From the mind of Ama- 1-

Moved to blog

Ghana journals

So, I am going to be keeping a few journals. One based on the trip and one directly related to the trip. The first will be fictional and the second will be non-fiction. I will label the non-fiction entries as "In the land of inginuity we suffer but we LIVE." And the fiction will be "From the Mind of Ama," cause I was born on Saturday and the asante name for girls born on saturday is Ama. :) yeah. :)

Currently, I have a little notebook that I keep my daily journal notes in, and I just started writing the fictional one. I'm going to post what I have so far that way I can keep everything straight for when I work on it tomorrow. You're welcome to read it, if there even is a you, and you are welcome not to read it. Whatever makes you happy. :)

TTUL

Queen Victoria

This movie... I am mezmorized.....Romance, I get lost in it. I am lost in it.
Will I ever find the passionate simplicity that I am looking for?
In my stories, yes.

It's like M.C. Escher inside my head.

You ever feel like you're trying too hard to be what you are, and therefore you end up something you're not? Like you're drunk from one too many vodka and sodas. The world is spinning even though you're still sitting; you have no idea where you are or how you got there; but, damn it, you are going to be the life of the party. So, you grab another drink and down the hatch it goes. In the end, you're tossing your cookies in a strangers bathroom as the boy you like is holding your hair, hoping you would just stop long enough so he could escape without feeling bad. In the morning you wake up, you're face looks like it collided with a wrecking ball, and you have a text saying, "hey, wish you hadn't drank so much. You were so much fun before the mess."

That's me as a writer. I'm always over thinking; hyper correcting. I can't just be satisfied; I have to be more philosophic; the reader has to get my meaning. I ruin things. I can't just enjoy words; the english language. I have to take it and twist it and manipulate it past the point of interrest and straight into over-drawn boredom, or confusion.

I want to erase my mind, and go back to the days when I could write a story. Forget adjectives, forget metaphors, forget Hemmingway, Rand, Wolstonecraft, Dorkin. I just want to know Rosie.

I will never be a writer while I am constantly useing my pen like a hammer.

I'm trying too hard; going on my fourth year of serial murder. I don't think the english language, and my set audience of readers, can take much more.

This is me clearing the chalk board.

Journey to the center of my soul

I'm going to Africa in July. I've never been, and I don't know what to expect; but, I'm going and so I am excited. My friends who are/were in the army and who went over seas keep trying to scare me. They tell me about all the shots you have to get, and the big spiders that live over there. It's amusing to them because I'm gullable, and afraid of large insects. It's all done in fun, and for me, those are not the biggest issues on my mind. No, the issues plaguing me are more esoteric in nature. Will I find what I'm looking for in the plains of Africa?

The trip I am taking is for a school research project, and we are going to Ghana, Africa. The research project is basically a collection of interviews that we will be conducting with the Akan people regarding what happened within their family when people were kidnapped and brought to America to serve as slaves. Professor Anokye has aptly titled the project: "Stories from the otherside." "We already know the stories and experiences of the slaves after coming to America," Dr. Anokye tells me, "but what about those left behind."

When this project was first presented to me by Dr. Duku Anokye, I was extremely excited to even be offered a spot on her research team. How lucky was I to be invited on such an important trip? I never thought something like this would ever happen to me. It was a good day to say the least. As the days past, and I told people about the invitation to go to Ghana, and to research with Dr. Anokye, they continuosly asked me why Africa. Why would I want to go there, when my heart had been set on Ireland and England. And, to be honest, the answer always came back to the same root: because I want to know myself.

Growing up, I was "the mixed girl," half black, half white, and always lost inside herself. Making people happy so they would like me better was my goal; if I had to make fun of my self for being the "crazy loud black girl" among my white friends, I did; and, if I had to talk a certain way, and dress a certain way with my black friends, I did. Satisfying the wants of the crowd was easier than satisfying the wants of my personal self. So, I became the person people were comfortable with, spiced up with a little independent self (but not a lot), and that's the person I stayed. Though to be completely honest, I was never 100% comfortable with any crowd, or 100% accepted, among any group of friends. The jokes people make at the expense of their friends are always more telling than people care to admit. Plus, how can other people fully accept you when they don't accept themselves?

Once I reached college and began taking ethnic and women's studies, I realized that there was an anger inside of me that I did not know how to deal with. If you avoid certain topics of study and repsress certain feelings for so long, they begin to feel null and void in your life, until, that is, they hit you in the face and you're forced to face them.

As a child and in high school you are never taught the full and complete histories of minority people in America, and around the world for that matter. Every lesson taught is backed with an Anglo-American, ethnocentric, patriotic thread, and everything outside of that is kind of glossed over. Why teach the hard stuff that might insight questions teachers don't want to, or can't, answer, when we can teach the easy, "America is great, everyone is loved, yeah there were hard times, but those went away quickly," lesson plans? Students are never taught until college the full histories of each culture, or ethnic movements, here in America, except that of the majority. And so, as we mature, we grow less and less equiped to our feeling when presented with authors like August Wilson, Stella Pope Duarte, June Jordan, Jose Angel Gutierez, Alex Haley, and Andrea Dorkin. The whole of my Fall 2009 semester, I would come home from my classes at ASU with a handful of internal questions about myself and who I was as a mixed, liberal, femenist woman, and would externalize these unanswered feelings in an almost aggressive way towards my family and friends. Through research of my own, and outside conversations with empathetic teachers and mentors, I've begun coming to terms with who Rosie actually is on the inside.

However, going back to my original topic for this blog, I feel like going to Africa and researching these slave stories, experiencing the slave castles, and just being immersed in a culture where being "black" is the norm, and where people know their histories for hundreds of years past, will help me gain a steady ground on which to build my own identity. I want to eventually know myself, and to stop searching, for right now I feel I am the eternal wanderer. By visiting the past, I think I will be better prepared for the present and future.

ERASED

This is me erasing you. Get out of my heart, get out of my mind. You're gone. The end. :)

Hi!

Hello there,

So, this is my first online blog account, outside the random posts on myspace every now and then. I created this account thinking that I would use it to begin my writing career; I would create a platform so interresting that people all over could not ignore what I had to say. This would be a place where I wrote stories and shared them with anyone who would listen, or read rather. But, now that I have this account, and all the enthusiasm of my shiny new toy is gone, I realize that I actually have nothing to say.... nothing accredited, nothing profound. What exactly do I have to say about everyday life that is worth reading? I'm a fiction writer; creative non-fiction is simply not my forte.

Instead, I think I will take a different route from my original plan. For now, I'm just going to blog whatever comes to mind, and if I get one reader, then, Hi! nice to meet you. And, if I get two, how exciting. :) We will become wonderful friends. :)

If you do happen upon this blog, and you feel like you want to take this spontaneous journey with me, marvelous. It should be fun. Every now and then, I think I will post an excerpt from my novel. I absolutely love it, maybe you will too. :)

Well, nice to meet you, whoever you are. :)