Jello Pool: My Attempt at Writing

I have a confession to make.  Ready?

I have absolutely no writing talent.  Shocking, I know.  But, yeah, I can't hold a candle to Hemmingway, Orwell, and especially not William "this sh*t writes itself" Shakespeare.

A true genius

So when I took English my high school sophomore year, I expected the same routine I'd encountered beforehand:  a few essays each semester, some lazy reading out of the textbook, and an easy A (no, a snarky Emma Stone was not involved).  Yeah, I was never more wrong.

My teacher had the crazy idea that students should write in an English class.  Every week.  As in an essay every single week, after I had been used to doing an average of four per year.  Naturally, this seems like nothing to me now, but I digress.

You, my dear friend, might be thinking Ain't nothin but a thang, an essay here and there.  And normally you'd be right; however, our essays weren't your run of the mill analysis-of-the-text essays.  No sir, we often wrote on philosophical matters.  Like "what is love" and "is thought or action more important."  I had never, nor had anyone else in my class, been confronted with such deep questions--still haven't.  I've also never had another teacher who rapped as often as he did.

Anyhow, I kept trying to answer some of the questions in my essays.  I was always lacking an argument, but at the time all I thought was I am such a DUMBASS.  At this point you may have asked yourself What does any of this pointless crap have to do with Jello?  I'll tell you.
Jello Pool is where all of the creative thoughts and ideas gathered and became art:  poetry, songs, what have you.  The idea is that all these colorful tidbits of the mind gathered into a rainbow pool of jello, and you either swam in the pool or watched.  Meaning you could either write poetry and share it on Fridays, or you sat there wishing you had the ability to write something other than a blog.

All the world's a...library?  Dammit!

If you haven't guessed it by now, I didn't participate.  More like couldn't, because I physically, emotionally, spiritually, physiologically, astrophysically cannot write poetry no matter how much effort I put into it.  But I only ever tried after I took his class, and it feels a little easier.  I've even begun writing a little something of a book--and it's fiction!  You thought I was gonna say non-fiction or biography or something boring like that.

The point of this is, I want to thank that insane teacher who very often made me felt like a complete fool and an inept writer.  That class really humbled me and made me realize that I had no idea what the hell I was talking about, and I needed to shut up and listen so I could learn something.  This theory has yet to fail me.  So here's to the man who taught me how to write.  Keep speaking Yiddish (even though you're Italian), keep challenging students' perceptions of reality, keep speaking the Truth without fear of smartass comments from ignorant children, because they're idiots anyway.  But I don't need to tell you this--you'd be skeptical to change if God Himself told you to.

Stay colorful,
                     Meimei