“Wiki loop” is one of those phrases that has popped up to describe a phenomenon we’ve all experienced: getting stuck reading endless Wikipedia articles. If you’re like me, you may wonder why this could ever be considered a bad thing. But I guess some people have better things to do on Friday nights than click through… Continue reading Embracing the Wiki Loop
Category: School
Deciding Not to Settle: A Writer’s Job Search
A few weeks ago I went to the career fair and left with a bag full of trinkets, a free shirt from a company that told me they didn’t have any jobs for me, and whole lot of questions. Needless to say, it wasn’t particularly fruitful. I would even go so far as to say… Continue reading Deciding Not to Settle: A Writer’s Job Search
Confidence: A Writer’s BFF
Sometimes it’s hard to have confidence in words, even when they come from your own brain. We write them down, question them, write them again. Then we stare at them, wondering if they say what we want them too. It’s only second nature, but it’s also damaging when we don’t trust our words. I’ve been… Continue reading Confidence: A Writer’s BFF
Trusting the Workshop
We tend to think of writing as a personal, internal experience. Thought to paper, right? And that idea is fine until someone actually reads your work. Then you have to think about what your writing means, its relationship to reality, what people think of it–all the stuff you would rather avoid while just continuing to write. I… Continue reading Trusting the Workshop
Harry Potter Pilgrimage
I have to say, there’s no better trip for Harry Potter fan than the one I just took (and I mean this in the most objective way possible). In the past five weeks, I’ve eaten breakfast and dinner in the Great Hall at Christ Church (the Inspiration for the Hogwarts Great Hall), stumbled across rooms… Continue reading Harry Potter Pilgrimage
Appreciating Oxford
Sometimes, when you’re frantically trying to write papers or study for tests, it’s easy to forget that you’re in another country. It’s something I’ve had to remind myself of many times over the past four weeks, when I’ve realized I’m becoming complacent or am complaining about what I’m doing. While I do care about my… Continue reading Appreciating Oxford
A Day in Christ Church
I’ve been in Oxford for about two days now, and I’m still constantly astounded by the beauty of the university and the city. Our train from Wales came in around 4 on Saturday, and the streets were flooded with tourists. It was a shock seeing it so busy, since none of us really thought… Continue reading A Day in Christ Church
Walking: A Thoreau Effort
(First, let me just say that you’d all better appreciate that pun.) Since coming to the UK, I’ve walked at least ten thousand more steps than usual. On Wednesday, we decided to walk back to Swansea University (where we’re staying in Wales) because our professor told us it was about a mile. It ended up… Continue reading Walking: A Thoreau Effort
Why Re-Reading is Worth it
“Harry had never been to London before.” One of my study abroad courses is called “Harry Potter and the English Fantasy Tradition.” Most of the people I tell this either don’t believe me, or think that it’s a thinly veiled excuse to read Harry Potter and pretend I’m taking a class. The truth is, I… Continue reading Why Re-Reading is Worth it
The Art of Helping Others
I had a sort of epiphany this semester. In my creative writing class, we spent a lot of time workshopping our short stories. I made a comment about one girl’s work, and she told me after class that I always had the best responses and that I really helped her see the direction of her story.… Continue reading The Art of Helping Others