e-mail: hmaclean@mail.usf.edu 

Apparently I have had troubles contacting people via e-mail, so here is mine.  If there are any problems or lack of replies, please inform me on the Wiki or in class.

 

My writing is not at its best.  You can make a difference. Make it your own...but preferably on a separate page because otherwise poor Heidi gets confused.  ^_-

 

A handy dandy link for everyone who is tired of dealing with the BS as it relates to MyUSF.  Gee, I am sure thoughtful to pass the word.

 

Purpose and stuff: Personal goals: Other notes: Unit two: Friend (10/16) Like music like writing like everything 10/13: Heidi's tech writing and intern work  - my own page to have free reign over my internship work. Week 7: Be true to yourself: Escape Unit one:

-Some of the content links don't work and some do.  Useful, huh?

Purpose and stuff:

 

Feel free to remix anything I ever put on this wiki.  I've thrown ideas out there but yet to have found an idea I can really expand on, though I am getting there.  It has been a real struggle at this point to find one thing which really resonates that I can make something I am proud of.  If it seems that I am not taking my ideas seriously, it's because I am quite frankly frustrated at having a mental block.

 

I am working with Elizabeth on our internship work on the wiki as a fall back purpose and because the wiki and us being classmates makes it too damn convenient to pass up this opportunity.  I encourage anyone to use anything we have written as inspiration, if it is possible to feel inspired by drab subject matter.  It should give some of you a glimpse of the process of writing in this field, however, and I encourage anyone to ask questions and be involved. 

 

Personal goals:

 

9/28:

-Polish my technology musing while incorporating feedback received (thank you Andrew and Meg). 

-Work on my travel writing.

-Continue with DRCA stuff.

-Consider incorporating creative writing.

-Write on music related stuff.

- Write on chapters for course texts.

 

Notes on class:  I am looking forward to time boxing class time.  I understand why things have been really free-flowing for Unite One, but I look forward to seeing time used so that we can work in class together and continue to work outside of class as we have been.

 

Things I would be interested in seeing more of through the course:

 

Focus on the craft of writing coupled with the writing process.  I did a lot of this in Comp I and II but still think these are things that should be still considered and discussed to keep us from getting too complacent in how we express our ideas.  I believe in different ways of making a point and different styles, though focus would still be worth the while, imo. 

 

I also think other people should speak up on the wiki, like in a comments/suggestions box, about what they would like to see more of or do more of in and out of class.  After all, we are studying communication.  If we cannot even communicate amongst each other clearly about our desired objectives, then that would be a problem worth taking care of, right? 

 

Other notes:

 

I already put it on the Announcements page, but I highly encourage each and every one of you to send in submissions for the literary journal that Sigma Tau Delta is putting on.  Again, we meet weekly on Thursdays at six in the FCT area.  In that hour, we do writing exercises, workshopping, and we are a small but very cool, very...not pretentious bunch of nerds.  We even have cookies!  : D  But seriously, we love having people come.  /promotion

 

Unit two:

 

Friend (10/16)

 

All the things I should have said weigh on my mind.  I never told you how I felt.  I never revealed the full spectrum of my feelings.  And six years in the future, it still haunts me.  

You were a light in my path though both you and I were in our own dark rooms reaching for the door.  We never did seem to find the handle leading to our rooms next door.  We merely heard each others words through the medium of the wall.

When you left, I finally was able to clearly see the writing on the wall.  The words I will cherish for years to come.  I never thought it was possible to know someone could love the part of myself I was ashamed of.  

I'm sitting in my room, now, and I'm thinking how ironic it all was, though I cannot say why it feels that way.  I guess I still wonder how things might have been if things would have turned out differently.  But I guess there is no sense in asking such senseless questions, especially when there is no one here or in the other room to answer me.  

Tomorrow is Sunday, I think.  Or is it Monday?  I don't really know anymore.  Time slips away from me and I wonder if this is how it is to be God and to see these fleeting lives outside of the bounds of time or space. 

 

I remember how many times I sat in the dark in this room wondering quietly why we couldn't have stayed friends.  Each month that goes by makes the silence of the answer less deafening and easier to accept to where it almost feels calming. 

 

Like music like writing like everything

 

10/13:

 

To hell with the whole thing with people telling you who you should or shouldn't love.  I mean, it is ridiculous thinking about it, that there are some arbitrary rules about who you can love and how you can love them.  Well, I do admit that I, while not being the most ethical person in the world, hold some pretty firm ethics as to how you should or should not treat people you do love, or say you love.  But who are we to say you cannot love this person or that person when two people who are really equals can decide for themselves if it is love or not.  I admit I say equals because I am personally against pedophilia, bestiality, and the like.  Some claim it can be love.  I am not at all convinced when I see it as a very unequal thing based on biology of the mental sort.   

 

Heidi's tech writing and intern work  - my own page to have free reign over my internship work.

At this rate, though, with the newsletter having been composed, the above page has become worthless.  Bad timing on my part.  Though once we get to working on the DRCA website, at least I anticipate that happening even though news on what needs to be done has been stagnant. 

 

Week 7:

 

10/5:

Revelation:  I do not have a niche and so my niche is in not having one.  It's why I chose to be a writer, anyways, than being some specialized something.  I like to do a little of everything...verse, fiction, non-fiction, exposition....

Thanks, Adam.

 

Week 5:

 

Be true to yourself:

9/23 

Lauren's poem which I remixed got me thinking of the importance of being true to oneself.
I believe that a part of being true to oneself is being able to give and take where we give of ourselves openly while openly receiving what others give of themselves.  A part of being true is to realize we are all bound to be different.  Our differences give us character, after all, and gives this otherwise seemingly mundane world some color.  Color wouldn't be color, after all, if the world was colored in a monochromatic hue.  
All too often, though, I find myself and sense others also falling into the pattern of mimicking the loudest voice without realizing that their own voice is just as important to be heard if we want to make any positive ripples.
What's more is that not being true to oneself can lead to the shackled mind syndrome which is a state I am quite familiar with.  Anyone who has been indoctrinated with a very rigid mode of thought, behavior, and ethics dictated by a fringe group or cult probably knows how it is to simultaneously envy and loathe 'normal' free thinking people.
To deprive oneself of free reign of thought and speech is a miserable form of self-imprisonment which I wish on no one.  On one hand, by imposing a very rigid code of conduct upon oneself, while being a very limiting mode of expression also allows one to realize their own inner power to change themselves and in so doing realize the power of will.  
The human will and human imagination are both wonderful and terrible things.  They can empower one or they can empower many.  They can bring about tyranny over individuals and masses and can allow for entire nations to be swept along the currents of deception.   

 

Escape

9/24

I'm running, my feet pounding against the slippery asphalt, my foot steps like the sounding of a military bass drum.  

I have to get out of this town, out of this city with the smog induced mist, the starless night, the burning sun, and the acid rain that is falling now.

Wincing, I cover my ears with my hands, trying to shut out the ringing dissonance of clashing values and clashing lifestyles.  

For a long time, I stayed here trying to learn about others, to keep myself open, but feeling myself being pulled between two opposite directions and being suspended between two worlds, feeling the seismic friction as they slide and collide, I know I will be destroyed if I stay any longer.

And though I didn't stop to see your face, though we just met, I can feel the sadness, the hurt, and the confusion written on your face.  

I say silently that I am sorry, but we both know it would have never worked.

 

Slipping, I stumble and bust my knee.  Getting up, standing, and charging forward, I ignore the traces of blood or the aching pain.  Such is a small price for freedom and for truth.

 

Click here!

 

---

 

Unit one:

 

Heidi's Portfolio

 

emergence.rtf (technically there is a revision to this rough draft which PBWorks claims would be automatically updated in place of the original file, but apparently PBWorks lies.  Or else it just takes a few hours to update...)

Current rough draft (second revision) - Might not be viewable with IE browser which sucks anyways.  FireFox FTW.   It's editable, too, by anyone.

 

Introspection on Emergence

 

Cultural Identity  - To be a piece on how it is for me, as a first generation American, to live in the United States while also touching on how it is to be linked to a specific ethnicity.

Symphonies and their Struggle

Sound and Language

 

New internship: the Downtown Residents' Civic Association

 

Heidi's Idea Blog

Heidi's Wiki Commentary

Heidi's music and vid collection

 

H I MacLean's Book of Verse

 

Henry and Heidegger remix

 

---

Whatever

 

I am personally curious about everyone's writing interests and writings processes.  I would like to be able to discuss some concrete plans and ideas people have about writing.  I would like to hear why people write and about what they aspire to write. 

 

I chose to be a writing major because it is my strongest suit and has always been my strongest suit.  Writing is something I do for myself without having parents or teachers ever having had to bitch at me to take time to do.  Experiencing an abstract sense of claustrophobia that comes from being told exactly how to run my life, I felt that choosing writing was choosing freedom. 

 

Sure, when people in my life ask me what I am majoring in, I get nervous.  I imagine just about every English major, especially the writing majors, understand how it is to tell people your major and then get The Look.  The Look is the look people give you who think being a writing major means that you want to write novels for a living.  They give you a highly skeptical and quizzical look which is hidden behind another look of polite inquisitiveness put on to attempt to mask The Look, but really, they think you are living in an airy-fairy dream world for thinking you can make money by writing primarily. 

 

Explaining my plans is not particularly easy because writing is so general and can land one in a wide array of fields.  Hell, that's why I chose to be a writing major because I have no idea what job I am going to have that will be a career.  I don't even want to have too much certainty in my vocation, to be perfectly honest.  While job security is extremely valuable, variety is important, too, at least for me.

 

So I chose writing because it gives me so many options while taking from my strongest skill.  In that way I am really giving my best assets to society versus simply picking something which sounds safe and secure and may land me a nice pay check, at least going by current job trends, but at the cost of really finding a profession which helps me to bring out my true potential.

 

I have done a lot of research on writing as a career.  There are really so many options.  However, being met with skepticism and thinking on the reasons why I want to write professionally, it makes me interested to be able to see why other people chose writing as a major.  Quite frankly, I think writing courses would do better if some time was devoted to discussing the job prospects for various levels of experience.  I think for some, having a vision of what the writing world is really like would help spur on people's motivation to take their writing that they do now in and out of school more seriously.  I know that without having ambition and without realizing what competition is out there or what prospects are out there, I would be pretty half-assed in my own writing.  I mean, sure, I write as a hobby, or I used to.  It used to be my personal therapy, as an old friend and fellow writer once mockingly pointed out.  It still is.  Times when I am really at a loss and am pretty much fed up with everything and see no point in any of it, I write.  Simple as that.

 

I think that without writing, shitty parts of my life would have been so much shittier.  But shit aside, I also realize that writing is the one thing I enjoy pouring hours of scrutiny and effort into perfecting a piece whether it is mine or someone else's.  Few things get me riled up more than bad writing.  Thanks to my earlier composition courses, I now understand the fury one can feel when someone explains something in a highly subjective way and then get furious at you because you did not adequately comprehend their haphazard communication. 

 

Communication these days is absolutely essential.  This is another reason I study what I do.  Realizing how many businesses and careers rise and fall on account of communication, or the lack thereof, has made me appreciate the benefits of being a professional/technical writing major which I see as simply being a 'writing major' as the things you can do with this major are so many, as I stated already.

 

Anyways, I wrote enough on this long-winded spiel.  I'll maybe put this on a separate page later so I don't clog up my haphazard format any more than it is.

 

Old writing:

 

In studying various religious and spiritual movements and disciplines, one of the most common of themes is to be cured of malady whether such concern the physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual.

In Buddhism, it is to be cured of human suffering. In Christianity, it is to be absolved of sin. And where there is a cure, there also exists a destination where one is unified with the cosmic forces or a cosmic deity. In some cases, this means to escape the circular tide of reincarnation and enter Nirvana. In others it is to attain unto a heaven or new earth which is one devoid of the evils and sufferings marking the former age. Often in conjunction with these ideal states of existence is that of perfection in virtue, in wisdom, and in love.

However, to attain to such places of paradise, one is required to walk a certain path in their lifetime or lifetimes. Despite some religions adhering to the karmic notion of rebirth, the very concept of karma makes the idea of being reborn in how it affects one's life who is trying to follow the right path of little significance. One who persists to evil in their lifetime runs the risk of being reborn into more undesirable forms and circumstances. I even recall stumbling upon one Buddhist text which basically said that you cannot take your life for granted because you never know whether you become reincarnated into a state where it is impossible to attain higher consciousness and where one awaits some sort of dreary existence in some hellish after life. Or so I read.

In any case, both religions which teach reincarnation and those that do not teach that holy living, the abasement of desires, and a manner of consecration is needed to merge with the cosmic forces or else to attain unto a paradise. Whether it is Daoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, or Christianity, these basic principles do exist and do play a weighty role in freeing the individual from the chains of carnality and karmic weight.

---

Class quotes:

 

Conner:

 

"Fuck the wiki."

 

"People thought writing was really fucked up"

 

Blah, blah, blah:

 

I like writing about abstract theories, particularly where it pertains to human personality and human behavior, speculation on science, technology, and their application to society for better or for worse, similar philosophical-esque mumbo-jumbo, religion and spirituality, and anything which sounds interesting but is not bound to make me a lot of money unless I could find the self-discipline to channel it all into a groovy novel with a five percent chance of its publication getting me a reasonable profit. 

 

My practical know-how is embarrassingly stagnant and so really only exists where it concerns music in all of its overly-romanticized glory when it really is little more than a lot of redundant work with little to no pay unless you basically become a living sacrifice, to borrow St. Paul's terminology, and dedicate your life to being some guru at performing, composing (my personal preference), or whatever it is that you want to do as a musician.

 

I tend towards the bad habit of run on sentences and am notorious for being longwinded.  I'm working on working on that.  The last sentence was not a typo.

 

Subjects of interest to write about, thus, are many.

 

Some interests specifically include gender, thanks to an exit course related to the subject, most recently asexuality (http://www.asexuality.org/home/ ), previously religion, fanaticism, and spirituality, technology ,typology, related social issues, innovations, and the like. 

 

My writing style tends towards being matter of fact.  I attempt at conveying pragmatism and realism in my writing.  I, in line with the essay we looked at, by George Orwell/Eric Blair, in class on 9/14, avoid using words and phrases I do not mean.  I tend to avoid metaphors and similes unless I am making a quip and a point.  This is ironic because I used to thrive on the extended metaphor back when I was an avid writer of verse. 

 

Despite trying to be matter of fact and practical in my writing, I tend towards abstract and progressive ideas.  I am ever imagining ways of advancement in whatever field that grabs my interest. 

 

Obligatory quotes since quoting people --mostly dead people-- is the thing to do (except for Nietzsche because anyone and everyone quotes him to sound more intelligent than they most likely are, and I quite frankly find it to be a form of fad just as  I quite frankly find Nietzsche to be over rated):

 

"We've got to regain knowledge again, and we've got to regain an understanding again, of who we are. Not just those chosen to fuel systems, but individuals who have the power to criticize and analyze, and attack injustice when it becomes prevalent and apparent in front of our faces like it is in ours right now. We've been all put to sleep. Put to sleep to a system. A system that continues to perpetrate ignorance amongst our spirits and amongst our minds. One that wants you not to act. A system that would rather see all of you at that bar drinking beer filling your minds being put to sleep with beer or with drugs, rather than acting against it and fighting a system which has been perpetrating imperialist lies and other fucking bullshit for five hundred years.

So fucking drink up or fucking wake up. You're part of the solution or you're part of the fucking problem. I am sick and tired of my own complacence in my life and I know I'm fucking sick of yours. So wake up and stop fucking sleeping. Wake Up." --Zack De La Rocha

 

Carl G. Jung:

 

“If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.”

 

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely”

 

“If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.”

 

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

 

"All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination."

 

"Our unconscious is the key to our lives' pursuits." (added by E Sellers)

 

I have been studying some Jungian psychology based concepts for six or seven years.  I also am aware of MBTI and other typology schools such as Enneagram, and  especially Socionics which was born out of the USSR in the 1970s and I have been researching this study for six years.  Recently a book by Dr. Filatova has been released in the English language, Understanding the People Around You: An Introduction to Socionics, and I was among some of the first to purchase the book, admittedly, whether that is a good or bad thing.  There are a lot of bad resources on the web in English, such as the one run by Sergi Ganin who proposes some quackery (this field is treated as an academic field in the former USSR).  Some good English resources are the English wiki  and http://socionics.us

 

I use Jung's ideas written in his work Psychological Types as a basis of dividing information into eight very broad categories and applying it to music, fiction, and various art forms, among other things.

 

Favorite poets

 

T.S. Eliot

Wallace Stevens

Robert Frost

William Wordsworth

E.E. Cummings

 

Music and stuff

 

bands:

 

Yes, Rage Against the Machine, A-ha, Heroes and Zeroes, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Simple Minds, Boston, Coldplay, The Smiths, Moody Blues

 

One of the reasons I like Yes: Siberia Khatru Live I actually think it's better than the studio version.  Though Homeworld is pretty amazing, too.