The way maps to anywhere is set up is very different than I had imagined this book and actually made the reading alot more interesting. The book really shows a variety of creative language through out and would almost make these stories seem unrealisitic, considering there is so much creativity in it. This is a true example of what a creative nonfiction story should look like.
    One story that I felt really connected  to way the one about the balcony, which had a few different meanings to it in my book. The way I thought he was talking about this balcony was, not just the balcony itself but when he brought up his neice and the game they played when she was little and how she out grew it and sort of wanted the ordinary things in life. I think he ment she started to lack her imagination, and the way he ties this into the balcony is how he saw how sad it looked. Then he goes on to imagine it in a prettier view and uses his imagination on what he wanted the balcony to look like. Then it helped me tie in why he had talked about the game he used to play with his niece I feel like this was sigifigant because, at one point the balcony he is looking at, had to be full of life. In other words it could of had an imagination of its own back in the day before it had become run down, and pretty much saying time changes everything.
     Another story I liked was called "Under Water" I like this because this reminds me of somethings I used to do in the pool when I was young; such a fun game that could be dangerous at the same time. The way he refers to his moms hair like strands of seaweed and his dads swim trunks puffing up like a diaper were very creative details. Through out this story i get the feel that he loved to swim and talking about swimming with his parents brought back simpler and carefree times. The way he uses detail in this story is amazing, over all i thought this book was going to be something to do with traveling the world and was nothing of the sort. When evere you normally think of nonfiction you think of boring but this book was so creative you wouldnt even think of it as nonfiction.

   Renee gladman did some very interesting things in the book juice and her creativity was outstanding. At times she was so creative with her lanuage she chose I didn't even know what she was trying to say. But that is the point of fiction writing to take something and make it to the point it gravitates the writer to the story to the point they can't put the book down. I like the fact that she is in first person for pretty much every story in her book. I'm not sure if this symbolizes something but she sure makes you wonder. Alot of it is in her perception and mostly narrative.
    One of my favorite stories was probably proportion surving, the way she talks about life in this story. Not only is it completely interesting but it is so intriguing to almost the point you feel like you are right along with her. When she says "I knew it was me by the way my head felt: people find themselves in an idea and feel so specified by the idea that they are compelled to show it. Today all my ideas are liquid." She uses very good imagery in this and you can feel her struggles right along with the reading.  Also when she says "The juice on my mind was no longer juice. There was an absence there, but one so constant it became familiar. I did not want to drink it." she uses extreme metaphors because she obviously is not talking about juice. So what this does to me as a reader it makes me want to keep digging to find the hidden meaning behind juice, I thought she was very clever in doing that technique with this story.
    Another story I found interesting to read was no through street, this is when I started to realize how depressing this book is actually supose to be. Pretty much saying her home town has been industrialized to the point it is not even recognizable anymore and she could not deal with the change so she left town. When she came back standing on this street that she could not recognize anymore she noticed her sister who no longer recognized her. I thought wow that must be sad your own sister does not recognize you? But the whole point of this story was change, and to the point her and her sister had changed so much they didn't even have time for each other. Which led to her sister not recognizing her when coming back to town.
    The last story that popped out at me was the one in the very beginning with the first line saying "about the body I know little" I find that line disturbing pretty much saying people are nothing but bodies. I was quite confused through out this story because I had many different interprtations. I finally settled with the fact that she was a little crazy, and her thinking the town had left her was all in her mind. Alot of the things she talked about in this story were very dream like so that it where I came up with the fact she may not be all there.

    The fiction readings where much more interesting to me, I feel like I understood what was going on better in this unit. With fiction you still have to try to interpret what they mean but it is not as hard to get the feel of fiction as it is poetry so I liked that alot. One reading that I found quite interesting was the letter from home not only the meaning was interesting but they used words such as I churned the butter and I brewed the tea. It's almost as if this whole story was passed tense but then sometimes it also confused me as well like when it said are the children ready yet? This reading was so different to me because at times I really didn't understand what they where trying to say, but the structure and word choice of this reading made it pop.
   Another story I really like was the one about the wallet by Allen woodman he used some very good detail in his story. Also used metaphors similar to the ones we have talked about in class. One line that really stuck out to me was "trying to act feeble and childlike and he overdoes it like stage makeup on a community theater actor". In this line you just think of how much make up these people wear then you draw the comparison, it is very cool actually. Not to mention the whole moral of this story is to not let greed over come you by stealing other people's things because looks can be deceiving.
   When talking about fiction stories we have to make sure we use lots of details be that is what draws a reader in. Like in the reading The Colonial he says "on the windows there were gratings like those in a liquor store". When thinking of this line you just picture what the run down liquor store look like and that is exactly what the writer is wanting you to imagine. These are some very cool skills that make our writing a little better

    This weeks poetry reading was a little easier considering I knew a little more about poetry and different styles. Not only did I like some of the writings by Jennier K. Dick but I also thought the way she set up her book of poems was very unique. To start off how she did different sections for the first half of the book and then some poems had titles, some didnt and etc. Flouresence was alot easier to comprehend in some parts rather than the shakespere poetry and such we read last week.
    One poem that I found quite interesting was called "I want to take back". Not only was the content in this poem very interesting but the set up of this poem was unique to. In some lines of this poem there are big spaces in between the next word, im not sure why it is set up that way but it makes the poem more eye opening and something people would want to read. The way i interpreted this poem was basically this guy misses the person he used to be and would like to go back but is not sure if he can go back. By this phrase " I the light back refigured in the man the room, taken" you can tell what Jennifer means by this is the guy tried to go back to what he used to be but couldnt so he came to terms with the person he is today. I liked this poem because I found it very relatable to life because we will always be changing.
   Another poem that i found interesting was part 4 in flouresences, you could tell that this was a very sad poem for her. The way I interpreted this poem was pretty much the pressure of life was getting to her and she tried keeping hope but it was doing no good for her. You can tell this is a very depressing poem and I'm pretty sure it is about her wanting to commit suicide because of all these pressures of life. Just the way she explains her self such as " the feeling of pain which is accompinied by silence" is so unique because by reading this line I know exactly what she means and it is probably a feeling most of us have encountred. Like if you are feeling hurt you just stay silent because you don't know what to say.
 

     I found the poetry packet to be very interesting and I learned alot of new things about poems that I did not know before. Poetry can have so many different meanings and I feel like that is the exact definition of creative writing, giving people the room to put the different writings in any perspective they want. I am not very familiar with poetry so that is why these readings where so different to me and at the same time they were very hard to analyze because words in some of the poems could have completely different meanings than you would normally recongnize them as. But that is what makes poems so unique because there are so many diffenrent types and styles and that is truely how you make a writing your own piece.
    One poem that I found particulary intestesting was known as a shakespeare sonnet, it was sonnet number 130. This poem was so interesting because, pretty much the whole poem he is downing on this girl he is talking about saying things like "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" and "Coral is far more red than her lips". But by the end of the poem if you read the couplet he wrote it pretty much explains no matter what I love this girl for who she is because she is beautiful to me. So I think its cool how he describes his love for this girl even if he is giving her a few back handed compliments.
    Not only was it the meaning of this poem that made this reading very interesting, it was the word choice that was choicen too. He used such descriptive words that would make you feel like you could make out a mental picture of this whole poem in your head. Not only did he use words that were talking about her appearence he also used words that talked about her personality and scent to so you could get a full picture. I thought that was very neat because the word choice is would made the poem so unique and that is creative writing. So all and all this week went pretty good and the material we covered was at time difficult to understand but very interesting when it was comprehendable.

Hi my name is Katelyn Trombley I just finished my freshman year at Eastern Michigan University, and now I am taking a few summer classes to lead me into my sophomore year. I am from Swartz Creek, MI which is a suburb five minutes outside of Flint, MI, I have decided to get an apartment with a few friends this summer to take classes and work rather thank go home. I work at Teddy Bear Daycare in Ypsilanti and I love it because I am working with kids everyday my major is social work and I am 19 years old.