A Long Weekend

Friday morning, our teacher announced that today we'll have a peer review of our novels. We all groaned in unison. I think Dr. Jan gets a kick out of our infantile complaints, since she readily allows us to release that energy and  smiles widely all the while.  

In the beginning of our editing process we learned that in order to avoid getting our novel backed into a corner we have to try new things. She had us practice different styles of writing. If we don't particularly write in 1st person - we should try it out, the same goes for any style that we are frightened to dabble with. I am a descriptive and expository writer who tries to stray away from dialogue - to conquer that fear, I weaved dialogue into the plot of my novel. Doing so, I felt I had built a new avenue of creativity, a new direction that my novel can run towards. 

A butterfly we spotted on our way to class.

Our second part of the editing process was the dreaded peer review - every author is fearful of what others will think of their story, as I so felt, especially since my novel isn't orthodox. My novel is about a thing that exists, it has human like sensations - can feel, see, empathize - but isn't a human. The thing has the ability to do what I call, "shimmer", where it can enter the mind of someone and peer through the window of their lives. For a short amount of time this thing can live as someone else and satiate it's need to talk to others, to be listened to, and to belong somewhere. My novel will follow the existence of this thing as it shimmers in people and it's encounter with a young girl who surprisingly the thing realizes it cannot shimmer in. My peer review partner, Kaylyn, lifted my confidence when she remarked on my novel's uniqueness and vivid descriptions, she is also enthused for what is to come. Her compliments and constructive criticism caught me by surprise and made me feel much better about what I had written, since for the past week I had been incredibly doubtful of  myself. Kaylyn herself has a great novel about the life of a girl following the death of her father. Her insights have given me a new inspiration to keep up with my novel. Stay tuned for more about my novel, when I finish my manuscript I'll post the link on this blog. Hopefully it'll turn out well!

That night we went on our first VSA field trip to the Adventure Science Center, a fun interactive museum to teach children of the wonders of science. The whole museum was reserved for VSA, giving us the chance to run around like children without trampling or frightening any actual children. The museum was featuring an exhibit on the human anatomy. There was a huge play structure, where we crawled through the human heart, bones, and veins. Since the park is meant for people of smaller size - children - there were times when I felt very claustrophobic and could not be inside the bone for much longer. 

Audrey and Hawi at the top of the human anatomy structure at the Adventure Science Center. 

On Saturday we had a shorter day of class. We spent the morning with a fun writing exercise then watched the movie Pride and Prejudice. Our class got way too excited about the romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, where we leaped in our seats whenever the two interacted. We even kept a point system to calculate who mustered up the most courage to say a snarky comment or confess their love for one another. 

At the end of the day we had our first VSA dance. It was located in a dimly lit building decorated with lights and safari props - it was a Jungle theme. At first, the DJ was playing music not fit for dancing, so we awkwardly stood on the dance floor attempting to get riled up about Bohemian Rhapsody - don't get me wrong, that's a great song, just not fit for a dance. The DJ soon had some sense knocked into him and began playing more suitable songs, the room was alive with singing, dancing, and laughing. I myself had a great time and enjoyed dancing with Hawi, Audrey, and Abbey. 

Although we did not have class on Sunday, we still had an eventful day. Thankfully we had the opportunity to sleep in. I was woken at 8:30 by some text messages and decided that early in the morning was the perfect time to work on my novel. In the span of an hour I typed two pages - that seems like nothing, but to a writer, that sure is progress. 

Our empty hallway at 8:30 AM

The rest of the day was spent at another field trip, earlier in the week we got to choose whether we wanted to go to a garden, the zoo, rollerskating, or bowling. I chose bowling and so did Hawi and Mehgna. We bowlers hopped onto a bus that drove us to a nearby bowling alley. We played a few games, with a double, I surprisingly won the first. I straggled behind in the other games, as the bowling ball simply longed to be in the gutter. As many will assume, four hours of bowling can be a little much. So, after a few games, our friend group migrated to the arcade room where we played air hockey. With our tickets we were able to buy a few pieces of candy, we gave the rest of our tickets to a family with two little boys, they were ecstatic to have received more tickets. 

 The bowling alley