prompting september: 2

Write down everything you can remember about your algebra teacher.

Ms. Shagaiya had extremely straight, thick, black hair.She wore it long down her back; I don't remember it ever being in a ponytail.  But her bangs.  They were buzzed short and probably didn't extend more than an eigths of an inch off of her scalp.  The shape of her bangs was that of a one-inch by two-inch rectangle, horizontally spread across her hairline.  Never since then have I ever seen bangs like hers.

Those were the days when the main teaching tool was the projector.  Scrolls of plastic were marked up in every imaginable color of dry erase marker.  Every day we would walk into algebra class and greeted with a warm up problem.  It was usually of a more difficult caliber than we were used to. She would chirp in a seussical voice, "Try it!  You'll like it!"

She wasn't my favorite teacher in high school.  I was so much a people-pleaser that my favorite teachers were the ones who I felt liked me.  I needed that positive reinforcement like I needed air, and Ms. Shagaiya rarely even acknowledged me in class.  I wasn't sure she even knew who I was.  In retrospect, I think I may be able to pin my declining interest in mathematics on her declining interest in me as a student. The year after her class was the year I took pre-calculus, which also happens to be the last year I ever took a math class.  

I tried it and I didn't really like it.

prompting september:1

Why You Write

There's a question that I've been contemplating for decades. I first wrote it down in my journal while on study abroad, on September 10th, 2003.

"Some are remembered by the world long after they leave it and there are some whose names have not been muttered for centuries.  What's the difference?  Why is that?"

I spent that semester studying artists, authors, architects, and philosophers.  People who I never met, but who inspired and moved my soul. With these dead masters, I made connections of the heart.

I don't write to be remembered by the world.  But I do write to be remembered.  I want to remember myself.  I want my friends and family to remember experiences we have shared.  I want to prove that I was here, and to leave something behind.  It might not be something all that good or praiseworthy, but it's something.

happy birthday to me

Testing...  Testing...  Does this thing still work?

I hope it does, because it's that time of year.  You know, when I actually craft posts for publishing.  For my birthday, I like to gift myself time to write each day in the month of September.  I've tried to do something new each year and here's my plan for 2015.

I bought this book of writing prompts for myself months ago and have yet to make a single ink mark within it.  Although I am not planning on writing 642 posts, I shall attempt 30.  A new one each day.  

Thanks for still reading!