While designing my portfolio I really wanted to promote my writing so I chose the Pieria theme because, in the description of the theme, it said it was for displaying text. I wanted the homepage to be simple so then on the blog posts, I could have a lot of creativity with the design. I had a lot of fun reworking my essay about music because adding Spotify links that can play within the blog post made the essay super visual. That paper just worked really well within the blog format because I could also add the quote block to show the song verses.
I liked creating the blog because although it’s supposed to be a place for other people to look at our work and possibly connect with us for a job or career, however, it acts as an archive for myself. I think the website shows the abilities I have as a writer and how I can write about many different subjects well. I chose pieces that demonstrate my academic writing ability, journalism work, and my creative writing. I wanted to show a wide variety of subjects that I am familiar with, such as films, music, and social justice.
I wish I had more time just to play with the website and come up with the best possible way to display my work. The mechanical aspects of the website are what I wish I had more time on. But overall, I think I did a good job of demonstrating the different types of writing I can do and what my plans are for the future.
Intimidation doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt looking at Robert Boyles’s ‘Flower Exercise’ from his book “What Color is Your Parachute?” Besides intimidation, I began with a positive attitude; I wanted this exercise to achieve something. I wanted to be able to unfold myself and benefit from this experience, but it was hard to have to sit there and think about yourself and eventually describe who you are.
A large portion of my alumni profile interview was very helpful and personal to me specifically because I felt like Mary Alice Miller understood the fear of graduating as well. We talked a lot about the plethora of options there are once school is over, and how overwhelming it can be. I’m afraid of missing out or choosing wrong (what could be wrong? Who is judging? Only me, really.) I care about so many different things and concepts. I want to try so much, but it’s hard to narrow down what I’m exactly looking for.
Beginning this exercise, there were a few petals that were easier for me to do such as ‘Geography,’ ‘People’ or who I would like to work with, and ‘Work Conditions.’ I’ve always known that I would thrive in a city; I enjoy the buzz of life. Since I’ve lived in South Carolina my whole life, I’m ok with the idea of moving and expanding my horizons for a job. Petals 3 and 4 were a little tougher for me to do because I felt as if my transferable skills were very limited. Even though we’ve worked throughout this Capstone to give alternative names to the skills that we’ve acquired as English Majors–specifically looking at “You Can Do Anything” by George Anders–however, I still feel like mine are all very academic based and limited.
Either my skills or my experience, I felt, is all limited to the academic field, but what else is there? I have been in school for the past 16 years, so it makes sense that a lot of my projects and activities are centered around school. Or my skills felt random or out of place. I spent three summers in high school as a summer camp counselor at Camp Gravatt in Aiken, SC. Parts of me feel like this time was silly, but realistically I learned so many leadership, organizational, and teamwork skills.
My campers and me, circa 2018
Part of Boyle’s methods for the job search and finding a career for ones’ self is practicing kindness toward yourself. “…feeling helpless is a state of mind that you can change. It starts by recognizing that if anyone has the power to make changes in your life, it is you” (27). Realistically, I have just started my career journey and I am not the perfect candidate right now. I cannot expect myself to be. Reading this book was a reminder that I have to be gentler with myself.
I expected to not have a good time doing petal 7 “Purpose in Life,” but I was pleasantly surprised by this part of the exercise. A large portion of the petal felt very grounding. It was like a reminder of who I am and what I believe in. It was nice to be reminded of the values that I appreciate and look for in life, even if I have a hard time incorporating them into my career. The questions and values Boyles brought up were extremely helpful in centering me and what I want out of life.
Similar to petal 3, petal 4 “Knowledges” made me feel silly, despite it being something I could easily fill out. At times I felt like the things that I know about such as Pop Culture and TV and movies aren’t necessarily transferable skills, but they’re what I love.
I, 2023, work with kids, even though I don’t plan on pursuing a career involving kids.
We talked a lot in my literary publishing class about how working in the book industry is about apprenticing and learning while on the job. Publishing, editing, and writing are some of the last jobs where apprenticeship is extremely important and it’s one of the best ways to learn. A lot of my early career might be waiting and learning. Doing this exercise has shown me I need to have faith in what I know and all my experiences have given me useful skills. This next chapter of my life will be a practice in patience, but I’ll be rewarded with knowledge.
I remember the first time I was embarrassed by my emotions. It was second grade, and I was crying, because I couldn’t play the recorder correctly in music class. I sobbed and sobbed, getting snot all in the reed, while everyone else played “Hot Cross Buns” with semi-proficiency and I failed, even after the third attempt. It wasn’t that devastating–it’s just a plastic recorder–but I wanted to be good.
I never seemed to grow out of my emotions. Or grow into them, as they always seem too big, too much for me and the people around me. My emotions affected everything I did and surrounded myself with. All I felt was loud and would be felt by everyone around me which became embarrassing and made me more upset. I found solace in books like most introverted, emotional people do. I loved feeling the emotions of a character; stepping into their life and nesting in their brain. As I grew those emotions turned into stubbornness, something I could use.
George Anders’s book “You Can Do Anything” asks you to not limit yourself when thinking about a career path. He has many statistics to prove that you can get a very ‘unconventional’ job with a humanities degree or the plethora of new jobs being created. Anders uses the Hamilton Project to show that in a lifetime, English majors are in the top ten highest earners.
But because there’s so much to choose from as an English major, I don’t exactly know what I want. Sometimes I think to myself, Am I too stubborn to pick a career? Am I afraid of missing out in another field? Everything seems important and impactful and seems like something I could see myself doing. So how do I choose? “Employers start with an unusually elastic sense of what skills and past experience they might want…employers become much more willing to hire on the basis of passion and potential” (Anders, 83). There are times when being emotional is not a good thing to be, but more often than not, it’s one of my greatest strengths.
In my junior year at the College of Charleston, I took a class on significant American film genres-the Western, screwball comedy, and the musical. During this period, I started to wonder about the pirate film (I wanted to know if this subgenre would be considered a type of Western).
I later learned was actually called the Swashbuckler genre and it puzzled me that the only popular pirate films were the Pirates of the Caribbean (2003-2017). I quickly learned that there was a long history to this genre, yet there was very little research done on the subject. My professor even gave me the option of switching topics, but there was enough information out there to inspire and drive me.
The Ice Pirates (1984), one of the most 80s movies I’ve ever seen.
It would be a lie if I said that the idea of an under-researched genre being my paper topic didn’t excite me, but I was simultaneously terrified; what if I just set myself up for failure? Had my ambition gotten the best of me? This is when I felt as if my emotions worked against me.
As I worked on the project, I had to establish priorities of what questions I could answer with the research available to me. Writing this paper was more about strategy compared to previous essays I had encountered. Any embarrassment or insecurity about my unfamiliarity with the subject had to disappear. My confidence in what I could do was far greater than my uncertainty, and yes, I feared I was in over my head, but I could still use my tenacity as a positive force.
Though a lot of the time it isn’t an asset, my stubbornness and grit will aid me in the future with more difficult projects, people, and situations. Some would say I’m too passionate about what I like and am interested in, but it makes my passion bleed through the page (or at least I hope it does.) When I’m approached with a challenging project, my passion drives me through it.
Richard Bolles said in his book “What Color is Your Parachute,” “The difference is enthusiasm and passion. Yours. You’re much more attractive to employers when you’re on fire” (73). If employers want passion I’ve got it; it’s just a matter of finding where to apply myself. Although the project I used as an example is English major-oriented it taught me that you can do a lot with a little.
In the end, I was extremely proud of what I did for my film class. I synthesized so many ambiguous pieces of information and still made a clear and substantial argument. At times, my emotions feel like a waste of energy, but when I can channel them into a project I can actually create something. Even though I consider myself a creature of habit, I completely changed my strategy and approach to this project, using my stubbornness to enable flexibility and I still met the deadline with these challenges. I was very uncertain about working with so little and so much unknown, but Anders points out, “Your liberal arts education has taught you to move forward as a researcher in the face of ambiguity…you can adapt to a changing environment” (109).
My ability to chameleon to what is needed was something I had in myself since I was young, but I think it’s been honed by majoring in English. A lot of this is due to my effortless empathy. So many of my skills are not specific to what we do in English classes, but malleable to multiple careers and it’s taken all four years of college for me to realize that. My passion and want to pursue life is my greatest strength; it’s fed by all the literature I read, the ideas I absorb, and my need for creation and connections between people. I still can’t play an instrument to save my life, but if I ever do I’ll probably cry yet this time I won’t be embarrassed about it.
One of the best compliments I’ve ever heard is “I’m rooting for you.” I was playing a game of Bananagrams at Felix (the best words come out after your second French 75) when our server came by, saw my board, and spoke those four lovely words toward me.
Not only is the word choice interesting–to root? I’m growing roots for you? It’s far more casual than “I believe in you” and far less affectionate. When I looked up the origin of the phrase (idiom?), I found it is from the British word “rout” meaning to bellow, usually related to cattle. So, how we got from cattle yelling to encouragement, I don’t know.
But if we really think about it, the idea of rooting for someone is so beautiful. To be their support, their physical roots something grounding them while they grow or go out on a limb. Rooting for someone means supporting them with no gain of their own, simply basking in someone else’s joy or achievements.
I didn’t need someone to root for me at that moment (it was a very low-stakes game), but it was nice to know that someone was on my side. In that moment he was actively thinking about me and wanting me to win. There are people in our lives who root for us daily with no gain besides our happiness. Yet, this wonderful stranger who happened to enjoy my friend and my game of buzzed Bananagrams was rooting for me.
My name is Lilly Flowers and a few days ago I got to pick out a random literary magazine from a pile of them in my professor’s office. Our class focuses on copy editing and the publishing industry, and much of the conversation centers around the kind of jobs one can get with editing experience. I chose the “‘Arts & Letters” spring 2023 edition of the Journal of Contemporary Culture published by Georgia College. To be honest, I mostly picked it out because of the pretty cover (see the bottom of the post), but inside I found some wonderful works of poetry and prose. Some of them are not as bright and cheery as the cover, however.
Iowa City, Iowa by Jesse Lee Kercheval
Smoke, horizon, cornfield, windbreak, road, an implicit plot all disconnected as of by jigsaw blade, amputated pine boughs, gouged sky, fissures of horizon. Only when I write, staring for hours, do the bits begin to fit. I sense a compression in my spine. I match some pieces but others, red as marrow, won’t fit unless I force them. I tire. As always. I lift my eyes to window. Sky and bare limbs like saw cuts. A cloud like a torn blouse. I can’t assemble this.
I could feel the frustration so viscerally the first time I read this poem. The choppy lists of images painting the vast unchanging physical land around them show the monotony of having to always be creating, thinking of something, imagining. Jesse Lee connects the physical land with her mind; the landscape is in pieces and so is she. She’s trying to make something, but all her ideas aren’t fully formed, “amputated pine boughs…fissures of horizon…bare limbs like saw cuts.” These words are sharp like our own thoughts when we can’t write. So much of our worth is bound up in what we can create when you cannot measure your worth by that.
Although the poem is named “Iowa City, Iowa,” Iowa could be anywhere for the reader. The place they’re stuck: a hometown, a city they’ve outgrown, or a state of mind. Iowa is someplace where, after being there, nothing seems to fit. “Disconnected as of by jigsaw blade” it’s as if we’re confused and unsettled about our physical, or mental, surroundings. We no longer fit into that space therefore it cannot support us.
The spine is an interesting body part to focus on in this piece. It connects the entire body and when the spine is damaged it’s devastating. The “compression” Jesse Lee feels is the brink of what is coming. She’s on the edge of devastation and complete burnout if she doesn’t take care of herself. Forcing yourself to make something and “staring for hours” are not ways to motivate yourself.
By the end of the poem, it feels like Jesse Lee has given up. She cannot assemble this. It’s a definitive statement. But I don’t think that we should see this as a failure. Jesse Lee hints at the idea of a break, as in taking a break. For such a short piece, she is communicating a lot through her imagery connected to the physical body. The internal and external are working together to scream at you “Take a break! You cannot create under these conditions!” Your body needs a break, your mind needs a rest, and maybe you need a change of scenery.
I’ve always been an emotional, sensitive person; my mom once said that no one would care as much as I did. I’m almost totally sure this is why I feel literature or any piece of writing so deeply. Even if it doesn’t directly relate to me or any category that I fit into, I know that the person who does relate–if it’s written well–will be affected in a positive way and that meant something to me. Poetry and fiction were made to be emotional even if it’s not directly the story’s tone. The novel may not be sad by the author’s choice, but when we read we connect with characters we may have never met in real life or never could have related to in passing. One of the books that first inspired this in me is Sharon M. Draper’s novel “Out of My Mind.” This was one of the only books I have read multiple times, I’m not a big fan of rereading my books, but I couldn’t help but I love that book; even if it made me cry, I wanted to be the main character again and feel her stress and eventual triumph.
To me, English, writing, and any form of words have always been about emotion and being able to be empathetic. I felt sad for every character, every author, every imaginary person that’s reading it in the past, present, or future. Like Jasmine Guillory in her article “Don’t Underestimate the Power of Black Fiction” I felt very deeply what the characters were feeling. I’ll find something in every character that’s similar to me or take something from each character and I take a piece of the story with me. Maybe it’s odd for me to say I find something like myself in every character I read, but honestly, as someone who wants to create things—create films, novels, something tangible—I want everyone to find a book that they see themselves in. I think that the whole point of reading is finding those shared experiences or discovering your feelings along with the character. And I think that’s part of why I also want to write is because I want to be able to experience so many things that I feel like the way to do that is through reading and literature, it’s not just going places within a book, you get to experience so many people’s lives. I want to be them and take a little bit with me too.
A lot of what we read this past week stuck with me because it talked so much about the emotions surrounding the English language and literature. Former US poet laureate Tracy Smith spoke in her opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Wipe that Smirk Off Your Poem” about how now poetry authors have the tendency to steer towards irony almost as if they’re afraid of being made fun of for being too emotional or too cheesy in their work. In turn, I think that has turned a lot of people off to poetry. One quote from Smith stood out to me in her piece, “Irony refuses to be life-giving or world-creating. Irony negates wish.” I think as a society we have become so steeped in irony that a large portion of people have decided to stay away from any sort of emotion as a sort of protection. If we aren’t vulnerable we cannot be hurt, but isn’t being empathetic and vulnerable part of what it means to be human. In a larger conversation on another day, this is why the issue of artificial intelligence concerns me. With the development and improvement of AI it makes me wonder if we will ever be able to return to openly being emotional, without shame or worry for compassion. I firmly believe that as humans we were made to create stories to deal with our emotions and share our experiences, none of which artificial intelligence could replicate. The act of reading fiction or poetry was created with the purpose of empathy and I was made to care.
works cited
Agarwal, Pragya. “Emotional Ai Is No Substitute for Empathy.” Wired, Conde Nast, 31 Dec. 2022, www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-empathy/.
Guillory, Jasmine. “Jasmine Guillory on the Importance of Reading Black Fiction.” Time, Time, 30 June 2020, time.com/5861861/jasmine-guillory-black-fiction/.
Smith, Tracy K. “Does Poetry Matter?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2015, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/18/does-poetry-matter/wipe-that-smirk-off-your-poem.
