Blogging Around

Lauren used the "Best of Week" prompt to talk about Mr. Allen's sharing of his indirect reciprocity experience. She talked about the possible reasons for this stranger's good mood and sense of giving, and chose the most likely option. She then talked about her hope to be able to exhibit a display of indirect reciprocity. Here is my comment:

Lauren! I loved hearing about indirect reciprocity too :]. And I definitely agree that the person who bought Mr. Allen's coffee was probably having a really good day, and it's fantastic that this person had the presence of mind to share their great mood with Mr. Allen! I feel that personally, I am either a really happy, jubilant person, or an extremely depressed and mad-at-the-world person. When I am a happy person, I feel like I am not good at channeling my good mood and I end up just being an overly exuberant creep, and when I am being a Debbie Downer, I am very effective at letting people know that I am grumpy. I get sullen and cranky and altogether unpleasant to be around. I hope that I will be able to take advantage of an opportunity to make somebody's day better, and hopefully they would pass it on, because this would make other people happy, and myself happy too!

Nick wrote about his poetry writing process and how at first it was difficult, but once he just let himself write it came easily to him and he looked forward to the revision process. Here is my comment:

Nick-

your post made me feel really bad about myself. Haha. Not your fault at all... but I just realized that I should take a leaf out of your book (that's an expression right? It doesn't make sense...) and stop being such a complainer about all the poetry. I think I have a complex where I don't like things I am bad at... and in my eyes, poetry is most definitely one of those things. I think after I got my first draft back and completed the revisions, I was happy with my poem- something I didn't think possible. Therefore, I was very bitter when it came to making more and more changes. Now I realize that I should take the comments and criticism as an opportunity- not an insult. Haven't I been telling myself that I am a bad poet? Yes, I have. So, I have no right to actually like my poetry right now! other people know more than I do and I should be grateful that they want to help me. So now I won't be so annoying anymore.

Love the word floetic, btw.

Metacognition: Poem

This whole poem process started with finding a "widowed image" to base it upon. I couldn't really think of a specific "image," but I came up with an idea that I think about very frequently, and I thought I could construct a decent poem out of it. This idea was the idea of infinity and vastness, and how much it scares me. When I started to make this poem, I thought it would be effective to portray a fearful scene going out, and not being able to reach a boundary, and then a comforting journey back in. My plan was to use form as content, and have the "out" stanzas be very simple, bleak, and without much detail. They were supposed to invoke a feeling of fear and coldness. My plan was then to have the "in" stanzas be much more detailed, and overall warmer. I was unsure of how the poem would turn out, and was grateful for the initial criticism. As the process went on, however, I felt like I had lost the ability to put my own thoughts into the poem, and I didn't get the sense that it was completely my poem to control anymore. I think I eventually stopped putting thought into how I wanted the poem to turn out, and put most of my thought into how I could effectively complete the revisions that were necessary in order to get an A. Poetry is definitely not my strong suit, but after the 1st revision I thought it had turned out pretty well. After the 2nd and 3rd revisions, I began to feel as though the poem wasn't exactly "me" anymore. I very much appreciate others editing my work, but if I wrote a poem again I would be interested in multiple points of view and less pressure to make changes.