Class 1 Sept 17
Your main task this week is to familiarize yourself with the software and technology we are using to deliver the course, namely the blogger software. Please read through blogger's materials as necessary to set up your blog.
Step One
Create a google account. If you don't already have a google account, please respond to my invitation sent by email to set one up.
Step Two
Create your own blog through the blogger. Once you have a google account, creating a blog is as easy as filling out forms and clicking items to select how you want your blog to look.
Step Three
Email me the web address of your blog once you've created it.
Step Four
Do the writing assignment for the week and post it to two places: as the first posting on your personal blog and to the comments section of this blog posting on the class blog.
Week 1
Writing Exercise: Due by Friday Sept 21 at 9PM
POSTED TO BOTH YOUR PERSONAL BLOG AND THE COMMENTS SECTION TO THIS POSTING OF THE COLLABORATIVE BLOG
Spend ten minutes observing your hands and taking notes about what they look like. Write a brief description (under 250 words) of your hands--what do they look like physically? What about their physical appearance gives away the person who uses the hands? Try not to tell the reader explicitly what that the hands belong to an X kind of person. Instead, show us the callouses on the hands, the scars, the way the fingers and thin or stubby. Show us the hands so that we can infer and understand a little about the character who owns these hands.
Reading Exercise: Due by Monday Sept 23 6PM
POST TO AT LEAST 4 OF YOUR COLLEAGUES' BLOGS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THEIR HANDS PIECE
Read through the other writers' descriptions of their hands. Write one line about what stands out to you, what seems powerful and interesting, what seems compelling, or what you have a question about to at least 4 of your colleagues' hands.
This exercise is a way to get you started writing as well as learn about your classmates in a meaningful way.
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Assignment 1
Hands
There’s a story in these hands, with their nearly identical dislocated small fingers and strongly curved left index finger tip. They have survived work, play, exposure, and medical indifference. Unlike the fingers, the thumbs cannot curl in upon themselves and stop at an inward right-angle bend. The long, lean fingers end in short, shiny nails. Though the nails were never gnawed, jagged cuticles visibly fill the nail-skin interface. Dirt residue occupies the hard-to-reach crevices in and around the nails. The backs of the hands carry a flesh-toned tan lightly accentuated by abundant short, brown hairs and a few elevated veins. As fists form, prominent wrinkles on the knuckles transform into smooth, rounded knobs on each finger. Then, as the forearm twists and the fists open to expose the palms, only an oar-induced callus by the thin gold band on the left ring finger mar an otherwise ordinary skin surface. Soft lines separate the thenar, palmar, and phalanx regions of each palm and fingers. These lines are neither magical nor encoded, for the story in these hands is held by their holder.
I have small hands with short fingers. When I buy a golf glove my hand fits perfectly into the “cadet” size. I’ve never heard of “cadet” size except in a golf store. I guess they don’t want to say “try the women’s aisle”. I had a fortune teller at a party change the subject after she looked at my life line. Did she lose interest or shy away from the truth? That was thirty years ago. I can’t find the life line now. My hands look like Johnny Cash’s face. They’ve seen and touched life and death. They’ve traveled all over the world. I’ve had my nails manicured once in the Philippines. I didn’t know my cuticles could be so big and white or my nails so shiny and oval. These hands have gone from zero to two hundred miles per hour in less than four seconds, lifted five hundred fifty thousand pounds in one attempt and held shimmering wisps of light. The best thing about my hands is that they reach out to babies and children. They scoop them up before the little ones know what, when, where or who. These hands have no fear.
When I look at my hands, my first thoughts are about my palms. I went to a palm reader when I was living in Washington, D.C., and she told me that I would have three children, a successful career, and live to a very old age. I believe that my hands represent some of the hopes and dreams that I have for my future.
I also see scars on my wrist from a bad tumble I took while running once in college. My middle fingers both bear permanently swollen knuckles from high school basketball injuries. The index finger on my right hand has a paper cut from an envelope I opened too fast. So I guess my hands also represent some of my mistakes and accidents from the past.
My nails are manicured right now, colored in a pretty purple that's just perfect for the fall. I don't usually get my nails done, but I decided to splurge for a friend's wedding last weekend. It's the first time that I've pampered myself in months; I've been pretty broke since I moved up to Buffalo this summer.
My hands offer a direct connection to the world around me. They have painted a playhouse for the local Boys and Girls Club, held my sister's baby, cuddled my pet bunny, cooked meals, taken pictures while traveling abroad, and written in a journal. My hands help me express myself and take care of the people that I care about.
It starts with the amount of hair on the back of the hand. Surprising. And then there are those little brown spots that have just emerged – the kind my father used to have. Mm, and all the hair is sweeping in one direction, like it was combed. Neat. It’s even on the fingers, but not much. More on the right hand than the left. The nails are nicely trimmed and the fingers are, well, long and thin for a man. I once heard my mother, or maybe it was my grandmother, say “he’s got piano fingers.” The color is pinkish-yellowish-tan and the veins show through in places. Not much in the way of cuts or calluses or other dings, although there are quite a few bumps in the right palm that have been there for years, one emerging in the left, and lines in both. Not much more to it than that, except for the wrinkles.
The fingers are pale, long and slender, with thick wrinkled knuckles and nails dipped in a pinkish orange; painted the color of freshly boiled shrimp. Three rings garnish these hands; two on the left, one on the right with a composition to include a heart, a crown, two hands, three rubies, and three diamonds. Slight age spots illuminate the right hand, while the left has none. The top knuckles of the middle fingers have worn scars, as if something had closed on these hands. While the left pointer finger has a new cut, a small crater of missing skin, alluding to a new abrasion. Below, the palms are a mess – skin is missing and healing at the same time. Small scrapes and puncture wounds pierce the meaty part of the palm, as if they were pressed too hard while doing pushups. The skin is clean and healing. The right scar looks like the state of Texas with three small islands to the north and one lost island in the direction of Hawaii. These are all new fresh intrusions, but looking down the right edge of the palm there is an older healed wound. It is completely integrated in color so that you hardly notice it, except that it is a raised ridge of flesh. A rigid strip, like a thin line of paint stroked toward the base of the hand, leading the observer to the root cause.
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