Before starting advanced nonfiction, I never thought about journaling my writing. Sure, I've heard of the "post-it theory" where if you have a writing idea, you need to jot it down on something even if it's just a post-it note. And in some ways, I have done that through Google Docs, my note app on the iPhone, and some physical copies of paper. But a journal on writing? One with deadlines like a real-blog writer? Never thought of it. I've even written blog posts for a media c

Like I mentioned in the last blog post, nonfiction was a difficult concept for me to wrap my mind around for the longest time--it still sort of is. The idea that I can write about other people, I can write about myself, or I can simply write about ideas is so overwhelming to me--and also freeing? Fiction has been my favorite thing to write since I learned to write because I, of course, had control over what I was writing. The beginning, the middle, the ending--I could contro

Heading into a nonfiction writing class was highly stressful for me. I found the topic to be terrifying and challenging. When my advisor in the spring told me the 300,000-level courses that would be available to me my senior year at school that would help me graduate and also pertain to my degree and interests, he urged to take the creative nonfiction course that was available because I maxed out the creative writing courses at the community college I attended before universi

Hi, this post is to fill you in on what the next few posts are going to focus on. There are less than six posts left of this semester--wild to me that we've come so far already. I feel like this course just started that has now given me a new sense of adoration for writing blog posts as a notebook of my random thoughts and ideas. Regardless, I want to challenge myself on my final essay in the course. I will write one more essay using my archival research and making it focus o

Where I left off in my first blog post was about the differences between feminism and misandry and where Dr. Elizabeth Drews, a feminist activist from the 1950's(ish), wrote in here essay "The Second Sex and The Third Force" was stating more about how women could solve the world's issues than men because it was almost an advertisement: Give women more rights, you won't regret it. Obviously, that's not meaning that what she's saying isn't more misandrist than feminist. Stating

"I'm afraid of men." I told my mother while she drove me through the country roads behind our suburban sanctuary. She was taking me to a house I frequently pet-sit at and we were discussing how my roommate at the time was bringing home strange guys and letting them stay the night without telling me because we were fighting. I didn't even think before I said it. "Why are you afraid of men?" I couldn't think of an answer fast enough. "Who hurt you?" I began to panic. I didn't k

Definition of feminism: the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes (Oxford Languages). Definition of misandry: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men (i.e. the male sex) (Oxford Languages). One of my particular interests is how feminism is perceived. Some may view feminism as misandry--seeing that female-identifying individuals are more "important" than male-identifying, nonbinary, or genderfluid individuals. This is, of cou

More Human Than Human? This is my archival essay–but since I am getting into some hard research and facts, I want this piece to be more casual and easier to digest. I also stole this idea from a classmate. Anyway, let’s talk about sex: cis-men and cis-women for the sake of length and time. Please note, the assumption of the sex of the people within the statistics may not coincide with orientation or actual identity. Moving forward, I wanted to look into the challenges between

This may be more of a rant-style piece leading into what I'm going to try and write about. I'm struggling with a lot of writer's block at the moment. One thing about sex that is always a hot topic is which sex is superior intellectually, physically, emotionally--given just talking about cis-female and cis-male. This has been a debate probably since the beginning of time, who knows. Regardless, I've been starting a lot of my archival research trying to come up with something c

Wife of Bath (WOB) is a wonderfully fantastic example of how women talking about their own sexual lives is one of the most shocking things to readers/audiences/general public/society ever sometimes. I like to attack why sex is so taboo in many of my philosophical-based questions in the course and in many of my writings, so WOB gets to be a prime example. First, we're seeing a woman who is middle-aged: let me just say, wow. Another topic on sex that we could talk about, being

For my medieval afterlives course, I have been able to study a lot of women in the Middle Ages. This topic is interesting--the oppression one would think medieval women would be experiencing is a lot less intense than it would seem. There is still major patriarchal dominance and women have very few rights--but they have a lot more than one would think. One of my favorite readings happened to be after I segwayed into this topic of sex and different sex issues in the United St

A strong professor asked me recently what sort of influences does sex have on someone--sex, the act. I argued that there wasn't any effects on others rather than the two individuals who were consenting (adults!!) to have sex--but I was wrong. Now, this doesn't mean that the sex lives of someone is important for the public to know--or even family. Honestly, sex is very natural and it seems odd that it's a taboo topic among adults or a hot conversation because sex is so taboo t

One of my absolute favorite songs by popular artist, Hozier, is "Cherry Wine--Live" released in 2014. At first, there was really only a couple of lines I noticed: "Oh but she loves/Like sleep to the freezing/Sweet and right and merciful/I'm all but washed/In the tide of her breathing/And it's worth it, it's divine" and the tone in which Hozier sings it is very peaceful, very loving. I, at first, thought this was a love song and it made me feel happy. I really wanted to be vie

This is going to be a fun, short article to write. For the sake of the point I'm making, we are assuming our male and female babies are comfortable being male/female assigned at birth as identification of gender and feelings of such don't start manifesting in children until 3+ so we are sticking to cis-male and cis-female babies at this time only. As a daycare teacher, I've witnessed a lot of different developmental traits in my kids over the span of 3+ years within 5 years (

When I first heard about Judith Butler, is was in one of my classes with Dr. Plate at Lindenwood University. I believe I'd heard her name before, she sounded familiar--but I knew nothing about her. I honestly thought Judith Butler was an older author in terms of Woolf and Plath eras. While looking her up, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Butler actually should be an idol of mine--and I'm excited to delve into a lot more research about her. What she's saying in her nove

I have so much to say on this and I don't know where to start or even end this idea, and I want to work this idea and theory out better than I can in my own mind. First, I'd like to start off with the idea that there is something about struggling with identity no matter where one comes from. Whether it's race, religion, creed, and more--it seems to be a central theme throughout most literature, films, art, and even blatant history. We have even called this feeling, "the Other

Warning; this contains spoilers to the 2024 film, "The Substance" please read with discretion. Intro I promise this post ties back to what I've been talking about--or at least relates to the topic I may be shifting to. I sat down to watch a "horror" movie for spooky season as I have been terrible about watching scary and spooky movies in honor of Halloween--I have been terribly busy with work and school so I haven't even watched a movie until today since, like, early August.

This blog post may just serve as a series of different questions and ideas I have while also being sort of a journal entry instead. Last week was a difficult week. First, my dad's death anniversary was Tuesday. That was my birth father, mind you, so I still have my dad but my birth father has been somewhat impactful on my life. He is half of me, I guess, and I don't know anything about him other than that he abused my brothers, he abused his wives, he abused my mother--he wou

I struggled for a very long time with this paper, and still am while writing it–on what a significant topic could be that I haven’t already gone into deep details about on my blog. Then, a friend of mine posted on Facebook about her story and encounter with DV and what that meant for her and her life. She talks about her trauma pretty openly, advocating what I advocate: we need to normalize talking about abuse so other survivors feel less alone and like they can talk about wh

Taking Genres in Creative Writing has been an inspirational class overall for me while attending higher education. Not only has it brought out my finest poetry so far, it has inspired me in the way I want to write about tortured individuals. I've touched on Woolf and Poe and will eventually circle back to them again; but I completely forgot about Plath. Literally a poet, and my poetry that resembles my trauma was what made me think to bring awareness to this issue, and Plath'