Writing and Creating

To be honest, when started this section of our class, I thought that study of myth was much easier at first. After all, everyone at some point in their life has heard one of these myths, specially when it comes to Greek mythology. When it came time for the group project I actually had fun, the section that I was reading was really interesting and I even recognized some of the information from previous classes. I also liked the fact that with reading these myths, we can actually learn different things from other cultures and different parts of the world. (I really did find some of the myths that we read to be fascinating!). However, I almost did have a mini heart attack when I found out that we had to create our own myth. Now, that was something that I absolutely knew nothing about! I did think about the project for a while and didn’t know where to start, but then I saw the other side of the project, the fact that I had total control of this creation. I could make the myth whatever I wanted to be, and that I think is the best. My attitude did change about the project and I really did have fun coming up with a myth and a story to go along with it. I loved having total control over the writing project, and from what I read on the webct written by others I could tell that most people loved this project as well.

Poetry!

There is no doubt in my mind that writing poetry and writing about poetry are two different things; however, I think that each of these tasks do help us with the other. I’m not much of a poetry writer, and I feel more comfortable writing about a poem and analyzing it, I actually think it’s interesting. A single word in a poem can have more than few meaning and it is up to us to figure out which one is the best. The same can be a problem when it comes to writing poetry, this time we have to be careful with the words that we choose, and hope that the reader understands the meaning the way that we intended for it to be. I honestly used to hate writing poetry, but I’m starting to warm up to it. Writing poetry is not a daunting task anymore and sometimes I even think it’s fun. This is the only time in writing when we can feel truly free, there is no restriction, we can use what ever words that we want, use our own format, and when it comes to punctuation we don’t have to worry about the poem being grammatically correct. The poem can be and mean whatever we want it to be. As a writer we have complete control of the final product and that is the best part. But I feel that when it comes to writing about poetry there are sometimes many restriction that we have to consider, we need to make sure that the poet is understood and we need to look at every word, every punctuation, and every mark. Taking the wrong meaning from just one word in a poem can mess up the whole thing and that can be very annoying. Now back to the top, I do think that both of these tasks help with the other, when writing poetry it helps us think about how each individual word can work differently in a poem, and how it can relate to other words in the same poem. This helps us when we’re writing about poetry, it gives a chance and helps us to look deeper into the meaning of a poem and its format.

"Endless Meaning of a Flower"

Wild fragrances, seductive.
Simple common subjects,
Art forms, that fit any mood
With endless meanings:
Friendship and Royalty
Kindness to Jealousy
Pride or Sincerity
Truth of Fidelity
Forgiveness is Beauty.

Simple, endless meanings of a flower.

The Other Side

As if it’s not bad enough being stuck
in an airport for four hours;
Now they can’t find my luggage.
“There has been a mixed up,
we can always ship them directly to you!”
Yeah-- like that’ll ever happen!
Don’t these people know I need my uniform by tomorrow?

Now I had to deal with what was to come.

Today, I’m going over 200 miles per hour,
Wearing my back and blue racing suit,
I hear them cheering, screaming;
The voice inside my head wont stop talking.
All I can do is tune them out,
My eyes on the black and white checkers flag;
Taking my last lap around the track.

Now back to reality!

Flying from one place to another,
Continent to continent;
From earth to the moon and back to earth.
Again.
Saving him, then her;
or that cat from the top of the tree.
I wonder if this will ever get boring?

Adventure, duty!

this is me

Hi everyone, my name is Ninatello Anahid Eskandari (yeah! try to spell that when your in the 5th grade, so everyone just calls me Nina, except my mom when she gets mad) and like all of you in class this is my last semester here at CSUN, and can’t wait for graduation. As far as any plans after that, well the credential or the masters program comes to mind, but I haven’t decided, yet; may be I should, since it’s only months away. To why I chose English as a major, I have few reasons: I’ve always wanted to teach and English has been my most favorite subject. I love reading anything from Jane Austen’s Emma to the Twilight books ( yes, I actually read all four of them). Seeing that I was never a science or a math person, being a bio/math teacher was out of the question. Besides I have had my fair share of bad teachers in high school; so I figure if I’m a good teacher, there hopefully will be one less of a terrible teacher that students have to deal with. I love the idea of being in a class full of students and having the opportunity of teaching them and helping them with the problems. I also think that it might be just a little easier to be a young teacher; honestly, I think students can relate more to a teacher who knows about myspace, rather than someone who doesn’t even know how to use a computer. When I was in high school, my teacher weren’t a big fan of technology and emailing the students; but I can clearly see that this has changed. I’m a volunteer T.A. for one of my old high school English teachers, and now she does everything online. Students get their homework online and they turn in papers they same way. Personally, I’m not comfortable with doing everything online; but, I see the change, and I better get used to it soon.
Then there is the other side; honestly I’m horrified of that first day on the job when a student, who is probably smarter than anyone I know, asks me a question that I don’t know the answer to. (what now? Do I tell them to go and google it for extra credit?) Surly I’m not the only one who is concerned with this, I’ll take any suggestions that you can think of.