Author Archives: dousar12

E – Week 7 Log

February 17th

Seminar paper: 1 hour

Research: 1 hour

Reading: 4 hours

Editing: 2 hours

Total: 8 hours

Weekly total: 8 hours

Texts: Reading and the Brain, Unoriginal Genius

February 18th

Seminar participation: 1 hour

Editing: 4 hours

Meeting: 1 hour

Total:6 hours

Weekly total: 14 hours

February 19th

Discussion participation: .5 hour

Paper writing: 1 hour

Logistics, organizing, preparing: 1 hour

Reading: 1 hour

Texts: Writing Books that Make a Difference

Total: 3.5 hours

Weekly total: 17.5 hours

February 20th

Reading: 1 hour

Paper writing: 2 hours

Total: 3 hours

Weekly total: 20.5 hours

Texts: Writing Books that Make a Difference

February 21st 

Reading: 2 hours

Paper writing:  4 hours

Total: 6

Weekly total: 26.5

Texts: Writing Books that Make a Difference

February 22nd:

Paper writing: 2 hours

Logistics and organizing: 1 hour

Poetry writing: 2 hours

Poetry observed: 2 hours

Total: 7 hours

Weekly total: 33.5 hours

Master total: 149.5 hours

E – Week 7 Reverie

Waterfall, peaceful running water

But as a scent

Tight chest, pain, anxious

Mom nagging, mom nagging

Don’t pick that don’t touch that

Hungry, can’t feed myself

Chest pain, surgery drains

Tired, so tired, watching the clock

For my next dose of ibuprofen.

Comforted by how little pain I feel

My skinny white butt.

 

After surgery, everything smelled like

Waterfall.

Mom’s hands, me, my face.

Good scent, but not a fun time

And every time I use the soap I’m reminded

Bound chest, no air, no food, pain killers.

Throwing up over a tiny pink basin.

Not a pleasant time or scent,

My heart spikes,

Waterfall

E – Week 6 Poetry

I pray while I write

Or maybe writing is a prayer.

I have hope for these words

That they will make a difference

I pray they will move a nation

Move people, move hearts, move mountains

Language my lever, feelings my fulcrum.

 

Even when I am drowning in ink

When everything I love is covered

With black splotches and smears

I pray with my words

A prayer for change.

 

When I want to stop

When my hand cramps

My head feels fogged

And out of words.

I think of my people

And the culture that stands

Between them and who they are.

Ghosts on my shoulder

Adding weight to my prayers

Cheering me on, cheering me on

To walk naked through

A field of critics.

Everything that I am

Ashamed of

Afraid of

Proud of

Laid out in my personal story.

Except.

It isn’t personal any more.

All of it is out there

Paid for with

Inkstains and

Bleary eyes and

A tired mind.

This story belongs now

To the people

And this is why I pray.

 

I pray while I write

So my private story

Will become something to inspire

Sweating my heart

Into the words.

Bleeding

Into the ink.

Move I whisper over

The still infantile words.

Move the world

With the power I am giving you.

Go forth little one.

Make change in all you do.

And this is how I pray.

E – Week 6 Log

February 11th

Seminar paper: 1 hour

Research: 1 hour

Reading: 4 hours

Total: 6 hours

Weekly total: 6 hours

Texts: Reading and the Brain, Unoriginal Genius, Luna

February 12th

Seminar participation: 1 hours

Writing: 11 hours

Total: 12

Weekly total: 18 hours

February 13th

Discussion participation: .5 hour

Editing: 5 hours

Logistics, organizing, preparing: 1 hour

Reading: 1 hour

Texts: Luna, Writing Books that Make a Difference

Total: 7.5 hours

Weekly total: 25.5 hours

February 14th

Editing: 4 hours

Reading: 2 hours

Total: 6 hours

Weekly total: 31.5 hours

Texts: Writing Books that Make a Difference

February 15th

Reading: 3 hours

Paper writing: 2 hours

Total: 5

Weekly total: 36.5

Texts: Writing Books that Make a Difference

February 16th:

Writing: 3 hours

Reading and synthesis: 2 hours

Total: 5 hours

Weekly total: 41.5 hours

Master total: 115.5 hours

E – Reverie Week 6

Wo/man cannot live on bread alone

And it is passion that drives me,

Passion that fuels me. It is not my body

That propels me up mountains, no.

My body is an obstacle, hauled

Huffing and puffing, tired and sore

Up every inch of that damn mountain.

My will, my passion, my mind encourage me

To climb higher, go farther. Write more.

Always write more. Even when I am ready to collapse,

My hand is curled stiff around my pen, even on the ninth hour

Still more, write more. I am in rapture of language,

Writer’s write always and evermore.

E – Week 5 Poetry

Transition looks like courage

(or stupidity, but aren’t

those often the same)

To people on the outside.

But is a drowning man courageous

For trying to swim?

It’s not the noble courage

That leads trans* people to survive

But humble desperation.

We live the way we do

Because it is either live

As we are

Or die

As we are not.

(which is admittedly ignoble,

but does that make the opposite noble?)

Our lives aren’t really tragedies,

Because they are ours.

This is the way we survive

Nothing glorious or courageous

About it really.

 

E – Week 5 Log

Cumulative writing total January 21st – February 3rd

32 hours

Master total hours: 32

February 4th

Seminar paper: .5 hour

Research: 1 hour

Reading: 6 hours

Total: 7.5 hours

Weekly total: 7.5 hours

Texts: Reading and the BrainUnoriginal GeniusI am J

 

February 5th

Seminar participation: 1 hour

Reading: 4 hours

Writing: 1 hour

Total: 6 hours

Weekly total: 13.5 hours

Texts: I am J

February 6th

Discussion participation: 1 hour

Reading: 5 hours

Poetry writing and recording: 2 hours

Logistics, organizing, preparing: 1 hour

Texts: I am JThe Poetics of Reverie

Total: 9 hours

Weekly total: 21.5 hours

February 7th

Writing: 9 hours

Reading: 1 hour

Total: 10 hours

Weekly total: 31.5 hours

Texts: I am J

February 8th

Editing: 2 hours

Self-evaluation writing: 2 hours

Poetry writing and rehearsal: 2 hours

Total: 6 hours

Weekly total: 37.5

February 9th:

Writing: 3 hours

Reading and synthesis: 2 hours

Total: 5 hours

Weekly total: 42.5 hours

Master total: 74 hours

E – Bachelard Reverie Week 5

Opposites

Aren’t really opposite.

We oppose ourselves but are

Ourselves, opposite selves

All at once. Reverie is in

This opposition, this contrast.

Accepting two opposite ideas

And letting them be, letting them

Exist

Side by side, overlapping, tumbling over.

 

You can be an opposite, can embody opposites

And that is the magic of humanity.

You can hate your past and love who you are

Right now

Even if who you are

Right now

Is because of a past that you hate.

This is reverie, this contrast.

Reverie is not in absolutes,

But in opposites.