Word of the Week 10

ecclesiastical

adjective

of or relating to the Christian Church or its clergy.

Source: Conversation I overheard.

I had heard this word uttered before, but I never remembered it for an assignment until I was biking to school today and overheard a person in a white shirt and black pants talking to a teenager and giving him pamphlets. I was waiting at the light to cross when I overheard them talking.

To use it in a sentence, I'd say:
His interests in the ecclesiastical population was borderline obsessive. 

Fly on the Wall

The clear night unveiled a half moon hovering above the sky as it trailed through the celestial equator, drowning the valley with blue ambiance. 

In downtown San Jose, on the strip of San Fernando Boulevard, neon and LED lighting showered the street in multicolored strobes and flashes. 

They emitted blues and pinks, reds and oranges that bounced off of cars and pedestrians. 

A strong blue hue originating from the Martin Luther King Library on the corner of South 4^th Street and San Fernando flooded university students exiting the glass and steel monolith as they checked their mobiles or chatted with friends.

With the scent of evening dew heavy in the air, hazy clouds hung to their nearest light sources, producing a constellation of dots and dashes as far as the eye could see.

There were the students, talking on their mobiles as they walked towards the light rail tracks on their homeward saunter. 

The transients and homeless carried on, ignoring the vibrant night with jaded eyes as they pushed carts or begged for change on the floors of sidewalks.

A Santa Cruz bound passenger bus zoomed past on the street, stopping in front of the large library as a police squad car stopped to let it park, its front side passenger eyeing the street for any vandals or suspicious activity.

The vehicles driving past on San Fernando blared music, honked at each other while their passengers laughed and joked with their windows down as they sucked in as much of the cool night air as they could.   

Word of the Week #9

Casutic

adjective

Sarcastic in a scathing and bitter way

Source: Internet message board

To use it in a sentence, I'd say:
His attitude was caustic, no one wanted to really play with him.

Proposal letter

November 11, 2013

1 Washington Sq,

San Jose, CA 95112

Mr. Nichols,

Water is one of the most important substances to living beings and without it we cannot survive. 

We can desalinate water to make it safe for human consumption, we can create artificial irrigation canals, lakes and reservoirs to feed crops. 

The average person does not fully appreciate how delicate this process is, and how much more work there needs to be done in providing safe drinking water.

My name is Abraham Rodriguez and I have nearly four years of writing experience. 

I wrote for and managed my community college newspaper, the Chabot Spectator and contributed to an automotive website called Hooniverse. 

Following those experiences I interned at the Eastbay Express, a weekly newspaper in Oakland where I had my contributions published. In Spring 2013 I had a short story published in a small literary magazine. 

I have experience working with investigative long form stories.

Water in Silicon Valley is considered by some to actually be heavy water, weighing a .016 parts per million rather than the standard .010. 

My feature story will look at how San Jose gets its water supply and the steps the water authority here takes to makes it safe for consumption. 

It will look at how contamination from the gold rush era will continue to pollute natural water reserves in our area. 

It will talk about the quality of our water compared to other immediate areas in the bay area, like Oakland and San Francisco, and why in some places the water is a milky white.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Abraham Rodriguez

Japanese Internment Mural

In front of the light rail tracks on 2^nd Street and San Fernando, a soldier holds his bolt-action rifle with a cautious posture.

Behind him, a trainload of distressed passengers say goodbye to family and friends before being hauled away.

Every story in the wide bronze and brown mural depicts one aspect of Japanese-American life before World War II and life during the conflict. 

One side has the Mons of families sent to these camps, roundels with creative designs in them that act as family crests.

A train scurries away, disappearing into the left as babies cry in a wooden barrack while a soldier climbs up a tower for his post.

Next to him a pack of Japanese-American soldiers huddle over a fire to keep warm.

Statue Observations

Standing dozens of feet into the air, two marble and copper monoliths stand in an eternal vigil.

Their skin is made out of a honeycomb like webbing of blue plates that together form the rustles of their clothing.

Clark Hall’s angular window facades reflect back rays of bright light that wash into the two statues of John Carlos and Tommie Smith.

A large bang roars over the landscape and alarm bells ring from the construction site nearby as a campus tour idles in front of the two sovereigns.

A brown squirrel scurries through the grass cautiously on the grass as it scans the humans trampling over his scavenging ground.

The statues of Carlos has a blue, red and yellow necklace dangling from his neck along with his bronze medal, a patch saying “Olympic Project for Human Rights”.

He has his right arm tucked away in his back, the fist clenched as his left holds a closed fist wrapped around a black glove high into the air.

He bows his head in anguish, a solemn expression mulling in his face.

The statue of Smith, wearing a gold medal stand holds an olive branch, the roman symbol for peace, encased in a wooden box with a glass door to reveal its contents.

This time, the glove is in his right hand with his fist piercing the sky. 

Word of the Week #8

Word of the Week #8

chagrin
verb

feel distressed or humiliated.

Source: Peter F. Hamilton's Judas Unchained.

In Hamilton's Judas Unchained and the previous book Pandora's Star, humanity has colonized hundreds of worlds. However, just because they have colonized worlds doesn't mean their problems are all over. There are many bleak and terrible moments for the characters in this book, and the distressing feelings continue to mount as the book draws to a close.

To use it in a sentence, I'd say:
Oscar felt a wave of chagrin fill his insides, the knowledge of his missing wallet robbing him of any fuzzy emotions the philly-cheese steak gave him.