Re-vision

So in my teaching writing theory class and in the Writing Center where I work and in my fiction classes, we always talk about how revision should be exactly that, re-envisioning your writing, transforming it on a large scale--not tweaking words or adding commas but really putting your mind on the thing and looking at how it is working as a piece of writing. One theorist we read made the case the level of revision done marks the difference between beginning and experienced writers and I completely agree, though, honestly, talking about it and dissecting it and demanding it is boring! What's awesome is having an honestly hands-on conversation about it and doing it and seeing it. This week in the workshop that I am taking and the one I am co-teaching, I've gotten the chance to read revisions of stories we've worked on during the semester, and I must say I have been blown away. It's a nice way to feel at the end of a long semester.

Days of the Week

In my Arabic class, we have just learned the day s of the week, which is pretty cool since they basically correspond with the numbers. Can you imagine that? What if we had One-Day and Two-Day. Well, I guess we do have Tuesday. Um. So today is Tuesday but I wish it was Wednesday because Tuesday is super-busy at my work and Wednesday is my day off when I spend all day alone writing and reading (and often doing laundry) and then have class from 4pm to 10pm. I was expressing this wish to my friend and she told me not to worry, that it would be Wednesday soon enough, like tomorrow. And it touched me that she had that thought and expressed it to me in order to soften the pain of Tuesday. For real, I was touched, even though of course Wednesday comes after Tuesday, just as surely as four comes after three. And it'll happen again next week, until Apocalypse or Armageddon or something like that.

spaces

"There are spaces in my love for you"

This was a line from the poem I shared in a class tonight. This class is one teacher, one other student and me. Each week we come to class having read a book of poems, talk about that book, and then share a poem we wrote in reaction to that reading. Of the above line, my teacher said it was beautiful, staring into the page in a way that made me wonder if she really meant it, but maybe she did, and my classmate said it reminded him of a good, modern, country love song. Oh gosh, what kind of poet am I? I'd post the poem here but it needs work and anyway I should be reading Orientalism, and trying to figure out what to write about it for my weekly critique in my theory class.

in the beginning...

I'd like this blog to be brilliant, just like I'd like everything that comes out of my mouth to be, but, yeah...it will be what it is and this is only a beginning.

Today is Wednesday, which turns out to be my favorite day lately since I don't have to go to work but instead I get to go to school. My job is not terrible, it's actually probably the best job I've ever had in terms of what I'm paid and how I'm treated and my relationship with the people I work with; it's just not something I'm terribly passionate about. And wouldn't we all like to be terribly passionate about what we do...to keep ourselves in cornflakes? My father used that phrase with me when I was a freshman in college once, in one of those phone conversations where it feels like he might be communicating the meaning of life and I am flipping out about the fact that what I do (what I love to do, what it feels like I might have been put on this earth to do) is fruitless, in terms of the fruit of capital, which is green and has all these dead presidents all over it. Following me? Dad basically said, "Amira, do what you gotta do, do what you love to do, but also you've gotta make sure you keep yourself in cornflakes." What a weird thing to say, right? Like, is that a phrase out of the sixties or something? So, my point is, that when my dad presented the cornflakes, he made it seem like making money might never align precisely with my passion. Maybe he didn't mean that at all. Either way, I hope to prove him wrong.

So, I live on a little alley in a central part of San Francisco, a few steps from Dolores Park. The park is a good moderate size, with hills that slope up on one side to a path shaded with trees, a good swing set, tennis courts, lots of palm trees, and really neat views of all the tall buildings downtown. On sunny, weekend days, the crowds can be a annoying, even if you are a seasoned people-watcher, like me.

On my block, we've got the namesake of the park, the Mission Dolores, which is the oldest surviving building in this lovely town. The thing about it that I'm so impressed by is that from the outside it's just your basic gargantuan building that you walk by a million times and basically ignore, but from inside, it's like a whole different planet. I won't go into it now, but I suggest you go if you are in S.F. And I give the graveyard four stars.

Anyway, so it's Wednesday, my favorite day, and I was woken up by the sound of jackhammers pulling apart the concrete tiles of the walkway in front of my house. And I'm getting out of bed much later than my ambitious plan and today at school there are short stories to workshop; there is Foucault to discuss. Discourse on shifting structures of power, anyone? Here's a little video a classmate sent out to our class, a back-and-forth between Noam Chomskey and Michel Foucault that will give you a good idea of what Foucault is all about, in case you've ever wondered, like I did before I took this class.



Wasn't that interesting? Isn't Foucault Spock-ish? Where is this thing taking place? Who are those people in the audience?