Tranquility Lost.
When I was a freshman at Seton Hill University I wrote an e-mail to the English professor in charge of the school’s blogging program. Students used them to write about their literature courses, but I wanted one to goof around on. In what now seems like a pretty melodramatic move considering its content, I called it Tranquility Lost. My tranquil, quiet life as a high school student (to whatever extent that meant) was now gone, replaced with a loud, smelly dorm overlooking the City of Greensburg. That blog consisted of tales from campus, overzealous political statements, and the sort of brash, quasi-deep opinions that college kids love to embrace. I kept writing on Tranquility Lost for years after graduation, partially as an outlet for whatever writing I felt like doing and partially because I felt a loyalty to the college and program with which my blog belonged.
Then, this past January, the school shut down their Moveable Type service, moving the blogs to WordPress and leaving this alum in the dust. I couldn’t just follow the English program over to WordPress like some lurking post-graduate who keeps showing up around campus years after getting a diploma. If I wanted to continue blogging I would have to do it on my own like the billion other writers on the internet. I had been considering starting over for months, but this was finally the kick out the door that I needed. It also conveniently coincided with me moving out of my parent’s house and out into the world on my own. How about that for a bit of well-timed growing up?
a Big Sandwich.
When my brother showed up at St. Vincent College (which is right down the street from Seton Hill) as a freshman, he started blogging for the school too. The big difference was that he got paid by the admissions office for his writing whereas I just kind of stirred up trouble. In one of his entries he coined a phrase that I not only adored but vowed to bring into common usage: a big sandwich. It means something that is both very important and very challenging, a big deal worth taking note of. When you eat a really big sandwich, restaurants take your picture and stick it on a wall. I liked it.
It just made sense, then, that as I embarked on this big sandwich part of my life that I use that phrase to define this very blog. I’m not focused on any specific topic like politics, food, knitting, whatever. I’m just looking to write: about my experiences, about my opinions, and, sometimes, about nothing at all.
- April 2011
Hello. I teach Freshman Composition at a small university in Texas. Last year I read an entry you wrote in Tranquility Lost titled “College Through the Looking Glass.” The topic sparked a paper assignment idea, and I saved the link to it so that I might access it later. Alas, now I that I am ready to look at it again, it is…lost. Do you remember the article? It dealt with the two types of schools portrayed in Hollywood colleges. I was hoping you might still have the piece, and that you might grant me permission to use it in class as part of a paper assignment on that topic. I will look forward to hearing from you either way. Thank you.
LG, Tarleton State University
Thanks for contacting me, Mary! Last month I asked Seton Hill to take down my old blog and redirect traffic to my new one. But I should have all of my entries backed up, so let me see if I can find it and I’ll post it somewhere! I think it’s great you’re using it for a writing assignment.