Blog

  • An Interesting Recipe

    Assignment:
    Write an interesting version of an existing recipe
    Response:
    Today, my young student, you will learn to make a special lasagna. It has four major parts, the red sauce, the bechamel (white sauce), a ricotta filling and then the structural components.
    You will need a small bundle of lasagna noodles, two large handfuls of a ground red meat of your choice, a palm of chopped allium cepa, three bulbs allium sativum, a few dribbles of olive oil, three medium love apples (peeled and chopped), a generous pinch of sodium chloride, a small pinch of basil and oregano and a few cracks of ripe peppercorns.
    Place the pasta into a pot of dihydrogen monoxide once it has reached 374 degrees kelvin if you are at one atmosphere of pressure. If you are in a situation that causes you to have an irregular pressure, please calculate your proper boiling point based on the assumption that dihydrogen monoxide will boil at the temperature at which the vapor pressure is equal to the relative atmospheric pressure1. At this point you may include sodium chloride in the dihydrogen monoxide if desired. Remove the pasta from the dihydrogen monoxide and sodium chloride compound, and immediately submerge it in dihydrogen monoxide at a temperature near 277 degrees kelvin until all of the other steps have been completed. Preparing the pasta first ensures that all other required compounds remain stable until they can be cooked.
    Cook meat, allium cepa and allium sativum in a saute pan until the red pigments fade away, but do not allow the meat to begin turning brown. Use an osmosis process to remove fat. You will then add the remaining ingredients and cook quickly until the sauce is thick. This should take about thirty to forty-five minutes. Preheat baking apparatus to 477 degrees kelvin.
    Next you will prepare the bechamel. You will need 118 CC homogenized churned fermented cream, one small hand of ground wheat grain powder, enough bovine lactic fluid to fill a 10cm by 2.5cm cylinder, an equal amount of fowl broth, one cube of fowl bouillon, and an additional small pinch of sodium chloride.
    Heat the churned cream slowly until it de-coagulates, then add the wheat powder. Agitate briefly with wire instrument for one minute. Slowly add bovine lactic fluid, fowl broth. Heat to the appropriate point of boil for your atmospheric pressure. Continue agitation with the before mentioned instrument. Perform an oral examination of bechamel, and add boullion and/or sodium chloride if needed.
    The final sauce is the ricotta filling. For this filling, you will need the egg of one chicken, 473 CC curdled dairy whey, 225 CC grana curdled cream and a pinch of sodium chloride. Open the egg, and empty its contents into a bowl, agitate briskly. Add the remaining ingredients and agitate slowly.
    The last part is the assembly. For this you will need all of the compounds you have composed in the previous steps as well as an additional 1000 CC of grana curdled cream and 473 CC curdled whole bovine milk. Obtain and lubricate a 33cm by 23cm baking dish. Place some meat sauce into the bottom of the dish, just enough to hold the pasta in place. Lay half of the noodles on the sauce, and half of the remaining meat sauce, half of the bechamel, half of the grana curdled cream, half of the curdled whole bovine milk, and half of the ricotta filling. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.
    From room temperature, bake at 477 degrees kelvin, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more, until bubbly.

  • The Ugly Duckling

    Assignment:
    Rewrite a fairy tale into a poem.
    Response:
    -The Ugly Duckling-
    Why must I be so different from the others?
    Outcast, Shamed and Insulted
    Fearing what life might bring with its next day
    Disappointment, strange looks and degradation
    Hiding myself more and more each day to adapt
    Can’t let the outside world see the real me
    Now things have changed
    I know myself now
    Is it safe to come out to the world?
    Will the torment from my past cease?
    I know myself
    I know I am a beautiful person

  • Sestina

    Assignment:
    A sestina has 6 six-line stanzas and concludes with a final three-line stanza. In addition, each of the 6 stanzas uses the same words at the end of each line (but not in the same order). And, the last three-line stanza must make use of those same (6) words. Your Task: Write a Sestina.
    Response:
    Chocolate!
    Warm, delicious chocolate from a dream
    It seems as though I never have time
    I need that chocolate in my blood
    Oh how I crave a taste
    I must be good, for now I will have water
    I lack satisfaction from water
    I need my cure, pure, sweet chocolate
    All I need is a taste
    Please don’t ruin my dream
    I will give my blood
    To have chocolate all the time
    Boiling is my blood
    Sweet is my chocolate
    Bland is water
    Chocolate is the dream
    I need time
    Time to taste
    When I sleep coco is in my dream
    I awake craving a taste
    As soon as my alarm goes off, it is chocolate time
    I splash my face with water
    Cooling is the effect on my blood
    But I still want CHOCOLATE
    Why can we not all find the time?
    Doesn’t everyone crave chocolate?
    They must, for it is much sweeter than a young bull’s blood
    The healthiest treat on Earth is water
    Water can never parallel the chocolate taste
    Oceans, lakes and waterfalls of chocolate fill my dream
    The confection has a rich texture and taste
    Lets not make haste in making the delicacy of chocolate
    Antioxidants? There are none in water
    Chocolate is good for the blood
    Remember the benefits of chocolate at snack time
    Remember chocolate for the sweetest dream
    Dreams of chocolate
    They taste sweet all the time
    Chocolate is thicker than blood and water

  • A Found Poem

    Assignment:
    Assemble a poem from various lines of a tour book, website, or other travel companion/resource
    Response:
    – A Cruise to Remember –
    God himself could not sink this ship!
    We place absolute confidence in the Titanic
    Southhampton, Cherbourg, New York
    Sails from New York 20 April 1912
    Onboard swimming pool, a gymnasium
    Turkish bath, libraries
    Fastest, and the most luxurious ship afloat
    Owned by the White Star Line
    Titanic is unsinkable
    *lines collected from varying Titanic resources and White Star Lines leaflets.

  • Character Exercise

    Assignment:
    Imagine a person who uses public space as if it were private space. Write a description of this person in any form you chose, describing his/her actions.
    Response:
    He stood there, in the cookware section of the department store, staring intently into the bottom of one of the finest polished steel skillets in the store. His hair was neatly styled into rows of spikes held in place with gel. His muscular arms sprouted from his tight tshirt like tree branches, glistening in the artificial light above him. The shirt clung firmly to his muscular chest and well-formed abs. The rest of his clothing, just a simple pair of running shorts and athletic shoes to accent his two trunks. His face still staring into the pan, his blue eyes fixed on the object of his glance. He reaches down into the two quart saucepan beside him and pulls up his razor. He pulls the blade quickly through the layer of foam on his face, once, then again and again until his face is clear of the foam. He returns his razor to the saucepan, then opens the lid of the roasting pan on the shelf below where his skillet hangs. A small cloud of steam rises from the roasting pan. He reaches in and pulls out a small cloth, which his then uses to wipe his face. He returns the cloth to the pan and then turns to leave. When turning he is confronted by a young woman with golden hair. She inquires to him “Sir, what are you doing?” his cleanly shaven face turns bright shades of red before he responds “Ma’am, I am running late, as I often do, and neglected to shave, and this spot seemed as good a choice as any”. The woman smiled and nodded, and the embarrassed gentleman excused himself and dashed off to his station at the sporting goods section of the store.

  • My Hummingbird

    Assignment:
    The task is to write a ten-line poem. This poem must include a proverb, saying, or familiar phrase (examples: as fast as greased lightening, one foot in the grave, the whole nine yards) that you have changed in some way. This poem should also include five of the following words in it:
    cliff, blackberry, needle, cloud, voice, whir, lick, mother
    Response:
    My dear hummingbird, you visit me every spring
    You leave me every fall
    You mother your young so near the needle of the pine tree
    I spy you grabbing sweet nectar from the blackberry blossom
    That is a taste we share, as when the berries are ready, I too will get a lick
    You seem to have no voice, only great speeds with which to communicate
    When I lay on the lawn to watch the clouds, you zip by, with not even a sound
    I wish I too could move at your speed, but in the summers, I prefer to read
    Your presence makes me happy hummingbird, you are my friend
    Look before you whir my dear hummingbird, for my window is a rather steep cliff

  • New Category: Creative Writing

    New Category: Hobbies > Academic > Creative Writing
    http://www.disturbingthoughts.net/archives/hobbies/academic/creative_writin/
    Under this heading I will post things I’ve been working on this semester in my Creative Writing course at CPCC. The posts will be in the format of Assignment as assigned and then my response to the assignment.
    Assignments that are particularly long may be linked to in an entry as a separate file.

  • Quote: June 07, 2007

    “A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there.”- Dr. Jonathan B. Postel, RFC 791

  • General Status Report: May 26, 2007

    I haven’t really blogged much lately, I guess I’ve been too deep in so many other things.
    First off, with the help of my friend Chris I have been able to get my garden going the way I want this year and I’m hoping that it actually produces something. Last year was sort of a flop because I gave up on it too early. This year I am committed to it.
    Next, ware from the Spring semester at the studio has now arrived back at home, however, due to other events, the photoing and recording of these pieces has not yet occurred. This process has not yet been scheduled. My guild’s spring barn sale was quite nice, I enjoyed being involved, and I heard a lot of useful feedback that will help me with future barn sales (or any other type of sale for that matter). I sold several pieces, which I am happy about. I have a nice little stash to buy clay with now :-). I haven’t gotten back to throwing since things wrapped up at the studio. I want to get back to that sometime very soon, perhaps later this weekend.
    During the past week I have been helping my aunt arrange things around her storage buildings as well as in her yard. I have also concluded that I am a bad influence on my aunt. Together we managed to spend over $200 on plants in one trip. On the topic of my aunt, tomorrow (Saturday) we are going to a wild flower hike at Crowders Mountain. I haven’t really had any large amounts of time alone with her in almost 2 years. I think she has missed spending time with me.
    Tomorrow concludes the first week of my summer classes. So far things are going well. I took my first quiz tonight and got a perfect score on it, which makes me very happy. Creative Writing is a little more of a challenge than I thought it would be, since I haven’t written anything that wasn’t technical in such a very long time.
    I have no clue what the rest of the summer holds for me yet.

  • General Status Report: May 26, 2007

    Hello and welcome to my blog. You might remember me from some previous time? My name is Curtis and I like to learn things, I also enjoy playing with clay and watching things grow in my garden. I get easily excited by my choo-choos and there isn’t much that feels better than sitting in a swing and swinging during the late spring. I like drinking a cold Pepsi during the late afternoon as I work on homework, or just read for fun. My family is very important to me and I look forward to spending time with my aunt whenever I can. When I grow up I want to be a botanist, or maybe a potter, then again, maybe I might just do something with computers. I’m looking forward to eating watermelon from my garden this summer and I’m hoping that my tomato plants produce a lot and get very big and bushy.