Sharing Blog Posts: Scary and Rewarding

As a part of engaging in literature socially (LO #4) I decide to share my "Personal Narrative" on a separate social media other than blogger. I was a bit intimidated by this because I don't usually put myself out there by sharing things other than silly blurbs about my life, but I decided that I would try to publish something that was actually constructive and would perhaps allow me to find people that share my same interests (in this case my love for literature!) And so I did it:

 I waited for a long while and nothing really happened, but then, long behold, somebody actually commented on it!

 It was my friend who actually recommended the poem for me to use for my "Personal Narrative." Following this I called her, and we spent a good couple of minutes talking about what we each thought about the poem and our different interpretations of it. It was pretty great. Since then I've also had 4 likes on it and a comment.

I learned from this experience how wonderful sharing things about academia that you love with people can really foster a teaching and learning relationship. I was also surprised at how happy I was that people actually cared about what I had to say, and I think that this will encourage me to continue to share what I am learning with others.

Tulipomania

My first introduction to "Tulipomania" by Katrina Vandenberg was two years ago when author John Green referenced it in a YouTube video (see below). In the video, he quotes a section of the poem, and it was enough to draw me in and convince me to purchase Vandenberg's work. "Tulipomania" was one of my first experiences with recently published poetry and encouraged me in my poetic pursuits by revealing that the study of poetry can be more than struggling through 15th century sonnets.

The poem "Tulipomania" centers around a frenzy over tulip bulbs that occurred in the 1630s, in which Dutch speculators were known to pay more than a merchant's yearly salary for a mere bulb. A particular bulb, called the Viceroy, was especially appealing, but no one knew that they were infected by the tulip mosaic virus, which made them more beautiful but ultimately resulted in their extinction.

A Viceroy tulip as depicted in a 1637 Dutch catalog.