on what is “good writing” though so it can be hard. But when you are done reading a book and set it down on the table and think about the book all day long then I think it’s safe to say you enjoyed the book. And your favorite authors are those in which you should try to impress while writing your own books/short stories/novels/etc.

Here's the internets, you deserve them.

Boxer says:

I'm pretty sure that bloggers have fouler mouths, tougher hides, and cooler thesauruses than most of the people I've read in print.

The list of terms that followed that quote: FTW! (for the win). I've been so concerned with proofreading my blog and hoping it sounds nine-tenths intelligent at best (one-third at worst) that I suppress the way I occasionally talk on Facebook and even IRL (in real life). Everything in moderation, of course. After reading Boxer's commentary on what makes blogs unique I might add some splash to mine. If I'm feeling generous, maybe I'll link to an explanation unlike those hardcore bloggers that expect the reader to magically know every esoteric reference.

The Magic Moment

Listen to this of Stephen King! :)

Hyperlink 101

I am really starting to enjoy hyperlinks thanks to our last presentation! I’m sure you all know what you are doing, but I broke it down just in case anybody missed anything…hyperlink creation 101:
Locate your target website and then Copy the URL into your Clipboard (right click and copy or Ctrl + C). Then you can start your blog. When your ready type in the words to which you want users to click on to take them to this site such as, Florida’s highlights. Then highlight the text (hold down left mouse button and highlight the word or use Ctrl + Shift + Arrow Keys) and select the Insert Hyperlink Button from the Blog Menu. Now you can paste the URL of the site into the box that appears (http://myfloridawebsite) and hit save. Your text will now be underlined or highlighted. This is an easy breezy way to create a hyperlink.

Apostrophe: what a big word!

I found this video. It contains the same truth about the possessive singular Strunk and White tackle in their "little book." Now, my point is not to confuse you here, but to prove how it is compelling to get your language "right."

Punctuation Rehab

A recently posted comment on my blog alerted me to a "stylistic disharmony" in my writing, one that involves apostrophe and comma placement. In the past I proudly considered myself to be an intuitively correct writer, relying on the "looks right and sounds right" rule of thumb which, as I now acknowledge, can be a huge problem. My first real glance at Strunk and White blew my mind. "Typographical usage dictates that the comma be inside quotation marks, though logically it often seems not to belong there," I read with horror and embarassment. My writer's logic was flawed, and had been so for years, during which I automatically placed commas outside of quotation marks. What a blow to my confidence, yet what a boon for my future! I now keep the little silver book beside my writing desk at all times, atop Webster and Fowler.

Summing it all Up

Usually when I’m writing I find that I have no problem with conclusions. In fact the concluding statement is typically my favorite element of writing. I love being able to succinctly sum up my thoughts, receiving “oohs” and “aahs” from my audience (well at least my mom). However, lately I’ve been stunted. Not in my formal writing, but on my blog. I don’t know if I feel that I haven’t fully developed whatever I’m trying to say, and thus have a problem reaching a conclusion, or if it’s more of an issue of “wow, I’m already at 253 words.” Whatever the issue at heart is, I find myself wondering how necessary are conclusions when blogging? Is there a need to sum up a 100 word blurb, or should I assume my audience is capable of doing this on their own? As a rule, I try to offer some closure to my lengthier posts, but sometimes it feels tinged with freshman writing class style, and I wonder should’ve I just left it alone? Ah, the concluding statement, the perfect phraseology even eludes me now.

I Hope Not To Say Hopefully

I understand why hopefully could be misconstrued into with any luck or maybe this will work out. I don’t like maybe or hopefully anyway, I want to make sure it is whatever it is. Although I say hopefully quit a bit, it is rather annoying and I never noticed it. I suppose it was a good thing, to realize that I don’t want to say it anymore. There are a number of ways to say it without actually saying it such as… optimistically, expectantly, with anticipation and the list goes on. So, now that we established to not hope. That’ll do it for me, no more hope… that is professionally on paper.

My War

Thought I would share this blog entitled " My War" which I used to read quite a bit.

It basically chronicles the exploits of an American soldier in Iraq in 2004. Hilarity and sadness ensue throughout as Buzzell fails the drug test to get into the army and is given a detox solution by his recruiter. Lots of interesting comments on wartime policy and the state of things in general.

"About me: I am a 11B Infantry soldier in the United States Army, currently in Mosul Iraq. Our mission: to locate, capture and kill all non compliant forces here in Iraq. So far we've done pretty damn good. I've been here for about 8 months now, and i have no idea how much longer i'm going to be here. My whole outlook on everything has changed since being here, and i've probably aged a great deal over here." -Colby Buzzell

The misrepresentation of representation

The primaries this election cycle have helped illuminate some of the eclectic methods American Politics uses to pick candidates. Straw polls, caucuses, individual delegations and disqualified delegations are all being discussed and examined. Or rather, they are being criticized and argued. The “electoral college vs. one-man-one-vote” argument has been raging since the 2000 election almost without pause.

While every method has its die hard supporters and detractors, I find it perturbing that most ‘discussions’ are about the flaws in each method as opposed to what the goals of each method are, and why. Instead of hearing about the electoral college as a way to protect state rights, we only hear how it changed a presidential election in 2000. If the electoral college is so flawed, do we need to redraw Senate seats also? Instead of asking why the DNC disqualified Florida and Michigan delegates, we complain that Hillary will not get the delegation votes she now deserves.

We are so intent on injustice, we are forgetting to ask ‘why’. The reason ‘why’ is so important is because to fix a flexible problem (like American political methods) we need to know what we want and why the current system exists, not just what we do not like.

OT: Valentine Angst

The Valentine's Day Massacre approacheth like a deck of cards, and red hearts play the part of arrows from an ancient firing squad. Eros looses a volley of misandry into the hordes of dumbfounded men who must surprise, woo, and romance or be shunned for a brief eternity. Women are very demanding when it comes to this faux holiday, and threaten to unleash their scorn upon he who doesn't satisfy, which is frustrating for us guys who know that Valentine's Day is more about profiteering rituals than love-making. Oh sure, it's a day for couples to show their appreciation for one another, but when affection is measured quantitatively, guys begin to sweat. I'm fairly certain there are successful Valentine's Days every year, wrought of spellbinding sunset dinners on the waterfront and teary-eyed "thank you"'s as a box opens to reveal something shiny inside. Most men breathe a sigh of relief before falling asleep that night. I, on the other hand, have resigned myself to failure. A post-Valentine's Day hiatus is unavoidable in my relationship. I don't sigh of relief until it is back to normal, and then I can go back to dreading next year's massacre.

I'm not saying Cupid fires blindly, he just has bad aim, and an arrow in the skull doesn't feel nearly as good as one in the heart. Come to think of it, February turns both into torture. I'd rather play Spades.

Let's Start a Fight

Words used only to impress the readers are a misfortune to phony writers; but when "big words" belong to the particular style of a writer, they are not a curse. They are enhancing, indeed.

Did you feel Derrida's words are empty? Certainly not because that is the style of Derrida: scary, disturbing, sometimes, but in harmony with its text and context.
-Anna's comment to a previous post

I'm so glad to see someone stand up for a good vocabulary, so much so that I am willing to pollute the main blog with a comment. There is a difference between padding your writing to simulate intellect and enhancing your writing with good words. And yes, "simulate" is a better choice than "fake" and "intellect" is a better choice than "smartness." Different words, even if recorded as synonyms in a thesaurus, contain certain sonic and connotative nuances that distinguish them from others. If we all wrote strictly for clarity, the entire literary realm would be a pretty little rendition of Orwell's Newspeak, and that's double-plus-ungood. At the very least, you can alleviate the agitation of reading about the Pharmakon by admitting, albeit begrudgingly, that you are perhaps learning a new word of two. And this is nothing to be mad about.

Quintessence

I think I got it, now. I think I got the meaning of Dr. Harrison's words (see my previuos post). Even though in my blog I never use "I" and I try to be as professional as I can possibly be, writing my last two posts helped me to find or, even better, to confirm the quintessence of whom I am.

Words and language are what I love. The humanity they evoke is what I live for.

Spare me the Headache

After reading a translation of Derrida's "Plato's Pharmacy" I found myself squinting my eyes and rubbing my temples. Derrida had given me a headache, and not because the topic was boring, or because I was being forced to read it for literary theory class; no these things were not the cause of the pounding in my brain. It was the words. I could barely go six words without having to look up a definition on dictionary.com, and it was tiring. Now, while I admire Derrida's sophistication, and understand why he needed to use this painstaking jargon, I do not understand why some of the blogs I've encountered feel the need to create a post, which contains at least twenty SAT vocabulary terms. I believe writing to be most effective when it isn’t padded with gaudy language. Let’s say you’re writing about socks, and hey that's great. I know you may feel compelled to tell me there is an aperture in the sock, but what’s so wrong with the word hole? It’s direct, and it gives me an automatic image of a holey sock in my mind. The use of aperture here simply makes me think that you are trying to sound smart, and that perhaps you are using big words as a crutch for weak argumentation and/or writing. I’m not suggesting that people “dumb down” their writing, but please next time you feel compelled to use the word of the day, spare us and put it in your dissertation.

O.k. I admit it. I dread having to write each and every blog. I stress about what to write. Is it too short or too long? Does my topic seem lame? It doesn't matter if the idea has been percolating for weeks of five minutes. I panic. Nothing I write is as good as it sounds in my head. Then I dread the next blogs even more. In short, it seems the more I write, the less I enjoy it. It has zapped all the fun out of writing just knowing I have to do it. I miss the old days when I was writing as a break between tasks on the neverending list of assignments. Now it's on the list- a lot. Is anyone else feeling creatively dead? What do you do about it?