A letter to my creative writing teacher
On the first day of my last semester of high school, our creative writing class was tasked with writing a letter to our teacher – who also happened to be my sophomore English teacher – outlining our expectations of the class. Here is that letter, complete with the teacher’s notes, followed by a transcript with her comments in bold:
A letter to my creative writing teacher (formerly my sophomore English teacher) on my first day of my final semester of high school.
Dear Teacher:
Well since the English curriculum in school generally hasn’t involved any creative, fictional, non-objective, or otherwise fun writing whatsoever, and I RUN a role-playing game on message boards online which involves constant original fantasy writing, I hoped to gain some semblance of an idea of how to write and/or whether or not I’m even any good at writing fiction at all. Also, are you really going to read this? [Yes, Cody I’m reading this.] I bet you are. I’m going to give you a really hard time if you don’t, though. Actually, that would just make me a difficult student [Who you?], and I don’t want to be particularly difficult this semester. This class is gonna rock – and I can buy coffee and creme [sic] and hot chocolate mix for you too [Well, I thought I’d institute the “Elvis Slush fund”], since I did in Speech class last semester anyway. Food RULES. So does this class. No, seriously. [Well, I hope you have a good semester. I’m glad you’re in the class. Where’s Gohan been?]
Sincerely,
Cody Gough
A few things:
- I didn’t really start drinking coffee until partway through college, so I have no idea where the “coffee and creme” reference originated, nor do I have any recollection of an “Elvis Slush fund.” I guess you forget some random small details after 10 years!
- In contrast to the Elvis reference, I actually do understand the Gohan reference, but I will explain that long story in a future post.
- This is actually the second time I’d asked my teacher in my class notes whether she was actually reading them; my first time doing this was as a student in her English class my sophomore year of high school. To put that in context, though, I really wasn’t being a jerk, because I actually quite liked her classes, and pretty much everything I did (and still do) is at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Believe me, I’ve inspired a lot of eye-rolling from my teachers over the years.
- Instead of ending the last sentence with a period, I nearly ended it with a smiley face emoticon. As a direct result, I am now wallowing in self-loathing.
This letter pretty much sets the tone for my 10-year Idea Reunion. At the time I wrote this, I had written a lot, but had no idea whether the writing was any “good,” I got along with my teacher well enough to be allowed a certain level of irreverence, and I was excited about the idea of finding new creative ways to express myself.
I hate shameless self-plugs, but if you’re interested in following my journey through this class, then please follow me via WordPress! It’s going to be a long – and hopefully very entertaining – journey.
My 10-Year Idea Reunion
The time is nigh.
It’s like my own personal Bible… of IDEAS
I took a creative writing class during my last semester of high school in 2003, and I still have the “idea notebook” I created while enrolled in that class. Our first day of class was January 21, 2003. Guess what day is coming up soon?
That’s right: January 21, 2013.
Over the next several months, I will be reproducing the contents of my “idea notebook” in their ENTIRETY on this site. All of my poems, stories, notes, and more will be here…exactly 10 years after I wrote them.
I want to be clear up-front that the humor contained in these posts will not come from the sheer awfulness of any of it. Quite the contrary: I consider myself to be a pretty funny teenager, and from what I’ve seen flipping through the pages of my tome of brilliance, I was a pretty funny teenager 10 years ago, too. I didn’t – and still don’t – take myself too seriously, so everything you read will have more than a slight dose of irreverence.
And I won’t just be regurgitating old content; after all, where’s the challenge in that? Instead, in addition to writing commentary on my old treasures, I will also re-do some of my old assignments and compare them to what I wrote 10 years ago. We’ll all find out together how much I’ve changed in the last decade.
Stay tuned. This is going to be fun.
Explaining song lyrics you never understood
In this podcast, I admit to the world that the first CDs I ever bought were video game soundtracks. Oh, me.
“Out of Context Quotes” on WGN Radio
Here’s a little production I did for WGN Radio to cap off another year at “the voice of Chicago.” Enjoy!
If it doesn’t snow tonight…
This is how I feel about Chicago pretty much every time the forecast calls for snow these days
Winter had BETTER be coming!!!
Holiday Shopping False Advertising
Need a last-minute stocking stuffer? How about you buy a 40″ LED TV? AND PUT IT IN A STOCKING:
Seriously… it’s like advertisers don’t even care anymore. Soon, communication is going to deteriorate into just using buzzwords all the time. Now excuse me while I blog my app to curate something viral on social media… Google.
Best Pickup Line Ever
In the summer of 2006, I played saxophone and clarinet in the pit orchestra at Starlight Theater in Rockford for “State Fair,” a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical about the Iowa State Fair (originally adapted from a book by Phil Stong, a Drake University graduate – go bulldogs!).
Anyway, a lot of the dialogue was a bit, um… well, cheesy. Apparently at one point, one of the characters awkwardly says “Can I buy you a corn dog or something?” I was not satisfied with that bit of dialogue, however, so I revised it for him:
“Can I give you a corn doggin’ or something?”
-Best pickup line ever
So… that’s a thing that happened.
How to prevent Instagram from selling your photos
Hey everyone freaking out about Instagram being able to sell your photos: just download an app that adds a watermark to your photos. Photos with watermarks will be completely useless to Instagram and thus will not be sold. Problem solved.
There are apps that will cost you just $2 on Android and iOS, and a free iOS app as well.
Want to add watermarks to several photos on your computer, then put them back on your phone before uploading? Here are a few programs that should work as well.
Or if you really want to be tacky, you could just Photoshop something like this:
Sure, this watermark looks horrible, but will your friends on Instagram really care that much?
And sure, that example looks like garbage, but it took me about 30 seconds to do in Photoshop (just create a new text layer with an opacity of 10% and write whatever you want, obviously).
Everyone cool now? Can we move on and stop worrying that Facebook and Instagram will steal our souls and sell them for profit?
Of course, Instagram COULD still sell your photos despite the watermark, but who’d want to buy them? Feel free to leave a comment to discuss.
English ASSignment
There are a few gems scattered among my notes from November 2, 2000:
“Occasionally I read something that isn’t good… like, your papers.”
-My sophomore English teacher
As well as some fun notes I took, including emphasizing “ASSignment” (see image) and writing the following note to myself:
Write a dialog (Cody: Bite me! Jon: Die!)
(like a script) on “Justice”
I wonder how ancient Greek philosophers would feel about the notes I wrote alongside their timeless ideas?
Cody Gough (dot net) 