Reflective Evaluation.

Dear Wendy,

Over the course of this semester, I feel that I have grown and learned so much as a writer. When I came into this class as a twenty year old freshman I was a little nervous about what to expect and what being in school again would be like. Honestly, I was primarily nervous about being in and English class because I don’t like group discussions or talking in front of people that I don’t know; but because of your methods of teaching I really began to feel at ease about it all as the semester went on. I have always been a big reader and I enjoy reading in my spare time but I have never, until now, enjoyed assigned reading. I understood each essay we were required to read and found myself identifying the central themes and arguments much easier than I had assumed that I would. Each assigned essay I found that the one’s that stuck out to me the most and chose to write about in each individual essay’s were the ones with the themes of silence, childhood, growing up, and abuse. Silence and growing up are the operative themes of my Textual Analysis, “In The Fourth of July, by Audre Lorde, the main themes are silence and the idea of not being a child anymore.” (Textual Analysis Essay, Page 1). “In the three essays The Rake: A few scenes from my childhood by David Mamet, Under the Influence by Scott Russell Sanders, and The Limit by Christian Wiman the operative relations between each individual essay are abuse (whether it physical, mental, sexual, or self-inflicted), silence, growing up, and family.” (Synthesis Essay, Page 1). In my Reader Response Essay, the theme that I chose was that of a rough childhood, “In The Rake by David Mamet, the main focus is his rough childhood.” (Reader Response Essay, Page 1).

Not only were we assigned specific essays that were required, but we were also given the freedom to choose what we write about in our blogs. Necessary blog writing helped me to open up and actually share my writing with the rest of the class. I understand that the reason behind having these blogs is to help us engage in one another’s writing an open up a platform for constructive criticism, which I always welcome. I feel that with each draft we were required to write, revise, and complete, that I found out a little bit more about myself as a writer and as a student. I discovered my own writing style and can easily determine what it is that I am trying to accomplish on my own.

When it comes to the questions “how does the language that the writers chose make meaning?” and “why does this matter?”, I wasn’t quite sure how to successfully answer those questions when I was first told that we should keep them in mind when reading assigned essays, as well as when we were doing writing assignments of our own. Now that the semester is over I feel that I can effectively answer both questions accurately and thoroughly. I found myself asking these questions in my head as I read and wrote throughout this semester. My writing and reading skills, in my opinion, were already pretty tactful, but as I was writing each essay, blog, or response I found that I had more flaws in how I chose to go about writing than I thought; but because of the essays that we were exposed to and mandatory to write, I found that I resolved most of these problems and furthered my writing knowledge to a great extent. Peer response is another thing that I’m not really a big fan of due to the fact that I don’t like getting into small groups and having people read and respond to my work to my face, that’s why I preferred the blog method instead. But over time I realized that it made me a stronger writer and made me strive to really make my essays make ends meet and strengthen how I explained and interpreted my themes. Overall the class was a positive experience for me. I feel that I am leaving the course with a new appreciation for each topic, author, and assignment we covered.

-EJ

My downstairs neighbors.

If I had any say in who lives in my building and who doesn't, I swear I would evict my downstairs neighbors. They're about the same age as me and Jake but seriously have no concept of what's okay and what's not okay. For example, playing Scar Tissue by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on repeat for nearly three hours at a time, loud enough for it to sound like it's coming from my living room closet is not acceptable. The same goes for Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box. Not that I mind either of these songs but for hours on end? It gets real old, real fast. Another example, playing the bongo drums at 8 am on a Saturday is not acceptable. It's an old building, stuff echoes. And finally, having a party that lasts from the time I go into work at 9pm until well after I get home at 3am is absolutely not okay. I don't like looking out my window and seeing 20 strangers in my courtyard, it makes me feel uneasy. You'd think that after two noise complaints to the cops that they'd figure it out, but I guess not.

A kind of near-death experience.

Last Sunday I was eating toast in my living room and all of a sudden a piece ended up lodged in my throat. I stood up really fast and I could see in a mirror that we have hanging on the wall that my face was purple and my lips were blue. I ran into the bedroom where my boyfriend was on the phone and since he had just woken up from a nap the lights were off. I attempted to get his attention by waving my arms but he thought i was just being weird. In a panic, and in no shape to wait for him to figure out what was actually going on, I ran into the kitchen and began to perform the Heimlich on myself by pushing my abdomen up against the kitchen counter repeatedly. I got it out eventually, but in the process I accidentally hit my ribs a few times and now have battle wounds from doing so. The whole experience scared me to death and left me hysterical for about two hours. I had to call into work because I couldn't stop throwing up from anxiety. I was a mess. Thankfully Jake was able to calm me down and help me realize that even though I COULD have choked to death, I didn't and to be thankful for that.

11/15

List A--
1. my family
2. Jake
3. cats
4. friends
5. cold weather
6. wine
7. music
8. stormy weather
9. psychology
10. books
11. the internet

List B--
1. working until 3 a.m.
2. waking up early
3. distance
4. mopping
5. gas prices
6. war
7. Bush
8. sharks

11 & 8--
Both the internet and sharks are big and scary, because if you think of the limitless amount of things you can look up and find out on the internet is almost frightening. Sharks are literally, not figuratively, big and scary. They are both questionable in that you never really know what you're going to get. If you Google a certain author, a recipe or a movie, you can actually get millions of different results; if you get into the ocean there's no way of knowing whether or not you'll come in contact with a shark. There is a certain mystery behind both. Even the thought of sharks makes me feel uneasy and anxious, especially since there are no oceans in Memphis.

4 & 5--
My friends are not like cold weather because they aren't cold, a temperature and they can't result in snow or ice. Cold weather can't hang out with you, tell you when it believes you're being stupid or call you on the phone. I've never met a friend that has made me want to sleep or dress in layers. I don't empathize with the cold or hang out with it. It just exists and I exist happily along with it.

5 & 7--
Gas prices are like Bush in that I think they are both ridiculous. Gas prices make me feel uneasy, as well as the fact that our country is run by Bush, a complete and total idiot. He's to blame and is most definitely at fault for starting up this war. Bush will end his "presidency" but until there is some sort of scientific break through, gas prices are and will be here to stay.

Four Essays--
1. The Rake, by David Mamet, is an essay I'd consider using in writing my synthesis essay. The way that him and his sister don't tell on each other simply out of fear of the repercussions, is very mature. Living in a home without their real father figure, but instead an abusive step father and insanely strict mother forced them to grow up a little faster than they naturally would have had they had a more nurturing home environment as children.

2. Under the Influence, by Scott Russell Sanders is another essay that I would use in my synthesis essay. The way Sanders felt that he was at fault for his fathers heavy drinking is very heartbreaking and the way he uses imagery really helped to paint a picture in my head to where I could actually see each incident played out. Each memory seems that it was a huge deal to him, not only as a child but well into his adulthood also. Even as a grown man he chooses to stay away from alcohol and places where drinking would be prominent.

3. The Limit, by Christian Wiman was a very interesting essay to read and will be considered for my synthesis essay in that he starts the essay out with the same story he ends with. Wiman's grandmother gives a name to the family's sometimes angry nature and outbursts, "the sulls", I find this to be very much like my family; in that whenever we all have the same type attitude about one certain thing someone is bound to give it a name. The suicidal aspect is described so vividly that it makes me feel uneasy and when Wiman's friend, John, shoots his father that he's mistaken for a small animal, the description of his face and whatnot is haunting.

4. Hashish in Marseilles, by Walter Benjamin is another essay to be considered. Two of the three essays are a childhood response to some kind of abuse, whereas this is an adults perspective on experimenting with the drug, hash. Benjamin's description of walking through the streets of Marseilles makes it seem ghost-like. His confusion and hard time understanding things in every day life as part of the effects of the drug are a lot like those of a child. Even the simplest thing can be hard for him to understand and that's the way it is with many children, even those written about in the other essays.

When I write, I write just to be writing at first and can seem repetitive, when really I'm just setting up a platform to bring it all together. I sometimes forget that I'm writing for other people to see and assume that the reader will know what I'm talking about. I like long sentences and using words with somewhat multiple meanings. I'm a fan of synonyms a lot as well, and I frequently use them throughout my writing. I enjoy free-writing at first, then tying it all in together. When I talk, I don't use the same kind of speech and vocabulary I use when I write. Some people might not even realize that I like to write until they actually read what I've written.

My a-ha moment

When I was in about the 6th grade, I was pretty much the "go-to girl" for advice. As my mom will say, the phone was always ringing off the hook with phone calls from my friends that she finally caved and got me my own line (which I thought I was so cool for). I probably coached my best friend at the time through 20 different break ups, half the time with the same guy. It was 6th grade and the relationships were usually strictly phone and instant messaging, but every break up or "crisis" was treated as such. As I got into high school and things were still the same, people always asking me what they should do about a certain thing, what I honestly thought about the person they were dating, anything, I even helped my friends numerous times pick out what to wear to formals AND did their freaking makeup. During Christmas break of my freshman year, my best friend pointed all this out to me. I had helped him through a bunch of stuff, including a threat to wreck havoc on his cheating girlfriend, took him as my date to a formal so he could be their with his NEW and NICE girlfriend, who had already promised to go as a "date" with one of her female friends that had just been dumped (while I had pneumonia and was thisclose to skipping it all together, because honestly I didn't give two shits about formals and school spirit). He said that I was basically a shrink for all of our friends and joked about it being funny if I started charging for however long they bitched to me and I "helped" them work out whatever they were dealing with. People automatically trusted me with really strange things, and I never felt obligated to tell them something in return for them to gain my trust. So, all in all, I realized around my freshman-sophmore year that I wanted to be a psychologist. It wasn't until this year though that I actually decided that I want to get my doctorate and open my own private practice and work with mainly adults and young adults. I feel fairly certain that it will be hard and I will be in school FOREVER but that's okay, because when I think about myself in about 15 years, I don't want to still be working as a waitress at a 9pm-3am bar. I want to help people, and not for the money, but because I will know at the end of the day that no matter how much or how little I feel the person got out of talking to me, but the fact that they know that they had someone to listen to that wasn't there to judge, or tell them what they were doing wrong, but simply there to listen and help.

Family Ritual

One of my family’s rituals on Christmas Eve is that my grandmother buys things we call “poppers”. They’re shiny red, green, silver or gold long tube-like things. You pull both ends at the same time and they pop open. Each one has a different colored paper crown, a stupid joke, that always seems to be a lot more hilarious to us than they actually are, due in part to the drinking of wine and poinsettia’s (champagne and cranberry juice), and a small, silly plastic toy. The toys range anywhere from a “fortune telling” red, cellophane fish that you hold in your palm, a little pink plastic hair clip, or a little cardboard number game. Everyone wears their paper crown during the entirety of dinner, which when thought of in reality, seeing my grandfather and my twenty-nine year old male cousin, is hilarious because it doesn’t matter if they end up with a hot pink crown, they still have to wear it. Before we even begin to eat we open our poppers simultaneously at the same time and the things inside usually go flying out onto our plates. It’s a holiday tradition I remember following for as long as I can remember. I always look forward to it because even though it’s such a silly thing, it means a lot to me. My Christmas Eve wouldn’t be complete without it.

Free Write

I am always sick. If it's not one thing, it's another. I had mono around this time last year, and had pneumonia about a month and a half ago. Pneumonia didn't come as much as a surprise, seeing as i get it every winter, but it came early this year. My immune system sucks and it conflicts with school and work. Because when I get sick, unfortunately, I get REALLY sick. I even take vitamins on a regular basis and still manage to end up with the most random illnesses. I suppose I'm done ranting about that. I'm leaving for New Orleans tonight and I'm really excited. The one downfall is that right now, surprise surprise, I am sick. The weather while I'm their shouldn't make it any worse because the forecast for this weekend in Louisiana is sunny with a high in the 70s and low in the 50s. I'm going to pack prepared for rain and also accordingly to the expected temperature. It's me, my boyfriend Jake and our friends Lauren, Patrick and Bennett. We're going for Voodoo Fest and we're staying at La Maison St. Charles (long story as to how we ended up staying there). I need this vacation so bad and i especially need to get out of Memphis. School is kind of tough, but that's to be expected, there's drama at work, Jake and I have a sick kitty that we're trying to take care of and I'm all around just sick of Memphis.