My Memoir

First I want to start out by saying how I absolutely can not believe that the semester is over. I am overjoyed because this semester has been one of the most stressful in my Kutztown experience so far. I wanted to reflect on how much I enjoyed this class. I enjoyed how much of a laid back atmosphere that it was. It was nice to come to class everyday and know that we would not be lectured at and shown a PowerPoint that the professor had been using for the last ten years. That is always a boring class, which advanced comp never was.

We talked a little bit this semester about memoir and how sometimes memory isn’t the most reliable thing. I actually was assigned to work on a first person essay in my magazine writing class. I was inspired by one of the articles that we read to write a form of memoir. We read an article titled “A Sudden Illness,” and it was all about this author’s experience of a sickness. When I was twelve years old I went away for a weekend with my best friend. We spent the weekend snowboarding at Killington, Vermont. On our final day I fell thirty feet out of a ski lift. I ended up chipping 2 of my vertebrae. So, after reading this article I decided that I would write my memoire-type article about that fall and how it has impacted my life since. I was twelve years old when that happened, and now I am twenty (soon to be 21 J!!!!) it has been close to ten years since I fell. Even though I have told the story more times than I can ever count, some of the details are becoming hazing. As I was writing I kind of questioned myself. Did that actually happen? Was that really the way that it looked? Did I really say that? That’s where we were talking about memoirs sometimes getting tricky. When we talked about it in class I kind of thought to myself that if it happened to me I would definitely remember, but clearly I was wrong. I kept thinking about the people that I included in my story. I was with two of my friends, one was actually holding onto me on the lift and I told her to let me go. I was thinking about them as I wrote, thinking about how much this accident effected them just as much as it affected me. I thought about sending my article to them, but I was nervous. Did they remember it exactly how I did? Did I get the descriptions right? Did I get the quotes right? It is more intimidating than I would have anticipated to write a memoir. I haven’t decided yet if I want to send them my memoir or not. I think it is something that they would enjoy, but I think it would have to be sent at a time that they’d enjoy and appreciate it. I put a lot into my memoir, just like all of my writing, and it would disappoint me for it to be just sitting in someone’s email inbox.

The Ride

So I have revised my third CNF essay, and after today's mini conference with Dr. Morris I feel confident not only turning it in for a grade but also submitting it for publication through PIF Magazine. Here's the essay and wish me luck! :)

“Oh my god I can’t believe she did that,” Kelly said into her Blackberry as she was waiting for the shuttle to arrive to escort her to class, like the chariot she thought she deserved. “No way… No way.” Kelly never walked to class. If she did then she might break out in a sweat, which would totally ruin her hair and maybe even cause her to smell. Gross. “She would sleep with him. Good. I don’t even care. She can have my sloppy seconds. He wasn’t that good anyway.” Kelly had just found out that her ex-boyfriend was exploring his options of other females all over campus.

*

                It’s Saturday night, and my friends and I are ready to party. Our heels clack against the floor as we shuffle to find our seats on the shuttle. My eyes meet a boy’s eyes in the back of the bus. The bus smelled of all the different perfumes and colognes of the passengers on board mixed together. I smiled at the boy in the back before sitting down. As I sat down I adjusted my tank top to show a little bit more cleavage. All of my girlfriends noticed him too. Now it was a battle to see who will get his attention first. I was sitting on the aisle seat, and I made the first move. I got up, walked back toward him, and I took the seat next to him. All my friend’s jaws dropped. “Oh my god. She is totally doing that to get back at Mark,” one of Kelly’s friends said.

*

                “Yeah. I’m waiting for the shuttle now,” Anthony said into phone, “I’ll be down in a little bit. The bus is pulling up.” He was invited to watch a baseball game, play some poker, and drink a few beers down at his friend’s apartment. Anthony was never one to go to parties. He actually rarely drank. Most weekends he went home to work at the supermarket that his parents owned and he despised. This weekend he didn’t have to work. It was the end of a hectic, chaotic semester, and he was going to reward himself with a night out with his buddies.

*

The bus was filled with cat calls as the girl got up. She was wearing a floral tank top, a tiny skirt, and wedged high heels. She looked good, and she knew that she looked good. She was the type of girl that had been around the block a few times. She was walking toward me. Had she noticed me looking at her when she got on the bus? What will I say to her? She’s getting closer now. Oh god. All that for nothing. She walked right past me to the football player sitting behind me. How could I have thought she was interested in me? Anthony thought to himself.

*

                Kelly is being her typical self. She just craved attention all of the time. I couldn’t imagine what her life would be like if there wasn’t a guy around to fill her emotional, more like physical, void. I can’t stand it. I wish that she would respect herself a little more and stop jumping into bed with every guy that smiles at her.

*

                “Aw, did you just see that?” Samantha whispered to her friend.

                “No. What?” her friend replied.

                “That kid back there totally thought that the slutty girl walking in his direction was going back there to talk to him.”

                “What? He thought that she would be interested in him rather than the sexy, football player she’s sitting with?” her friend said.

                “He’s not that bad looking. Actually. He’s kind of cute.I don’t care if Maggie doesn’t think he is cute. I do. I’m going to be bold for once in my life. When he gets off the bus I’m going to get off too. What could it hurt?

*

The shuttle bus was packed. All fifty seats were filled, and students were now forced to stand in the aisles and hold the bar overhead. It was close to 3 am and the shuttle had just stopped at the bar. Sweat and beer aroma’s filled the air. A boy sat between a guy and a girl. His forehead glistened from the florescent lights shining down on him. He was drunker than he realized. He began to sway back and forth with the bus, moving forward and backward as the bus accelerated and slowed. The color of his skin began to pale. Would he throw up?

*

                “Dude, you need to sit up,” Anthony’s friend said to him.

                “Serioussssssly, I’m fine. Courtney’s going to take care of me. Right, Courtney.”

                “My name’s not Courtney. It’s Samantha.”

*

                Anthony drowned his sorrows from the rejection, of “the sluttly girl” or more commonly known as Kelly, in alcohol. As he arrived at his on-campus apartment, Anthony walked as if he were on a rocking ship, rolling side to side from the waves. Thankfully, he had two friends on his side for structural support. 

draft

I’m still steadily (or not so steadily) working on my second creative nonfiction essay. And I kept struggling with the issue of what’s the point, the problem. I just kept running into the fact that I don’t always necessarily write for a point. I write to tell a story. But I had Dr. Morris’s words echoing in my head that I needed there to be a point to this essay and have it not just be a story. So I wrote about the happenings that occur on the shuttle bus here at Kutztown University. We all brought our drafts to class today, and I thought mine was pretty good for a first draft, but I knew that it definitely needed work. I approached Dr. Morris to ask her to read over my draft and give me a couple of suggestions. We both agreed that this portion of my draft was the best part because they connect.

“It’s Saturday night, and me and my friends are ready to party. Our heels clack against the floor as we shuffle to find out seats on the bus. My eyes meet a boys eyes in the back of the bus. The bus smelled of all the different perfumes and colognes of the passengers on board mixed together. I smiled at the boy in the back before sitting down. As I sat down I adjusted my tank top to show a little bit more cleavage. All of my girlfriends noticed him too. Now it is a battle to see who will get his attention first. I was sitting on the aisle seat, and I made the first move. I got up, walked back toward him, and I took the seat next to him. All of my friend’s jaws dropped.

*

The bus was filled with cat calls as the girl got up. She was wearing a floral tank top, a tiny skirt, and wedged high heels. She looked good, and she knew that she looked good. She was the type of girl that had been around the block a few times. She was walking toward me. Had she noticed me looking at her when she got on the bus? What will I say to her? She’s getting closer now. Oh god. All that for nothing. She walked right past me to the football player sitting behind me. How could I have thought she was interested in me?”

Dr. Morris and I agreed that this was the strongest and most compelling part of my essay so far. But that lingering question what’s the point? Well, Dr. Morris, my point is to show that the shuttle bus is obviously a means of transportation, but it is more than just a way to get from point A to point B. With that I know that something significant needs to happen to show that. So, since this part of my story is the strongest I am going to kind of ax the rest of my draft and elaborate on this occurrence.  I want to go into the perspective of the girls friend and have her jealous that her friend got the attention of the guy and she didn’t. And I want to go into a perspective of another onlooker on the bus who notices the disappointment of the kid who was overlooked. That’s where I’m at so far so now I just need to actually write it ;).

love letter

Today in class we worked with point of view. We tried an exercise that would help us to challenge ourselves and our writing. Our challenge was to write a love letter. It was a very broad subject. Dr. Morris said that we could write a love letter to anything or anyone. Classmates chose subjects to write about including chocolate, the earth, poetry, boyfriends, their bed, and many others. I went the somewhat stereotypical route, but I chose my boyfriend as my subject. I chose to write in first person, past looking back. Before I share what I wrote today in class, I want to touch upon something. Our class has a big issue with being wrong. To me I find it a little bit funny. As I have said in previous posts I don’t like to be wrong either, but I think that sharing things is the class isn’t something we should be afraid of. I enjoy the comments of my peers, and sometimes it does help to be critiqued. Dr. Morris responded to someone today saying that they were afraid to theirs wasn’t right with, “Fuck right.” And what came to my mind was, “Fuck right. Go left,” basically meaning that who cares if you’re right, be confident in what you are doing and run with it. Either way here is my love letter, which by the way I wrote in montage style, because I am really trying my hardest to be successful in this form of writing.

You smiled at me from across the table. We sat outside having dinner. It seemed like we were set in Paris. But we weren’t in Paris. We were in New Jersey, where we had both grown up. The night was warm. It was the summer that we fell in love. We were young and in love and nothing else mattered. We finished our dinner at the café. You paid. We walked home together hand in hand. When we got to my house you walked me to my back door, and you kissed me like you had dozens times before.

*

We laid in my bed. I think I was tired, and you weren’t in a good mood after a night of parking cars. I think it was raining and you got off early from work. You asked to come over. We laid together back to chest, and it was like being together and touching rejuvenated us, putting a new life into our night. We watched Rescue Me, a new show on FX. It was a show that we both had gotten hooked on. One of the characters was professing his love to his significant other. I watched intently as I always did. That’s when it happened. The character told his girlfriend that he loved her, and you whispered in my ear, “He beat me to it.”

*

Saying goodbye was the hardest. We knew it was coming all summer, but we avoided it like the plague. We stood in the alley behind my house holding each other tightly in each other’s arms like we had millions of times in the past two years. He was going south, and I was going north. We’d have one hundred of miles separating us for months at a time, rather than 3 blocks separating us for twelve hours. But we were determined to make it work. And we still are.

A couple of my classmates read their love letter out loud. I don’t think I would have been able to read mine out loud, because I probably would have cried. My classmates wrote a lot more prose, but I think mine is well done. I like it. It’s writing to him giving him my impression and my perspective on the events being described. They all are important events to me: a date that we went on the summer that we fell in love, the night that he told me he loved me, and the night that we had to say goodbye before our freshman year of college. I’m not sure if it is my favorite part, but I really enjoy the ending. We will be dating for 5 years this summer, and we have spent 3 years of college away from each other for extended periods of time. We are still determined to make our relationship work.

another one about montage

My last post was about montage, and how I wasn’t quite sure if I was doing it correctly. I never thought that I would have had an epiphany and want to write my project three essay in this new (to my world) form of writing: montage. We were in class kind of clarifying again what montage was, and one of my class mates gave the example of sitting on a bench in New York City and having each excerpt of the montage be a different perception of what is seen. Dr. Morris then elaborated on that thought and started to talk about the subway. She gave the example of a person sitting on the subway. One of their excerpts could be what the person next to you is doing and what they look and smell like. Another could be the vision of a person walking on the subway and describing the packages that they’re caring. Another could be a description of the blur of lights that are seen while traveling on the subway. And finally, one could be the experience of traveling under the city and a description of all of the happenings going on in the city above.

This example that Dr. Morris gave completely inspired me on what to write my third creative nonfiction essay about. My topic for the semester is travel, and I figured that traveling on a subway is something that millions of people do every day. I was excited that I had finally been inspired to write my third essay, but I was worried about the montage aspect f the writing. I think I am intimidated by montage, because of the fear of it not being successful or doing the montage wrong. I know that you learn by trial and error, but it is just an intimidating thing to conquer.

I am playing with the idea of instead of using the subway, I thought about using the Kutztown University shuttle bus that travels through campus. I could ride the shuttle bus for a couple of the loops around campus and take in my surroundings, which will help to draw off of my own experiences and make the essay true to the word nonfiction. I could describe the setting around me as I ride the shuttle, I could describe the movements of the shuttle and the mass amounts of people that get on and off in packs, I could write about the people that I experience on the ride: what they look like, smell like, are they happy or sad, if they are people interacting with each other and if so what are they talking about. I think that if done correctly I could write a really powerful creative nonfiction essay. What worries me is that I will have too much detail in each excerpt, and my writing will be longer than a traditional montage would be. What also worries me was the point. What is the problem that I would face and try to bring to light? I don’t know what point I will be trying to prove by writing this essay. 

Montage

For our class today we were assigned to read Keep It Real pages 95-108. The topics included, “The Lyric Essay,” “Metaphor,” and “Montage Writing.” So last night I sat down to do the reading, and I scanned over the first two chapters, and then I got to montage writing. And by that point I had already read the story called “The Brown Study” in In Fact, which I didn’t enjoy reading at all but that’s beside the point. So by now my eye lids were growing heavy and I didn’t really want to continue to read about montages. So I read the first page or two, and I went on with the rest of the reading that I had to complete. Yes of course as the average college student I left my homework until way later than I should have. Either way, I get to class today and what are we talking about? Montages. Oh god. “Well at least I have a slight understanding of what a montage is. This shouldn’t be too bad,” I thought to myself. And in essence it wasn’t too bad, but I just couldn’t get inspired at first to get something down on paper. Dr. Morris, as well as the class, kept giving examples of movies and writings that montages were used and either I had never seen the movie or I didn’t understand the concept they were trying to get across.

Dr. Morris gave every student in the class a piece of paper with a quote on it, which was set to be our inspiriation to write our own montage. Me still not completely certain what a montage was I was filled with anxiety, as well as a few of my classmates. No one wanted to be the one that messed up or be the one to do the assignment wrong.

My quote was, “some people would rather die than think,” by Bertrand Russell. It immediately reminded me of all the people I know that would rather do thoughtless things rather than intellectual things. There are definitely times that I am one of those people (I love trashy television), but there are other moments were I would  much rather read a book than do anything else. I drew on real like conversations that I have had with people and came up with this as my montage,

“Dude I am so pumped that the new ‘Call of Duty’ video game came out. I’m going to try and beat it tonight. I’m not going to sleep until I beat this video game.

*

The new series ‘Real Housewives of New Jersey’ starts tonight. I wonder if Theresa will flip a table this season like she did on the season finale. And I wonder what Danielle will do. She is such a bitch.

*

Obama you have about five minutes to wrap up this speech about our involvement in Libia before you cut into Dancing with the Stars’. You’re already taking up the time slot for ‘Wheel of Fortune’. Wrap this shit up.

*

I am definitely going to the bar tonight. It’s karaoke night. I can’t miss out on that. All my friends keep telling me to put off studying at least for happy hour, and then I can go back to studying.”

I was worried that it wasn’t too much of a story, because it didn’t have a beginning, middle, and an end, but I was happy with the outcome because all of those montages definitely connected together with my quote.

bullshit budget

So with this new budget proposed for the state of Pennsylvania proposed by the oh-so-well-liked Governor Corbett I have to ask myself how much I will be affected by the cuts that will be placed on Kutztown University. It has been said that our tuition will go up 32%. I cannot believe that the governor wants to cut budgets at schools, but he wants to raise the budgets for prisons. It is just crazy for me to think about. Doesn’t he see that when the tuition goes up it will force people not to be able to afford college, resulting in less people employed (because they aren’t educated) which could then result in more people having to go to jail because they’d say be forced to steal groceries since they don’t have a job. It’s obvious for me to see. How is he so oblivious to this fact.

Being from New Jersey I wasn’t sure if I was able to write my local legislature about this budget, because my legislature is obviously from New Jersey. So when we were in class we pulled up the website I was able to write a letter to the legislature for the Kutztown area. My tuition is higher than those students in-state to begin with so I don’t even know if I’d be able to attend Kutztown still if this budget is passed. I know that lots of other Kutztown University students are in the same boat as I am in.

I know that having rallies and writing letters to our legislature is showing our opinions to our government, but I still have to think of the facts. I asked the students in our class, who many of them did write a letter to their legislature, “How many of you are actually registered to vote in the state of Pennsylvania?” Not too many people raised their hands. I explained to them that these legislatures are going to take our letters into consideration, but at the same time they understand that a VERY low percentage of those who did write letters expressing their opinions are not registered. So to break it down simply, the letters and rallies can only do so much. Everyone that is being affected by this budget needs to be registered to vote, and they need to actually go out to vote if it is brought to the polls, whenever that may be. I am registered to vote, but again I am registered to vote in New Jersey so I am a little bit helpless when it comes to voting in any kind of election. So the only thing that I can do is beg and plead every single one of my friends to get out and get themselves registered to vote. I am so afraid that this vote will be stalled until May or so and by then I hope people will not lose their drive and devotion because they won’t be at school anymore. I’m afraid that the students who are so fired up about this topic right now will get in the out of sight out of mind phase and nothing will be fixed.

A different perspective of opinion editorials

So in class we defined opinion editorials as being a somewhat reported article with opinion spread throughout it. When my group was asked to lead discussion in class we decided that we would have three different sources and have our class members place each source on a scale. On one end would be journalism, and on the other end would be fiction. Our goal was to keep the sources a secret from the class so it would not sway the class one way or another. We wanted them to focus only on the words being written rather than the source that was writing them. The first source that we chose was a blog post by Perez Hilton on Charlie Sheen. Hilton technically followed the guidelines that we set as a class that defined an opinion editorial. He gave direct quotes from Sheen, and he was obviously very sarcastic in his tone. Hilton gave facts, his opinion, and was very sarcastic. The class ultimately decided that the post did not give enough information to be considered an opinion editorial, but they placed source number one closer to the side of journalism than fiction. The second source that we chose was definitely a true opinion editorial. It was taken from the LA Times, and it discussed gay protestors rallying at soldiers funerals. The class put source two in a similar position to source number one. The final and third source we chose to share with the class was actually the script to Stephen Colbert’s at the White House Press Corps Dinner. He said things like, “By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Someone from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.” Obviously, Colbert being a comedian it was very sarcastic and humorous. The class decided that source number three was off the chart of the fiction side. It was really amusing to go back to show the class the publication of each source. It really helped to show that there can be opinion editorials all over the place, ones that people wouldn’t always necessarily recognize to be opinion editorials. I think the class really benefitted from the discussion. It was a way to look outside the box and really see that there are a lot of different ways to look at pieces of writing. Even though Perez Hilton is considered to be a blogger it was interesting to see that we kind of tricked the class when they had to choose where to put that source on the scale. There were definitely some students in the class that didn’t agree with where to put that source. They actually didn’t want to put the source on the scale at all, because they didn’t think that there was enough information given to draw a conclusion. After we revealed that the source was Perez Hilton those few were happy that they stood their ground, that they were fooled by our trick of hiding the author. It was a fun, different way to look at opinion editorials. The moral of the story is in a way don’t judge a book by its cover. Don’t rule certain things out because if you look at them from a different perspective they may be different than what you would have perceived. 

Three Spheres

So it was Monday night around 7 oclock and I knew that I had to start my readings for class. So I get out my agenda book and it stays to read, “Keep it Real 59-67” and In Fact read, “Three Spheres.” Well I must have had a head ache that night or something, and I misread it. I ended up reading In Fact pages 59-67. Then I realize that I read the wrong thing and I was so annoyed with myself. So I go and read the actual assigned readings and finish them, jump in the shower, and I check my email. Class is cancelled. I was so annoyed with myself that I had read the wrong assignments, and then I corrected myself and read then right ones, and then class was cancelled. It just didn’t seem to be my night.

I ended up reading about 10 pages out of a story called, “Shunned,” which was pretty good. Hopefully we will get to read that for class because I will already have a little one up. Now I look to the syllabus that says that we will be reading it for next time. I guess was brain was already in next week. HA

Anyway, Lauren Slater’s, “Three Spheres,” was really interesting. The idea of someone who was once in a mental hospital and is now a psychologist is something to be applauded. Especially as you read on to find out that she had such a terrible life expectancy. Slater gave a really good image of walking back through the mental hospital Mount Vernon. My absolute favorite part was when the counselors were taking a break and Slater went to use the bathroom. She slipped up and went off of memory to the bathroom, which ended up being the patient bathroom. The nurse notices her familiarity with the hospital, and Slater does a good job of covering up why she is so familiar with the hospital. She says that she has been there to visit other patients of hers.

I also found it really interesting that Slater is there to treat Ms. Linda Whitcomb. Throughout the story you find out that Whitcomb is characterized as “borderline.” These few lines stuck with me most from this reading,

“Linda, according to her intake description, is surely a borderline. Such patients are described with such adjectives as ‘manipulative’ and ‘needy,’ and their behaviors are usually terribly destructive, and include anorexia, substance abuse, self-mutilation, suicide attempts. Borderlines are thought to be pretty hopeless, supposedly never maturing from their ‘lifelong’ condition. I myself was diagnosed with, among other things, borderline personality disorder.”

I found it so interesting that this psychologist is there to help to treat this patient with let’s go as far to say an ‘incurable illness’ that she herself has been diagnosed with and has overcome. I think it is such an inspiring thing. I understand that it would be something that she may be ashamed of or embarrassed about, but I think it is completely admirable. She was able to in a sense ‘cure’ herself, and she was able to get past her issues to move on with her life, which she did quite successfully. You don’t see people everyday suffering with borderline personality disorder one day waking up and deciding, “I’m done with this. I’m over it. I’m just going to go be a Doctor.”

Another point of the story that I really enjoyed was when she let Whitcomb unlock the door to the interview rooms. Slater is handed the keys, which to her symbolize freedom and almost sanity. She remembers being a patient and looking to the keys as power. If you had the keys you had the power. And now here she stands with the keys. But Slater does not use them. She hands them to Whitcomb, who kind of looks at her like she’s nuts, and gives her the power to unlock the door. It symbolized Slater reaching out and giving Whitcomb an opportunity. The opportunity to regain her sanity.

Airport Security

When asked in class on the first day to pick a broad topic that we would be able to write about for an entire semester I panicked a little bit. I had no light bulb go off, no AH HA moment. I was a complete blank. Then it came to me. Write what you know. Since I have traveled fairly often in my short twenty years, inside and out of the country, I figured that writing about travel for a whole semester wouldn't be too bad. Then I started to brainstorm idea's of all the different ways that I go with, "travel." The first idea that came into my head was 'safety.' Anyone who had ever traveled on an airplane knows the hassles of what you can and cannot carry through security at the airport, waiting in lines to go through security, and worse all the crazy liquid restrictions on bags being checked. I don't know about you, but because someone can't carry a 2 liter of Coke in their carry on doesn't make me feel any safer. Nothing about airport security makes me feel safer. Also, a big issue in this past holiday season was people getting full body scans. It is always interesting to see the profiling that goes into who is taken aside to be fully scanned and who is not. It is even coming into question now whether or not these scanners are producing harmful effects like radiation. CBS Boston answers some of those questions, and I will attach that article. http://boston.cbslocal.com/2010/12/15/airport-security-scanners-are-they-safe/. They said that there is some radiation used, although it is minimal. I just think it is crazy that even the smallest amount is allowed to be used. I keep thinking of when I go to the dentist and they x-ray your mouth for cavities. When they x-ray they always put that big lead vest over you to protect you. I mean I know that the point is to be able to see all parts of the body so nothing could be hidden, but I just think it is the weirdest thing that people aren't sewing anyone that they can (because people are a little sew happy these days if you ask me, but that's for another time).
Some other idea's that I came up with under travel were going into specific destinations people like to travel to and the main reasons of why people go there. I also had the idea to look at specific destinations and see how well United States citizens are accepted there. I had the good fortune to go to Hawaii over this past Christmas break. I noticed how all of the local people acted differently toward us as tourists. Although it is a part of the United States, but going there you felt like a minority among the natives. There were absolutely places in Hawaii that tourists should not go to because the locals do not accept them being there. For instance, I was visiting Oahu and the west side of the mountain is where tourists are not welcome.These places are normally residential places. There are obviously places where you can walk around as care free as you would walking through your own neighborhood, but those places are definitely more congested and thought of as tourist traps. I also thought that I could go into going to visit places other than the usual tourist traps, but I am a little concerned, due to safety issues, of telling people to go off the beaten path.