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Recipes On Grave Headstones (10/16/25)

 What I love about having recipes of loved ones engraved on their tombstones is that it keeps the fundamental trait of them being human beings alive, despite them having gone on. Although there is no specific pastry that I resonate with my mother, her Tuna Casserole recipe is nothing short of a miracle to the rest of the family. I am not saying that I would particularly want this recipe on her headstone; but, the preservation of the recipe has been done in an Boy Scout merit badge project for Cooking. Recipes are something that are ultimately catholic (universal) in the fact that everybody across nations and cultures usually strive to preserve them for the sake of their human memories, but also because they target the fundamental adoration of the mother's traditional role in the household. Because of the nature of who a mother is, the material products of such a relationship, such as homemade pastries and meals, become ultimate vessels of these relationships and create this bitters...
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8/24/25 - World Cinema - French Impressionism Reflection.

  The use of optical devices in French Impressionist film pioneered the cinematic language of visual storytelling in order to create images that weren't just merely seen, but  felt . Many such methods, such as the visual rhythm displayed in  Photogénie , the method of creating something  more  than merely photogenic, established that images in film could be composed similarly to   music   in the matter of which it is organized and presented. This is something which I am very fond of, as the human brain can subconsciously feel the speed or emotion of any scene or circumstance due to the brain's impulsive reaction to images. It can either give an audience a sense of fear and anxiety, or it could get them to become highly engaged with a sense of excitement. More optical devices included the more pictorial method of  superimposing  different subjects over one another to establish the inner mental state of whatever a character is experiencing, whe...
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8-20-25 "Walking" Humanities Reflection 1

  Elliott Ecenbarger I can say with the utmost confidence that after gaining an introductory understanding of what this course offered with the seemingly unnoticed, everyday act of walking, that the activity itself is a manifestation of  life  in all aspects. It is a celebration of feeling, observing, communicating and thinking either in an independent state, or a social one. One of my favorite songs, titled "To Life", originates from the 1964 Broadway musical, "Fiddler On The Roof" where a group of characters in the play set their differences aside by singing and dancing together all in unison to celebrate the simple act of living, through good times and bad times. The reason I bring this up is because walking in many ways can almost have an emotional impact on our brains the same way a music number does for a fictitious character-- letting us tune into our emotions in a way for us to be honest with ourselves in a state of vulnerability that lets us slow down our m...
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4/17/25 - Creative Life Chapter - The Artist's Dilemma

 4/17/25 Most people who experience the creative "spark" so to speak, will often hear the praise from their peers and family, but will always have the self doubt that their work is not  enough, or, as good as it could or should be.  Anyone who has had experience of either performing on stage or presenting their canvas in a gallery will undoubtedly see every flaw that is riddled within their piece, yet will smile and nod when they are complimented on their work, as if all of their feelings of self-doubt were meaningless upon receiving any sort of rebuttal to the harshness of their inner-voice... Yet it always returns. For the last couple of years now, I've been referring to this as the "Artist's Dilemma." Knowing that your work has merit, but allowing your own mind to tear your pride to pieces. Sometimes this can be a result from our old friend, Comparison, shifting our eyes to the work of others as they whisper:     " They're so talented... Can you...
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2/27/25 - Elliott's Memoir Conception

 2/27/25 - 3/10/25 This was the moment and opportunity that I had been waiting years for, to act and perform in a stage production. Sophomore year. Years earlier, I was waiting anxiously in the seemingly packed library of Hickory Ridge Middle School, talking with several other kids I either knew or had hardly met prior to this occasion- was this an opportunity to finally prove myself alongside my ambitions? Everyone I went to school with knew that there were things different about me in regard to what it was I was good at, but I had never quite the chance to really show that yet, at least I thought. It was clear that my personality was big and that I had developed an impressive knack for visual arts in illustration, but the entire "performance" side of me that I had try to hone in on via acting classes in Charlotte had really not been visible in school, as I had never been presented with the opportunity to act  in such an educational setting. But one day, the opportunity for ...
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2/25/25 - Year Of Magical Thinking Reflection

 2/25/25 In the first chapter of her memoir,  Year of Magical Thinking , Joan Didion recounts the loss of both her husband and daughter in an honest, blunt way that shows her acknowledgement of these personal tragedies as natural, yet inevitable events that shape her outlook on life within her twilight years. She does not hide her emotions entirely, but it is clear that the almost year-long break she took in between these events and her writing about them in memoir, she has consoled with herself the emotional impact of these losses and has gotten past the dirt of them to reflect with cleanliness in her writing.
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2/20/25 - Joan Didion Reflection

 2/20/25 Joan Didion is one of those authors in which you see the human being through the page, rather than just gazing upon a slew of words neatly arranged on hundreds of pages. She writes with a full sense of earnest intent and makes herself as clear as glass without adding an extra coat of sugar. I believe that God has each person saved for which period they are to live in, and Didion is a very keen example of this. It almost seems as though she was destined to be a writer, as her sense of documentation and narrative explicitly illustrate her subjects for the observing eye to behold. The nineteen-sixties and seventies in America were without any shadow of doubt a turbulent time period in need of close study and precise documentation for later generations to understand it- Didion takes the artistic approach by formatting this documentation in unique ways, using unique language and writing methods otherwise seen as chaotic and unconventional. The standout example of this specific ...
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