Draft Portfolio: drafts

Genre Piece 1 - draft 2

The Worth of a Degree in Geology

there is a video

on my little camera

I play it when

the cold Rochester sky

envelops me

poorly edited,

it starts with a too close shot

of scorched red leg

and one loosely tied shoe

the waves come in

and forgetting why they’ve come

go out again

just as quickly

the video stops

just a clip

saved for

cold and colder days

but memories remain

stare at Atlantic Ocean

a color that should

get its own paint chip

in Home Depot

breathe in evaporated smell

of fish

and salt

and sun baked rocks

feel hot sun

too many hours have past

since the now burnt skin

was covered in SPF

I’m back in Rhode Island

the crushed bits

of rock

stuck under my fingernails

the names of ancient

geologic processes

echo

in my head

the sun warms the side of a breathtaking cliff…

the chemical formula

for mica

KAl₂(AlSi₃O₁₀)(OH)₂

lingers

in my brain

a gull chatters against the ocean spray…

four years of

knowing

learning

trying

to remember

lost in the beauty of

simple

perfect

lovely

rocks

Genre Piece 3 - draft 1

Friday, April 15, 2011
42^o 46’ 29” N 77^o 49’ 42” W
Fall Brook Falls

Today is my first day out in the field, collecting rocks!

My best friend Megan is a Geology major at Geneseo, and she convinced me to come along on a field trip. Megan and a bunch of her “rock lover” friends are going to Fall Brook to look for fossils and rocks and stuff. She gave me this notebook, a hard hat, a rock hammer (which looks a lot like a regular hammer, but shiny-er and the pointed end is a little longer), and a backpack to hold my “finds”. I think she’s trying to convert me…

I’m a Communication major at Geneseo, not a Geology major. I’ve never even really been the outdoors-y type. I met Megan through my suitemate, who is a Physics major. Apparently, the science majors don’t get out much – it seems like they just hang around the science building and eat M and Ms and talk about string theory and lab assignments. And then drink all night at Kelly’s. Kelly’s, I can relate to. Labs, I cannot. Anyhow, Megan is the most wonderful human being I have ever been around – she gives the best hugs, and is crazy smart, but doesn’t act like it. She’s just down to earth. She started shaving her head last year when she broke her leg and it was too hard to wash her hair with the cast. Now she keeps it up and it makes her that much more awesome. So one night (which may or may not have been after an extended evening at Kelly’s…) Megan convinced me to go out on a rock hunt field trip with her and some other rock nerds. And here we are today. We had to wait for warmer weather because Fall Brook is kind of a canyon and the sun doesn’t always reach the bottom.

I don’t really know what to expect for this whole rock collecting experience. I’m trying to hide my fears… but what if I make a total fool out of myself? Obviously I know absolutely nothing about rocks. What if I pick out stupid rocks? I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a stupid rock and a good rock. I’ll just have to wait and see what everyone else is doing.

Genre Piece 1 - draft 1

First draft of genre piece 1: