Tag: dailyprompt

My Mission Statement(s)

Daily writing prompt
What is your mission?
View all responses

I learned about mission statements as a professor, when an assignment I inherited was to make students write professional mission statements. The source I found said that mission statements should be short and explain what one wants to accomplish but not how. I use that definition still.

I believe in mission statements. I think it’s motivating to have a statement to look at that gives direction and inspiration. Unlike a motivational statement, a mission is tailored to the individual.

I don’t have a personal mission. I think this is a bad thing, because it means I drift from day to day, doing what I need to do. And in a way, I think that is true. Perhaps it’s because I’m over sixty, or because I don’t feel driven to do things the way I used to. Perhaps it’s because I’m being treated for bipolar. At any rate, I have no personal mission.

I do have a teaching mission and a writing mission, however. Maybe it’s because those are things I do rather than who I am. My teaching mission is to give people the ‘Aha!’ reaction. Notice it’s short and sweet and does not talk about how. It’s my responsibility to make the ‘aha’ part of how I teach. My writing mission is to make fantasies romantic and romances fantastic. As I write fantasy romance and romantic fantasy, this is an accurate mission, even with the wordplay.

I still think I need that personal mission. I don’t want anything trite or false. I want a catchy mission because I like words, or as a friend once said, “words like me”. Maybe something like to make my life an ‘aha’ experience. That’s close. Let me think about it.

My University

Daily writing prompt
What colleges have you attended?
View all responses

I have only attended one university for my education, and that is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

University of Illinois was an excellent school. I didn’t pick it because of reputation; I didn’t think that way as an undergraduate. I picked it because I visited Champaign-Urbana with my dad once and fell in love with the towns. Like in many other parts of my life, I fell into a good decision.

In academia, it is strongly discouraged to attend the same university for graduate school as for undergraduate. However, my undergrad was in a significantly different field than my graduate degree, so the intellectual stagnation of such a move wasn’t an issue. My undergrad degree was in Foods in Business, a food industry-focused major. My graduate degree was in Family and Consumption Economics, which is about people and their decisions about money. It involves everything from decisions people make about whether to move to take a job to things we can tell about a country by what they buy.

Photo by Gu00fcl Iu015fu0131k on Pexels.com

I was recruited into graduate school. I was taking family economics as an elective and fell in love with it. Family economics is a class about financial decisions a family makes, from who has the say in purchasing decisions to family job migrations to child support. After class, I asked the professor if there were graduate degrees in the field, and she escorted me down the hall to the department office and introduced me to the chair.

In the 11 years I spent at University of Illinois, I became familiar with its spaces. I ran across campus to get to my classes, napped in the South Union (with many others), drank coffee at various places in campustown, and moved into my own office in Bevier Hall eventually.

I went back to Champaign-Urbana a few years back, and I hardly recognized the place. The campus town now features tall buildings which give the streets a claustrophobic feel. They are filled with high-end apartments for students, whereas the undergrads in my time lived much more modestly. I do not feel at home there anymore; I could not take a nap in the South Union anymore, as the lounges have disappeared. The cafeteria is now a food court. I know it’s a natural thing to be disappointed in the places you once dwelt because of changes, but I didn’t believe it until I stepped on campus again. It had been over twenty years, however; time flows on.

The Hat

Daily writing prompt
Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?
View all responses

When I was ten years old, my mother made a denim cap, the type with several segments and a button on top, very fashionable at the time. She made it from scraps of denim, so that the colors were all subtly different, and there were pieces with a segment of pocket or a rivet. It was lined with red bandana material. The hat was 1970s cool. This hat below, basically, but in denim:

From the ARAN website, https://www.aran.com/donegal-tweed-mens-driving-cap-charcoal?sku=0000030849-000097138&utm_source=x&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=21937313969&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAj9m7BhD1ARIsANsIIvBve43PE00qfrJ37TQDIhmtjw742rU52-ul6Ka9OqpcgY3UBUGqcJcaAnqbEALw_wcB

Much to my mother’s frustration, I couldn’t be parted from it. She made it, but neither she nor my dad wore hats. I fell in love with the hat, and if they didn’t want it, I did.

I didn’t wear the hat to school, but I wore it everywhere I could. It became my hat, even if it was a little big for me at first. My sister was quite tired of it. My parents asked if I was thinking of getting married in it.

The hat went to college with me. By then, it was starting to show wear. The elastic in the band gave out and the denim on the band was wearing thin. Yet it still came with me and I wore it, although I wore it less often. By graduate school, I wore it only occasionally, and the band was threadbare. I couldn’t bear to throw it out, but it was too worn to wear.

I finally threw it away when I moved to Maryville 24 years ago. The cap lasted 25 years, longer than expected for a garment. I have seen store-bought caps like it, but none of high enough quality or panache. It was a one-of-a-kind item, and I miss it sometimes.

My Biggest Challenge

Daily writing prompt
What are your biggest challenges?
View all responses

My biggest challenge is my bipolar disorder. Right now, I’m on an even keel and have been for a long while. No rages, no glitches in judgment, no loss of conscientiousness, no desire to sleep all day, no weepiness. None of this despite a change in medication. But I feel like I’m overdue. Maybe it’s just superstition.

Hypomania scares me more than depression; I have gone to work despite deep depressions in the past. I can work through hypomania, but I’m more likely to do something I find embarrassing. One time I CC’ed an email when I should have BCC’ed, which sounds minor, but I broadcasted the mailing list for an anonymous survey. And I did it again to apologize; the apology itself bordered on emotional meltdown. The reverberations went all the way up to the Board of Regents and I had to go through a disciplinary action (some training and a “Don’t Do This Again”.)

My bipolar could be so much worse. As a Type 2, I don’t have the level of mania that truly disrupts life, but I have all the depression. That’s bad enough. The hypomania is bad enough. It’s the biggest challenge in my life.

Old Tunes and Nostalgia

Daily writing prompt
What makes you feel nostalgic?
View all responses

The music of my childhood makes me feel nostalgic. I was born in 1963, and my childhood was the 60s and 70s, with high school graduation in 1981.

To be specific, though, it’s not just any music of my childhood. The Beatles, surprisingly, don’t make me feel nostalgic, nor does hard rock or disco. The Top 40 radio format doesn’t make me sentimental, nor does easy listening. 80s and later music doesn’t make me nostalgic. Specifically, it’s singer-songwriter music from the 60s and 70s, as defined by Apple Music, that makes me nostalgic.

Singer-songwriter music comprises folk music and rock well-known for its lyrics. Its instrumentation often involves acoustic instruments, sometimes augmented by instruments like harmonica. Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Janis Ian, and Judy Collins are examples of the genre. Not all singer-songwriters give me nostalgic vibes — I was not exposed to John Prine or Leonard Cohen as a child, for example.

If I had to pick one song that makes me nostalgic, it would be Helpless by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. The song is about nostalgia, so that makes sense. Neil Young’s voice keens over the fiddle and piano singing about his childhood and how “the chains are locked and tied across the door”, because we can’t go back.

In a way, I literally can’t go back. I have aphantasia, or an inability to visualize in my mind. Visually, my memory is a series of snapshots which I only get to look at for a split-second, and they’re blurry. I remember from a narrative, where I tell myself the story, and by the feelings in my body. Nostalgia is a clutching of my heart, a longing.

Chance Encounter

Who are the biggest influences in your life?

I met him on the stairs
     in the hall.
I hadn’t seen him in forever,
     wizened man, twinkling blue eyes.
He held his arms out 
     for a hug;
as always,
     nothing could make life any better
     than that moment.

He told me he ventured out to visit
his other family,
     whom I had heard of
     but didn’t know.
I watched him
Out the door, into the cold.
     
Only then, I remembered
     we had buried him
     years before.

My favorite cars

Daily writing prompt
What is your all time favorite automobile?
View all responses

I have a few favorite automobiles — in fact, every car I’ve ever driven (with the exception of rental cars) has been my favorite.

Gdansk, Poland – June 5, 2021: New models of Honda HR-V and CR-V presented in the car showroom of Gdansk

My first car was a gently used Saturn SC-2 in plum. I loved its fiberglass body and its look. It drove well, and it had excellent gas mileage. It got totalled by an airport limo when I was struggling on a snowy overpass. (Note: I didn’t learn how to drive until I was 32, and I didn’t have parents putting limits on my meanderings, so I drove 5 hours away into a snowstorm.)

My second car was a 1994 Honda Civic hatchback in red. That was a darling car. I bought it gently used and drove it for 13 years until the engine blew its head gasket twice. This is a young demise for a Honda, but a student from a mechanic family told me it was a weakness of the 94s.

Third and fourth cars were Honda Fits, which I am still certain are the best compact vehicles ever, even though they were discontinued in the US. With their adorable looks, their flexible space, and good mileage, they’re everything to want in a small car. The white 2007 is no longer with us, but we still have the 2009 red one. I think red is the best color for a Honda Fit.

Our newest (used) car is a Honda HR-V. Not the biggest of the SUVs, it’s like driving a tall Fit. It’s in that serene blue that you saw in SUVs around 2019. Very comfortable to travel in. More padding on the seats than a Fit.

So it seems that I make excellent choices in cars if I like every one of them!

My Perfect Writing Place

Daily writing prompt
You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?
View all responses
Photo by Alex Qian on Pexels.com

I would love a perfect spot for reading and writing. My space is not so perfect, being a corner of the living room, where I have a sofa laptop holder pulled up to a loveseat that rocks and reclines. It’s not the most comfortable, because I have to kind of hold myself in place while writing.

The ideal space would allow both reading and writing, and a sense of cozy privacy without being too small. The furniture would be a lot like the living room is set up now — a large recliner couch to read on with my feet up, and a loveseat that doesn’t rock set up with the lap desk. It wouldn’t need bookshelves, because I read exclusively on my phone. But the room would need to have a stereo and decent speakers for background music.

It would need a hot water dispenser for tea and coffee. I would make the coffee in a French press or maybe a Chemex. I would like a small refrigerator for cold drinks to complete the refreshment area.

To be honest, this is an awful lot like my living room, except for the clutter and the problem with the loveseat. Maybe I’m in the perfect place after all.