Helllllo!
Hi everyone!
It is raining in Wuhan because it always does and I am sitting on my couch eating grapes. I leave China for Minnesota in about one month. Wow, how time does fly. I haven't posted any personal blogs in a while but I have a really good reason. I am just finishing an 8-week long online creative writing class through The Lighthouse Writers Workshop. This is the first creative writing class I've taken in a decade! Fun story: I graduated from college 10 years ago this week!
Anyway, the writing class was amazing and it turns out that having external motivators and an audience really makes me write more! Over the last 2 months, I've gone from writing intermittent blogs to writing every day, whether in my journal or poetry/stories. I didn't really foresee that my inner creative life would blossom while living in China. I'm really thankful that I had this class to look forward to every week because my life here can sometimes feel monotonous. Some days, it is colorful, and I go hiking, or exploring Wuhan, or get interviewed by 10 year old journalists. Here are some of my recent adventures from the last few months:
Getting interviewed by the 'little journalists'
A day spent in an ancient village outside of Wuhan with a few friends, eating a locally made lunch and hiking:
An outing to the Sakura Cherry Blossom Festival at East Lake:
Shameless posing:
Everyone wore flower crowns:
A presentation that I gave on Minnesota in which Bob Dylan (for some reason) heavily featured: Here I am boring myself to tears about soybeans.
A secondary school teacher training presentation on informal assessment:
An awkward and adorable field trip for teachers in my department. We went to a park where we took selfies with roses, did archery, shot hoops, and frolicked like school children.
My favorite highlights are always my students. I love my students. This term I really have felt closer to them. We've been doing some really fun projects too. In my freshman narrative writing class, I had students create movie trailers in groups. Movie trailers are similar to introductions in stories or essays, so this helped them practice creating a 'hook' to draw their readers/viewers in, in addition to providing a glimpse of what is to come. Enjoy:
I hope to write more blogs in the weeks ahead and I will also be revising some of my new poetry and prose for submissions. This is a hard week for women in the US as we collectively experience another attack against our humanity. Thinking about all of you.
Love,
Ilse
It is raining in Wuhan because it always does and I am sitting on my couch eating grapes. I leave China for Minnesota in about one month. Wow, how time does fly. I haven't posted any personal blogs in a while but I have a really good reason. I am just finishing an 8-week long online creative writing class through The Lighthouse Writers Workshop. This is the first creative writing class I've taken in a decade! Fun story: I graduated from college 10 years ago this week!
Anyway, the writing class was amazing and it turns out that having external motivators and an audience really makes me write more! Over the last 2 months, I've gone from writing intermittent blogs to writing every day, whether in my journal or poetry/stories. I didn't really foresee that my inner creative life would blossom while living in China. I'm really thankful that I had this class to look forward to every week because my life here can sometimes feel monotonous. Some days, it is colorful, and I go hiking, or exploring Wuhan, or get interviewed by 10 year old journalists. Here are some of my recent adventures from the last few months:
Getting interviewed by the 'little journalists'
A day spent in an ancient village outside of Wuhan with a few friends, eating a locally made lunch and hiking:
Shameless posing:
Everyone wore flower crowns:
A secondary school teacher training presentation on informal assessment:
An awkward and adorable field trip for teachers in my department. We went to a park where we took selfies with roses, did archery, shot hoops, and frolicked like school children.
My favorite highlights are always my students. I love my students. This term I really have felt closer to them. We've been doing some really fun projects too. In my freshman narrative writing class, I had students create movie trailers in groups. Movie trailers are similar to introductions in stories or essays, so this helped them practice creating a 'hook' to draw their readers/viewers in, in addition to providing a glimpse of what is to come. Enjoy:
I hope to write more blogs in the weeks ahead and I will also be revising some of my new poetry and prose for submissions. This is a hard week for women in the US as we collectively experience another attack against our humanity. Thinking about all of you.
Love,
Ilse
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