Yada Yada Yada. Lullaby and Good Night, Folks!!

I have a fairly wide range of interests. I study as much as I can, particularly: physics, astronomy, and meteorology; visual art, all sorts of theater, performing and composing music; subjects relating to psychology, anthropology, other people stuff; sports and outdoor related subjects; foreign languages- currently French, German, and Spanish (in order of my proficiency level in each); and of course, English! Obviously I don’t always have time for all of the above, so there is a good deal of shuffling involved.
I will be declaring as an English Literature major in the spring. I enjoy English because it is a complex system and so much fun to play around with. Painting my thoughts for other people is one of my favorite things. Also, finding the patterns from language to language, the formulas in the grammar and word structure, all the linguistic patterns and pronunciations, fascinates me.

I grew up and went to school in Aspen, Colorado. I know the stereotype of Aspen is a resort where just EVERYONE is wealthy…but most of the permanent residents are actually somewhere in the middle-class range, and we have a slight hippie/granola/wilderness tinge to our culture. I am a mountain girl to the core and there is little I like better than being outdoors, away from the sounds of cities and human endeavors. The high mountains, snow fields…anywhere nature is untouched, where people are one with nature rather than attempting to dominate it…that is where I feel at home. I love the Roaring Fork Valley (where Aspen is), and I have been skiing both alpine and cross-country since I was two-and-a-half years old.

My interests span quite a lot: I enjoy most athletic activities and love to sweat; love working with my hands, whether building or working in a garden or cooking; and enjoy all of the arts. One of my more unusual interests is my adoration for Indy Car racing.

Feedback can be tricky, given that we creative beings are so protective of our ideas. The best feedback, in my opinion, consists of open suggestions for improvement on things like structure. One would hope that we don’t have boring inspirations. Bad feedback comes from someone trying to criticize or make suggestions in a field they are untrained in, and underestimating the intelligence of others. I once had a middle school teacher who was convinced that the fact that he was an adult and we in his class were children made it necessary for him to talk down and condescend to us. Or, for example: when a professor with a science degree but no English degree criticizes the writing technique of a student that has had only positive feedback from English professors for their technique, that can be a bit grating.

Possibly my greatest inspiration is Robert Frost. His perspective was so unique, and so implicitly appreciative of such unconventional things that I cannot help but be awed every time I read his work. One of my favorite poems of his is My November Guest. I also enjoy Robert Herrick and John Donne, and of course, Shakespeare.

I believe with conviction in the idea that if you write with great emotion, your reader will read with great emotion. Passion attaches itself to poetry and comes out in the reading. Poetry that is implicit and chock-full of puzzles is fabulous too; I love the simple semantic games in Theodore Geisel’s and Ogden Nash’s works. Though she writes prose, J.K. Rowling is one of my favorite writers because of her ability to write in a common, simple tone while filling her books with all sorts of hidden intricacies and details- allowing readers to go through the books again and again, discovering something new each time. I am, so to speak, a "Potter-head". (I find Harry the character somewhat aggravating, despite my fondness for the series.)

I have taken creative writing classes before, and can unintentionally be a bit obstinate, having difficulty with someone else assigning me a prompt from which to write. However, I figure that one way to prove that I can write as well as I would like to think I can is by learning to write structured poetry- just to say I can. Essentially, I am taking Techniques of Poetry to absorb more knowledge from which to subconsciously draw in the future.

This is a fairly dry ‘blog post’, I know…blah, blah, blah, I think this, I think that…it will get less stiff in the future.