The Infinite Stories of English House

 Here are some of the stories you all told about English House:

Pink Notecards:

1The room is large and pale yellow – projector, chairs, bodies, screen, the cosmos, bright, warm, cookies, people writing, clementines, up the stairs, out the door, sounds of laughter from another classroom, sounds of laughter from our classroom, sneeze, bless you!

2There are cookies which taste good, sticking to my napkin and my fingers. Tiny chocolate stains I wipe away, transfer from skin to paper. Crumbs crushed in the creases, balled into my fist as I lick my lips.

Sandals and bare toes, pressing into the patterned carpet, leaving slight foot-impressions in the fibers. Sunshine flows through clear-paned windows, settling on bald heads and bare heads and laps.

3Computer  projector  pidgeon  people sitting? Why?  Orange balls!  Cookies   stairs  Do people use these tables?  Laughter   water fountain  door

4I walked from the front of the lecture hall to the entrance of the building.

5Purple, green, pink, blue flowered pillows (2)   yellow framed windows   pink and green flowered cups on window sill   2 baskets of tangerines   camera sitting on a ledge   sunlight angled through the window   American flag/presidents picture   squeaky floor   red exit door   classmates   Paul and Anne

6People looking in different directions   A delicious pile of cookies on the table   they smell really good   I think I want another   I really like this room. Hopefully I can take more classes in here.   Maybe I should have an orange instead.

7Story of a person in English House: observing writing   turns, picks up camera   wanders   examining Hope with magnifying glass, then students at desks   glances at fruit, water   not using magnifying glass anymore   bigger picture  throws away wrapper   looks toward screen   observing from corner window now    I think we should wrap it up now

Smaller, unlined paper:

1Screen   clementines   cookies   projector   windows   light   yellow walls   dark yellow trim with red accent   light in the universe   speakers   trees   lights   desks   students   fire alarm   laptops   people   colorful rainboots   cards   table   chairs   stairs

2EH doesn’t add up on the outside to what it is on the inside. It’s more centralized on the inside. One would expect the foyer to be larger for the size of the house, but it’s pretty narrow and oftentimes, dark. Walk up the staircase in front, find a row of offices, their doors usually closed, making the hall seem narrower. The hall twists in ways unanticipated from the brickwork outside, which seems to delineate a sort of straight conformity with the surrounding neighborhood.

3Classroom of people, majority female   light yellow paint, worn carpet   yellow and red molding   views of the trees from the window   some uncertainty among the people as to what we’re supposed to be doing   white noise from the air vents

4Rain drop on the screen   chips in the paint   cookies   water   nails in the wall   dust on the desk   people in chairs   smudges on windows   leaf in a window   people walking

5Windows   light   colour   pillows?   Texture   people   air   space   people   air   time   looks-like-cabinets   (hidden stairwell) – is it locked?   Food   COOKIES!   Technology   Grand staircase (not so grand afterall)    nice wooded doors   pidgeon – out of place perhaps

6Yellow with red stripe walls   window paint chipped   shade edges frayed   old style with new lighting – what the Germans refer to as altneu.   Multileveled   lots of light   much nature    commercial carpeting

7Puddles tracked in by rainboots, Sunburns, winter toes on Dirty carpet, books – paper – backpacks – purses – jackets – computers  - pens – glasses. New sunlight, artificial florescent light. Red hair, blonde hair, brown, gray, black hair. Confused eyes, expectation and anxiety: bouncing knees.

Sheets of notebook paper:

1This class was my first time being in English house. The room we are in has all of the components of happiness – beautiful yellow walls, lots of windows that provide calming views of trees and plants and the world outside the English House. We’re not closed in – like this course we are directly interacting with and viewing the world around us.

2The walls are yellow   The carpet is brown   Some other walls are green

3The butterscotch walls encompass a group of bodies adorning variations of colors, styles, and seasonal attire. Within these vessels, the knowledge of the world. By the window a young girl sits, watching, inquisitively. The brim of her glasses sit inches underneath her perfectly parted bangs, as she wonders…

4There’s a balcony behind the chalkboard that overlooks a small patch of wilderness. Sitting in my seat, I get a glimpse of the green, green world outside of this concrete foundation.

5 The Story of the Carpet   It’s made it through every class, it never skips. It’s been pulled out in places, is that a flaw in the carpet itself or its genetics or a product of a harsh environment? The carpet sees the class from the most unique perspective, feeling, sensing each speaker through their physical connection. Meanwhile, it tries to hide its own flaws with its blended colors and texture.  

Anne and I gave you different sheets of paper, because we wanted to see if this outside stimulus would affect the way you wrote, or the type of stories you wrote. I expected the shortest stories to be on the notecards, but they were mostly filled up and contained some of the longer stories. However, the notecards and the smaller unlined sheets of paper tended to have more lists and fragmented stories. The pieces of lined notebook paper did not have longer stories, like I expected, but they had more cohesive narratives.

As I said in class, one of the ideas that stuck with me for the whole semester was Paul telling us that the earth being flat is a valid story from one perspective. We have been looking at the validity of so many stories over the course of the semester that we may have previously thought had been disproved, but it’s not that simple. There are an infinite number of stories out there. Anne and I thought the transect idea would be a fun way to see just how many stories could be told about a common space that we have shared for an entire semester. This was a really fun exercise, because while there were some common themes, the stories were all quite different:

There was a strong emphasis on describing the people in the space as well as physical descriptions of the space itself.

Observations also tended to turn outward, the perspective was from the inside looking out.

Randomness was definitely a factor. We happened to be writing stories about English House when it contained a lot of cookies and clementines. Those were featured heavily.

Color, especially the color yellow, was very prominent.

“The hall twists in ways unanticipated from the brickwork outside, which seems to delineate a sort of straight conformity with the surrounding neighborhood” (unlined paper 2). Could we have a queer reading of English House here?

I learned some new things about architecture that I did not expect to see.

The pidgeon also played an important role. It was even questioned for being out of place!

“We’re not closed in – like this course we are directly interacting with and viewing the world around us” (notebook paper 1). Allusions to course material were made. These were not stories that only drew on what was seen in front of us.

…and a fun favorite of mine: “The Story of the Carpet   It’s made it through every class, it never skips. It’s been pulled out in places, is that a flaw in the carpet itself or its genetics or a product of a harsh environment? The carpet sees the class from the most unique perspective, feeling, sensing each speaker through their physical connection. Meanwhile, it tries to hide its own flaws with its blended colors and texture” (notebook paper 5).