Alisa’s Blog Posts

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Personal Identity in Progress

Last year, I graduated with a doctorate in English, reaching the highest academic level possible in this field at the age of fifty-two. The road to earning this wonderful degree contained numerous challenges, particularly as an older student with self-confidence issues. To be clear, nobody ever made me feel uncomfortable or inadequate. In fact, everyone…

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In Serious Mourning for a Gym

Well, it finally happened. After weeks of speculation, rumors swirling from one gym to another, I found out the news that I’d been dreading. Yesterday, I arrived at my gym to discover large announcements pasted on all of the front doors. At the end of this month, it will be shutting its doors for good.…

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Overcoming My Fearfulness

Although I’ve always been a shy person, especially in unfamiliar social situations, fear never seemed to restrict me. It didn’t complicate the way I navigated through life’s many complexities either. During my youth, when introversion debilitated me the most, I still focused on various goals, methodically working toward their accomplishment without feeling afraid. But as…

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The Advantages of Age

Recently, I celebrated a birthday. I’m fortunate that this annual occasion occurs during the warmer months of the year. So indulging in frozen yogurt decadence and enjoying a long, scenic walk, two of my favorite pasttimes, are quite achievable activities to mark this anniversary. But as I get older, thoughts on the physical consequences of…

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Caring is the Key to Everything

Lately, I can’t help but marvel at the horrendous level of negativity surrounding us at all times now. It seems to me that hate, cruelty, and regressive policies designed to remove rights with brutal efficiency monopolize the air space far too often. Sometimes, the speed with which these new laws are generated and the continous…

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Proud to be ‘Woke’

Most of the time, I’m a pretty composed, level-headed person, at least on the surface. It takes quite a lot of prompting for me to release the anger that silently churns so often within the deep corners of my mind, far in the background depths to avoid offending anybody. But my rage cannot be suppressed…

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Hate’s Unfortunate Effects on Society

Lately, my thoughts have been gravitating with persistent alarm to the culture of hate that continues to blossom further and further in America. This terrible mindset steadily creeps along, extending at a rapid pace from the margins of society into the mainstream. Since right-wing extremists have gained control of the House of Representatives, multiple facets…

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It’s All on us: The Voters

At the beginning of this year, I wrote about my determination to be hopeful for the future despite all of the troubling realities that we face as a nation. Much has transpired throughout the intervening weeks that cause me to feel great concern, though I refuse to lose hope. Yet a certain political party’s quest…

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Hope Shining Through the Darkness

Now that 2022 has concluded, a year of immense political complexities and hateful strife looming from the last presidential administration, I feel the need to look forward with a sense of hope. It’s an eager desire for long-term positvity to blossom in our world, surpassing the corruption and intolerance, after so much offensive division. This…

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We Deserve So Much Better

I admit it. On a consistent, quite unwavering basis, I’m a worrier. Even when no immediate threat appears to be hovering nearby, I tend to feel a constant swirl of dread nevertheless. This unfortunate inclination has a great deal to do with my general anxiety. Fearfulness is a dark reality that I must always confront,…

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Decency Quietly Rising From the Abyss

Over the last few angst-ridden years, with stories of hate-driven violence, political hostility, and conspiracy-theory madness, my outrage had slowly numbed to a frustrated acceptance. During this chaotic time, it became quite clear to me that no amount of reason could stop this pervading lunacy from its infectious hold. But in witnessing the recent mid-term…

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How Teaching Has Given My Life a Meaningful Direction

From a young age, the thought of ever becoming a teacher would’ve stirred up horrendous images of torture in my mind. Nothing could have convinced me that engaging students might actually give my own life more meaning. Back then, I’d rebelled against the hopeful, yet unspoken expectations to work hard in my classes, to focus…

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Devising My Personal Legacy

The older that I become, the more reflective I am about where I fit into the world and the potential imprint I could feasibly leave behind. While I realize this intricate process involves confronting my own mortality, I also believe it’s more complicated than an acceptance of the inevitable. Indeed, such an effort seeks to…

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Always an Avid Learner

Recently, I earned a PhD in English. This vigorous, quite enriching process involved a commitment well beyond any other effort I’ve ever experienced in my life. From the constant studying and extensive reading to the writing of in-depth, analytical essays and dedicated teaching of composition courses as a graduate assistant, I lived and breathed my…

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A Grateful Nod to Empathy

As a writer, I tend to examine topics that deeply matter to me in exhaustive detail, often considering multiple vantage points. To some people, that course amounts to overthinking and I’ve been accused of this action on numerous occasions throughout my life. But such an allegation overlooks the fact that this need to delve into…

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Finding Happiness in Dark Times

Like the heroines who populate my stories, I tend to fixate on certain issues that frighten me. By exploring grim scenarios in my fiction and examining these real-time topics within my blogs, I feel less terrified of the underlying implications. Somehow, I gain more control of the agitation that always operates at the back of…

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Traumatic Effects

Over these last few weeks, I’ve explored different aspects of my upcoming murder mystery Detached, with one particular theme primarily weaving through the layers of analysis. It’s a silent yet significant presence that reveals itself in different ways, invisibly anchoring the numerous elements that compose the story’s overall texture. This integral facet is trauma, which…

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Emotionally Alone

When I first began writing Detached, it fulfilled a therapeutic need for me. In fact, weaving this story together through its many worthwhile drafts, which, I believe, strengthened the overall story, helped me cope with my own sense of powerlessness. At that time, I’d just endured the most traumatic chapter of my life. It involved…

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How Violence Generates and Deepens Isolation

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been writing blogs to describe different aspects of my upcoming novel Detached in the context of today’s complicated and quite troubling world. With each passing day, I see more disturbing connections to explore, to dig into with greater depth. Although these various political associations build upon my past reflections…

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My Freedom to Believe

For the last few years, I’ve felt nothing less than pure terror. There are many reasons for this endless fear. Witnessing America’s horrific movement toward fascism is one source of my fright. The recent Supreme Court ruling to diminish women’s identities into the horrendously simplistic form of incubators has also inspired this trepidation. But even…

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Secondary and Scared

Because I’m a writer, I feel much more comfortable adopting the role of an observer. In fact, I prefer to watch the world around me from a distance, thoughtfully considering what I see, than to make any attempts to influence its dynamics. However, such a stance assumes safety, where no real need to be assertive…

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The Consequences of Immoral Chaos

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been transfixed by all of the dramatic developments occurring in our political and legal systems. To be honest, I feel frightened by the unraveling of protections as well as the gradual merging of religion and government. Both of these aspects of American life, among other strikingly dangerous reforms, appear…

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Life’s Already Difficult Without Intolerance

Because I’m a writer, I often feel better able to express my thoughts by typing each word, meticulously refining and polishing every sentence, rather than articulating these ideas in a rush of conversation. Somehow, vocalizing my experiences never comes across with the same forcefulness as writing them out with careful attention to explore an overall…

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Secrecy as an Unfortunate Tool for Survival

Over the past few weeks, I’ve reflected upon aspects of the writing process in the context of my own personal experience. It’s been a useful method to me for framing the various layers that I feel circulate within my upcoming murder mystery Detached. I guess that achieving a better understanding of myself helps me more…

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Writing as Therapy for My Fears

I am a fearful, anxious person. Fright drives me in everything that I do. It’s a constant presence, no matter how calm I might look on the outside. The only way I can dominate this ever-present uneasiness, productively confronting its terrible intrusion, is to write.

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Numerous Decades in the Making

Ever since the age of thirteen, I knew I wanted to become a writer. Ironically, that awareness evolved after I received the quite justifiable punishment of losing my television privileges. While in the eighth grade, a totally depressing year of middle school boredom and teenaged resentment, I decided not to do my schoolwork any longer.…

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