Blogging Around

      I read and commented on Andy's blog, titled Metacognition: Poem Process. He detailed his arduous journey of writing poetry. From first thinking of an idea that would serve as the foundation of his poem to the actual execution of the poem itself, Andy explained his constantly changing emotions and mindsets. To his blog entry, I responded:

     Andy,

      I love how you compared your poetry writing process to the army. The teacher being the commander and the poem being the goal, your thoughts truly captures the frustration and difficulty of the task of writing an artistic, unique, and beautiful poem. I can relate to everything you have stated in the blog. I felt your pain, your pressure, and most importantly your eventual success. The thing that I believed was the root of much of our preliminary anguish was the fact that this assignment was the first time in my schooling history that I have dived head first into the vast ocean of poetry. I was extremely uneasy and unsure what exactly our commander wanted from us, but as we now both know, it was a level of thinking well within our grasps. Poetry does not have to be deep and obscure at the surface to be brilliant. Who knew that the words describing a simple fast food joint would entrance all of our minds. I am glad to have heard your scrumptious Subway poem, and let us march on to bigger things.

     I also read Pedro's Metacognition: Get Organized blog. In this blog, he described how he cleaned his extremely messy, "Hurricane Sandy"- ravaged room, and how that specific process triggered an epiphany. He realized that order and structure in a person's physical surrounding directly relieves the mind of stress. To that, I responded:

     Pedro,

     I wholeheartedly agree with your message and what your experience brought to you. It truly is magnificent how one's physical environment directly correlates to their mental state. Our lives are always cluttered and busy with the enormous amounts of pressure that school loads onto our shoulders. We are constantly in motion, constantly thinking and exhausting our bodies and minds. With this, I think we have found a temporary relief to our hectic lives. Whether it be your room or my garage, there is always something to be cleaned, which in turn cleanses ourselves. I am glad to have figured this out, knowing that bearing the thousand pound burden of stress can weaken our resolves. So maintain what you're doing, it'll make you feel that much better.