Painting a picture with words

As I was reading through the posts to make enough comments and such to not lose 5% of my grade by not being involved enough it occurred to me the difficulty of writing fiction. There is an extremely thin line dividing good from bad. A writer must describe enough to help people build images in their minds of what is going on, while not boring the readers with too much detail. I have friends that have stopped reading books because their is too much of nothing happening. The great depth of description can stop many readers today. Our world is very now and due in large part to the large media we have people do not use our imaginations as much as we used to. I think this maybe one of the reasons why graphic novels, a.k.a comic books, are getting more attention. While I being a comic fan have always looked at this form with respect and I feel now that as it gets some it maybe for the wrong reasons.

Happiness

I just wanted to write something on the blog about this wonderful sunny day. I notice that people around me are more active, dress differently and even behave differently on sunny days including myself to some degree. People sit out on the lawn in front of the library, walk outside, eat outside and even smile more when the sun is out. While i love knowing that it is sunny outside and it does make me happy, i don't think that the weather should determine a persons happiness. Its all in your attitude about life.
An example of this was last week when Orem was hit with the biggest snow storm i had ever seen in my life. All my friends were complaining about the snow, probably because they had to drive in it and were not happy just because of snow. While i do not like snow i found in this particular example that you can find good out of bad things. It wasn't cold that day and actually the snow was beautiful to me. It made walking outside brighter and i told my friends so. I was happy that day. Have any of you experienced something like this?? do you agree with me??

Presentations - Room Change

Because our room is so small and cramped, and because it is difficult to set up a projector in that limited space, we are going to be giving our class presentations in the library. On Friday, we will be meeting in the library, room 206, NOT in PE 102. Please make a note of this and be a few minutes early. If you are presenting and have not spoken to me about what you need, please let me know right away.

Thank you, and I will see you on Friday in the library.

A change of heart

Earlier on in the semester I remember someone making a post on the blog. I don't remember who, so please forgive me. But, the post said something along the lines of how this person had recently enjoyed reading and writing since this class has begun.

I am not one who has ever really enjoyed reading. That goes the same for writing. I have always dreaded "papers" and especially "research papers." It is interesting to me how throughout this semester I have enjoyed the reading we have done and also the writing. There it is, I said it... I have somewhat enjoyed it!

I believe the reason for this is because this is the first English class I have had where the focus has been in developing my thoughts and writing a paper that is enjoyable to read. The english class I took prior to this one focused on one thing and one thing only: grammar. I know grammar is important in writing, but really, like Dr. Westover says, it doesn't matter how good your grammar is if no one wants to read your paper because it doesn't say anything interesting.

Anyway, basically this class has given CPR to a desire to write that was on its last heartbeat. Any one else concur? (I don't know how to spell concur.)

Conferences

As a reminder, we are not having class on Monday or Wednesday this week. I am conferencing with students individually in my office Monday-Wednesday. Here are the times I will be available:

Monday: 10-1
Tuesday: 10-3
Wednesday: 9-1

Also, if you were not in class on Friday, you need to sign up for a presentation time. The presentations begin on Friday. If you don't come by my office and sign up, you will be assigned a time. There is one remaining slot available for Friday. The rest of the open slots are on Monday, April 27th during our final exam time.

Thanks, and I will see you very soon.

I almost pee'd my pants laughing

I got this hilarious story today and thought that the blog would be an ideal place to share this. Enjoy!

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis .

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,00 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for
now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America 's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the
MoviPrep.

You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times
when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom,
spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing
occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand.

There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate. 'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said.

And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very
mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me a nd asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.


ABOUT THE WRITER:

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald. On the subject of Colonoscopies...

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

What power has love but forgiveness?
In other words
by its intervention
what has been done
can be undone.
What good is it otherwise?

-William Carlos Williams

"Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"