Weekend Wrap-up: food, lots of poem stuff, and other stuff in between

Hope everyone has been enjoying a lovely weekend! I returned just a few hours before writing this post from a food crawl in the foodie side of town. In addition to choking on an impossibly spicy nitbit of some kind of freak pepper, in which half my face got numb as a result, I ate amazing stuff like this:

I came home and promptly fell asleep for 3 hours on account of food coma. Now for this week’s cool Internet schtuff…

On writing

• Liz Peterson shares her love of villanelles (and other poetry forms) in this refreshing post about old-fashioned, old-school poetic structures. Made me inspired to write villanelles again, which I haven’t done since high school English assignments!

• A thoughtful essay on grief and reason. This is a longer read, and I haven’t finished my exploration of it either, but as someone who’s lost important people in my life as well, it’s an interesting take.

• Continuing on the theme of death, a short but powerful poem on the subject. This one caught my eye because I, too, have written a poem titled “Open Casket.” Maybe I’ll share that someday. Maybe not.

• Departing from morbidity…a post on who we are when we write. I think I’m a different person when I write for sure: more eloquent, more thoughtful, less goofy, more mature. (Whether or not that makes me more boring…is debatable). Perhaps I’ll write a response to the topic of this post at a later date.

• What do you do in your spare time? A very good question posed by this post. And one that forces one to face the facts, especially if you’re a sitcom-addicted professional procrastinator like myself who theoretically has the time to do interesting stuff but opts for TV marathons instead. More (possibly relatable?) roadblocks here.

• I’d also like to share work from my schoolmates. This is the literary journal of my university’s English department, and clearly it’s filled with very talented, creative, and artistic people! This story in particular was an enjoyable read.

On other stuff

• On managing first impressions. This was a post that caught my eye because I do this too. Consciously and subconsciously, I alter the first impression I make on people. Like the author of this post, this is not an attempt to be fake, but it can lead to isolation. I’m a very private person, and I’m also very self-conscious. I like people to think I’m cooler than I really am. Until they find out I’m just as dorky as them.

Some photographs courtesy of the lovely members of UBC Food Society