i thought i posted but i guess not...

My name is Meredith Clynes (Marvelous Meredith). I'm the one who sat on the end by the
door and blushed a lot (family curse). I'm majoring in psychology and minoring in gender
studies and sociology. I've discovered that I don't like my major as much as my minors.
I have become much more interested in the minors, especially gender studies. If anyone
out there has not taken a gender class yet, I really recommend it. I do like psychology
because it shows me the reason people act the way they do and gives you a broader
understanding of not only things like psychological disorders and whatnot, but the
psychology behind sports, behavior of animals and people, etc. I love gender studies
because those are the classes that have opened my eyes to the close mindedness of so many
people. I think I have become a much better and more understanding person after taking
gender and soc classes, which I think is an important result of college classes.

I'm from Glens Falls, NY near the Adirondack Mountains. Glens Falls is considered
upstate NY, and is also considered a "city". I feel like Glens Falls is hardly a city,
but I love it anyway because the people are nice, always say hello, and I'm comfortable
there. I live with my parents, my identical twin sister, and my golden retriever Leon,
who was a Hurricane Katrina dog that we rescued.

Aside from writing, I like to run, cross country ski, read, and be with family, friends,
and animals. Eating and sleeping are also my interests, perhaps my favorite interests.

I've had good experiences getting feedback on the writing I've done at SLU, but seeing as
this will only be my third English class here, I feel I don't have as much experience as
others. Sometimes people have missed the point or the underlying message of my writing
completely, but I can't be upset because I know I've done that before myself. I also
think people are sometimes too scared to "offend" another person's work, so they wont
tell their true opinion.

I'm more into reading non fiction, and haven't read a lot of poetry. Actually, I've read
none since I've been here, but had to write a lot in my Masculinities class last
semester. But when I was little Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and the person who wrote
poetry for "Something Big Has Been Here" were always my favorites.

I feel poetry is good when you can empathize with the reader. Reading any work where
I've had a similar experience makes it easy to understand and feel better that somewhere,
someone else has felt the same as you at one point. Although I haven't read much poetry,
I can relate it to nonfiction. I like when nonfiction flows well, keeps you interested,
and makes you upset when you reach the end.

In this class I'd like to learn how to be comfortable with myself enough to write what I
really feel. I'd like to learn how to analyze poetry and how to offer better comments
and suggestions to poetry instead of fiction and nonfiction. As Joanna said before, I
would also like to keep revising even though I think revising may ruin the poem. I'm
very stubborn, so when I think something is right then I don't want to change it, and I
need to step away from that.