Stream of Consciousness

Last week, in anticipation of our Bloomsbury-themed London trip, students tried writing in the style of Virginia Woolf. We reviewed passages from Mrs Dalloway (1925) and A Room of One's Own (1929) before experimenting with our own stream-of-consciousness prose. Below, a passage from Zahra in our Major course:

Oh, a small butterfly is flying towards my direction. Yellow is the color of its wings and so is the color of the dying grass that lies all over the ground of this park. But not only the butterfly and dead grass are yellow, so is the sun’s light that seems to shower everything within the Earth playing a role as a source of warmth, light and joy to this park. I look at the trees, and if only they have faces. If only they have faces. I think of their faces looking up joyfully towards the sun; sweetly smiling, eyes closed, and embracing the sun and feeding themselves with it. Then I look down to realize that I was embracing the shadow of a tree that has become a somewhat shelter for my friends and I to think deep and write. I wonder how things are back at home – is the weather as satisfying and charming as it is here? Is my bedroom as neat and tidy as I expect it to be? How is my family doing? What about my friends, how are they at school? Do they even miss me? Ha, School.  That word strikes to me hard. After a three-week summer break, today is supposed to be my first day of school! And yet I’m here at Cambridge University until the month of August. Imagining myself going back to school after an absence of one month is rather irritating; the works – homework – new classmates, new schedules, new teachers.

Ugh.

But don’t think forlorn now.

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

Wait. I have started school! There’s Ali, Kayla, Constance, Zeynep, Aniel, Kimberly, Emily, Kendra, Hayley, Gigi, Lili, and Winter – my new classmates! These people, I may have not known them for more than two weeks, but funny how we bond so quickly. Well, it may not be the same, but I think I love it here. Getting to know all these people from all around the world, learning from the best of the best, independency, new friends, I can just go on and on about this huge program.

Well… Now and then I feel so small. This huge program can feel so overwhelming, that now and then I feel like that small butterfly that flew towards my direction.

- Zahra (Major course)

Photo credit: virginiawoolfblog.com

 

From My Café Table

From my café table that faced the park, I watched at first the little girl (three, no, maybe four years of age) picking flowers as her nanny read a book to her— Mary Poppins I believe, I could tell by the cover: the large black umbrella; buttoned tweed jacket; spotless white gloves; hair pinned up neatly— it was a small hat with a flower, not her hair; rosy red cheeks. The nanny read on monotonously, as if reading to a wall— barely displaying happiness while reading the happy tale. The girl giggled to herself jumping around with the blowing leaves around her, like galloping horses or flying birds or buzzing bees. She bowed and picked up flowers as if the Queen, the end of a performance, or touching her toes—first a marigold then a poppy, then another marigold; but how joyously she picked each as if she found a pence for her pink purse that she held onto; a treasure box; a cache of little things. She flounced, swirled, and danced with her marigolds, her poppies, her purse; content. The nanny read on— what a rock in such a meadow; dismal, boring, cheerless, as humdrum as the hues of the drinks at the café tables: the burning black coffee and barely refreshing tea; as locals read the papers covering their faces; a protective shield; an obscure cloak; a source of shade from the blistering sun. The men’s day would go on, quite the same as usual; a morning drink and paper, work, work, work, and then go out with young girls until the sunrise; or go home to their families, eat with their families, talk to their children, their wives, sitting in absolute boredom, bleakness, with nothing to speak of the next day to come. My ears were tickled again by the rustling of leaves and the little girl’s laughs; with her marigolds and poppies, she made a crown to wear on her head; the towering trees formed a castle with turrets and walls; and the grass that served as the carpeted flooring; and the park path, the moat. “Ding!” –What was that? Oh, my order! My dark coffee and dull croissant are waiting.

 

- Winter (Major course)