Let's just tie up a few loose ends before I start to recount my travels in Dubai and Goa. William Wordsworth, in the Preface to his Lyrical Ballads, defined poetry as, 'the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings from emotions recollected in tranquillity', and with a month of acclimatisation to home behind me, and the powerful feelings in a state to be recollected, the chapter to come promises to be one worth remembering.
But of course before we do go on, let me tell you about this! I've done two assignments since returning, and, considering that for the previous four I'd achieved 74, 74, 72 and 72, what you suppose I got for these most recent two? If you're mathematically inclined and a connoisseur of patterns, you may suppose 70 and 70 would be lovely, if improbable, marks; and, if so, I'd have to give you a virtual pat on the back and type, 'That's it! That's exactly what I got!' So I hardly need reiterate that ... (comes a voice from below) 'If you hardly need reiterate it, don't! Christ, these bloody upstarts! They can string a few words together, and suddenly reckon themselves to be writers, allowing themselves to write reams and reams about the same damn things! You've made the point: move on!' So I shall.
(With only fifteen minutes until the final episode of The Wire I must get straight on to the Word of the Week. No time to mention anything else. See you in the next chapter...)
Word of the Week
Pattern
pattern /ˈpæt(ə)n/ n. & v. —n. 1 a repeated decorative design on wallpaper, cloth, a carpet, etc. 2 a regular or logical form, order, or arrangement of parts (behaviour pattern; the pattern of one's daily life. 3 a model or design, e.g. of a garment, from which copies can be made. 4 an example of excellence; an ideal; a model (a pattern of elegance). 5 a wooden or metal figure from which a mould is made for casting. 6 a sample (of cloth, wallpaper, etc.). 7 the marks made by shots, bombs, etc. on a target or target area. 8 a random combination of shapes or colours. —v.tr. 1 (usu. foll. by after, on) model (a thing) on a design etc. 2 decorate with a pattern. [ME patron (see PATRON): differentiated in sense and spelling since the 16th-17th c.]
Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary
Second (half) hope, dashed: 15th April 2009.
sierracheyenne22
My Summary.
I chose to write a 600 word essay as a comment on this particular piece of writing you have done, because it interests me. First of all, you started off with the statement, "Let's just tie up a few loose ends before I start to recount my travels in Dubai and Goa." You did tie up loose ends, but what does that have to do with the whole rest of the entry? I have one question for you about this, why did you go on to talk about poetry in the first paragraph, then switch completely to your assignment scores. And THEN you went on to talk about the word of the week being "pattern". Pardon me, but if that isn't disarranged? You could easily confuse the less intelligent readers (like myself), and quite frankly bore them. I’m not, however saying what you wrote was entirely useless, I’m just pointing out the fact I had to read it about six times before I understood what you were getting at.
On to the comprehensive abstract itself then. You wrote about, more or less, patterns in your marks. It was helpful for you to add the bit about the mathematically inclined bit, because without it I would have read on not knowing and just guessing. Your chip on “reiteration rants” or at least that’s what I’ll call it, was comical. It painted a lovely picture in my head, and though I have an over-active imagination already, I got your point. The word for the week was “pattern”, as I have already stated. I compliment your ability to take a seemingly insignificant matter (not that your grades don’t matter), and make it into something interesting. I find myself reading many articles, many blogs, and many papers, on things that are insignificant, and also BORING! You bring a certain quality to your writings, maybe it’s the voice you write with (which is hard to have. Many professionals have a hard time with that.). Whatever it is, there is an aspect in your writing that draws me in, and keeps me interested. At times it’s a little dry, but it happens to the best of us. More often then not though I’m craving more. It would have been nice to see a bit of follow up after the definition linking to your paragraphs. After scrolling down and realizing that after the definition it was over, I kinda just skimmed the definition. I know what the word means, and I’m sure my definition would have been somewhat close if I had been asked to share it. Yet somehow I felt the need to read it.
I liked the little part about what you said about The Wire. It was cute, and not in that way how little dogs are cute, or little stuffed bears are cute... It was in the way that you look at a cloud in weird formation and say, “Hey, that’s funny.” I didn’t expect it, all I expected was the word of the week, and maybe a sentence in closure.
So, in my conclusion, I would like to say this: I enjoyed this peice. It was informative (about even the least expected), it was witty, and it was natural. I love nothing more than a good read, no matter how long. You brought together a good point, then drove the point home. A few odds and ends here and there, but over all, something worth my time. About this summary though, 600 words is a bit long to call it a summary. So, we’ll refer to it as an essay, if you even read this far. So thank you for giving me something 1/4 as long as this to write 600 words on.