Juggling Sample

The Challenge

In a passage of writing, how to move naturally from one place/time to another without using mechanical phrases like “I remember...,” or “it reminded him of... ,” or even “it’s like…."

Sample

I spend hours and hours in rooms like this at UMD: the imperceptible hum of the computers, the faint buzzing of the florescent lights, the unending sigh of the air vents bringing heat or air conditioning.  You live without noticing things like this or they would drive you to distraction.  Sometimes late at night I would wake up in San Jose and notice the hiss of traffic out the window, but most of the time I didn't. The neighborhood felt so cozy and suburban—like the neighborhood in the ‘60s sitcom—but it sat in a tight triangle of major freeways, and, if you listened, you could hear the hum of the Silicon Valley itself during those Boom Years, the airliners and private jets landing round the clock at the airport a couple miles away, the unheard teeming noise-scape punctuated occasionally with the retro, goofy clanging of the light rail over on First Street.