Leap of Faith

Rough pounding heart

Wings sweaty

Got closer to the edge

One-way Jetty

Who goes first?

Shawn?

Adam?

Lets keep pushing until someone goes

Soft down feathers

Ruffled and organized

The edge is getting closer

Strangling time

Weary of the fate below

Flippers are tingling

Hearts on fire

The first to go wins the first desire.

Horror Poem

Mr. Bradshaw

By: Charles Richmond

Dear Mr. Bradshaw

How is your wife?

Are you happy with your career?

Your path?

Your life?

We need to talk
I think I have a fix
Meet me at your house
I'll be there at six

Take a look around Mr. Bradshaw

Have you seen the glasses on the mantle?

The haircut?

The candles?

The stupid little looks with her three heads and the flannel

Fuck that bitch and her scandal

I can help you Mr. Bradshaw

Although it may be a gamble

Turn the TV up loud but don’t change the channel

We’re gonna hurt this bitch

 Bring her life down to shambles

And let her feel helpless, trampled, and mishandled

AHHHH, HELP ME PLEEASE!

Shut up bitch it’s only the preamble

We’re gonna make you feel worthless

Show you your life is all but substantial

Hand me the knife Mr. Bradshaw

NOOO LET ME GO PLEEASE!

Quiet you whore!

I’ll smash your hands with an anvil

You see what you’ve done?

Is this what you wanted for you daughter and son?

I don’t think so

Your life is undo-ing

And I’ve just begun

I am the undo-er

You’ll soon be undone

Come closer Mr. Bradshaw

We need a sample

Deep inside the hippocampal

This bitch won’t remember shit

Her head will be scrambled

Re-wired

Canceled

When the bitch comes to

And goes off the handle

Call the ambul

Call her the example

When she rambles, they’ll take her to the ward in shambles

Life can be a handful Mr. Bradshaw

It's relative and circumstantial

Take what you want from this but remember

You must remain manful.

Review of "The First Day" by Edward Jones, and "Cooling The House" by Mark Liedner

In the first reading “The First day” by Edward P Jones, I thought it was a really good story, and he did an excellent job of taking the point of view of the little girl. He had her react exactly how I would expect a little girl of that age to act. It was a very easy read, and held my attention well. In the other piece, the poem “Cooling The House” by Mark Liedner, I couldn’t really get into it. I think it was because it was audio, and had a picture of the author. I had a hard time getting into it as a poem because I see poetry as a complex and creative manner of telling a story. I saw Liedner as a stoner, and he sounded like he was stoned while reading the story, and to me it sounded like a half witted rant secondary to being high, and bored.

POV of character who does not understand whats going on around them

Buzz

            “What do you think those humans over there are saying Gus?” Buzz said as he stared over at the people. “Gus I’ve been trying for half my life to understand what they were saying, so I could find out when they were coming after me with that giant flat plastic thing” Gus replied. The people spoke a language uncomprehendable to little Buzz and his friend Gus, and always seemed to show their hatred towards the two friends. “Just because they are so much bigger than us doesn’t mean they should disrespect us like that all the time” Gus stated. “I know what you mean Gus, they killed my female, and now I have to find a new one to reproduce with, and that’s going to be hard stuck in this house all of the time”. Buzz nervously said. There are not many other flies in the house. “the only other potential mates I have seen are the nasty ones that live near the dog, and the trash can. I’m a sophisticated fellow” Buzz announced with confidence. “I require a sophisticated female. Smooth, black, quiet, and low key. Not those big noisy ones with the shiny green butt, they are catty and crass” Buzz complained.

            Buzz went on to check around the house for any possible females to mate with. Gus still had his female, and offered to let Buzz mate with her, for at least one round of offspring, but Buzz refused. His pride, is too strong. Later that night around 6:00 dinner was served for the humans, and Gus flew in to check it out. “I can’t resist the smell Gus, its so good, it draws me in” said Buzz with an extra little pep in his flight. “Your right Buzz, it’s nearly impossible to stay away. Lets go get some!” Gus announced. Both Gus and Buzz fly over to the plate centered in front of the male human, and land on a delicious meatball. The man quickly flaps his hand back and forth over Buzz and Gus yelling “SHOE FLY! THAT’S MY MEAT PIE, GET ON OUTA HERE BEFORE YOU DIE!” Gus and Buzz quickly fly out of the way to avoid getting hit. “What is that man saying Gus? It looks like he doesn’t like the smell or something” Buzz wondered. “IT SMELLS GREAT!” Gus yelled as he took flight high above the table in excitement, he fluttered and zipped around the room with joy as if he just hit maturity. “WEEEEEEE!” Gus yelled as he dove in for some more meatballs. Buzz joined him in his desperate attempt at more meatballs. “If this human doesn’t want it I’ll take it, I’ll take it any day of the week” buzz mumbled with a mouth full of sauce.

            “I warned you Fly, to stay outa my Pie, you belong in a pig Sty, now its time to DIE!” the man swatted and swung vigorously at Gus and Buzz. The two friends flew frantically over to the curtains on the wall to take a breather and regroup. “What’s wrong with this guy? Its just meatballs, they are delicious. I’m not sure why he hates them so much and why he thinks its our fault that he hates them” Gus stated in defense to their getaway. Gus walked out from behind the fold in the curtain to see if the man was coming, and FWAP! Gus fell to his death; meanwhile Buzz was knocked so hard he was disoriented. Buzz flew away slowly to another room to gather himself. Shocked with the thought that his partner in crime was just killed by one of the humans, he spent the rest of that night in the darkness behind the curtain in another room.

            The next morning when Buzz got himself together he thought about his search for a mate. He thought, well I guess since Gus is gone now I can use his female. Buzz flew around the house to find Gus’s female, to offer her his services in the survival of their species. Buzz noticed her what looked like feeding on a swirly brown thing hanging from the ceiling. “OOOH yum! I didn’t expect breakfast to be so easy today. Is it good?” Buzz asked as he flew around Gus’s female sitting on the strange structure. “It smells so good, like sugar and molasses.” Buzz thought. Buzz landed in front of Gus’s female to have casual conversation over a morning snack, to help sugar coat his proposal. “How does it taste?” Buzz asked. No response came from Gus’s female. “I was thinking, would you want to go make a couple hundred offspring this evening?” Buzz asked boldly with confidence. Buzz thought to himself after this statement “It’s worked before, why wouldn’t it work now?” No response came from the female. “Hey! Did you hear me?” no response again. Buzz then decided that he was not such the smooth talker after all, and decided to leave. “What the? I can’t move! My Wing is stuck!” Buzz cried.

            Buzz lie there helplessly stuck to the brown structure hanging from the ceiling starring at the female in front of him. She was dead, they all were, nobody left. Buzz starred at what would have been the last hope of his survivorship. As his life slips away he stares, into the hopes he had, his sophisticated female, his meatball Mondays, he starred. As darkness crept over the room that night Buzz remained, and darkness crept over him.

News-Article Character Expression

My name is Hannah Smutney, and I am a member of the Humans Vs. Zombies club of McDaniel College. The annual zombie run is my forte. I live for this day and think about it countless times throughout the year. It brings so much creativity and joy to the community, because as many of the degree programs at McDaniel College are difficult it is extremely therapeutic to let go once in a while and overthrow the world with a zombie apocalypse. It is a delicate task to master the art of zombie makeup, but after my experience in the club I think I can handle the task. I woke up at 4:00 am just to help out my fellow zombies with their makeup. I know we can get a lot of those runners this year and scare the living daylights out of them. We will see what the non student, volunteers bring to the table as well. This should be interesting to see how many people we can turn into zombies before they reach the finish line. Its important to appreciate a good character when it comes to zombie runs. I know at least 5 people who will be at their top performance for this event, and I expect no less from myself. This should be a moment to go down in history, and a bar will be set that is difficult to meet for future members.

Character Sketch review, and Reflection of "Damaged"

I really enjoyed writing in the play format because it seemed like I could take a story that would be best portrayed through body language and dialogue, and write it in a way that let the audience catch the inferences thrown out there. In my play I noted that the boy had a foster mother who doesn’t pay any attention to him and that he stays out of her way, illustrating that he is emotionally damaged, in addition to this aspect, I added that he was immature for his age, and doesn’t have any friends due to this. With that in mind, we can infer that the best thing for him would be to find a role model, and a friend. With Shed I noted that he is a depressed widower, who drinks too much and his apartment is in shambles, with no friends, and no purpose in life without his wife. With that in mind, we can infer that the best thing for him is a reason to keep going, and someone to talk to, someone that he can fix, in order to pull his life back together.

            I knew that I had a good start when it came to their backgrounds. They both had psychological issues, and needed help in some way. They had a common link to the same comic book store. I then only needed to develop an instance where they could help each other. I thought it was difficult to keep the play confined to one setting, so I imagined a larger set, where you could see the park (fake) and a (real) bench in the background, and then in the foreground would be the inside of the comic book store with an interior door to an adjacent apartment. The reason I had to think of how the set may be built is because I had multiple settings in my play. I didn’t think that I could capture the weight of the story in one dialogue session, so I had to build the story by putting Raymond in the park crying, and Shed coming to the rescue, otherwise it wouldn’t feel realistic for them to have a strong enough bond to exchange gifts. The gift exchange was the climax of the play, because it indicated a mutual benefit to both characters, and in the end this was reinforced when Shed went to bed and thanked his deceased wife, as if she gave him purpose again.

The Odd Couple review

        I don’t think that Olive got the same thing from the situation that Flo got, because olive was excited to get her home back to the way she likes it. Olive did learn something though. She learned that she is not quite as lonely as she thought, just sexually frustrated. Flo learned that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and her own strength is what drives her happiness. If she fails to portray the strength she found in the end of the play, then she will continue on her path of depression and anxiety. Perhaps the path of anxiety is naturally in her cards, but depression is only a state of mind, and she can pull herself out of that by focusing on her individuality. I think the valuable lesson Flo learned here was to rely on herself to make things better. Olive I think was positively and negatively affected by this experience. The reason I say this is because Olive learned that nobody can make her as happy as she can, and that was the positive message that Olive learned. The negative message that Olive got from this was that its difficult bring friends into your home as a roommate, because although you like each other, it is easy to damage the relationship you have by conflicting priorities. Olive and Flo are so opposite of each other that their friendship is of mutual benefit to each other, but their extreme differences cause conflict in the home.