Meanderings...

After almost twenty years of trying to find my voice, I am once again confronted by a blank page. Ever since I can remember I have possessed a penchant for keeping my thoughts, emotions, and ideas about the world within the safe confines of my head where they remain unassailable, free from judgment, speculation, and ridicule. My big sister once observed that “one of the greatest struggles that arises from being a human being (besides living and loving) is loneliness. Loneliness does not always have to do with the number of people around; more profoundly, it comes from the connections one can (or cannot) make from one's experiences to the experiences of others.”


Some time ago however, I realized that I am not content just to be alive; rather I desire to live and to do so deliberately. And so, here I am, putting my thoughts, ideas, and experiences out there for the world to read that I might overcome alexithymia. In doing so, I hope to gain a clearer understanding of myself by sharing and partaking in the cathartic effects of language. –AB

Thursday, October 16, 2008

My Dinosaur Report by Catherine Bass (9 yrs old)

"Hey Amanda I am writing a report but I am going to either write half of the report or all. It is a dinosaur report,well here it is. My topic is about the Utahraptor and how it operates in it's habitats. Oh and Amanda it is a carnavor. anyway Utahraptor terrorizes the plant eaters of Western North America during, the early cretaceous, long before Tyrannosaurus-rex even existed. Utahraptor was [20 feet tall] [6m] long. Uthahraptor was less than half the size of a T-rex. It's fingers and toe's grew sharp claws. Each hind foot also boasted an extra large claw with a tip that never touched the ground and stayed razor sharp. these meat hooks were over [12 inches] [30cm] long. Utahraptor is the largest Dromeosaur. It had four toed feet, it could walk on all fours and on the second toe was a huge claw shiny and black.In a fully grown adult this claw could grow up to 1ft 3in [38cm] long. It's fingers were pointed with smaller claws. an agile predetor Utahraptor probably used a combination on speed and brute forse to overcome it's victom. It inflicted deep cuts by lashing out with it's feet using it's sharp claws to rip into the soft and unprotected part of the victoms body like the belly, while holding on to it with it's fast grasping hands and sharp, serrated, flesh cutting, jagged teeth.Dromeosaurs, Utahraptor, Pyraptor, Velociraptor, Bamiraptor, Micraptor, and Deinonychus are intelligent animals, able to comunacate and work with one another,when hunting they work in packs, following their plant eater victoms perhaps they could seperate an animal from the herd even if it is young, or old and weak. romoved from the others the pack of killing machines closed in for the kill.But when the hunters kill their prey they fight over the body ontill on gets injered or killed, and that is how the Dromeosaurs hunt and kill their PREY."