"Welcome to Japan, folks. The local time is . . . tomorrow."
- from 30 Minutes Over Tokyo, The Simpsons, Season 10

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sentence Sunday

This is mostly cross-posted from Fangs, Fur, & Fey.

This week's Sentence Sunday was to pick a paragraph that reflects your feelings for a setting you loved.

This is from a non-fiction piece titled "Things I do not Think About", but I want to incorporate many of the sensory details from this piece into my YA WIP, No Leaf Clover.

The second thing I do not think about as I bow is the rectangular room that we are in. I do not think about the smell of sweat and sweating bodies that is soaked into the walls and floor, or that the smell no longer bothers me. Except on test days, like today. This room has been crammed with people for four hours, with large men and other martial artists pushing our bodies past our limit, sweating profusely, and adding to the ambient smell of sweat in the room. I do not think about the first time I entered the tae kwon do building, that the more stairs I climbed, the stronger the stench of sweat became, until I entered the room at the top where the stench was so unbearable I thought I’d never be able to return.

I like this because this includes my very first impression of tae kwon do, and I really thought I wouldn't be able to go back. But I went back, and the more I did, the less the smell bothered me. Anyway, I really like this because tae kwon do had such a huge impact on my life when I was in high school. And even though I'm not in tae kwon do now, I hope that by writing about it, I'll be able to share my good memories with other people.

Also, the location and many of the students have changed since I went to tae kwon do in high school, but by writing about it, I can always go back to the way things were.

No comments: