The Mindful Writer
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the mindful writer core 120 • fall 2019 2 THE MINDFUL WRITER CORE 120 • Fall 2019 Faculty: Carrie Brown, John Gregory Brown, Susannah Nevison, and Erica Trabold 4 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Sarah Lloyd on Sweet Briar’s Founders’ Day tradition; Cassandra Munford on an embarrassing moment in her first weeks of college; Amanda Jenkins on a cardboard boat regatta; Frannie Kass on shopping for a fancy dress; Ashleigh Hynst on a rural retreat and peace of mind; Madigan Nugent on a college’s foray into viticulture. SHOUTS & MURMURS Eiizjarae Dillon 10 Crunching the Numbers ANNALS OF MEDICINE Shannon Huth 12 Beyond the Patient My battle with cancer and the nurses who carried me through my fight. LETTER FROM CALIFORNIA Lauria McShane 15 Salutations from Salton Sea Is there any way to repair this ecological disaster? PROFILES Katica Kotany 20 Man on the Land A photographer who is eager to get outside PERSONAL HISTORY Kaia Rokke 23 How I Am Made Up Understanding my face value. POSTCARDS FROM YELLOWSTONE Amber Whitman 25 Belly of the Beast Why everyone is freaking out about North America’s largest volcano. THE CRITICS Kylie Senter-Oelberg 29 You’re a Mean One “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” PERSONAL HISTORY Catherine McCord 32 Rest This Worried heart Searching for the path back to myself after open-heart surgery. DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL SCIENCE Sarah Côté 35 Bad Food for Good Dogs The modern pet food industry and how it is harming our animals. CORE 120: The Mindful Writer is a workshop-based course that helps students become confident and effective readers and writers. Using the New Yorker magazine as their text — each student has an individual ten-week subscription — students read deeply and widely in the magazine that has become one of the leading voices in American letters. Founded in February 1925 and published continuously since then, garnering more National Magazine Awards than any other American magazine, the New Yorker — referred to in Harold Ross’s famous editor’s prospectus as “a magazine that is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque” — publishes weekly reporting and commentary on politics, the arts, science and medicine, foreign affairs, business, technology, and popular culture, as well as fiction, poetry, and cartoons. It is known for its signature departments, including The Talk of the Town, and its distinctive covers — sometimes barbed, sometimes affectionate, sometimes elegiac, and sometimes comic or ironic — which frequently address national or international events, figures of importance, or trends. Students learn to discern the form and tone of different kinds of writing and to understand the variety of rhetorical styles and choices practiced by writers. By reading and writing across a range of articles, they practice those styles, honing their skills as prose writers and learning how to use tools and strategies such as research, interviews, and first-person re- porting to enhance their own work. They meanwhile practice writing with care, precision, and intellectual rigor, moving through successive drafts of every piece and discovering that writing — good writing — is a product as much of revision as inspiration. (Meanwhile, they also learn a whole lot of fascinating stuff about the world in general.) The diverse pieces collected here represent a necessary fraction of the many examples of work produced by students in the six sections of The Mindful Writer in the 2018 fall 12-week session. 3 talk of the town APPRECIATING OUR ROOTS Founders Day n Friday, September 20, 2019, the OSweet Briar community celebrated Founders’ Day. Around 50 staff, students, faculty, and residents of the surrounding area started their Founders' Day with a walk to a small part of campus—the rest- ing place of the unknown founders of Sweet Briar, the enslaved people of the Sweet Briar Plantation. Some students just barely managed to run to their 8am classes, while others, like freshman Sarah Lloyd, headed off to work for “just another day on the job.” Lloyd went about her work routine, bringing in horses from the pad- docks, cleaning and filling water buckets, sweeping, giving hay to the 1,200-pound IHSA is a horse show organization guest speakers, including Dr. Jewel Bro- toddlers calling out to her, and cleaning where competitors draw a horse’s name naugh, the Commissioner of the Virginia out the bottoms of their feet. When asked out of a hat, mount, and compete with Department of Agriculture and Consum- about what she thought about working no warm-up period. Upon arriving at er Services, and Bettina Ring, Secretary on Founders' Day, Lloyd simply said, “I the barn, Lloyd parked and got her as- of Agriculture and Forestry for the state appreciate everything all the founders signed horse, Jazz, ready and mounted. of Virginia, as well as some members of did, but work still has to get done. I love “I learned a lot that practice,” Lloyd the Sweet Briar Board and Faculty. The my job, which is part of my way of ap- expressed. “It’s been a little while since speeches included a lot of “Congratu- preciating and celebrating the founders.” I have ridden a more forward horse, lations on ______.” Some commented Lloyd continued her unconvention- so it was a refreshing experience to on our incoming agricultural program, al version of celebrating the founders by say the least. But it helped me adapt, some on making us more involved in in- driving back to the main campus and which is something I need to work creasing the commonwealth of Virginia, getting a quick breakfast before heading on. I would one-hundred percent get some on the great job President Woo is off to class. As she was grabbing a small on Jazz again, given the opportunity.” doing with the school, some on Found- bowl of fruit and plate of hash browns, Lloyd wasn’t the only one celebrating ers’ Day, and some on just being a presti- all Lloyd could think was, “I wish I ate Founders' Day unconventionally. Allison gious establishment. breakfast before work. Why do I do these Wandling, a freshman, and a member of As convocation concluded, the Sweet things to myself?” She ate like her life Sweet Briar's tennis team also celebrat- Briar community exited the auditorium, depended on it, bolted out of the dining ed the founders in an untraditional way. and each student was handed either a pink hall, and up the stairs to class. When Allison, along with the rest of the team, or white daisy — pink for seniors and she took her seat in Mindful Writer, the were at the University of Mary Washing- sophomores and white for freshmen and class got right to work talking about the ton in Fredericksburg, playing for Sweet juniors. Each class’s daisy matched the dai- homework from the last class, reading Briar. Later, Wandling said, “I’m sorry sy of their sister class. Students then either and annotating articles from The New I missed the festivities. But it was great found their “big sister” or “little sister(s)” Yorker, as she tried to catch her breath. to be able to celebrate the founders by to walk up to Monument Hill together. After class, Lloyd took a few min- competing for the school. We wouldn’t The “bigs and littles” tradition has utes to chill out in her dorm and change have been able to go without them.” been a part of Sweet Briar for a long time. before grabbing lunch and heading Meanwhile, back on campus, most of In their junior year, Sweet Briar women to her first ever Intercollegiate Horse the student body attended convocation choose one or more freshman to be their Show Association (IHSA) practice. with a wide variety of very prestigious “little sister(s).” In mid- September, about 4 a week before Founders’ Day, the freshmen sy, the daughter of the founders who died a day filled with tradition, a sense of find out who their “big sister” is. Lloyd’s before she could get a college education — community, and allowing the college relationship with her “big” wasn’t great, the reason the school was founded. Most to not forget how they got where they but wasn’t horrible either. Lloyd stated then went to dinner and ate with friends, are. “Founders' Day is one of my fa- that she and her “big” didn’t really “click.” colleagues, and other members of the vorite traditions,” an upperclasswoman “It felt forced. It’s not anyone’s fault, Sweet Briar family to conclude the day. said. Everyone celebrates the founders we just aren’t meant to be I guess,” However, Lloyd isn’t most people, in their own way, whether they realize it she said. Every “big-little” relation- instead of going straight to dinner, she or not, and no matter how people do it, ship is different but, for the most part, walked, in her white dress, to the barn. they shall not forget what got them here. “bigs” walk with their “littles” up to “Okay, maybe going to the barn in a white Monument Hill on Founders’ Day. dress wasn’t my smartest decision. But, —Sarah Lloyd As the “bigs” joined their “littles,” it’s not far from Monument Hill, and everyone started walking the gravel road I would give almost any excuse to go. up to Monument Hill, where there was a Plus, my “big” disappeared so I thought beautiful ceremony, more speakers, and ‘why not.’’’ She later joined the rest of everybody from each class, as well as other the Sweet Briar community for a dinner members of the Sweet Briar community. consisting of chicken, salmon, and sides.