30 August 2017
The InterGossip was out from yesterday until this
morning, so another apology for another delay.
Although the storm will be headed away later this
morning, waters will still rise because of drainage from upstream and from high
elevations.
Think safety in all ways.
-
Mr. H
English 1301
Old Mr. Hall
Jasper Teaching Center
Angelina College
29 August 2017
I apologize for the delay in sending this; I’ve been off
on a rescue mission (my part in it is boring).
Until we meet, practice keeping a journal of your
adventures here where The Hundred-Acre Wood has grown floodier and
floodier. Use any sort of blank book or
random sheets of paper stapled together.
This needn’t be all writing; you can attach receipts, notes, pictures
you’ve printed out, a leaf blown from your favorite tree, and so on. English 1301 is mostly dull, boring,
what-am-doing-here mechanical, methodical, format writing for professional
purposes, so have a little fun with this project.
Make entries whenever the thought occurs to you, and note
the date, day, time, and temperature.
You can’t avoid the occasional first-person voice, but try to avoid the
I, I, I, me, me, me self-obsession one sees on anti-social media, and write
objectively about the weather and about others.
Avoid hyperbole (a flood is not biblical unless Noah and his Ark drop
anchor outside your door). No awesome, epic, jaw-dropping, or other inflated
adjectives.
Keep your narrative clear and use few adjectives and
almost no adverbs (One cannot unactually do anything; thus, “actually” is mere filler).
Avoid these hurricane cliches’:
Rain event
We’re not out of the woods
Dodged the bullet
Storms that brew – what do they brew? Tea? Coffee?
Storms that gain or lose steam, as if they were teakettles
or steam locomotives
Hurricanes that pound
Hurricanes that lash
Reduced to rubble
Wreak havoc
Swirling in the Gulf / spinning in the Gulf – well, okay,
but perhaps used too
often?
Left a swath of destruction in its wake - what’s a swath,
eh?
Hurricanes that make landfall – well, what else would they
make? A gun rack
in shop class?
Hurricanes that slam ashore
Hurricanes that storm ashore – well of course they storm;
they’re storms
Changed my life forever (Did it really? But your life is
always changing. Are you going to let a
hurricane push you around? You are made
of sterner stuff.)
Mother Nature's wrath
Mother Nature’s fury
Mother Nature's anything
There is no Mother Nature
Decimated (unless precisely one out of every ten people was
killed)
Trees snapping like matchsticks (do matchsticks ever snap like trees?)
Bodies stacked like cordwood (I’ve seen stacked wood; I’ve
seen stacked bodies;
ain’t the
same)
Claimed the life (“Sorry, pal, no claim check, no life.”)
Mother of all hurricanes (Saddamn lives on)
Batten down the hatches (Darn, I forgot to buy a hatch; I
wonder if the stores
are still open)
Hunker down
Cars tossed about like Matchbox toys / Cars smashed like
matchboxes
Boats bobbing like corks / boats smashed like matchboxes
Roofs peeled off
Rain coming down in sheets (never blankets?)
Calm before the storm
Calm after the storm, almost always “eerie”
Visual cliché’ – a camera shot of a palm tree and some idiot
in a slicker telling
us the obvious
ANY allusion to Katrina
Perfect storm
Storm of the century
A hurricane that defined a generation
Looked like a war zone – no, it didn’t.
Fish storm
Unleashed
Your children and grandchildren may read your flood
journal someday – let us pray they will be bored by it.
See you next week.
Cheers,
Mr. H
