WRT 303: Reflection.

Well, this semester definitely flew by. I remember coming to this class and was just shocked when I read the syllabus, especially when I saw all the due dates for all the essays, and then there’s the Digital Story. But, obviously, I decided to stick it out and I’m glad I did!

I definitely learned a lot throughout the semester especially through the peer evaluations.  In the beginning though, I dreaded the idea of having my work be shown to my peers, especially my writing. I feel like when people read my writing, especially for this class, it’s like they’re reading my thoughts or lack of a thought…  (If any of you have ever read my essays there’s so much grammatical mistakes that you would think an elementary school kid wrote it.) After a while though I checked Blackboard every other day to look for the feedback on my paper, both from the class and Professor Lucenko. I was scared, yet surprisingly excited to see other people’s opinions of it.  Another thing I learned is that everyone has a story to tell and that you can learn a lot about somebody through their writing, not only in their style but the word choices they used.  And that brings me to the second point, word choices. Ah, what a difference it makes in telling a story!  Reading some of our peers’ work definitely taught me about different kind of sentence structures and how it can influence whether or not their voice can be heard.

As for the Digital Story… That was probably the hardest I’ve done in quite a long time. I’ve never took a 300-level course that I spend 2-3 weeks for one project since, well, never–a very nice break from reading textbooks and listening to Echos all day.  Between the audio and the visual, that took too many sleepless nights for it to come together.  Audio, in terms of my script and how the narration didn’t quite come together, especially when for some odd reason my voice started developing a weird accent. And through this I found that I never quite learned how to actually pronounce certain words correctly… At the end, I still wasn’t quite happy with it. Some of you probably saw me covering my ears the entire time my project was on, haha. But aside from my own project, I really enjoyed everyone’s digital stories and they were all very interesting and gave me such new ways to look at everything, I really mean it.  I’ve come to appreciate not only how powerful a word can be, but also how important the visual and audio components are in a project like this. That everything must come together or else the project doesn’t seem to be unified together.

And to answer 1 or 2 of the questions I got from the feedback, the songs I used were “Lies”, “Kairi”, “Hikari” and “Rivers Flow in You & Wedding Dress Mashup”, so good job at figuring 3 of the songs out. I figured if I have to punish everyone by forcing you to listen to my narrative I might as well put in some nice background music to it (just joking, of couse).

Thanks for reading my disorganized thoughts!

*EDIT: Although, I complained about iMovie and the process of making the project, it was overall pretty fun, but in that frustrated I-want-to-destroy-my-computer kind of way. Also, the creative commons comment (look at that alliteration!) on my feedback about 3 or 4 of my pictures, I did a small research on the meme and its part of exploitable memes category, since I did do some minor editing on them in terms of adding drawings or changing the color gradient on them.

Digital Story (progress so far)

So…

I think this is probably the second hardest thing I’ve done for this class (first being the personal statement). I changed my script so many times now that I forgot what I wanted to write about, if I even had a idea what I was going to talk about in the first place.I have 4 different “endings” to my script and they’re not very good. I’m fresh out of freshness!

All these buttons and options on my movie editing program is confusing me.

Especially after seeing everyone’s project so far, they’re really really good. I just want mine to be somewhere in the range of this “goodness”.

I guess this is what happens when you present on the last day.

Inspired.

Yaseen’s speech in class today was very inspirational. The same frustration and fear that I still feel, in regards to my personal statement , he had felt before.  It was great to finally hear what I’ve been feeling and recently thinking about from someone else. He spoke not just about the essay but just life–friends, life style, experiences, etc–which do effect our everyday judgment and ultimately, our goals in life. And got me to think , what is a person but the sums of their parts cause by the product of our circumstances?  We are the stories we live and the tales we tell ourselves.

I’ve heard bits and pieces of his speech from some of my friends and professors before, but hearing it from Yaseen was different. He bought together all those pieces (ones I’ve been thinking about for over 2 years now!) and talked about it in only 50 minutes.  It’s great to hear it from someone I don’t know and someone who has recently been in my shoes, but was successful at writing their personal statement. Also, the point he made about the importance of the personal statement and writing and reading made total sense and I never thought about it this way. His speech was a reality check that I needed and for the first time in a really really long time since I came to Stony Brook, I walked out very satisfied, inspired and reenergized for not only the personal statement but also my goals and my future. I only wish was that I could hear it again or even better if I had heard this speech in my freshmen year, but hopefully it won’t be too late to start. But, better now then never!

Better Late Than Never

Dear Future Self,

            How are you?

Sorry, that was the only open line I could think of.  I’m not a good 5-minute prompt person, which is bad since I’m in a WRT 303 class (that’s the personal essay class if you don’t remember).  That and I haven’t written a casual letter since the second grade.  If you haven’t lost your sarcasm you would probably would answer, “Bitch, you know how I am. You’re me.”

But seriously, I hope you’re doing good. Yes, I wrote good and no matter how much Word Microsoft is telling me to check my grammar I mean it.  I hope you’re doing good. (That and your grammar and rhetoric skills have has asdfghjkl; has improve.)

But not everything in life is clear-cut like premade stencils you find in the baking aisle.  So I also hope you’re doing well.  It’s fine that if by the time you read this again you don’t become everything I hope you are.  I hope by the time you read this you become more than what I am now.  I pray to God, Allah, Buddha and every gods and goddess in every religion on Earth in the future that you have a job.  It could even be at the bottom of the food chain for all I care as long as you’re happy with it.  You don’t have to use the useless piece of paper you spend thousands of dollars on,  stamped as “tuition” and “academic success fee”, which I don’t mind (maybe, just a little bit…)—that made no sense. But I hope you learn from it.

If you’re awesome enough to have a career, I hope you’re enjoying it.  Whether it’s your coworker, the environment, the work that you do, the cup of coffee during work… whatever it is I hope you’re enjoying it.

Seriously, I hope you do since it is a career and not a job.  Be sure to have time for the little things: families, friends, reading a good book, concerts, random road trips, fangirling, watching a great movie, or even drinking a cup of tea or coffee (in order of importance!—except for the coffee/tea, you always have enough time for those—go reread “The Mayonnaise Jar and Two Cups of Coffee”!)  Don’t forget where you come from, what you have seen, what you have felt and have experience, their sum makes you and me who we are. 

But I hope and pray that you don’t have enough time to indulge in it, you’re way too easily addicted to things.  We both know this, so don’t kid your self.  Don’t ever indulge, you’ll become numb from the excess and those small but valuable things will become underappreciated. Don’t ever let them be.  Until then…

            See you in the future!

Sincerely,

Your 21 year-old, currently depress and sarcastic self

Personal Statement that would never be send

Statement that I would never sent.

 

 

My answer to wanting to go to medical school is simple: I want to help people, but the explanation for that, not so simple.  I don’t have one epiphany moment that told me “Yes, I’m going to be a doctor.” It’s more of a series of little experiences.

At first I just wanted to help people in my community, but it’s more than that lately. I’ve been at the hospital many times, more recently than usual, for the last three years.  Fortunately, those hospital trips were not for me but for others.

One of my teachers was accidently misdiagnosed for Tuberculosis by a doctor and the doctor received no repercussions.  A few months later, a man that I owe my life was admitted in the hospital for five months.  Each day that passed, for those five months, he became progressively worse.  The doctors couldn’t explain it and said simple that we “had to wait and see.”  

I just wanted to know how and why.  How could they misdiagnose someone with TB? It only requires a simple test, a look at the lungs simple.  Why the hospital did nothing as I watched one of the most important figures in my life slowly losing control of his body and mind?

So why would I want to go into a profession that’s done injustices to the people in my life?  Simply, because I want to change it, one person at a time.  I feel that I can make a difference and while making that difference I could answer my own questions. 

Personal Statement

I can’t believe that it’s almost time to write a personal statement. I remember before coming to Stony Brook I received an advice from a doctor now advisor/co-director for a medical school and his advice was “Start early on your personal statement as early as freshman year” and the other one I received from a professor the summer before I enter was “You have approximately 1000 days to prove yourself” … Great, just great. 

I’m looking to either to get into MD or DO. PhD is not really my thing.  It would be very cool but that’s pretty much it.

So here it is a prompt from the the AMCAS themselves(at least from what I gathered:

“Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school. The available space for your response is 5300 characters, or approximately one full page. You will receive an error message if you exceed the available space. For additional assistance, click “help” on the tool bar at the top of the screen.”

Or in other words as one online forum stated:

Not much of a prompt. They should just put “In 5300 characters or less, convince us that you’re better than everyone else we’re looking at. No pressure, this essay just determines the rest of your life. kthx

Some medical school, who’s nice enough to give a general advice, said:

“Be as general and specific as possible.”

What’s up with that oxymoron?!

 

 

Resume 1965.

First, I would like to say, I don’t understand some of the aspect of this reading, but these are just minor technical things. I think it might have been just the way it was on the computer. I don’t understand the whole “XXXXXXX” in the piece for one. (Is this piece a manuscript?Even if it is I still don’t get it…) Also between line two and three there was a random word sitting snuggly there. The word was “wintering.” Little things like that makes it hard for me to actually read a piece, not matter how short it was.

As for the actually piece itself…

Towards the middle of “Resume 1965” it was a little grim ( a Sylvia Plath like grim) where she talked about having a nervous breakdown and in paratheses she writes “…if I ever really came out of [depression]”. Or it could have been just because The Bell Jar is sitting next to me on my desk, I don’t really know.

Overall, however, I enjoyed the piece and it had its moments. I especially love the line “Thus I hid in fairy tales and read them daily like a prayerbooks.” (Actually, I enjoyed the first half of her second paragraph).  Although I am not the “third and last daughter” like Anne Saxton I can connect with this line.  I, too, often read fairy tales and books to get away from people when I was little. I didn’t care much for house guests and I would often hid in my room when I knew one was coming. I also didn’t like the dolls that resemble people,not because they remind me of people but that it reminded me of the serial-killer doll, Chuckie. I would post up a picture of Chuckie here and end my post, but I think I’ll be nice and not.  Instead a picture of my favorite fairy tale, Snow White (as re-imagined by an ABC show).

 

Every Moments

From the thisibelieve website I picked “Everyday Moments” by Beth. She writes, in her self-categorized humor and pleasure piece, about what she believes should defines one’s life. It is not a list of accomplishments that one makes but essentially the small things, the “everyday moments”, in between that should sum up our life. Although, Beth’s connotation of life is not necessary a fresh one it is, however, one that people need to read once in a while especially as many of us are meandering through life as a college and thinking, for some of us already, life post-college. What struck me about this piece is that it reminded me once again that I am more than my major or GPA, that I’m not, in a way, that on-the-borderline pessimistic girl sitting in a 500-occupancy Javitis room trying to make my way through the boring monotone lecture.

What surprised me about this piece is the fact that she speaks about waiting, waiting for something to come like your birthday, your driver’s license, etc. and it was interesting because I think many can relate to this. Most of us just spend time for the next big thing and sometimes we forget about the little moments in between the wait and that we could possibly make a memory or something out of anything and everything. 

Remember, Lost & Nostalgia

I don’t know how I should feel about Bernard’s I Remember . Even though his sentences were short, simple, and to the point (exactly how I want everything to be), I had no idea where his story was going.  I’m sure if I read the rest of the book it would somehow improve(?) and I would understand why he received comments like “masterpiece” or “he charts the map of a human soul and permanently alters the way we look at the word”. I mean I could have written the things he wrote ( a daring claim, I know but so is calling a repetition of words “charts the map of a human soul”), but I kid you not when I tell you I wrote the same repetition of “I remember”s just two days ago (for the Short Essay#1!).

As for Wolff’s Last Shot, was my favorite piece of the three, which is strange because I never actually jumped off a plane or saw someone who did so. Nevertheless, the very last part of his essay where he wrote:

He laughs at the look on my face, then turns and takes his place in the door, and jumps, and is gone.

I had thought to myself “Woah, I can almost imagine it.”…even though I never saw someone jumped from a plane but just that sentence spoke to me, I don’t really know why though but those words were all I needed to enjoy the piece as a whole.

And finally my feelings for Nostalgia for Everything, was surprisingly the exact opposite of Last Shot.  I connected to it in terms of how the sense of nostalgia can come over me whether it is the aroma of my favorite tea or the sound of a familiar song I once heard, but I did not care for it at all, mostly for childish reasons though.  (I never really liked reading an essay with a lot of numbers and names in it…)

Lopate, Lopate, Lopate….

 

In The Art of the Personal Essay it is said,“the hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy.”  What makes this form of writing special is the way we, the reader, are invited into the author’s private world; like a friendship as Lopate exemplified. This connection that Lopate speaks about is never found in any formal essays such as a scientific paper. The links people often shared in a personal essay—the human quality of it—are simply just not there.

 

As a third-year science major putting my own thoughts into a paper almost seem foreign to me.  (“What is this ‘opinion on my life and self-reflection’ you speak of? ”) To make faceless and nameless readers empathize and sympathize with my anecdotes, yet at the same time be able to still tell my story, the lesson that I learned, and be able to express my thoughts? Lopate even continues on to say that a personal essay is a mix of honesty and perhaps a little hyperbole.  It seems Lopate is trying to scare me out of writing a personal essay. I’m not even a little scared. I’m really scared.

 

Although The Art of the Personal Essay was written in 1997(?) most, if not all, part of introduction still remains true about the common characteristics of the personal essay. I really love how he simply just list some of the elements of a personal essay such as having a conversation with the reader, being honest and confiding your thoughts to a stranger (like I’m even honest with myself). In all seriousness though the one thing that I found strange was his thoughts on youth and writing personal essay how there weren’t many who “excel[ed]” in it. I honestly feel that the advent of personal blogs (like the one we’re on right now!) certain thoughts Phillip Lopate wrote doesn’t seem to be as reliable as it was in the nineties.

 

I think that the personal blog has allowed young people to share their experiences and stories, which are often ignored or went unheard—at least in the world of literature.  However, “blogging” has allowed anyone, even the young to write their stories, anonymously, for the world to judge.   Even though they wouldn’t win any Pulitzer anytime soon, I believed my peers have written some of the best personal essays that I have encountered. While they are strangers to me as I am to them, their experiences, thoughts and values I understood and could easily identified with.

 

So isn’t that what a personal essay should be about? Those paragraphs of the author’s experiences and thoughts, we as the audience are suppose to believe in and make us “feel a little less lonely and freakish?” Of course everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, even the young and inexperienced at a personal essay like me because I don’t always write a personal essay, but when I do, it’s really bad.