What mesmerizing really mean? Did I use the right word???

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Guest  #76902  Sat, 26 Feb 05 11:50 PM
Hi, everyone need help to understand..

I was describing my enjoyable trip essay, and I written this part.....My uncle's home is nice. It has a wrap around-porch, and is situated near by a pond, an orchard, and a stable. I saw a bright reflection of the sun off the huge pond. The dew on the bushes and trees surrounding the house was glistening. Then the sound of the horses nearby stable are music in the air. It was a perfect time, a perfect moment, and a perfect setting. After, I was done mesmerizing, I went to put away my luggage in the guest room.

  
pieanne  #76974  Sun, 27 Feb 05 10:49 AM
Here are the meanings of "mesmerize"Bat [:-[]v] induce hypnosis in
[v] attract strongly, as if with a magnet; "She magnetized the audience with her tricks" .
I think the choice of the verb is right, but what sounds wrong is "after I was done mesmerizing". What you could say is: "I was mesmerized. After a while, I went to put away etc...
  
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I'm glad to help, but I'm not a native! And please excuse my typos...
Mister Micawber  #76980  Sun, 27 Feb 05 11:31 AM

Yes, use the passive-- 'after I was done being mesmerized'.

'Mesmerism is a bit of medical quackery developed in the 18th-century by Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer. It involves some social role-playing with the mesmerizer making suggestions and his clients becoming absolutely mesmerized by him. Mesmer used his extraordinary powers of suggestion to send people into frenzied convulsions or sleeplike trances. He was so successful that to this day we use his name to describe the exercise of such powers over others.'

So the hypnotist, or the bucolic sights and sounds, are the agent, and you are mesmerized by them.

  
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pieanne  #76986  Sun, 27 Feb 05 11:49 AM
But doesn't " after I WAS DONE being mesmerized" sound ... euh... weird?
  
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