I disagree with you on some of the basic conventions of writing, even when writing a blog (which I have for more than 6 years). Sometimes grammatical errors result in people not being able to understand what you are trying to say. Sometimes they result in sentences that can have two completely different meanings.

I see your points about this post not being a blog. That said, some of you have serious insecurity problems and other psychological issues that you need to work out. I wish you the best of luck with those.

If you wish to read something written in “essay” style, I would advise reading something besides a blog. If you would like to know more about what blogs are please visit the following link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blog.

You’ll quickly notice that blogs are by nature a place for reflection. This entry is clearly meant to be read as if it were being spoken. You ever notice that sentences, when spoken, often omit the parts that are not essential to understand the point? Or sometimes the sentences might include extra words because it changes the meaning of the sentence. “Its like we have to throw rocks” means something different than “We have to throw rocks”. The first sentence implies a feeling as if something unknown is compelling us to throw the rocks, while the second sentence implies that we literally must throw rocks. Assuming you are critiquing this document as an article (”Now, I’m assuming that this piece of “writing” is attempting to pass for an article, yes?”), you ought to be writing as a critic would. A professional critic would, I don’t know, follow his/her own advise. Am I correct in assuming this? Since you are not here to answer, I’ll assume that to avoid cognitive dissonance you would indeed like to remain consistent and follow your own advice. This means doing things like starting a sentence with an unnecessary “now” or “well” because they only add a feeling of conversation or speech to your response not any real meaning. So if you are going to pretend to be an article critic, you may wish to practice a) on things that are articles and/or essays and b) in a professional critical manner.

I hope you agree that I am writing this comment in letter format. Now, I’m assuming that you do not know very much about blogs so I will start by explaining the difference between an essay and a blog. I’m sure you have heard of a diary since you may even have one urself (oops spelling error…wait that’s right no one cares this is a blog comment). Now take that image you have of a diary and imagine that on a website that everyone can read thanks to the world wide web (a.k.a. the internet). This is called a blog or web log. Now I will go over essays. Essays are typically thought of as analytic or interpretative literary instruments written to accomplish something like summarizing research or telling a neatly organized story. Hopefully this lesson has been helpful to you. I admit that I am not a writer and I do not often read the Bulletin but I did enjoy following this blog as I’m sure many others did besides you of course. It’s obvious to me that blog readers and writers really have no business criticizing or worrying about grammar and format since the point is to convey memories and personal thoughts. If you would like to write an interesting blog about your amazing experiences like this author did please send me the link and I will be sure to read it and show a little more respect than you did to this blogger. Now to Eric, thanks for all the great stories it really made me wish I could do something like that someday and I think more students should. The pictures were great too! nice work!

P.S. Aerial, “eh” isn’t a word…unless you’re Canadian…which would explain a lot

“You ever notice…?” is not a question. “Do you ever notice…?” is a question.

“…into said body water,” should read “into said body of water.” More importantly, don’t use legal language like “aforementioned” and “said” + noun when it’s just as easy to use “it” or “them”.

“It’s like we have to throw the rocks, we have no choice.” – This should be two sentences. How do I know? Because there are two complete ideas. Usually, if you have a complete idea, you should write what’s called a period and then start over with a new sentence. Also, generally avoid superfluous language such as “It’s like” when your point can be made–and made stronger–without it. “We have to throw the rocks,” sounds a bit stronger and less valley girlish, eh?

“The size of the rock in our hand, and the feel of it just before it leaves us forever into the abyss of blue water.” – This is quite possibly the worst sentence in the article. Why? Well, it’s not a sentence–it’s two long nouns. Example. Confusion from sentences. Difficulty to read.

There are many, many sentences like this in the article, including the next sentence, “Our size, the size of the water in comparison.”

Now, I’m assuming that this piece of “writing” is attempting to pass for an article, yes? It’s not a poem. You can’t flout English grammar because you are writing about something magical and mystical.

Well, that takes us halfway through the first paragraph. I’ll stop there and give a brief plea: Please, Bulletin editors. Do your job! If you don’t know how to edit, ask professors to help you read through articles before you print or upload. If the grammar violations in an editorial or letter to the editor will cause internal hemorrhaging or aneurysms (as this article might do), please take it upon yourselves to reject or modify the letter.