Lisa's Blog

I'd Rather Be Writing

Category: UMass Dartmouth

08/31/2013

The Selfie

Here is a list of Oxford Dictionary’s new words. Every year, they add about 1000 new words to their database. This year, selfie was one of them.

College students today (or Millennials) will know right away what this is, but for all my fellow Gen Xers out there, let me fill you in.

A selfie is a picture taken of one’s self. The person holds their camera or phone out as far as they can and shoots down at their face.

(If you try this at home, hold the camera above your face. Just TRUST me on this.)

Then the person uploads it to a social media site. It’s a great way to remember doing something fun either alone or together in a group. You have probably seen them on the internet and didn’t even know it.

Millennials have been doing this for years.
So what’s the big deal?

Words in the dictionary feel more serious. They are more permanent. Now that selfie is added to the dictionary, it is forever engrained in our canon of literary words and this gives it more credibility. They are legitimate (which means, “ability to be defended with logic or justification” according to oxforddictionary.com.)

A dictionary is also a reliable source. (It’s not from a wiki.)

I have to admit, though, oxforddictionaries.com is not my first choice to look up trendy new words.

The first place I go is urbandictionary.com. The definitions are more casual, sometimes funny. They define selfie as “a picture taken of yourself that is planned to be uploaded to Facebook.” Then they add the funny, urban legend part: “If a person has to take a picture of themselves, then they have no friends.” Now, that part isn’t true. A person might just be alone or maybe three or four of them want to be in the picture together. The purpose is to remember this moment in time.

I know what the Baby Boomers are thinking: urbandictionary.com isn’t a reliable source. That’s okay. I may check the urbandictionary.com or a wiki (No, I didn’t write that) to guide me in the right direction.

So, we have some homework to do, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. We need to keep learning new words or we just might regret it some day.

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08/06/2013

ENL 200 The Short Story

Today is the last day of my summer class. Reading 100 short stories in four weeks was challenging, but also enlightening. For those of us familiar with Sir Arthur Conon Doyle’s work, it was fascinating to come across the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The parallels are infinite. If there were only one or two similarities in theme, then this argument would not be valid. But, “The Study in Scarlet” feeds off of many elements of “The Murder in the Rue Morgue.” Therefore it is obvious that Poe has had an influence on Doyle’s work.

It was challenging, but well worth the effort. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”  was published in 1841. It was in this story that Poe developed his plot. For the first time, Poe used a master detective to discuss his cases with a loyal admirer.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not the creator of this concept, and he wasn’t the first author to invent the detective mystery. Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet was published until 1887, 46 years after Poe’s detective stories. Each literary period influences the next. This is evident when contrasting Poe’s and Doyle’s detective stories.

The summer reading list consisted of many stories I’ve read before:

But some stories I read for the first time:

 

The hero in each, Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes, have some admiral qualities that make them stand out from the rest of the world. Each possesses an exceptionally mind which is articulate, intelligent, and even arrogant. Although, as readers, we can forgive this overconfident nature because the stories are so compelling, they satisfy our need for intrigue. The narrator in Poe’s story admires Dupin’s intelligence, “At such times, I could not help remarking and admiring (although from his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a peculiar analytic ability in Dupin.” Doyle alludes to a similar admiration in Holmes, “Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me.” Both narrators give details and analysis to arouse our curiosity and then deliver a clever ending to both satisfy and entertain us.

A second similarity is that the stories are retold by an eye witness. Both Dr. Watson and the narrator of “The Murder in the Rue Morgue” are friends (of the hero), retelling an interesting story about how the mystery is solved. Poe tells the reader that this is a story about the narrator meeting Dupin, “Our first meeting was at a library in the Rue Montmarte … “ Although Doyle’s “A Study in Scarlet” does not go in to the depths of the murder they are about to solve, Watson relates how he was introduced to Holmes by a mutual friend. Stamford says that he knows someone who is looking for a roommate, “A fellow … was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he found … “ Both are distinct in their own voices, yet similar ideas can be seen.

If it were just these two incidents, one could say it was a coincidence, but there are many similarities. In both narratives, the police have exhausted all their methods of deduction and are forced to go to the hero for assistance in solving the murders. The Purloined Letter has many similarities to A Scandal in Bohemia. Instead of solving a murder, the hero is looking for an item (Dupin a letter, Holmes a photo.) What is shocking is that they both use a distraction (one, a man in the street, the other I believe starts a fire) to gain the information they need.

Growing up with Sherlock Holmes, it was an enlightenment to see the resemblances in each author’s styles and ideas of what makes a good detective story.

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06/16/2013

Library Rantings

Working at the library is different every day. If it’s the first week of a new semester, there are lots of questions from incoming freshman and transfer students. In the summer, it’s a little more casual. We usually shift books from one section to another and organize.

In the summer of 2013, I worked with another student at the library. We were both English majors, but he was a year ahead of me. I liked to ask him about the professors. Some he admired. Some he hated, but he always had funny stories about his experiences.

This particular morning I brought in my 10-minute play I wrote for Professor Nee’s playwriting class. The Diagnosis was my first work of fiction. Based on a true story, it was something I had thought about for a long time. The story was just waiting to be told and here was an opportunity to dramatise the narrative. I was happy with the results.

He said he liked it, then asked if I wanted to see something he wrote for class. Well, I read his personal essay and actually cried.

It was actually a piece of his soul, put on paper, for everyone to see.

It was about the death of his brother. describing the feelings and how he deals with it even today. Well, it moved me like nothing else I’ve read. It wasn’t just words on a paper. It was his heart’s blood, smeared for all of us to see.

That’s the writing I want to create.

For me English isn’t just about writing and reading great classical literature. It’s about creatively thinking and communicating with other people. That’s why I’m studying English at UMass Dartmouth.

Well, he graduated last year. Now, I’m looking ahead to my senior year, but until then it’s back to shifting books.

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