Spelling test

Matt's forehead crinkled into rows as uneven as the ones in his small garden spot behind the house. His eyes wandered from the lined notebook page on the table in front of him to the red barn-shaped bird feeder beyond the kitchen window. "Warble," his mother said, glancing at the teacher's book as she clinked clean silverware into the drawer. Outside a flash of colour swooped down to the perch in front of the miniature white painted doors. The black and red bird opened his tiny mouth, releasing a repeating melody into the warm morning breeze. "Warble," his mother intoned again. "And don't forget to write a sentence using the wo--" Her sentence broke off as she turned to the table. "Matt, please pay attention. I want to finish your spelling test before we have to go do errands in town. Please. Warble. It's your second last word." Matt sighed and looked back at his paper, his previous eight spelling words carved in heavy pencil lines after the numbers 1-9. "OK, OK," Matt groaned. Bending over the page, his tongue poked out in concentration as he wrote.
warbul    The black and red bird warbuled loudly.

*Once again inspired by captcha :)

Umbrellas

I'm not a big fan of umbrellas. Actually I'm an unfan of them. It just seems ridiculous to me to wake up on a rainy day and go through all the hassle of finding your umbrella, opening it all up just to run a couple steps to your car, then shaking off the water droplets and folding the umbrella up again to drive to your class and start the whole process all over again. I tend to take the wear-a-jacket/sweatshirt-with-a-hood approach. It's so much simpler. I'm guessing my dislike of using umbrellas probably comes from the bother they present. It also might come from the fact that at home the only people to use umbrellas are tourists therefore the use of umbrellas is generally frowned upon. Of course B.C. doesn't get the drenching rain that Tennessee does, but even here I've resisted the trend to buy an umbrella even during the most rainiest of rainy weather. I've done well for my first two and a half years here and I think I just might be able to hold out another semester.

Now that I've got that off my chest, are you ready for my made-up word of the day? Here it is: Confo. Jonathan and I were discussing Southern's school/department Web site's and how bad they are in general. Then I said, "Well except for the SJ&C Web site. Ours has a lot of good confo." This word, of course, is a combination of content and info, but somehow came out as confo. I decided I liked the word, and so now all of you can use it, too. Feel free to teach your friends this new word. I won't even make you pay royalties! (*Please understand: I realize that the SJ&C's Web site is not the only Southern one containing good confo. I know there are several others, but I just can't recall any right now.)

Mastering words

Here is the concluding blog post that was inspired by last Tuesday's (Sept. 15) discussion in Creative Writing class...

Topic 2: Becoming a master
In high school whenever I started learning a new piece, my violin teacher always reminded me that I had to learn the correct notes, the right rhythm and the ever-changing dynamics as they were written in the score before I could take the song and change it around to make it my own. I had to know the piece so well, so completely, that I could play the entire thing exactly as the music indicated. Then, and only then, could I take that music I knew so well and start changing it - holding certain notes for longer than they were supposed to be held, playing with roboto and adding my own feeling and expression - to make it my own.

Last week in Creative Writing, Janelle mentioned something similar in class about how before a person can become a master at poetry (s)he has to follow all the guidelines and obey all the rules. She was using that idea in the context of poetry, but, as I explained above, I understand the concept better in the context of music.

I wonder if I'll ever get to the master stage in my writing. Will a time ever come where I can break a rule or two here or there? Will the rest of my writing be so solid, so unmistakably perfect, that I can tweak a word, a spelling, a punctuation mark, to make the writing 100 percent my own? All I can do is try to make the switch in my brain from music to writing. Wish me luck.

Notes vs. Words

Back in my early years of high school I had a brief aspiration to become a composer. Of course, that was before I started music theory. Soon after beginning theory lessons I realized I wasn't a very good theory student. While I reluctantly followed the traditional rules of music, I felt constantly cramped and constricted by them. Following the rules simply because "that's how it's always done" bothered me. Many times I'd ask my theory teacher why I couldn't just write music the way I wanted it to sound. I never got a satisfying answer, but I continued taking theory lessons, to compliment my violin and piano lessons, until I graduated from high school (although my fantasy of being a world renowned composer disappeared somewhere in the middle of my first year of theory lessons).

Thinking back, I'm glad I had the desire to be a composer even though it was short lived. It reminded me, during those years when my career goal changed every semester (or sometimes every month), of my true dream — to inspire others. The difference is that now, instead of trying to use music notes, I use words.