I had to tell Y'all!

"Never, never, never give up. "
~Winston Churchill

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."
~ Samuel Beckett

"Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything." ~W. Clement Stone

This will be a very short short post. I have so much going on right now.. I have way too much energy to sit still and write so I am doing things like cleaning and pulling weeds and yes I know it all sounds like work... Don't worry I won't stick to anything that sounds like work for long... I will be back with a much longer; real post most likely by tomorrow or the next day. I will have run out of things to clean by then. But I had to share something with Y'all tonight.

Everyone who reads me every now and again has likely heard me whine about my Haiku class. Y' all know.... the one I was sure I could finish in a couple of weeks.. Well today is my one year anniversary on that web sight and in their class programs. I don't think I started the Haiku class as soon as I joined but it wasn't long after. I would like to tell everyone that the teacher is mean and hates me.. I have thought that a time or two myself.. I would like to say that it's because the teacher is from the UK and I am an American... I tried that excuse to myself too at first.. Needless to say I have not finished the class in a few weeks and I have not had an easy time of it in this class. I have had to write the same Poem over and over before he would accept it.. Mind you every time he checked it he told me things that were wrong.. Maybe I had too many verbs or maybe the thing just plain didn't make sense to him..

So many times I said I was going to quit the class. A few times I even waited a whole two weeks before I would re-write a poem thinking maybe he would change his mind and just say "Hey I think it's good now"... Never happened!!... A few days ago I posted a haiku for a class. The next day I got a reply saying Basically that I needed another noun and that I needed to work on the flow of words. I took that to mean it sucked. I liked it. I didn't want to change it. I sat here and read it to myself. There really was something wrong with the flow.. And just saying fish instead of a particular kind of fish did take away from it a little.. So I adjusted it a tiny little bit and Man was I ever surprised when I got this response from the teacher!

"OK! Excellent haiku! A well-chosen fish. Nice flow in the phrase. Interesting jux of images.
Impressive work!" ~ Teacher who will remain anonymous( in case I have to whine and complain
again later!)

I know it's not a big deal... people write haiku everyday with no help from a teacher and they get it right the first time all the time.. But I don't. I'm a normal person who sometimes gets it wrong or at least not like the teacher wants it.. and this time I only had to re-write it once.. I will applaud myself. The rest of you can roll with laughter at me. I will still be happy that to me this Haiku was special! Laugh and start the day off on a happy note! Enjoy my haiku! Have a wonderful day!
Patsy


Riverside~ A haiku

weathered docks~
a bent old man on the pier
cleaning catfish

written By: Patricia Sawyer
3-10-2009