Power of voice

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. 

The part that I am really impressed by is the repetition of the relationship between word and self. "If you say a word often enough, it becomes you". I became stunned by the strong implication of this sentence. The word can be so powerful that it represent such a complicated living thing  as a person. The power of word is shwon through the vocabularies, phrases and rhythms. Even though, two people might try to express exact the same sentence, the differernt wording will distinct them imediately. 

In Smith's experiemntal interviews conducted with different people, the nature of her occupation as actress provides her with anther perspective. The question of direction of travelling from self to others or other way around got her into explore the identities of peopel. Maybe, the process if finding oneself and going to others is contant loop and you will discover more if you can travel back and forth. Yes, the identity in American is always being negotiated. People identity them with others using similar interest, ethinical backgrounds. At the same time, people are reluctunt to be tagged with stereotypes of that grousp. It's conflicting but dynamic porcess for everyone.