[CLASS] #21: Wednesday August 19th Class

Section 1 (Wednesday): Meeting People's Blogs

With our first drafts submitted and awaiting editor feedback, and the blog videos submitted just two days prior, we were in the mood to kick back and watch peoples' videos! The class was split into their editing groups and were tasked with watching the videos of the group after them. In group 4, composed of Rhianna, Juno, Joey and myself, we watched group 5's videos, consisting of Jake, Max and Shannon.

Max's video was very informative of his writing journey throughout Collaborations. He steadily walked the viewer through his array of posts, discussing what he had learnt. He acknowledged any benefits from the lessons and weaknesses in his writing. What struck me was his introductory post, where he said that minds are huge chambers we fill with stories. He described who he was and what kinds of stories he wanted to tell.

The image of minds as huge chambers we fill with stories reminds me of a scene in Shikawa Yuuki's manga, Ginga No Shinanai Kodomotachi He (trans lit. For Immortal Children in the Galaxy), where two children and their mother live eternally, alone on Earth. Their main place of residence is a cave, with a giant cavern filled with giant bookshelves of books. A boy named Maki has been searching for any recent trace of humans on the planet, and has read all of the books present there to find nothing.

Kinda makes you wonder, what's the point in us reading and experiencing and exploring if we're going to die in the end? Why not just serve our limited purpose... reproduce and die and move on? But I mean, I guess all of those extra things make life sweeter. Live it, I suppose.

Shannon's video was quite humourous. I was particularly amused with how they snuck in "what's poppin' gamers" and "remember to like comment and subscribe" in their search bars as visual gags to keep the viewer on their toes. They explained why there was few posts on their blog, the reason being that they has an aversion to writing about reality. I could relate to this. While I've got no problem writing reflective posts per se, with the knowledge that it's for school, I know that I still have that distaste towards writing nonfiction freely, feeling my life is so interesting others should know about it.

I hope Shannon's feeling more comfortable about their essay and blog at this point. I was concerned when they expressed discomfort about it, and were planning to change it. I really did like their post titles and the cynical piece about the 'Earnings' tab on Blogger. I'm sure they'll figure out where they want to go~!

Jake's video was very solid, explaining all of his blog decisions carefully. It was enlightening to see the  Google Translate tool for his blog, and he explained he implemented it because HIV/AIDs is a global issue. I particularly liked his blog theme colours, a faded tangerine, black and white, replicating a 'Act Up' poster from the late 1980's/early 1990's. I was inspired by a post where he simply pasted in notes from his phone that he had taken on the go. I also appreciated his use of hyperlinks, because it's important for him to make videos and other content accessible to the reader if he's discussing them. We ultimately decided to present Jake's video when all the groups reconvened!

A final note I'd like to make is that from our group, group 2 chose to present Juno's video! I was very proud when this occurred, hehe~ Yay for Juno!!

Section 2 (Wednesday): Rebecca Solnit & Phillip Lopate

This is going to be a bit of a messy section, since I didn't really get to stick around for much of this. The class went a bit overtime, and I tried to listen to both classes with two tabs open. Unfortunately, I found it, naturally, ridiculously hard to concentrate, so I quickly excused myself from my Collaborations class. I guess I'm taking the time now, heh, on Wednesday a week after the fact, to actually check out the content on my own. I woulda done it earlier but I had a pressing assignment due on Friday! Had to take notes constantly about Michel Foucault... talk about having little time for care of the self.

Anyway! Here we go!

Rebecca Solnit on voice from Recollections of my Non-Existence

"The voice that came out of me when I spoke in social settings and often even to a single friend wore a thousand pounds of armor and was incapable of saying anything direct about emotions, which I was barely feeling or feeling through so many filters I hardly knew what was spinning me around. But the voice: it was the voice I'd grown up around and learned to emulate and then to promulgate, a voice that strove to be clever, cool, sharp, and amused, to shoot arrows with precision and duck the arrows that came back or pretend they hadn't stung. It relied on jokes and quips that were often cruel in a game where anyone who was hurt or offended by those jabs was supposed to be lacking in humor or strength or other admirable qualities. I didn't understand what I was doing, because I didn't understand that there were other ways to do it, but that didn't mean it wasn't mean-spirited at times. (Later, I discovered that scathing and mocking reviews were the easiest and most fun to write, but I tried to write them only about much-lauded successes.)"

I... related most of all with this sentiment.

I grew up... as a very "good girl". In a household where I heard angry swears been flown around at each other, I knew they were wrong and did all I could to appease my family and my teachers and my friends. I didn't want to face such anger ever again, if I could help it. I spoke politely, and I once got tearful when a fellow classmate in Year 4 used the F-word for something.

Over the course of my teenage years, I grew to enjoy satire, sarcasm and ridicule humour, watching Pewdiepie, Bo Burnham and Friendlyjordies diss on the others who were "stupid". Contestants on reality TV shows. Vapid people like "country singers" who just pander to their audiences. Ridiculous people like Jake Paul. I learnt that sarcastic people are smarter.

I didn't want to look stupid. Who didn't catch the uptake when something was thrown at them. And I didn't want to remain the totally nice girl either. Sometimes being showered with all of these kind words makes it seem like I'm incapable of doing harm, someone who doesn't offer anything spicy or fun in a conversation.

Frustrated with keeping up the good-girl act at school (which was genuine, I just like to let my hair down, if you get the drift), I would start to get a bit more irritable, sending out some stinging words I continuously phrased as a joke to my boyfriend, N, in our evening calls. Sometimes I crossed a line, but hoped that he'd understand I was just joking. Just a joke! Nothing to get too upset over. You love me, right?

That isn't to say I was a complete asshole all the time, I was a good person overall, I'd just fire back with what I called a "witty" comment when something went wrong, like he didn't listen to an instruction I said when we played a game together, or he disrupted my focus during a troublesome homework question.

Coming into university, I felt great when others responded to it well. At least, from my point of view. Smiling and saying, "Oh my god, what the fuck do you think you're doing~?" and "Such a fuckin' idiot~", I thought I was becoming a more interesting conversation partner. I liked being sharp-tongued at times. Break up the good girl act in front of others I trusted. More to me than meets the eye.

But then N talked to me. He just wanted to hear those nicer comments again. Why couldn't I be more gentle with my words? Did I have to call him out so harshly every time?

At first, I responded with "Okaaaay, I'll remember it for next time....", internally seething about getting reprimanded. I was just trying to find my brand of humour in the world! What was the big deal? It's not like I was making extremely racist or sexist jokes or anything! Some people seemed to take them in stride! My sister would dress in black for her recital and I said she looked like a waitress from a 3 star restaurant and she laughed! Surely it wasn't all that bad.

But... hearing that from the person you love, who just wants to feel more loved with tender words again, it made me realise I was afraid to lose him. Not over some stupid mistake like that.

Since quarantine, I feel like I've gotten a little more tender. Not as much hard-hitting quips as before, but if I have one, I consider the weight of it before starting with a pre-emptive warning if it's okay enough. It is strange - you'd assume I'd get worse in quarantine, but honestly, the lack of social energy and just being in lockdown is... it sucks that negative energy out of you and turns it into depression a lot of the time. I've gotten distant from some of my friends but I try to respond kindly where I can, and send a few heart emojis to show that I do care. I really do. Saying that though makes me feel narcissistic in my attempt to redeem myself.

I don't want to always be seen as the "good girl", y'know? The one that sucks up to others, their whole life is built around pleasing people. They study hard--in fact, all the time. They're into more wholesome shows like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and animes with cute girls trying to become school idols. I just wanted to be more "interesting". Be more fun to talk to. Have banter with. Maybe a slight devilish side. But being outright abrasive... isn't really the way to do it.

We're all just searching to make our own individual voice in the world, and I'm definitely nowhere near the end of my journey. I hope I can continue to make others happy in the future, with more healthy banter rather than putting them down.

Phillip Lopate On the Necessity of Turning Oneself into a Character

"...if you are writing a memoir essay, with chronology and narrative, it is often liberating to have the "I" step beyond the observer role and be implicated crucially in the overall action. How many memoir pieces suffer from a self-righteous setup: the writer telling a story in which Mr. or Ms. "I" is the passive recipient of the world's cruelty... There is something off-putting about a nonfiction story in which the "I" character is right and all the others wrong, the "I" infinitely sinned against than sinning. By showing out complicity in the world's stock of sorrow, we convince the reality and even gain his sympathy.

How much more complicated and alive is George Orwell's younger self, the "I" in "Such, Such Were the Joys," for having admitted he snitched on his classmates, or James Baldwin's "I" in "Notes of a Native Son," for acknowledging how close he came to the edge with his rages about racism in restaurants."

 

God, was this relatable. Absolutely so.

I've already been distancing myself from my piece so I can write about my experiences without getting self-conscious via calling myself a "character". G, N and L (I've decided to change my sister's initial) are all "characters" too. It helps a lot with the writing process.

It's also been great writing about a flawed version of myself. It's normally so vital, especially in an Asian family, to uphold a righteous, pure image, that you've done no wrong, have nothing to hide, etc. I don't think I'll be purposefully showing my parents the finished book anytime soon, maybe in the future. Heh, it's really funny, isn't it? I won't purposefully try to show them the essay... but I can let other people read it.

I didn't fully understand how to write a "flawed" character people will relate to before... I've seen guides online, and heard that clumsiness is NOT a character trait, at least! The most human piece I've ever written was for my semester one fiction folio, which was about the spirit of an older Asian man apologising and speaking to his daughter. I'm not sure what I'll do with it... it's too good to throw away, at least! It hit a bit too close to home so maybe it won't see the full light of day for a while.

Writing the flawed character of past me was fun. Whilst I didn't go for the "Subject 3" route like I had initially planned, I felt like I was observing anyway whilst writing about her actions. Even though it's self-reflective, you can tell there is distance from both the narrator and the past self she is talking about, both in terms of time and in memory. Maybe she's viewing it with more nostalgia than there was in the moment? Memory can be so fickle!

Ah, I guess that's it for today. I wrote a lot... again! Ehehe. I wish I could be more up to date on these posts.... there's just been so many assignments! I hope to do better for sure. In any case, that's all for now~!

 

Signing off,

Katie, the Plague Wanderer