How I Started to Write

Ashley G

Professor Zoller

Life Narratives

12/13/12

How I Started to Write

                The author of this piece Carlos Fuentes spends this essay talking about all of the things in his life that have influenced him. He speaks of his Mexican heritage, books he’d read, and comics that had been popular in his time. Together all of these influences contributed to who he became as a writer. I tried thinking about all of the things that influenced and influence my writing. In my early stages of fiction writing the first piece I attempted ended up being a poorly thought out, impossibly confusing rehash of Star Wars. I was born into a middle class family in the Northeast and ended up being the middle of three sisters; this has significantly influenced my writing. From how I write sibling relationships to the way I write about the seasons, all of my writing is influenced by some part of my life. Based on where I grew up and the kinds of TV show I watch the vernacular of my writing is distinctive. I use certain words more than others and because of an English teacher I had in middle school I overuse commas and semi colons. The more I think about it the more I realize that every part of my writing is an direct result of something else in my life.

Attraction of Opposites

Ashley G

Professor Zoller

Life Narratives

12/6/2012

Response to “He and I”

                I cannot pretend that I have any personal romantic relationship knowledge.  I am simply a “people watcher.” It is rather fun to watch married couples, particularly those that have been happily married for many years.  The people of the couple depicted in this essay are mostly opposites. They bicker, fall asleep at another’s function, and have exceptionally different personalities. But somehow it works; they love each other in spite of their differences and even appreciate some of them. My grandparents ought to have their own sitcom. The two of them are positively hilarious. As a kid I knew that if I asked one of them for something and they refused, that the other would say yes. Their banter between one another is laughable but still at the end of the day I know that they love each other. My parents are like this too. My mom (and  my little sister) will stay up into the wee hours of the morning watching a poorly made romantic tearjerker type film but if she watches something my dad likes (like an action flick) she’ll be out on a matter of minutes. My dad is an introvert, my mom and extrovert. Mom can play the piano in her sleep and dad can sing a little. I’m not certainly convinced that opposites always attract but it seems to work for them. So perhaps one day I’ll be sitting watching a film with a man who likes to go out a lot and is hot all the time.

Tropmann

Ashley G.
Professor Zoller
Life Narratives
12/4/2012

Tropmann

                 This essay was very hard for me to read. I’ve always had mixed feelings about execution. On one hand I feel a sense of justice that the person must pay for their crimes and has been convicted of some heinous act (however justice systems are not always perfect). On the other hand my heart asks, “Who are we as feeble humans to judge, is that not God’s job alone?” The piece really pulled at my heart strings. It was especially hard to hear the author say that Tropmann was younger than twenty probably meaning that he was about nineteen or eighteen; the thought of someone my age murdering someone makes my blood run cold. What made it worse is the fact that I felt somehow drawn to sympathize with Tropmann, almost that he could have been innocent or that his crimes did not fully warrant death. But then again, who are we to judge what crime deserves death? Tropmann, according to history, did in fact “deserve” death. The author could not himself watch the actual execution and I can say definitively that neither could I. I’ve seen movies with comparable violence but I have always taken solace in the fact that the people who were “killed” in films were not actually killed and are not in fact real in any way shape or form. The fact that this account actually happened makes my stomach churn. I know people have been executed before in history but this in-depth and personal account made me uncomfortable. I agree with the author’s final statement that executions should be abolished and that they ought not to be public (as they had been in his day). I do not think that we as humans have the authority over another’s life and we certainly should not give people the sick opportunity to something like this unfold.