toys and barbies

First of all I’m in kind of a pessimistic mood because my windshield just cracked on route 128. I read the title toys and Barbie, and exactly as I assumed it was a dry essay that tried to make a doll conspiracy interesting. I was especially disturbed that the author tries to deduce a feminist position from a doll. It’s a toy, kids pretend they are older when they play with them, consequently the women have breasts because they are almost always visible, men don’t walk around with huge bulges trying to show them off. And they’re not sex dolls they aren’t meant to be naked they’re to play dress up on. Do we see male manikins with “junk” no but to we see female manikins with breasts? Yes. I bet if Barbie was lacking breasts this author would write a diatribe on how women are oppressed and cannot express their sexuality or some crap like that. Normally I am gracious with these essays, but this was a silly waste of time.

mother tongue

Amy Tan has a great perspective on writing. I mean essentially what is writing for.....to read, so why not write something that is going to be tangible for the reader. When I read a complex paper that waxes eloquence and uses verbose imagery I feel like I’m trying to decode something or like I’m putting a jigsaw puzzle together. That shouldn’t be the case. A clear description of what the writer is trying to say is much less likely to be misunderstood or mistaken for something else. So, that part I liked. But overall this is my least favorite story so far. I wasn’t emotionally involved in any of the characters and because of that the story was dry and hard to read. Because of that I learned that in my writing I need to attach the readers to the characters by creating an interesting story and I need to use common language in order to allow the reader to concentrate on the story instead of the words.

Shitty first drafts

Anne lamott is my hero. first because she is B.A. and second because she is no afraid of her faith. she throws God right in there with her. Another thing is she is not afraid to be real, or to tell it straight, and because of that i am learning from her methods of writing. After reading through this essay i saw that the reason why i loose a train of thought is because i'm focusing too much on grammar and spelling and sentence structure on that first "shitty" draft. but the next time i write an essay i am going to write everything that comes to mind. no matter how shitty.

My Fathers Suitcase

During the course of reading this essay i went through a couple stages of concentration. the first was an absent minded reading of a story i didn't care about. but as i continued to read the story started to apply to my life. my dad and what he must go through and i think somehow my writing improved because of it. the characters were simple and the plot was easy to follow. i just wish that there were some cooler things in the suitcase like TOP SECRET documents.