Soliciting Your Opinion Yet Again

The portfolio I'm working on for my creative writing class has to include poetry, which I am much less comfortable with than prose. Prose I know where I stand whereas, with poetry, I am on much less certain ground. So, here are eight poems I've written in class - let me know which ones you like the best. The poems are linked below.

A Very Long, Involved Post In Which I Politely Ask For Your Opinion

In order to do the core endorsement that will, in theory, make me one iota more employable in this wretched economy, I am required to take five English classes. I'm in my last one right now, Creative Writing, which is fun and I wish I had less other stuff to do so I could concentrate for on it. But, the end project is a portfolio in which we have to have one short story and five poems. Since I don't really have time for a lengthy revision process AND I am so stressed my decision-making skills have disappeared (seriously, it took 20 minutes this morning to decide if I needed to wash my hair. Not good.) I am asking you, dear readers, to give me your opinion on the three different stories I wrote during our short story workshop. These are all first drafts and I have some fairly extensive notes from my workshop group, so I'm mostly looking for what you think would be the best story to spend time improving. If you want to leave comments, fantastic. If you just want to vote in the poll, great. The stories are after the jump.

Things That Were Great About This Weekend

• No homework assignments hanging over my head.
• I declared Saturday a 'no phone' day and enjoyed a blissful, solitary day.
• My brother, sister-in-law, and niece came up on Friday.
• My niece knows my name and can call me by it.
• We chased ducks at Lake Padden and I taught my niece to say "Quack, Quack" which she now says when she sees ducks. 
• All of the above makes it that much easier if I need to go down to Seattle and watch Bug when Niece #2 arrives in June.
• My room is clean and I filed all the assorted paperwork that has been piling up since September.
• With both roommates staying with family, I woke up to a house in the exact state that I left it, which was clean. There is something life-affirming about waking up to a clean kitchen on Sunday morning.
• Catching up on TV shows is the perfect thing to accompany filing endless piles of paperwork. Although I have many thoughts on the direction they are taking Chuck and not all of them are pleasant.
• I still have a whole week of Spring Break ahead of me in which I can accomplish more things that I never have time for during quarters, like re-potting plants and finishing gifts for friends and ironing. And sleeping. Oh, how I love the sleeping!
• After spending a large part of the weekend immersed in the worlds of Jeeves and Wooster and Lord Peter Wimsey, I really wish I had a gentlemen's gentlemen despite the fact that I am not a well-to-do gentlemen living in London in the 20s or 30s. They just seem so useful, doing all the chores one doesn't want to do. Especially if one is busy solving mysteries or frequenting jazz clubs.

A Stroke of Genius

Since school ended, I have had a bit of time on my hands which I have spent watching all the television and movies I didn't have time for during the last quarter. Lately I have been watching  A Bit of Fry and Laurie and subsequently had a stroke of genius the other morning as I was lazily lying in bed. There have been rumours of a remake of My Fair Lady with various people attached to it. Well, wouldn't the travesty of remaking My Fair Lady be somewhat mitigated if Hugh Laurie was cast as Prof. Henry Higgins and Stephen Fry as Colonel Pickering?  Can't you just see it?

And This Might Get Me To Go To Bed Early

It must be the week of mellifluous British voices, because I found a nice, soothing way to get ready to sleep - the BBC's Bedtime Story series. Below is a link to one read by David Tennant, but there are also some with Richard Armitage and Rupert Penry-Jones. Enjoy!

If only I could get this as a podcast!