{"id":2537,"date":"2016-10-29T16:38:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-29T20:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/?p=2537"},"modified":"2016-10-29T16:38:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-29T20:38:00","slug":"to-write-one-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/to-write-one-sentence\/","title":{"rendered":"TO WRITE ONE SENTENCE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"justina\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve only ever seen I\u2014 write one sentence. On the first day of Butler Writers, he came in, looked around, took a chair from a nearby table and moved it over, nonchalantly, so he could join his cousin at the table. Self-assured and confident, he took out a piece of paper and gave it a wry grin.<\/p>\n

He wrote:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. <\/li>\n
  2. <\/li>\n
  3. <\/li>\n
  4. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And then, pencil sitting proudly on the not-quite-blank page, he started dancing to the music from his headphones.<\/p>\n

    They\u2019re pink headphones, the kind of pink that looks almost metallic. Large. Plush. Sometimes they\u2019re on his ears; when they are, he moves his arms in an unheard rhythm and just grins back when I give him an inquisitive look. Most of the time, they\u2019re around his neck \u2014 and I\u2019m not sure if they\u2019re playing anything or not, because he\u2019s still dancing. Every now and then, another student grabs them. She (the girls seem to take them the most) will ignore I\u2014\u2018s stutters and mild protests and claim them as her own. I don\u2019t usually see how, but they always end up right back with him.<\/p>\n

    By the end of the first session at Broad Ripple, I\u2014 had his list, and he had his headphones. And, over the course of the hour, he wrote one word.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. I<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In subsequent sessions, I\u2014 hasn\u2019t written that much else. The platinum-pink headphones may make an appearance. When they don\u2019t, he still dances anyway, giving homage to his mental music and grinning all the while at my confusion and curiosity. He sits back, lets his friends play with his hair and switching phones back and forth with another student. He walks around the room, greeting everyone, naming himself as someone other than his real name, often happily claiming to be a teacher or official. He seems as content sitting still and watching as he does running around, and he\u2019s already figuring out what he can get away with in front of us mentors.<\/p>\n

      For all of that, he can\u2019t sit still and write. I could blame distractions, because he attracts them naturally. Except, whenever a distraction arises, usually in the form of one of his friends, he expresses disinterest in entertaining them right then. I could blame lack of ideas, but I know he has them. He asks questions regularly, reading other papers and offering advice, generating ideas constantly.<\/p>\n

      He just doesn\u2019t want to write himself.<\/p>\n

      During one session, I decided to start pestering. \u201cI\u2014, I just want one sentence. That\u2019s all I want.\u201d He nodded, and put his pencil to the paper…and started dancing again.<\/p>\n

      \u201cYou liked my last one, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u201cYour numbers?\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u201cYeah!\u201d he responded, seemingly proud. \u201cSee, I wrote that time!\u201d<\/p>\n

      \u201cWhat about this time?\u201d<\/p>\n

      He puts his pencil to the paper. It scratches away, finally.<\/p>\n

      He wrote one line. I\u2014 said it was the first part of a rap he created.<\/p>\n

      That\u2019s all I\u2019ve seen him write. And yet, I think when he finally gets even more on the page, it\u2019ll be great.<\/p>\n

      Justina Kaiser is a senior Mathematics major.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I\u2019ve only ever seen I\u2014 write one sentence. On the first day of Butler Writers, he came in, looked around, took a chair from a nearby table and moved it over, nonchalantly, so he could join his cousin at the table. Self-assured and confident, he took out a piece of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":624,"featured_media":2538,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15637,37038],"tags":[],"coauthors":[265091],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broad-ripple","category-bu-tutor-reflections","column","twocol","has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/624"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2539,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions\/2539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}