Writing

Happenstance

Posted by | Writing | 17 Comments

My ice cream was melting. Standing in front of Weil Medical College of Cornell University, I calmly turned my ice cream round and round, licking the errant gobs of pistachio that threatened to spill onto my fingers. My transition lenses darkened quickly in the sunlight, but I was still relatively cool, blasts of air conditioning escaping the heat-sink as people passed through the glass doors. Down to the last inch or so of the cone, I stepped out of the shade.

Screeching as the station approaches, the subway moves to a halt. The doors open, and a muffled voice is heard overhead, announcing the train, direction and next stop. I can never fully hear the words the person is saying, but I don’t need to, having traveled this route countless times before. It’s crowded, and I find myself grasping the cold metal bar along with five other people, our bodies far enough from the pole so that others can get a grip. Six hands of strangers stacked one on top of the other, occasionally touching another as the subway slowed and quickened its pace.

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Readability

Posted by | General, Writing | No Comments

So I was bored and decided to run a little comparison.

I looked up the Readability Index Scores of my undergrad and grad thesis papers.

The results?

- Higher grade level is more difficult to understand.
- Lower reading ease score is more difficult to read.

Undergrad:
Flesch-Kincaid Grade level: 12.
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score: 36.

Grad:
Flesch-Kincaid Grade level: 7.
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score: 59.

Ouch. I guess. But given the format of the two papers it’s to be expected.

Update: ToDo List
Flesch-Kincaid Grade level: 13.
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score: 26.

um… my to-do list is my best piece of writing yet!
(Spans about 5-6 years worth of stuff that I’ll eventually get around to.)

dusk

Posted by | Writing | No Comments

Today, I tried chewing a mouthful of sand. It was grainy and gritty and it felt kind of like… bran. Like a mouth full of, no overflowing compressed, condensed flakes, broken down into.. A little bit trickled out of my nose.

Yesterday, I hit Ctrl-S on my keyboard 573 times. Do you understand why the S key now is so smooth, with great, clear skin? If you just keep stroking it, the rough will ease away.

Tomorrow I will put on my cool face. It’s wood on canvas with silver and weighs a fucking ton but it works better than an emoticon at conveying my deep sea emotions.

You see, I’m in training for a marathon. The kind that Holmes would like. A race of mental discipline, skilled voice and precision of action.

If, I take out my eyes (for they distract me), my right ear and left ear whisper different thoughts, I abrade my skin to avoid false sensation… what then, is left to explore?


something

Posted by | Writing | No Comments

a creature, a man
takes a step foward and
we realize that a step is


everything


cause and effect
situation where
the free lives lie and the


moonsing


free light
unequivocable charge
the ancients who dance and
rumpus moonshake dollar bills


soon follow


sweet love

Posted by | ITP, Writing | No Comments

I went out to play
On a virtuous day
In this sea they call sweet love.
I found a nice girl,
So i gave her a twirl
And tried on her velvet glove.
She gave me a smile
Then laughed for a long while.
I’m sure she thought of a joke,
   A joke,
   A joke,
I’m sure sure she thought of a joke.


still thinking about thesis

Posted by | ITP, Thesis, Writing | No Comments

My thesis is //

// Essentially the split between reality and reality.


There is the reality you imagine you are in… and then the reality that really is. You are constantly constructing a false reality for yourself. (The fact that I call it a false reality is somewhat misleading. No matter how false it is, as long as it is real to you, then it remains a reality).


What truly goes on, if realized in a way that you could understand, would destroy your reality and create a new one. Humans are, after a certain age, more and more resistant to this rather personal destruction of a world they’ve long struggled to create. And so when presenting ideas to them, the best way to do it is through abstraction and fantasy.


You must lead them to these new realities by introducting new ideas in ways that do not hammer at them, but rather present themselves in ways that allow them to occur as if the subject has thought of them as his/her own.


It must, in essence, become “unreal.”

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