Having just finished Michelle Cliff's "A Journey Into Speech", my mind is running through associations. Images were conjured of Bertha, the voiceless character in Jane Eyre whom Mr. Rochester locks in the attack until she eventually burns the house down.  Bertha's story is later written by a Caribean woman in Wide Sargasso Sea, because this caged woman is not only denied a voice in Jane Eyre, but she also has no history of her own, until Jean Rhys creates it.  

I also thought of Audrey Lorde's quote about refusing the use the masters tools to dismantle the master's house. Cliff talks about her apprehension to using the essay form to write about Speechlessness, which makes sense. Instead, she advocates "mixing in the forms taught us by the oppressor, undermining his language, and co-opting his style, and turning it to our purpose" (33). Language is a space of intense, often unseen oppression, and I think that the decision to reject and then re-establish certain elements of language is an incredibly empowering one. Why must we use these words which exist, this grammatical structure, if it's inherently oppressive? We can navigate it, once we recognize it. 

Cliff addressed speech in a way that I haven’t really seen before but with which I totally identify. I’ve often struggled with my written voice, and had a more difficult time expressing myself this way than using my spoken voice. I think part of it is that I get hung up on word choice and organization, on having correct, acceptable, even beautiful writing, and I get lost, or rather I lose what I want to say. Cliff’s “Notes on Speechlessness” are written in noteform because formal writing “would have contradicted the idea of speechlessness,” and there have been many times when I’ve had complex ideas I’ve wished to express (particularly in essays) and have been unable to develop completely.

Cliff’s explanation of her own journey into speech makes me feel a bit more at ease about my inability to describe or work through certain ideas in written English, and at the same time I feel somewhat bad or hypocritical for saying this.

“To write as a Caribbean woman…demands of us retracing the African part of ourselves, reclaiming as our own, and as our subject, a history sunk under the sea, or scattered as potash in the canefields, or gone to bush, or trapped in a class system notable for its rigidity and absolute dependence on color stratification. On a past bleached from our minds… It means also… mixing in the forms taught us by the oppressor, undermining his language and co-opting his style, and turning it into our purpose”

Something I found very interesting as I read Fire in the Mirror was the section where Smith asks, “To what extent do people who come to America have to give up something about their own identity to confirm to an idea of what an American is?” When I read this line it made me think of the idea that America, or as I like to clarify, the United States is a melting pot. A lot of people like to take this adjective as a good thing, where I on the other hand think of it as being something negative.

When you are melting things in a pot, you lose the taste of the individual ingredients. Same as United States, when people come from their countries to the United States, to a certain extend they automatically lose a bit of their culture. Small ways that begin depriving someone from their culture can be as small as by automatically having to start learning English, or not being able to run to any market and getting the ingredients they need to make the food they made back home. What I liked about Cliff’s piece is that she brought some of these issues to light, specifically in language.

As I was reading both Smith's and Cliff's writings, I was struck by two statements: "'The word, the word above all, is truly magical, not only by its meaning, but by its artful manipulation"' (Smith Intro) and "When I began... to approach myself as a subject, my writing was jagged, nonlinear, almost shorthand"' (Cliff p31), I couldn't help but think of language as a tool that one has to learn how to use. So often do we see people that do not have the opportunities afforded to them to learn how to manipulate language that they get lost in translation. So often do I hear of people, including myself, feeling as though we have so much to say, but do not know how to say it. I find myself asking, what causes this disconnect? If I am answering this question for myself, I would say that my inability to treat language  as something that can be manipulated as opposed to something that manipulates me, has to do with the insecurities imposed on me by my race, gender, culture, ethnicity and ideology. Despite having the education that I have had I continue to be hindered, and I fear that such feeling will always linger.   

Hey! My name is Sara Lazarovska and I'm a freshwoman. I'm from Skopje, Macedonia (a tiny 2-million country in southeast Europe), and I plan on majoring in Growth and Structure of Cities with a minor in Environmental Studies. I also work at UnCommon Grounds, so if you ever see me there, say 'hi'. A fun fact about me is that my original accent is British - I took British English for 11 years - but I generally take in the accent of those around me, so here I have an American accent.

I will do my best to rank the places that I visited according to where I felt happiest, so here it goes:

1. The Dalton glass staircase

2. Campus Center parking lot

3. Park Science lab

4. English House

5. Morris Woods

Cliff.

In Cliff's article, A journey into Speech, she revels her path of becoming a writer and what has influenced her the most in writing. I am curious about her comment about her  first piece of work. She said she wanted to believe in herself but at the same time distanced her from who she was. I think this really showed soemthing about speech. People always say that you cannot hide true self forever. Your personality and life experiecnces are constantly placing markers and tags on the way you talk and speek. However, the literature and speech somehow provide wasy to present a decorated you. I am not saying the person you project through speech and writings is not real you, but not the whole truth. Well, I guess we do need some acting in real life to be able to presnet a better self in front of others.

Smith 

I really like Smith's introdution about Fires in the Mirror. I personally think the title is very interesting. Fires represent something strong and hot. But the fires only exsits in the mirror. You can't touch it nor feel it, but only feel it. The visionlization of fires in the mirror gives me a feeling that fires might not be the fire we usually know. 

Rankings of where I felt happiest:

1. The English House

2. Morris Wood

3. Dalton Stair Case

4. Park 20

5. Campus Center Parking Lot

For the Plants:

1. Morris Wood

Hello, I am Shengjia (Ashley) Zhu from Shanghai, China.

Everything in the Park Science Lab was still and lifeless. Even the sunlight seemed weaker though the glass window. I was very uncomfortable in the void lab. And I don’t think any plant would be happy to live in a lab either.

The pavement was cracked and the sun was hot at the parking lot. My view was filled with rolls of cars. Plants were pushed to the very edge of the space. Alone in this empty spot, I felt so stressful that I wanted to flee.

The English house was a lovely and quiet place away from the main campus. Stood in great harmony with the surrounding trees, the English building seemed to be its own world of peace and serendipity. I felt calm and relaxed at the house.

The plants are certainly happy in Morris Woods since they grow without restrictions. However, it was a bit hard for me to freely move around and orientate in this little kingdom of thriving plants, chirping birds and flying insects.

It was showering when I got to Dalton staircase. The rain splashed onto the glass and made lousy noises. Though I stayed dry with the protection of the glass, I felt colder and more helpless.

I believe plants and human both like to stay at peaceful yet vital places. The difference is that rain make plants happy and human unhappy.