1. How has technology impacted your writing/composing?
    From my early teen years until the present, technology has been an integral part of my life socially, academically, and professionally. Technology impacts my writing in different ways, for I am capable of adapting myself to the rules of each convention. While tweeting and texting, I am limited to a small number of characters, so I abbreviate and condense my thoughts. When I am blogging, however, I am more apt to develop my thoughts and think critically. Furthermore, I have created two websites. One serves as a portfolio of my work for Writing, Research, and Technology. The other serves as an online alternative to a binder portfolio to work as a "leave behind" at interviews. Clearly, I have to present myself as a competent student and applicant in these spaces; therefore, my writing must be polished. All things considered, technology most impacts the efficiency of speed. Communicating for any purpose has never been faster than it is today. A responsibility accompanies this technology, however, and we are to blame for allowing text speak and poor grammar to sneak into our academic or professional writing. My Experiencing Literature teacher, Kim Southwick once said, "every time you write you showcase your intelligence." Her words have stuck with me and make me more conscious of my writing!

2. How has technology connected or made you more mindful of your writing and place?
    "Rock My Network" by Theodora Stites literally rocked my world! It presented an intriguing lens for viewing the social aspects of the online realm. I feel that by posting direct quotes from "Rock My Network" and commenting on whether I agree/connect will serve as the best illustration for how technology has made me mindful of my writing and place:

"It's not that we're lazy or bratty or glib; it's just that we're fast. We know how to access all kinds of information, and we have absolute confidence in the tools at our disposal" (Note from the Editors).
While some people would argue that this generation has lost the ability to think and wants everything at their fingertips, I argue alongside the editors that our generation simply knows the resources that are at our disposal and choose to use them efficiently!

"Because I'm voyeuristic, and you are too. We love personal information; Internet communities are a popularity contest, and it is no longer chic to be mysterious" (142).
I have never considered this thought until Stites presented it, but I find it fascinating. I am a very private person who values my personal space, yet I agree that it is widely accepted that being mysterious is becoming less and less attractive! If an individual is not exposing themselves in a milieu of social networks he/she is viewed as lacking normalcy.

"There are hidden codes in every image" (143).
I don't agree with Stite's picture profiling. It seem very stereotypical and I try to avoid that at all costs. Certainly people want to portray themselves as attractive, yet the camera angle and lighting shouldn't categorize me.

"Every profile is a carefully planned media campaign" (144).
I would say that most profiles are media campaigns, not every profile. While there are a large number of people who try to sell themselves by creating a idealized, online persona. On the other hand there are people who portray themselves exactly as they would be in real life and make no apologies for being real; therefore, they are not campaigning.

"Online, everyone has bulletproof social armor" (144).
While it may be more comfortable to be open in an online space, bullying is a major issue online. In light of this, I would argue that bulletproof social armor only exists when the online persona fits into society's standards.

"But I have no choice. I need to belong to all of them because each one enables me to connect to people with different levels of social intimacy. The closer I am to someone in the offline world, the more easily accessible they are online" (145).
Unfortunately, I have to agree with Stites on this issue of accessibility. I am more comfortable growing a relationship online than I am in person. I guess I would argue that the screen gives me a sense of security that I lack in person.

"I now think of most people by their screen names, even when I see them in person" (145).
Stites hit a nerve on this fact. It pains me to admit that when meeting those who I converse with online, many of our conversations revolve around online activity.

"We have enough connection online for our degree of closeness and don't need to enhance our relationship by spending time together offline" (146).
I have friends who I only converse with online simply because we do not have a strong enough connection to spend time in person. Fortunately, while communicating online I can multitask, yet in person that person deserves my undivided attention, and not all people connect on that level.

"Blogs are the most notorious, easiest, and best ways to gain celebrity status and online fans" (146).
I have experienced blogs in two realms: academic and entertainment. When I am composing within a blog, I am used to analyzing some reading or discussion and then expressing my thoughts in a meaningful context. I would much rather read my sister's blog, for she takes the good, the bad, and the ugly of her life and writes laugh out loud accounts.

"It's so difficult to concentrate on talking to just one person at a time. Eye contact isn't all it's cracked up to be, and facial expressions are so hard to control" (147).
I have never connected with a quote more than I have with the above thought from Stites. I have a degree of social awkwardness due to my shyness, and I have struggled for 23 years now with eye contact. While I have managed to overcome this issue when conversing with women, men have yet to look me in the eyes. Furthermore, I've been told that my faces give away exactly what is on my mind. It takes me being conscious of the looks I'm giving.

3. How has technology impacted your identity construction?
    Even when being careful to represent myself as accurately as possible online, I am not blind to the fact that as I am working to construct my real life persona in an online avenue, so too are other users who comment, visit, and share within those same spaces. What is important to note is this idea of having so many opportunities, expected and unforeseen, that help to mold the very identity that I embody. Interestingly, “committing yourself is a way of finding out who you are. A man finds his identity by identifying,” and online writing spaces allowed me to do just that, identify with that which formulates my identity. Technology has allowed me the ability to put on different masks when it comes to my writing. Pursuing this further, there is a level of comfort when composing online because the audience only sense of you is your writing; therefore, their judgments of your writing are based solely upon the written word and have no links to the author as a person.  Certainly, who I am at home, at school, and online are three different people who overlap or stand in opposition based upon my identity within that place.

    Thank you for taking the time to help me reflect upon my work!

1. Does my prologue give you a sense of the direction of my Twitterive?

2. Does the technique of using a stream of consciousness for each "character" serve as a proper way of introducing a new mindset? Did it create a consistency in the flow?

3. Which characters did you like? Which characters didn't you like?

4. How can I better develop my role as the teacher? Every part of my identity has 2 genres except the teacher.

5. Does my ending suit you as an audience? Why or why not? Did I effectively convey the sense that identity is simple if you allow it to be natural and collective?

6. By the end, did you catch on to the fact that my tweets were bolded and my repetend was underlined? 

1.  Who are the characters in my Twitterive?
            Essentially there are 5 personalities within me that are presented through the Twitterive: The Teacher, The Student, The Nerd, The Perfectionist, and the Hopeless Romantic.

2. What connection do I feel with Barnes& Noble?
            It is my escape where only those close to my heart are allowed to share.

3. When does the story take place?
            The past year into the present

4.  Where does the story take place?
            Barnes&Noble in Deptford

5. Why does the story take place?
            Acceptance of myself in all my different personalities

6. How am I delivering/ presenting the story?
            Multi-genre with streams of consciousness introducing new personalities (invitation, fairytale, poems, book reviews, microfiction, schedule, photo essay, music video)

    5 minutes? 5 minutes? There must be some mistake! O my... what are the words again? How does it go? O say can you…  O say can you.. O say can you… I can see this going to be a complete disaster! Breathe, breathe! Could my throat be any junkier? Swallow, swallow... no seriously focus Lindsey. Now swallow. Where is my water? [Gunk, gunk, gunk] Ok, one last time. O say can you...  Wow definitely not that note! O say can you... How does it go again? O crap! What the heck am I supposed to do with my hands with this stinking lapel? Gosh, how did I get myself into this! Breathe, breathe! Do I come in on the 2nd or 4th beat? I better be able to hear the music! What if I go blank? What if I stand there like a total idiot, flag waving in the background with no proper introduction? I guess not knowing the words is better than killing them... then again Christina Aguilera took the gold for that and Janet Jackson is a close 2nd for her fashion faux pas, so there isn’t much I could do that would be breaking news. Still, this is a big fight, which means a big audience! This is a make it or break it opportunity for my career. “1 minute warning” O my word... I’m going to be sick! O say can you... O say can you... O say can you see... Breathe. Swallow. Here goes nothing!  

    250 words, 140 characters, or 5 syllables? It doesn't matter how you slice or dice it; they all are limiting in their own respect. 
    
    First, I selected a quote from Anzaldua and set off to write a 250 word pierce of microfiction. I must say that being a very descriptive, some would say wordy, writer, I struggle with maximum word counts. I began with a set direction aiming for a simplistic and short way to say what I needed to say, yet my fingers told a much better complex and symbolic story. Within this assignment I grew as a writer by inserting color, adjusting tone, shifting tense, removing prepositions, utilizing thesaurus, and limiting words. 

    Next, I took this piece of microfiction entitled "Greyt Expectations" and used it to inspire a haiku. I must say that while I prefer the narrative form, the 3 stanza haiku did hold some weight as the words I selected were the windows of meaning taken from the microfiction. Some things I did learn, however, are that I should vary my word length and make my prepositions beefier, yet my verbs tend to be strong! 

    Then, in the same fashion that I wrote the first piece of microfiction based upon the Anzaldua readings, I explored my tweets and selected 2 of them that wouldn't normally coincide and enmeshed them into the same piece of microfiction. Since I started with my own style and voice, it was much easier to incorporate these outside quotes into my writing and make them flow. Within this piece alone, I took a risk writing the inner and outer thoughts of one character alone, all presenting a rather complex plot that I believe reader's can add their own experience.

    Finally, I took my microfiction that was inspired by my tweets and tried to create a found poem based upon the words I wished to emphasize. For this assignment, I tried the haiku once again and found that since the tweets were not cohesive thoughts, the poem, already limited by syllables, became limited in meaning. I feel this was stretching the heart of the writing beyond its intended purpose.

    Essentially, shifting genres forced me to think critically about each and every word I placed into my writing. Furthermore, I found myself saying if I only used this word, or if I only posted this thought. The biggest lesson I learned is that revisiting the same text at times may seem monotonous, yet it allows me to edit thngs that I wish to explore in hindsight of the first attempt!

The following haiku was inspired by the words of the piece of microfiction entitled “Greyt Expectations” in the previous post:

Seemingly Unobtainable

Dreaded perfection
Radiates expectations
As love disappears

Idealistic words
Filled with the weight of applause
Surrounds, entangles

Grey obligations
Repeated in the margins
Patience scribbled out

            This “found poem” was created using 13 of my personal tweets in the past month:

1. Some secrets are too good not to confess! (January 24)

2. While there is an exception to every rule, no story is free from argument or edit. ( January 25)

3. I miss the days where possibilities were only limited by your imagination (January 26)

4. How many emotions do you think the human heart experiences in any given day? (January 26)

5. "Put down you guard just a little. I'll keep you safe in these arms of mine." (January 26)

6. Once trust is broken it will never be fully restored! (January 30)

7. "Her bloodprints in the sand like valentines." What powerful imagery and language! (February 1)

8. She hesitates while her past screams of previous hurts, yet she knows in order to love there are risks involved. (February 2)

9. Why is it that people always love to hold others accountable but hate being held accountable? (February 2)

10.  If only maturity was infectious! (February 2)

11.  There is a work of art in my head, if I could only get it onto paper.  (February 3)

12.  Sometimes you have to make yourself numb in order to love someone! (February 4)

13.  In reality, vulnerability is inevitable if our life is to have any meaning, for it is the basis of all relationships and reason! (February 8)

Vulnerable
Like a hesitant heart
Numbs reality 

Argumentative
Like exceptions to the rule
Guard against edit

Accountable
Like a paper valentine
Confesses secrets

Imaginative
Like an infectious language
Trusts without reason

In reflecting upon both of these poems, I feel that the haiku based upon my microfiction was more gripping because it was inspired by a cohesive piece of writing, whereas many of my tweets, whie sharing a common emotion, do not share the same context.

    The following piece of microfiction is based upon two tweets that I have posted in the past month. The first tweet posted on February 1, 2011 is “I love when ordering coffee sounds like a dissertation!” The second tweet posted on January 26, 2011 is “Why can’t everyone prefer texting over phone calls like I do?” I was inspired to commit all of the emotions and expectations I have recently been facing to writing. I found the process therapeutic and surprising. Greyt Expectations was therapeutic in the sense that I was able to view my circumstance objectively and adopt a new perspective. In addition, writing this piece was surprising in that the words I was typing kept taking a different direction than the plan I had in mind. Remarkably, this assignment helped me grow as a writer as I was forced to shift tense, remove prepositions, utilize my thesaurus, add color, and limit my words.

Greyt Expectations

     I enter the café, offer my dissertation of an order, and feel I’ve earned every word. I make my way to the corner seat, pull out a pen and write Expectations, with a capital E on the back of the grey napkin. Most people would probably call this a to do list, but to me that never seems to carry the weight of what is to follow. Certainly there are some monotonous tasks like running errands, making appointments, and cleaning house, yet more lines are filled with obligations of my full time job, being a student: read this, analyze that, and write my thoughts; however, these aren’t the most dreaded words committed to this napkin. The biggest challenges are the idealistic standards repeated in the margins week after week — practice patience, take risks, exude confidence, offer forgiveness, demonstrate selflessness, applaud humility, develop trust, exercise vulnerability, radiate love, and above all cheat perfection. They are seemingly unobtainable, but entangle themselves with the tasks they surround. I pause and try to think of a way to see more things on my list scribbled out, but my phone begins to ring. Why can’t everyone prefer texting to phone calls? (Tweet) At least that way I could have a written reminder of what is expected of me.After a mhm, ok, I’ll add it to my list, and an I love you, I sat back, dropped my pen, and sipped from my coffee cup now that the grey steam had disappeared completely.  

     In the following piece of microfiction, I incorporated a quote from Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue. I should note, however, that I altered the quote slightly by taking out the 2 Spanish words and replacing them with their English translation as well as changing my bedroom to our bedroom. This piece of writing has stretched me as a writer by trying to make someone else’s tone and language fit my own style of writing.

Lovesick Little Girl

    Trouble sleeping— check. Lack of appetite—check. Depression— check. I’d continue on with side effects doctor, but wouldn’t it be easier for me to say “the back of any medication”—check. This is a sickness. No, an infection. It’s beyond that; it’s a disease! You should know since there’s no fitting prescription or pause. Why am I telling you this? This won’t help. That’s what I get for listening for my mother. And I know what you’re thinking, and you’re dead wrong.  I am not some lovesick little girl. No sir, I am a strong, confident, independent woman. It’s not your fault; the women who are typically lying upon this crimson, sling back couch are just that—lovesick little girls. I am no girl, however, I am a woman who has seen love come and go enough times. It’s nothing new. What’s that? You want me to tell you about him? Start anywhere? Well, I guess I can do that: “I can remember the hot, sultry evenings when songs of love and death reverberated out of cheap amplifiers from the local bar and wafted in through our bedroom window” (Anzaldua 2953). He held me in his capable arms and I became utterly and completely vulnerable… This is pointless. The songs have ended, the bar went bankrupt, and the honeymoon is over. He left me weak and wounded. You would call this a breakthrough, but this lovesick little girl is out of time.

    In reading James Joyce’s “Dubliners” and Jerome Stern’s “An Anthology of Really Short Stories,” I was struck by a writing technique that though obvious is often overlooked. Writers are always in search of ways to hook their readers, yet Joyce and Stern chose to implement the art of drawing upon natural instincts— in this case love and desire. When love and desire are present in writing, it drives the reader to become an active participant. The reader takes on the responsibility of filling in the blanks and sharing in the emotions based upon their own experiences in those areas. This is made possible simply because love and desire are universal themes. Everyone can relate to having a yearning so intense that it drives his/her thoughts and actions. This is not to say that writers have no role to play in this, for the writers, Joyce and Stern at the present moment, have the responsibility to convince the reader that there is genuine longing along with the potential drive to obtain love or fulfill the desire. The challenge for the writer then becomes creating a will stronger than the “monotonous” (Dubliners) routines of everyday life.

    To illustrate effective uses of the technique of natural instincts, look at James Joyce’s “An Encounter.” Within this piece, the narrator desires to “break out of the weariness of school-life for one day at least” (21). This wish is supported by the narrator skipping school, a concept that all readers can relate to even if he/she never followed through. In this instance, the author justified the need for a mental health day by strongly contrasting the dull, “monotonous” (Dubliners) routine of school as compared to the exhilarating, refreshing disregard for schedules. It is through the author’s shared experience of the instinct of desire that the reader can relate.

    Likewise, James Joyce intensifies the theme of natural instincts in “Araby.” He writes of a boy who appears to be obsessed with a woman of whom is referred to as “Mangan’s sister” (30). Ironically, the protagonist eats, sleeps, and breathes an older woman without knowing her first name. His longing for love drives him to allow “[his] body [to be] like a harp and [Mangan’s sister’s] words and gestures [to be] fingers running upon the wires” (31). In analyzing the piece I came across five roadblocks in his attempts to find love and welcome change: 1) he is in love, yet lacks the courage to speak to her, 2) he finds it impossible to focus on his studies, 3) his uncle forgets to provide train fare on time, 4) the train experienced persistent delays, and 5) the bazaar ended before he purchased a gift. These five elements were provided by Joyce as a means to connect the reader to a drive stronger than the monotonous woes of everyday life. Certainly, at the end the protagonist had an epiphany that he was “a creature… burned with anguish and anger” (35), for the entire obsession and outing was selfish in nature— his instincts for love and change. I would argue this writing has a convincing desire and reminds readers of a time when the desire was confusing and misguided.

    Pursuing this further, Jerome Stern’s collection of stories utilizes the technique of natural instincts, but in a different manner. While the different authors incorporate love and desire, they also depend heavily upon its ability to convince the reader and convey meaning within a limited amount of words. For example, Roberto Fernandez’s “Wrong Channel” explores a desire to belong. Laurie Berry on the other hand draws on the need to love and be loved in “Mockingbird.” Comparatively, “Land’s End” by Antonya Nelson utilizes the desire to move beyond what others possess and own something. Finally, Peggy McNally in “Waiting” pulls on the reader’s heartstrings as the protagonist “remembers her date last night, and hopes it might lead to bigger things” (118). Certainly, these are big concepts to pull off in two pages, yet it becomes possible through natural instincts.

    It is evident, as proven through these illustrations, that universal themes, such as natural instincts, are useful tools for writers to connect with and convince their readers that there are things more powerful than our “monotonous” (Dubliners) routines.