Prompt 13

What is one word that describes you?

One word is insufficient, for you and I are not a manufactured byproduct of living organisms. So I will defy it with the following parade of words that tells about me: munificent, seI am sentimental, sympathetic, compassionate, funny (in a delightful way), naive (but more leaning toward gullible), agerasia, Renaissance, timid, introverted, vivacious (only when I am in the mood under right conditions with right company), blue-stocking, independent, unreconstructed, passionate when talking about books and history with kindred spirits, ambitious, neverending, resilent, optimistic, silly, sometimes pretty when my spirit is high, sybil, Cassadra, ancient, cosmopolitan, spiritual, witch (a good one), dreamer, laid-back, warm, dilligent, genuine, trusty, mysterious, and hopeful.

Prompt 12

What was the best compliment you’ve received?

I am an analytical, sophisticated thinker capable of applying a concept, idea, or philosophy to things I read and experience. That compliment was a comment made on my term paper by my Colonial and Post-Colonial literature seminar class professor at Rutgers University. It was about George Orwell’s Burmese Days.

Other compliments I have heard are thus: that I am well-read, a good writer with poet’s rhythm, and a good egg. They all pertain to my writing, which I regard as intellectual, which means I have something to think about. Then in terms of my appearance, I have been told that I have the aura of someone famous and that I am sultry when I converse about the subject of interest, which piques my mind’s flair for sharing knowledge with like-minded people.

But some compliments are inwardly unappreciative, such as “You are so nice,” not in the least because it sounds like a superficial cliche that ignores the person’s virtue. Once you are seen as nice, you must remain nice, always smiling and being a yes girl. I’d rather be myself than a mindless servile, yes, girl.

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Prompt 11

You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?

Since I have already crossed the country from New Jersey to California by Greyhound bus, I will choose the Armtrak train on returning trip to New Jersey to enjoy the beautiful scenery across the country without being crammed into a flying compartment on air, not being able to move around for hours at a high price. And forget about driving a car, which may sound adventurous but is dangerous.

Dangerous because what if I happen to encounter some vile group of people who have pledged allegiance to their secret creed of violent belief hell-bent on harming fellow human beings as in the movie “End of the Road,” in which the Queen Latifah character and his family on the road to Texas future from California past encounter series of manacing racist strangers. On the contrary, traveling in the company of people, although strangers, provides me some sense of security and relaxation, freed from maneuvering navigation and driving, which sometimes will prevent me from appreciating the pleasure of watching scenery listening to music, the moody sweets of my spirit.

It was in the same manner that emigrants -not necessarily foreigners but those from the east coast- crossed the continent on oxen-driven wagons as accounted in Horace Greeley’s An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco in the Summer of 1859 in which the renowned editor of the New York Tribune and once a president hopeful opposite Ulysses Grant. This book inspired me to come to California by bus, which I considered a modern-day equivalent of a wagon. What used to take a good 6 or 8 months for the easterners to arrive at West overland by wagon took me a week to reach California by bus. Notwithstanding any inconvenience in the road trip, it was my version of reenactment of the Oregon Trail in the spirit of frontierwoman to start anew in the Wild West.