Annie Zhu Q1 Blog #4 - Letter to Green
Dear green,
When I was a young lass, I would write facts about myself in my scratchy notebooks:
Name: Annie
Age: 7
Grade: 3rd
Family members: Mom, Dad, Brother
Favorite color: idk
Favorite food: sushi
Color/colour/颜色 was my one uncertainty, always left blank on the page.
it plagued me, the question I could never find an answer to…
‘Til you came along, bringing to my life a new hue… a viridian, spinach-y tint!
Gone are the worries of choice: which marker, which picture day background, which pen, which word to write under “What color do you like?”
You were my new title, and I was jubilant.
but, how did my grand realization come to be? were you calling me all along, or did I consciously choose to make you a part of me?
maybe it was coincidental—a cumulative result of my actions. first the green phone, then the pencil pouch, then the water bottle, then—oh look! I guess I fancied you.
what is color if not a name? If not a mode of classification and category for humanity?
perhaps you were just my surrender to a society where everybody had favorite colors.
plus, there are times when you aren’t my first choice.
the sageish or forestry or even the mint are quite lovely, but who in their right mind would choose slimy, shrek green?
wait, please don’t take it offensively! I love you on most days, and I’m glad to have you in my life.
You’re easy on the eyes. Nature, flora, growth—those are nice qualities about you.
I like your style, the way it looks on my notebooks and my iPad case. You're really infectious!
And, I’d like to embody your qualities; that’s why I like you so much!
Wishing you a divine evening,
Annie
my favorite shades: https://www.paintlist.com/articles/cadmium-greens-comparison
Hi Annie! I thought your blog was slightly convoluted, but I must admit, I really enjoyed your writing style. That old-fashioned English accent I can feel in your writing is something I've always been a sucker for, because I used it in my second blog. I'll be honest, through the first half of your blog, I wasn't sure where you were going with the green, but I liked how you strung us along for a journey about expressing yourself. I can also appreciate the poetic structure of your writing, as I find structure to be one of the most difficult and niche aspects of creative writing to experiment with, yet you did it beautifully and managed to make it entertaining. I hope your next blog is something of a similar nature as you managed to make me (A poetry hater) enjoy something poetic in nature. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteDear Annie (see what I did there?),
ReplyDeleteI hope you enjoyed my really bad joke. My sister also loves green, so I understand the popularity of the color; it is strangely very calming! I used to love mint green myself, so much so, I painted my entire room mint! In recent years, the color of my fancy has been black (I’m sure it is very obvious), but green is still an amazing color! It is the color of nature and (most) vegetables, so green is an honorable color to have! The way you formatted and worded this article is also very interesting. I like the letter format; it makes me feel like I am the color reading your love on a (hopefully green) piece of paper!
I also happen to be a big fan of green! It’s such an all-encompassing color—used for both sickness and health; both greed and nature. When I was younger, I also struggled with deciding on a favorite color (and I think I have never stopped having issues with it) which is probably a side effect of my affinity for art; something you might relate to! When asked “what’s your favorite color?” I am so tempted to say a combination, like blue and orange or indigo and yellow, because in truth colors only really function in combination with and in relation to each other. So don’t dismiss light olive “ogre” green so quickly! It may have something that goes well with it yet, like pink, yellow, and white; how’s that for a color palette?
ReplyDeletePicking a favorite color seems like a rite of passage of sorts that most people decide on at a very young age that is treated like a given, so it makes for a unique blog topic! The three ways of writing the word “color” you included, it works really well to emphasize both the scope of your uncertainty and how elementary having a favorite color is to people of all backgrounds.
The tone of your blog seems a little inconsistent at times though, between words like “young lass” and “plus” and in other sentences as a whole. I get the fancy older-English diction you were going for, though! There are also some inconsistencies within the capitalization, specifically of the first words of the lines. But other than that, great job!
Hi Annie! First, I really appreciate how you wrote your blog in the style of a letter. It captures your appreciation for the color green beautifully. When you listed out your green items I was able to envision your green water bottle and phone that I see you carrying around during school. I think I am around you too often because immediately when I realized your blog was about your love for the color I was able to recall many of the green items you possess. Also, the conversational and whimsy writing was genuinely so fun to read.
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure if you intentionally incorporated Mandarin into your blog this week to circle back to your first blog, but if so, that was very smart and I commend you for that. “Color” versus “colour” is a heated debate in my household so it was exciting to see that in your blog. I want to chime in on the topic of “slimy, shrek green” because I absolutely hate it. I generally think of myself as an open minded individual but I am positive that I will never like that shade.