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Original:

It’s been a while since I’ve heard such words used to describe my interior and exteriors. Most visitors on this side are silent, reflective; these are analytical and there are lots of them. I do not resent visitation, even if only because doing so is futile. But I am a development in and of myself, only an abstraction of human will with the tools of nature at their disposal. I act, I react, I will myself into a tame type of exhibit for their primordial senses. I exist as an example to this tiny collection, but my essence comes from clouds and oceans. I know what salt water tastes like; I know what it is like to rush down a cliff with all the force of physics behind me. I know chemicals; I am not unsoiled. I know it in collection; I know it as every raindrop knows the endless cycle of repetition that water follows. 

Nomilazation, a la Andrew Goatley:

Descriptions of interiors and exteriors are created.

Silence descends from past visitors;

analysis ascends from current ones.

No resentment of visitation from me, as resistance is futile.

Existence is a development of nature’s tools and human will.

Action, Reaction, I do.

For human primordial senses, willing action occurs in me.

Existence of me as example for them;

Existence of me for me originates in clouds and oceans.

Sat water tastes are known.

Chemicals are known, unsoiledness is not.

Knowledge exists in collection; knowledge exists in water’s endless cycle. 

This is my post that was due on Thursday.  I sprained my ankle this week and end up on crutches at the end of the week, so walking to my spot by Perry House became impossible.  Or, not impossible, but suddenly it involved a lot more energy on my part.  It became so much farther away even though the garden is still the exact same measured distance from my dorm. 

I live in Merion a very centrally located dorm which is a good part of its appeal to me.  But, when relegated to crutches, it seems a lot less appealing.  I remember walking from the health center back to Merion after being given the crutches and thinking that I would never make it back to my room.  That slightly inclined driveway by cartref became a mountain.  I was panting by the time I got to the road by Dalton.  My underarms were beginning to feel battered and bruised...later I would look to see deep red marks and splatters where I assume some of my veins had burst.  My good leg, my left leg, was burning and my arms were startng to shake from bearing so muc weight.  I had to pause and rest three or four times on my way back to my room.  This experience replicated itself everytime I had to go out that day...and all I kept thinking about was getting myself to Perry House to do this post.  I didn't get there, although I suppose I could have asked the Lantern van to take me there at night.  However, I'm not a fan of being in secluded out door spaces by myself at night.  I decided to cross that bridge when I have two good ankles on w

When I visited the pond behind Rhodes for the second time, I decided to bring along some company. My teammate Georgia and I had just finished a run and were waiting for a friend, so I thought it would be an appropriate time to visit my "spot". I explained my assignment to her, and why I had chosen this spot out of every other place on campus. "I think it's so beautiful", I told her when she asked. 

She replied with,"It's messy, but it's beautiful". I asked her what she meant by that, and she told me that, to her at least, the pond seemed a little out of place on campus. It was fenced off, and not maintained like the rest of the grounds, which is why she had called it messy. I thought about that for a moment, and then asked her what her hometown looked like in comparison to Bryn Mawr. She lives in the suburbs of Alabama, and explained that everything there was perfectly maintained; a place for everything, and everything in its place. I realized that where she was raised may have affected the way she perceieved my spot behind Rhodes. My hometown in Vermont is nothing like she had described hers to be, and I wondered if that was the reason why I had seen the pond from a different window of perspective. To me, there was beautiful organization in the reeds, the overgrown shrubs lining the fence, and the looming shadows of trees that hung over the water. I would have never have thought to classify it as a "mess". 

To be honest, it is easy for me to forget that a large piece of our conversation in class Thursday was based upon something that I had written (or more aptly, blubbered,) in my Web Paper.  In that paper, I spoke it like I saw it: through a lens of self-consciousness and doubt, and I called you all “a group of women who are clearly flourishing in this environment.” I don’t mean to sound callous when I say thank you for proving me wrong on that point. But you all did, and I am grateful. When your self-confidence is rock bottom, it’s easy to assume that everyone else is passing you by, standing on a higher level that you can’t even begin to see. After Thursday’s class and our lunch on Friday, it is clear to me now that that’s not necessarily the case. I commend the struggle that we’ve all undertaken – to understand ourselves as 360ers, as learners, as people – because I know that the struggle can be beneficial. Showing each other our cracks and admitting that we don’t have it all together is, in my opinion, something our group needed. Thank you for your honesty. Because, as many of you said during our read around, honesty is what we need to flourish here. 

For the second time, I returned to the Bryn Mawr Labyrinth to observe. I planned to devote myself to the surrounding itself. I wanted to record the vision, the feel, the smell and the sound. I brought so much curiosity with me when I went. I wanted to figure out if there was anything new? What was different as I went at a different time of the day? Any changes happened during the past seven days? However, as soon as I stayed for just a couple of minutes, I could not help thinking about the word "anthropocentric". This is a word that was accused by one of the writers we had read (I can't specify because I don't remember exactly). As I walked around the Labyrinth, sat on the bench, lay in the hammock, the instinct that - what I saw, felt, smelt, heard was really my own perception only - became stronger and stronger. Every time I moved, my experience was different. Even two places were only one meter apart, the fact that one was in the shade, the other was in the sun changed their property drastically. If there was a writing assignment that asks people to describe the lawn under their feet. One might say the grass was wet, it was true because the area was in the shade. The other person could say the grass was dry, which is no less true as well if the area was in the sun. In most cases, what is recorded is determined by the writer's stand point.

Original:

    Pinecones bloom on bare branches like impossible flowers. I don’t think they look real. I have no idea what makes me think so. Maybe it’s the hum of the electrical green box just outside the tree. Maybe I have just forgotten pinecones over the summer and replaced them in my mind with underwater grass beds. They now constitute a fake tree, apparently.

Rheomode:

    Blooming and flowering impossibly on branches, defying assumptions by existing as a pinecone, pineconing. Processing in the brain and opposing this vision. Knowing nothing about the causing. Humming of the perceiving to be green box invalidating visual clues. Forgetting pinecones and replacing with swimming grass and breathing of water by animals. Leading to confusing the seeing of pinecones during the happening. Changing the vision to being deceiving.

I drew this image while watching the rehersals of a circus dance troupe in the cloisters Sunday morning. At this partiular point, I sketched them singing Bread and Roses, a popular protest song of industrial workers at the turn of the last century. The tune also happens to be dilivered in a most enthusiastic manner en masse at one college's nighttime rituals. 

Yesterday was Moon Cake day (or Mid Autumn festival). Vietnam and China were the first countries to celebrate this day, on which people can see the full moon from the earth. Nowadays many other Asian countries also celebrate this festival. It is a day for moon cake, green tea and lanterns.

I visited the longue behind Rhoads South in the evening, after coming back from Haffner’s Mid Autumn festival, with a cup of hot tea and a piece of moon cake (grilled moon cake with lotus seed paste and salted egg yolk – my favourite!). The night was cold and I was lucky to have the cup of tea as a companion. I like the feeling when I hold the cup, take a sip and let the flow of warmth travel inside my body, in contrast with the cold outside. Thanks to the tea I could have been able to stand the night’s cold.

Doris Sommer’s reading was not the most accessible text. It was quite difficult for me to understand the implications that arise when secrets are used in texts to distance the reader and to understand her thinking around why authors, like Rigoberta, would choose to withhold information. But I will admit that, similar to thoughts I shared in class, my dislike for the focus of this reading dominated my thoughts and ultimately distracted me from what the author was trying to prove. So,  as I read,  I kept thinking, “Okay, so she used secrets in the book, why does her reasoning for doing that matter? What satisfaction will the reader and Sommer get by knowing? Who cares if we don’t know if her story is completely factual, why should that take away from the genocide? Hello! Remember the genocide?” Even as I write this post, I can see how my thoughts were  a bit close-minded.  Although I am reluctant to acknowledge that there is some value in knowing the answers to the questions raised about Riogberta’s book, I now feel—I can’t fully articulate it—why the urge to know is so strong.

How do we cite our peers on serendip?