I remember
waking up early on Saturday mornings
watching cartoons and building forts with you out of cushions
we’d eat cereal
while Mom and Dad slept.

 I remember
stray animals following you home from school
anything and everyone loving you
your impish grin; how that kept you out of trouble
you still charm people to this day.

 I remember
your zest for life and your passion for fun
playing outside with your friends, riding bikes
how you’d stay out till the streetlights came on
how I’d call your name to come home.

 I remember
sleepless nights filled with tension
where we’d talk through our connecting bedroom wall
a secret language we had through knocking
as Mom and Dad argued.

 I remember
when you and Harry set the field on fire
and me telling on you
Mom lit a whole pack of matches in your face
a lesson was learned.

 I remember
weekends spent in wildwood, the salty sea air
playing monopoly and war well past our bedtime
going to the beach all day and the boardwalk at night
fun times were had with family.

 I remember
how a piece of you also died that fateful night
at sixteen, a momma’s boy you were
Little Boy Blue became Little Boy Lost
would you, could you survive?

 I remember
feeling scared to death when you joined the army
so young you were at nineteen
would you come home alive
you’re my hero.

 I remember
hearing the death sentence of your incurable illness
have we really come this far only to lose you once again
you gave up, then chose life at death’s door
you wanted to live again.

 I remember
listening to the laughter
of our children as they play together
as we sit and recall the good times
a family’s love lasts forever.

 I remember
starting out protecting you
but somehow, someway
the tides have changed
for it is I who now look to you for comfort and advice.

 I remember everything…
the good,
the bad,
but most of all, the LOVE!

 

The House That Built Me
written by: Tom Douglas / Allen Shamblin

I know they say you can’t go home again
I just had to come back one last time
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam
But these handprints on the front steps are mine

Up those stairs in that little back bedroom
Is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar
I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
My favorite dog is buried in the yard

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

Mama cut out pictures of houses for you
From Better Homes and Gardens magazine
Plans were drawn and concrete poured
Nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama’s dream

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can
I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

Walking back in time.
I am the house that built me :) #twitterive
Going home again
The house I grew up in in Voorhees. Suddenly I feel so small.#twitterive   http://twitpic.com/2rj4g6

I really enjoyed reading the two chapters in Dubliners, written by James Joyce. The way he writes gave me at times, the feeling of being there with the character. His use of descriptive details gave me a way of "seeing" the two  stories, instead of just being told in the narrative. Initially, the vocabulary took some time to get used to, but eventually I was able to go with the flow.

The chapter entitled An Encounter, is the story of two boys playing hooky from school who unknowingly took me along with them for the adventure. I love the way James uses rich details describing the beautiful surroundings as the narrator waits for his friends to join him for their adventure to Pigeon House. Joyce narrates, "All the branches of the tall trees which lined the mall were gay with little light green leaves and the sunlight slanted through them on to the water." Joyce's use of alliteration was not lost on me as a writer. I thought this passage was as beautiful as the surroundings. I did get a creepy sensation when the lone man decided to hang with the boys. At first I thought he was blind die to the stick references going tap, tap, tap. It took me awhile to decide that he wasn't. Why was he so nice to them, coaxing them for information about sweethearts, then sound sinister when alone with the narrator as Mahoney chased the cat. I think in the end, the boys realized that this adventure was not such a hot idea after all. It wasn't as fun as it was supposed to be.

For me, Araby tells the story of unrequited love. It's the kind of schoolboy crush that at the time, seems like true love in its splendor. The main character watches and waits for Mangan's sister to come into view. He watches her from his home, admiring her from afar. I like the way Joyce describes her when the narrator and Mangan saw her on the step at night.. "Her dress swung as she moved her body and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side." Isn't that lovely? I never thought of my own long hair as soft rope. He is smitten, thinks about her all the time,and often wonders what he would even say to her should she speak to him. I felt very involved in this story, identifying with the narrator and feeling his pain. When she does finally speak to him in the back drawing room, they speak of Araby and the bazaar. The narrator decides to go since she can't, and he will buy her something. Alas, unrequited love is frustrating for a reason. For when the narrator reaches the bazaar it's closing and there's nothing left worth buying. I feel for him at this moment because I have felt this way at times with crushes when I was younger. You want to come up with something to impress the other person, and when you come up empty handed, it's crushing.

After reading Gloria Anzaldua's story How To Tame A Wild Tongue, I sat still for a minute. I wanted to allow the feelings and sense of purpose from the author to finish enveloping me. When first reading this story, I have to admit, I had some trouble spots to get over with all the Spanish and English dialogue intertwined. However, as I moved along in the story, my troubling spots became more intriguing.  I wanted to learn more of the author's plight and her Chicano people. I felt great empathy for Ms. Anzaldua throughout the story. It must be extremely difficult and very frustrating to feel that you cannot be who you were intended to be because of language and cultural diversities. I felt bad for her when her own mother, "was mortified that she spoke English like a Mexican." Perhaps this was due to Spanish speaking people trying to "fit in" with American culture, disregarding the importance of their own dialect and cultural ways. Anzaldua felt lost and unidentifiable because there was no Chicano Spanish spoken around her in the outside world. Sad that it was not until 1965 that she felt that her people existed, due to Cesar Chavez and others gaining recognition. I thought this was awful. To have an event finally put your people on the map?

This story brought up a memory for me that until now, I never really gave much thought of. My brother's first wife was Mexican, and she lived in Texas her whole life until she moved to New Jersey with my brother after he got out of the Army. Her accent was mostly that of a southern accent, yet one could hear a Spanish accent as well. I wonder now years later how she must've felt during the time she lived up here in the northeast. The only time she would interact with another Spanish person is if she ran into one at the store. My brother says she mostly spoke Spanish to her mother, but still none of us up here spoke her comforting language. I took French in high school and some in college as the story recalls many American taking instead of Spanish, whose population was growing here, not French. I'm sure my sister-in-law felt like a fish out of water at times, not just because we didn't speak Spanish, but because New Jersey was not Texas. I give her a lot of credit for packing up her life and moving here. The move in itself was a cultural shock!

I will never feel the way Gloria Anzaldua felt. Maybe more of us should so changes can be made. Acceptance of all needs to be the norm, not acceptance of those who can conform.

I really enjoyed the collection of short, short stories in Micro Fiction, edited by Jerome Stern. I never knew that these short stories had a genre. These stories were short, crisp, and to the point. Each short story in the collection was different, ranging from the light-hearted immigrant awaiting her green card, to the condescending tone of an entitled trust fund baby.

I thought Wrong Channel, written by Roberto Fernandez, was especially humorous. It demonstrated and epitomized how, through language barriers,  unwanted happenings can arise. The irony of the story was through the language barrier of the interpreter, not the immigrant herself.

Waiting, written by Peggy McNally, first interested me because it was a story about a teacher. In the end, the story had nothing to do with teaching. It appears as though the main character is in a constant "waiting" pattern. She waits in  love, and in life. Her father ironically tells her that if she waits long enough she might get hired, where benefits await her. And her life might improve if she's willing to wait just a little bit longer. The main character lives in an unending loop with no end in sight. Waiting, not patience is this woman's virtue.

Author Gian Pagnucci writes in "Living the Narrative Life: Telling Your Own Story," how stories and memories from our past help shape us forever, and makes us who we are today. I agree with him. I absolutely believe without a shadow of a doubt that who I am and what I believe is a direct result from the experiences I had during my childhood. This realization took me back to the memory of my Grandmom, and how much love and affection she had for everyone, not just her family. Always smiling, she would do anything for anyone. She smothered us grandkids with wet kisses, let us change the tv channel, and always smelled of fragrant powder. I believe this memory has helped me to become the loving mother I am today. Memories also gave way to my parents' constant arguing, where confrontations and accusations  resulted to many a sleepless night. To this day I hate any type of arguing, and I try to avoid all confrontation like the plague.

Pagnucci also states how our stories matter and we should want to record them, sharing them with the world. Luckily for me, I don't necessarily need to write them down. For some reason I have the best memory in the world when it comes to recalling the stories of my life. I remember so many stories! I remember people, places, events, dates, etc. One of my cousins always says that if you're ever in a reception line, I'm the one you want to be next to. In fact, I tell my children stories of my life all the time! If I am having a conversation with them or listening to one of their stories, nine times out of ten it will trigger a story from me. They actually wait for it. I'll say, "You know when I was little...." I have a story for just about anything. We laugh constantly. However, I believe through these stories they get a sense of who I am while taking a walk down memory lane.

Lastly, Pagnucci talks about how stories connect us to other people, and we have a responsibility to respond to those stories. Some of my stories are long and detailed. But as Pagnucci says, "some of the most treasured stories are the simplest." One of the simplest stories I treasure deeply is that of me and my Pop-Pop sitting on the steps on the side of my grandparent's house shucking corn on the cob. He took great pains to show me the correct way to shuck  that ear of corn, making sure we painstakingly got all the silky hair off. While we did this he would often tell me his own stories. What made it even more special is that is was just us two. I was the only one who enjoyed doing this task. The rest of my cousins  couldn't be bothered, instead they happily played tag among the apple, peach, and pear trees. I do have other great family stories regarding sleep overs, barbecues, and Christmas dinners. However, this simple story will always remain my favorite.

I enjoyed this reading very much, and will continue the art of storytelling throughout my years. I think it's a great way to preserve the past. One only has to look as far as their heart to remember. =)

I will admit that for this blog entry, I did end up editing what I said in my first email to Professor Mangini by keeping it "Audience" friendly. Most of the editing however, was just in my profile. I edited my profile because I remembered things after the fact of writing and sending it.  I think the revision sounds better. Also, I really don't like to air my dirty laundry in public for all to see. There really wasn't anything too outlandish written, but perhaps I was over tired or over frustrated with the program at the time of the writing. I like the overhaul I did to my profile. Regarding the Writing, Research, and Technology area, I did a few tweaks here and there in the Writing area. Again, I left some things out previously. I didn't touch the Research or Technology parts. They remain as they did in my original email. It's funny, this is the first time that I edited myself. I usually don't because I feel that if I said it, I probably meant it. However, for the purpose of this blog being so public, I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong impression of me. Overall I'm pretty happy with my outcome. I am happy where I am academically regarding my Rowan CGCE program, and I look forward to learning and experiencing more in the future.

I am the mother of two children. My daughter is twenty-one and a senior in college, and I have a seventeen year old son who will begin his senior year in high school. Knowing that I want to become excites me very much! I probably will begin at the elementary level, hoping to eventually conquer teaching at the college level such as yourself. First I need to get my Master's degree, which I'll probably get in Reading, although I haven't ruled out Writing. I think there's a place for me in this field too. I returned to college three years ago after a 20+ year absence. I had one year of college under my belt after high school and stopped because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and didn't want to waste my father's money. Finally, after much prodding from my boyfriend and children, and with tons of trepidation, I returned to college to attain the degree that eluded me for so long.

While attending Camden County College, I did hear of the CPCE program through teachers and peers, but did not pursue this avenue. I was to begin the Elementary Education/Writing Arts program, but on Rowan's main campus. You see I am a morning person, and it appealed to me going to school full time during the day so I could take care of my family at night. However, after running into problems registering for classes, I decided the CGCE program made my life easier in the long run, and I was just going to embrace the experience. Since I've been in this program for a year now, there have been more affordances than constraints. So far my experience with this Rowan community has been pretty good. I like that I'm in a group program where we actually get to know one another since we are together for all classes. The classes have been interesting and a good learning experience for me. I'm really enjoying the new friends that I've made thus far. We seem to work well together. The downside to this program is that we seem to get treated like the red headed step child. We tend to get the leftovers in my opinion  at Rowan. We constantly get the lower end of the stick when it comes to our education placements unlike the students who attend school on the main campus. This program was not packaged correctly and does have some flaws. It does need some retooling in my opinion.  However, it's still a relatively new program, and like all new products, there's kinks to be worked out. I'm sure they will get it right.

 I go with the flow, and take it one day at a time. I try to see the positives. I'm not saying that I haven't been frustrated or overwhelmed, because I have many times over. But I have learned so many things pertaining to the education field that will help me when I get my own classroom. The lessons and practices I learn here will help me to be more prepared in the future. The past year has filled our group with many challenges regarding classes, homework, and how to write lesson plans. But this semester seems to be looking up. Between your laid back approach and the understandings of our other teachers, this semester might actually allow me to breathe! That would be nice indeed!