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Exercise 1.

I am a goose. I like to clean my feathers so they are always pristine white and have no sand and other rubbish in them. Which unfortunately happens quite often these days. I didn't like the house I lived in. The human's house. But now I regret running away. The human cleaned my feathers for me from birth until I grew into a beautiful big goose, but now I have to do it myself. I sometimes feel lonely, I have no human or no other goose to ask to clean my feathers. The only one I can approach is this beach's seagull. But he is annoying and loud. I got to clean my feathers myself. And I will clean them until the day when that breathtaking swan comes back to the lake's beach again.

My goal and motivation is to meet Miss Swan and make her to fall in love with me.

In order to achieve this I need to stay at this beach waiting for her to come back and look good for her.

My goal is to find love in life. My motivation is to meet Miss Swan and make her fall in love with me. I'm willing to risk the comfort of human house and runaway to meet her. I'm willing to wait as long as she needs to come back. I promised myself if she doesn't come back in five years, I will give up and search for someone else.

Conflict.

My character finds it devastating that all other geese in the farm are fine with serving humans as food. He is in conflict with geese society and human domination. He is seeking freedom and love, and when given an opportunity, he runs away from the farm house.

The past.

When he was a baby, he loved his mother very much. She fed, cleaned and hugged him. He had amazing memories of her. However, one day, she went missing, he was looking for her everywhere. He heard a noise and oversaw how the human who was so caring towards them, chopped his mother head off. He then saw the human family eat the goose soup. He was traumatised and cried for a long time. His dream to escape started there.

Name.

Mr. Goose
Gosling
Remi
Larry
Herman

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Where is the damn Charlie he said he will be here by the lake when I run to the water and I was running running after that ball that he threw in to this cold water but why when I looked back to see him he was not there I kept running around the beach in the sand but the salty water has washed of all his smell and footmarks and I cannot find him anymore. Why my father Charlie why did you leave me like that? Did you go into the water so that I won't be able to find your smell or did you runaway from the beach so far and so fast or maybe it was the cloth with the nasty smell that u give me before throwing the ball that made me all confused. O there is a seagull. Woof woof. He flew away. Just like you left me Charlie. Why are you not here with me. You told me I'm the good boy. Every time you asked me this question I woof to you saying that it was me but maybe you thought it wasn't me ... do you have another dog.. another good boy,.. why Charlie? Where are you?. I'm hungry, the salty water makes me only thirsty.. I'm lonely, I miss you. This salty water is only making me more confused. How did I lose all your smell. Maybe I'm too old. Maybe this water is making me legs all weak and cannot run anymore. I'm tired. Maybe if I stay here like that, you will find me and bring me home. Or maybe I will slowly disappear into the water. Yes, let me dissolve into this nasty salty water. I will lay here, waiting for you to come back, like a good boy.

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The annoying deadly sound crippled into his deep dream and made Michael shiver. It was a soulless empty dark street where he was running covered in sweat and dust, trying to catch the thief in all-black clothing. The thief who was so close, tried to hide the face under a baseball cap. But right when Michael was stretching his hand to catch the thief's shoulder and see who was it, Michael had a blurry vision of his fingers stretching out towards the ceiling. The crippling sound of the ignored alarm finally reached his consciousness.

He woke up. He was late to the Creative Writing class. The class that he shouldn't be late for, and absolutely cannot miss. Because she will be there, Agnes. He arrived much later than everyone in the class. His heart was pounding from nervousness, and he quickly sat in the front seat without thinking. Someone touched his shoulder from behind. Once he turned back, his heart skipped another beat. It was her, Agnes. In a baseball cap.

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My name is Adeliya, you can call me Liya. I am a full-time third-year Visual Studies student. I am from Kazakhstan, and I've been to Hong Kong for around two years.

Here is my Insta and YouTube links:
https://www.instagram.com/liyartshi/
https://youtube.com/@artdeliya

Feel free to contact and follow me anytime :)

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You guys are weird 😭🤡

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Word count: 888

The grass was still cool and wet from the morning dew. I could feel the handle of the basket getting damp. Tree leaves and branches were dripping onto the surrounding bushes. The trees were so tall that we hardly saw the grayish-blue sky. It was a perfect morning to collect mushrooms. My sister was far ahead of me; her basket almost full. A little singing bird flew over her head. All of my attention was on this bird and her flying and buzzing friends’ melodic orchestra when I realized that I managed to collect only three pine-sized mushrooms. The sound of dripping water became louder. "Leafy, it's going to rain!" I shouted while running towards her. The drizzling got stronger and stronger, passing through the branches' dome until it started pouring so much that we hardly saw each other through the opaque mist of raindrops. I stopped hearing the quiet melody of the forest, only the never-ending thundering rain. The path back home got blurry. She dropped her basket and grabbed my hand, and we ran in fully soaked dresses and shoes. I couldn't see where we were heading.

Eventually, she led me to a hill where we saw a black spot which got larger as we approached it. The raindrops were almost painful, so we had to enter this three-to-four-meter-tall cave. She said she saw a glimpse of a flickering light deep inside and had to check. My grip on the basket handle got tighter as I walked further into the darkness, following Leafy. There was something off about the darkness of this cave, as if we walked through a cloud of steam that got warmer and lighter. Leafy was right — there must be a source of light inside. The crackling sound of our footsteps was not a part of my imagination — we were walking on the bones of animals. “Leafy, let's go back” I whispered, but she was  too determined to find the source of light. I had no choice but to follow.

Maybe that was a bad idea. I should have persuaded her to return. The rainstorm was not as horrifying as what awaited us a few turns away, deeper in the cave. At first, we only saw the fire with a deer frying over it. It was a round-shaped room full of bones and deer carcasses, but the right wall was not still. Leafy threw one of my mushrooms onto the wall to check if it was alive. It was. First, it stopped breathing for a second, then it started to turn. The muscular back, the right arm, then the torso, and, finally, the ugly face opened its only one evil Eye. Cyclops lifted his heavy head and fixed his Eye on us. He looked stunned as if he never saw our kind before. Well, neither did we see his. We  stared at each other in shock for a good five-ten seconds before we screamed in unison, and I picked my leftover mushrooms and threw the basket right at his Eye. Cyclops flinched, covering his face, and his disorientation gave us a head start.

We ran even faster than we did before. I think I have never run this fast before. I could only hear the pounding of my heart in my ears and his muffled scream back in the cave. The path that led us to the cave was already half covered with water — the rain outside never stopped. The hill that the cave was on turned into a half-island surrounded by flowing water. The rainwater turned into a river. We jumped into this river holding hands, and soon there was a waterfall. We could hear his roar somewhere behind us. But we had already thrown ourselves down into the water. We were falling, maybe a little too long, but when I opened my eyes, we fell on the rooftop garden of a skyscraper. Right behind was an artificial waterfall, which was part of the garden pond decoration. While the front was the most modern cityscape I have ever seen.

We were safe. I was still holding the two mushrooms tightly in my left hand and Leafy’s hand in my right. I let go of her hand and showed her the leftover mushrooms saying, “I don't think we can turn them into soup anymore", and we laughed out of absurdity and relief. She grabbed one and said, "It’s okay, I didn’t like mushrooms anyway." Suddenly, another hand appeared. Three times bigger than a human one; muscular, dirty-gray, and with black claws; it grabbed my sister by the waist sharply and pulled her back away from me. When I turned back, Cyclops was already climbing up the waterfall back to the flooded forest with her dead, stabbed body in his hand. The water turned bright red. I was still standing in the pond, in her water-diluted blood, looking at the only mushroom remaining in my hand. I could hear the faraway chewing, but the sound was faint and dulled since all I could hear was my heartbeat. Dum-dum, dum-dum. Continuous and systematic, louder and louder. dum-dUM, DUM-DUM. I was getting lost in the sound; it was transcending through my bones.

I woke up to Leafy’s alarm. It was just a dream, she was alive. Sleeping on the bed next to mine.

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Every day is a broken record on repeat
Scratch, scratch over the same scar...

Comment:
A nice beginning! Looking forward to seeing ur work
Alliterations are astonishing!

Ha! I just saw you write a paragraph on my draft. I wanted to be reciprocal but there are just two lines. So I just write two lines without the poet's consent

Every day is a broken record on repeat
Scratch, scratch over the same scar
Safety, stability would come in best fit
One more cigarette gets me overdosed in tar(Jason)I

My comment: I loved the rhyme "fit" to repeat so I used it in my final draft. Thanks

Also since I've only prepared two lines for the review, the feedback could only be limited. But thankfully everyone was really nice to me ;)

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Simile

The milk coffee from the canteen is like a good long reading from class - makes me equally sleepy.

This store-bought apple is as hard and healthy as a stone.

Metaphors

Renaming the department into DACI was the move that poured fresh water on the dry indoor plant.

Personification

The cold air of Hong Kong likes to catch you by surprise, but not a pleasant one. It touches your nose, ears and neck, holds your hands, and hugs you from under your clothes. It's clingy and enjoys leaving goosebumps on your skin. Please, leave me alone.

Hyperbole dialogue

Can you stop sneezing this loud? My ears are bleeding blood!

But it's nothing compared to how you take ages in the bathroom in the morning! What are you doing there? Searching for treasures?

Yes, looking for a reason not to kill you in your sleep.

Litotes (Russian)

Рукой подать - Hand away

Одно секундочку - One second

В двух шагах отсюда - Two steps away

Allusion

He is no Timothee Chalamet, but he is indeed good looking.

Onomatopoeia

The yellow dry leaves were crunching under my feet today on the way to the university.

Alliteration

Боря бодро бродил по дому, попивал бром и брил бороду.

Құс қыста қарға құлап, қарға құсына айналды.

Oxymoron

Her words were bluntly sharp but they were said exhaustingly fast and out of place.

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Creative Non -Fiction. Personal example - Homework 1

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Creative Non -Fiction. Personal example - Homework 1

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15-20 lines

I stood there in front of the white door, rubbing the edge of my green puffy jacket that I threw on top of my pyjamas, and knocked lightly. Knock, knock, knock. No answer. Repeat. No answer. Knock, knock, knock. The screen of my phone lights up with the notification: "Okay, tomorrow then." I reply with "I am here."

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Every day is a broken record on repeat

Scratch, scratch, scratch over the same scar...

What else can I do if I don't want to fit

Into the world that I have built so far?

Every day I wake up, study, and sleep,

I meet my old friends, I do the same thing.

But when the time comes I want to dive deep

Into the water, until my eyes badly sting.

The time never comes, I know how to swim,

Cannot hide in blue, at least not anymore.

How to cross a tunnel, when the light is so dim?

It all comes to the questions one cannot ignore.

Was the tonearm pressuring too much?

Or was it the wrong record playing?

Was it the needle that left a scratch?

Or was it the change that I was delaying?

One has to change, one has to learn.

Knowing you’re wrong is hard to admit.

But once you do all, you now can turn

Your every day into a broken record on repeat.

My comment:

I use metaphor of "broken record on repeat" to challenges in life, but this phrase has double meaning. At first, it means a broken vinyl player that makes the song play on repeat signifying that everyday is the same as before. But in the last line by "broken record" I mean breaking a record and setting a new one because everyday people do slightly better or worse than before and setting new and breaking old records goes on repeat.

"But when the time comes, I want to dive deep

Into the water, until my eyes badly sting.

The time never comes, I know how to swim,

Cannot hide in blue, at least not anymore."

Here I mostly refer to diving into the sadness and avoiding reality, which gets harder to do because I am not allowing myself to have those sad moments as I got too good at swimming in the tears. So now I am supposed to "cross a tunnel, when the light is so dim?" Although I don't really know how to.

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2. When was the last time you cried, and what caused it?

It was today. I was lying down in my dorm room after taking a long morning class and embarrassingly spilling hot water at the university canteen, only wishing to take a nap and forget about today. But I couldn't fall asleep again. The thoughts were crashing me down and I decided to say them out loud and record them as the voice memos for later. I was too exhausted to even write them down. After ten minutes, I ended up saying that I miss home and only wish to take a longer break from Hong Kong and university life. I ended up crying. I want to go home. But I had to pull myself back together for the evening class, so I got up, put on nice clothes and pretended like nothing happened when my roommate came back to the dorm. We went to class, but my heart is still crying and the only thing I wish for is to take a rest, preferably in my mom’s arms.

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Every day is a broken record on repeat.
Scratch, scratch, scratch over the same scar...
What else can I do if I don't want to fit
Into the world that I have built so far?

Every day I wake up, study, and sleep,
I meet my old friends; I do the same thing.
But when the time comes, I want to dive deep
Into the water, until my eyes badly sting.

The time never comes, I know how to swim,
Cannot hide in blue, at least not anymore.
How to cross a tunnel when the light is so dim?
It all comes to the questions one cannot ignore.

Was the tonearm pressuring too much?
Or was it the wrong record playing?
Was it the needle that left a scratch?
Or was it the change that I was delaying?

One has to learn, one has to commit
To the changes that can be hard to admit.
Once you take a step, you create a blueprint
Of every day's broken records on repeat.

My comment:
I have changed the last stanza to achieve the end rhyme, which made it feel more complete.

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Link: https://liveln-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/adeliyayerbolatova_ln_hk/EaOYawnopTtCkBhjBKgVSu8BNjSLzwGOT4zLQx25FXEToQ?e=brhmOA

The verses in the story were the main inspiration for the narrative. In the lyrics of Your Eyes Tell, Film out, Euphoria, and Don’t leave me, the group BTS translate a repeated idea of longing for someone from a dream. I think about dreams realm and what could happen there quite often, so I thought about creating a romantic story based on this idea of knowing someone from a dream first prior meeting a person in real life. Additionally, the park described in the first half of the story is a real place in Tuen Mun area, where I saw a girl in a beige hoodie typing something in the notes app. So I chose her as the main character for the story and a small verse I wrote two years ago as the opening lines.

I liked placing verses in between paragraphs as a reflection of the characters’ thoughts and as a connector of ideas and as the blending of realism with dream world. I think it made the structure of the work and the rhythm of it quite successful. I also used a variety of literary devices:

Foreshadowing: it took us a while didn't it; if the destiny will bring them together, neither of them would be disappointed. And they weren’t.

Metaphor: kaleidoscope of colorful lights; azure gradient of the bleeding sky and sea

Visual imagery: a small park area with runners and bikers, and a water channel with a few bridges over it.

Personification: the wind that plays with my hair right now; two small white butterflies dancing; But mornings were ruthless and cold, they took his blurred face away and made her wake up alone again and again; his eyes were telling that he is nowhere near sorry.

The amount of personification was surprising for me too, I used most of it intuitively. I think in the future I would love to be more intentional with the words and usage of personification, so it won't be a surprise for me later on. Additionally, the cohesion of the story can be improved, it feels like I'm jumping from one world to another. That works in this scenario as it is about different realities, dreams, and perspectives, however, in the future I need to learn how to stratus the work better.

Although Professor Niel commented that the ending plays with the viewers’ expectations and two main characters can go their own way, it was always intended to have an open and more of a  happy ending. Therefore, I tried Ito make it more obvious in the second draft to release the possible confusion. However, the ending still remains open to interpretation.

Additionally, I have edited all the small grammatical mistakes upon Professor's suggestion. Also, he commented to change the word "car" to a "bus" as the male character looks out of the window to see the night view of the city. However, I kept it as it is, as my character can be travelling in a taxi or he can afford a personal driver.

Generally, I believe there is a long way ahead on improving my English writing. Specifically, as I mentioned earlier, I want to connect the story more seamlessly and create more realistic settings and motivations for my characters. It seems like both of my stories for this class have a connection to the dream world, which affects the style of writing. I would love to try to write more non-fiction, realistic stories in the future.

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The script has been submitted to Moodle. I wouldn't want to be public. Only for Professor to read.

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Topic: Freedom, injustice, and protests in Kazakhstan

I wanted to be free like a butterfly

They change, they dance, they fly

And after a few weeks, they die.

…

On the fifth day of 22,

Red blood floods the streets,

The tragedy of injustice re-appears.

Blue uniforms of strict regime,

Against people in black coats

Battle on snowy gray roads.

Metal clangs, bullets are shot,

Cars set on fire, burning blocks.

Stolen weapons from hardware shops.

Who made people lose their minds?

Or is it the regime that was insane?

Corruption and nepotism lead to pain.

…

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Spoken Word 1

Topic: Regret of being away during protests in Kazakhstan 2022

Title: Steppe Eagle

(21.05.2022)

I wanted to be free like a butterfly

They change, they dance, they fly

And after a few weeks, they die.

(02.02.2023)

On the fifth day of 22,

Red blood floods the streets,

The tragedy of injustice re-appears.

Blue uniforms of strict regime

Against people in black coats

Battle on snowy gray roads.

Metal clangs, bullets are shot,

Cars are set on fire, burning blocks,

Stolen weapons from hardware shops.

Who made people lose their minds?

Or is it the regime that was insane?

Nepotism with corruption leads to pain.

Two weeks of despair, yet I wasn’t there.

Only got to read late refute news

About network shutdown and abuse.

People don't protest everyday,

But when they do, you need to choose

Whether you join them or refuse.

No right to choose, I was trapped abroad,

In a land of protests of their own,

Unable to support home, I felt left alone.

I wanted to be free like a butterfly

They change, they dance, they fly.

Yet they are weak, and soft, and sly.

Summer butterflies have short lives,

Full of wonder, beauty, and charm.

They are careless and meet no harm.

But I am no summer butterfly,

I am a steppe eagle ready to fly

Fly back home, to the blue sky.

But the eagle must be strong and fierce.

Strong enough to protect their home.

Fierce enough to survive the storm.

The storm has passed, I am safe

Because the eagle was flying away.

But for the next storm, I will stay.

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I was shaking like an autumn leaf 🍂
At first, I wasn't nervous at all, but as I read the lines, I noticed how intensely I was gripping the tablet and how fast my hands were shacking. I started panicking because my body was showing nervousness I did not acknowledge yet.

But I think I managed to not pay attention to it and make the shakiness as a part of the emotional, sad performance. I got a feedback that my piece would be better if it was longer and more descriptive, so this is something I would work on for later pieces.

But although my nervousness worked well this time, I need to practice more to control my body language for later. I probably also need to memorise the pice better, so that I'm not holding a tablet and can access my hands for more expressiveness. I wanted to clench my fist on the lines "strong enough" but I was not fast enough to separate my hand from the tablet.

Another thing to work on is probably eye contact, I realised I was too carried away by the feelings and forgot to pay enough attention to the audience. I will try to improve this as well.

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Hello, Irtiqa here.
I really liked your spoken word. I wouldn't say I relate to it. But the feelings and the way you you expressed it, gave me goosebumps and I really liked that. I loved the way you used a butterfly as an example. It just seemed to fit right there in the context. Most people are unaware of the situation in most of the world, it was great of you to use your own country to show it. The way you spoke made me realize just how truly regretful you were to not be there, yet I hope someday everyone will be at peace.
Your voice would sometimes go soft though, but the sighs helped get the feelings across.

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Hi Liya, it's Howard. l feel the the resonance with your speech. lt's really a tragedy, protest is full of violence and conflicts. people bleeding and sweating as they gotta fight for their homeland. meanwhile you are not at Kazakhstan, you must feel bad for it. I know that feel, cuz there's a Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in 2019, I clearly know that pain and suffering because of being helpless during the protest. I really hope you and the protesters from Kazakhstan all the best and be safe. It is also appreciated that you have been being so brave to write down the protest as a story.