CMW

The works I will be focusing on from the CMW website are the blogs from “Confessions of a Tattooed Mennonite” by Becca J. R., Keith Miller, and “Mennonite Oku no Hosomichi” by Ross Bender. The three bloggers include something about their lives and any works they have published or read.

When I saw the title "Confessions of a Tattooed Mennonite," I was personally hoping that, somewhere in the blog, there would be something about a Mennonite having gotten a tattoo. As I quickly scanned through at first, I did not see any piece of writing saying something about a tattoo. As I went through the blogs, there was nothing mentioning getting a tattoo. I think that, in a way, your religion can be a tattoo although it can't be seen. In Becca's first blog, she says that there were times when she wanted to throw her laptop out the window. She admitted that she spends more time on Facebook and e-mail rather than doing other things such as talking to friends, family, or students face-to-face. She also admitted to things that she will not give up such as snail mail and hard copy books. It's funny because during this time, everything is becoming electronic because you can fax someone something or send them an e-mail, just so long as they have them. The title for one of Becca's blogs is “Top 10 songs Michael Jackson never wrote about the Mennonites…” She made note of it being taken from a poll in 2009 that was in the Mennonite National Convention newspaper. The funny thing is that I know most or all of the songs that were mentioned because I listen to Michael Jackson's music. On her blog, she includes photos about her life. One of the photos shows a suitcase with many letters in it. She says that the letters are from a great-aunt in the air force before, during, and after World War II. I find it weird how letters from 70 years ago were kept through all of these years.

The thing about the second piece of blogs that I read that immediately caught my attention without going into the blog was “Why I Became a Writer” by Keith Miller. I simply wanted to know why this person wrote. As I looked through the blog, I saw photos and/or paintings. Some of the paintings were very colorful in my opinion. This also caught my attention immediately. The first two original posts that he posted are ones that just say that he has a book that has been published. The third post has two drawings that he thought two characters would look like. In the fourth post, “The Library on the Wrong Side of Nairobi,” he talks about a library that he visited when he was younger. When he went back as someone older, he could not believe how small it actually was. He also said that he took out a book and read the last name that was written on the card which was his name. In his blogs, Miller includes things from Egypt, Alexandria, Africa, and other places in the world.

The one thing that caught my attention with "Mennonite Oku no Hosomichi" is that Ross Bender posted things about Japan because I like some things that are Japanese, especially all of the music that I know. What I like is that Bender posted pictures from Japan. He also includes things that are changing in Japan (different clothing, anime/manga, laws, et cetera). He also has sayings that are in Japanese on his blogs. Bender also includes some sayings in other languages such as Spanish or French. The things that are in a different language, he has the English translation to it. Bender includes articles from newspapers such as Kyodo News and Japan Times. He also includes the history from 710-784 in Fujiwara-kyo (today's Kashihara) which was the capital of Japan during those years. He had posted a video on his blog in August of 2010. He also includes poems and some news such as the blog title "Longest Noodle" from a TV station, FujiTV.