Essay Reflection

1) What is your essay about? 

My essay is about my unique relationship with my father. My dad doesn't really live at home even though my parents are happily married, so basically I'm growing up with an unintentionally single mother. It is about learning to accept and let someone into my life who I don't spend time with and who I don't know much about. It is about realizing that simple conversations and gestures are the roots of a relationship, and how these small details can tell you so much about a person's character.

2) What was the most challenging aspect of writing and rewriting this essay?

I wanted to let the reader know how my dad can hurt me, but at the same time realize that he doesn't hurt me on purpose. Like his father before him, he has incredible morals, is loyal and faithful, and is respected in his industry for his integrity and intelligence. He doesn't distance himself from me, he asks me all the right questions and is interested in my well being, technically everything he should do as a father...but the fact that has not and is not physically present in my life strongly affects what our relationship could be.

3) If you could go back and make changes or additions, what would you do? Why?

I would work on my descriptions. I love descriptive writing, but I have difficultly finding the balance  between too much and too little. I admire concise descriptions that give you a clear image in few words (like Hemingway), and I would have liked to implement a concise descriptive writing style into my own essay.

4) What was most unexpected-or unexpectedly fun-about writing this essay?

I always knew but never thought about my relationship with my father before this essay. I never realized that I could transform an essay about a fly fishing trip into an analysis about a relationship, and I never put my thoughts about our relationship down on paper. It was nice to see that I really do love him, but at the same time, it was really hard to read about getting rejected by own my dad. 

False Memory: Conceptual Questions

1) Why didn't I cry?

This would set the stage for my attitude about failure and getting hurt for the rest of my life. I adopted the idea at a very young age that crying and whining accomplished nothing, and was a sign of sheer weakness. Through my cracked tailbone and broken noses (yes, two times) I never shed a tear. I was simply physically incapable. My body refused to react for fear of appearing feeble. The strange thing is that who was I afraid of looking weak in front of? Now I realize it was probably my older cousins, for our 19 person clan of under 12 year olds lived by the idea of survival of the fittest, and I suppose I was simply proving my fitness.

2) Why didn't anybody help me?

In a big family, you learn to fend for yourself. None of my cousins in the hot tub with me alerted an adult or provided a shoulder to kneel on as I bloodily hopped to the door. In accordance to big family mentality, if the person is breathing and able to move, they can handle their own business.

3) Why is a mother the best person to bandage you up?

Mothers not only offer mental comfort with hugs and soothing voices, but apply physical comfort as well, seeing as they know how to fix up a scraped knee. Mothers are sympathetic and nuturing by nature and care both about the physical and mental health of their children, for any injury- big or small.

Fake Memory Exercise Revision

indsay Johnson

Pugliese

English 2, Block C

19 September 2009

Fake Memory Exercise

Oh childhood summers. The days we didn’t stress about our bellies in bikinis or carry our phones with us to the beach to check text messages. The days when we could run around topless and bare foot, hugging members of the opposite sex with Popsicle stained lips. The days when a day was good or bad based solely on the weather.We were up at my grandparent’s sprawling lake front house in Tahoe, and I was in the hot tub with my cousins after an afternoon of tubing on the lake. I felt a wooden floorboard on the bottom of the tub come loose, but brushed it off without a second thought. Suddenly, my older cousin swiped my headband off the top of my head and without thinking twice I promptly lunged towards him. The rusty nail entered through the right ball of my foot, sinking deeper and deeper as I stepped down on the nail in utter shock. I bit my lip and slid my hand under the bubbling water, feeling the dirty metal in my soft flesh. Without saying a word, I stepped gingerly out of the hot tub, hopping on one foot towards the house. I hopped through the fir needles, past the pinecones, carefully navigating through the huge rocks. Then I tripped. I skid forward on the top of the rock, belly first, blood running down my entire torso like a bad war movie. With my shredded stomach and Frankenstein foot, I hopped even harder and eventually made it to the door.

My mom took one look at me and returned to the kitchen with a full first aid kit. She attacked the nail first, wrapping her manicured nails around the head and pulling slowly as I squirmed on the pillowed window seat. I looked down into the hole. Filled with dried blood, rust and mangled skin, the bottom of my foot was clearly in a sorry state. That fact would be confirmed later when I tried to put pressure on my foot and promptly fell over. My mom filled the hole with a mixture of anti bacteria paste and Neosporin and wrapped it tightly with an ACE bandage. The next issue to address was my torn tummy. Without knowing what had happened, someone would probably have guessed that two male lions had used my torso as a scratching post. The cuts varied in color, some purple, some red, some white, like a painful Jackson Pollack painting. Obviously you can’t bandage an entire stomach so my mom diligently washed my stomach with soap and water, and applied the same foot wound mixture to my entire stomach. Slick with the mixture and still in my XS Hawaii print bikini, I sat at the kitchen table for a good two hours, getting up only once to attempt to walk.

Fourth of July came and went and my torso began to scab into long, hard lines, which I cleverly concealed with a one-piece swimsuit. I limped around the house, but luckily was able to continue waterskiing, wakeboarding and tubing as the freezing melted snow water of Lake Tahoe numbed my foot to the point where putting my full weight on it went unnoticed. Thanks to the freezing cold water, the week was salvaged and my badass reputation soared among my family, my place in the cousin hierarchy moving up several slots.

Fake Memory Exercise

Lindsay Johnson

Pugliese

English 2, Block C

19 September 2009

Fake Memory Exercise

Oh childhood summers. The days we didn’t stress about our bellies in bikinis or have to carry our phones with us to the beach to check text messages. The days when we could run around topless and bare foot, hugging members of the opposite sex with Popsicle stained lips. We were up at my grandparent’s sprawling lake front house in Tahoe, and I was in the hot tub with my cousins after an afternoon of tubing on the lake. I felt a wooden floorboard on the bottom of the tub come loose, but brushed it off without a second thought. Suddenly, my older cousin swiped my headband off the top of my head and without thinking twice I promptly lunged towards him. The rusty nail entered through the right ball of my foot, sinking deeper and deeper as I stepped down on the nail in shock. I bit my lip and slid my hand under water, feeling the dirty metal in my soft flesh. Without saying a word, I stepped gingerly out of the hot tub, hopping on one foot towards the house. I hopped through the pine needles, past the pinecones, carefully navigating through the huge rocks. Then I tripped. I skid forward on the top of the rock, blood running down my entire torso like a bad war movie. With my shredded stomach and Frankenstein foot, I hopped even harder and eventually made it to the door.

My mom took one look at me and returned to the kitchen with a full first aid kit. She attacked the nail first, wrapping her manicured nails around the head of the nail and pulling slowly as I squirmed on the pillowed window seat. I looked down into the hole. Filled with dried blood, rust and mangled skin, the bottom of my foot was clearly in a sorry state. That fact would be confirmed later when I tried to put pressure on my foot and promptly fell over. My mom filled the hole with a mixture of anti bacteria paste and Neosporin and wrapped it tightly with an ACE bandage. The next issue to address was my torn tummy. Without knowing what had happened, someone would probably have guessed that two male lions had used my torso as a scratching post. The cuts varied in color, some purple, some red, some white, like a painful Jackson Pollack painting. Obviously you can’t bandage an entire stomach so my mom washed my stomach with soap and water, and applied the same foot wound mixture to my entire stomach. Slick with the mixture and still in my XS Hawaii print bikini, I sat at the kitchen table for a good two hours, getting up only once to attempt to walk.

Fourth of July came and went and my torso began to scab into long, hard lines, which I cleverly concealed with a one-piece swimsuit. I limped around the house, but luckily was able to continue waterskiing, wakeboarding and tubing as the freezing melted snow water numbed my foot to the point where putting my full weight on it went unnoticed. Thanks to the freezing cold water, the week was salvaged and my badass reputation soared among my cousins.

Three Questions for Tobias Wolff

1) Was the story "Nightingale" inspired by your relationship with your own father?

2) Did you want readers to feel sympathy for the murdered book critic in "Bullet in the Brain"?

3) Why did you make us dislike Krystal in "Desert Breakdown 1968"?

Zoom Zoom In!

Mary Ann tilted her chin up to the sky and her lower lip shook terribly as her chest cavity heaved with another sob. The child felt heavy in her arms. She rocked it back and forth, waiting for his car, waiting for something she knew would never arrive. The child stirred and she gently pried open his tiny mouth and put in a binky to keep him quiet. The baby chewed thoughtfully, his tiny, creamy eyelids closed in serenity. Mary Ann's mascara had run down her cheeks, her eyes two swollen black pieces of coal in a faded face. She wiped off her lipstick with the back of her hand and took a deep breath before pressing her cheek into the baby's soft head. He nestled into her collarbone, his small chubby hand wrapped around her spaghetti strap tank top and it stayed there, soft skin upon soft skin. 

She took the baby inside, unwrapping his fingers from her tank top. Placing him in his crib, she slipped on flip flops and called her best friend. There was no answer, only a chipper voicemail message. She hung up the phone and overcome by a sudden wash of sadness, knelt in the damp grass. A person appeared at the fence. It was Carol Landon, the elderly black woman who lived next door.

"You ok honey?" said Mrs. Landon, hiking up her nightgown in order to step through the tall weeds. 

Mary Ann said nothing.

"Honey?" Mrs. Landon said nervously. Mary Ann could hear her take a deep breath.

"He ain't coming." Mary Ann said, rising to her feet. "He ain't coming." she repeated. 

She couldn't remember feeling like this. She felt as though somebody had hollowed her out, gutted like the fish they used to catch before the games. She remembered the games, the way he stared at her long, tan legs in her little cheerleading skirt. She remembered the rush when he scored a touchdown, remembered the way she would hug his mother as he led his team to victory. She remembered the parties after the games, when someone had a free house and cool parents. She remembered him getting the scholarship and proposing, she remembered buying the house. He was always winning winning winning. And then he lost. And then she lost him.

Zoom In Activity

"The blood ran down the dog's muzzle into the snow." Hunters in the Snow, Tobias Wolff, p. 26.

It was cold enough to the point where Mary Ann couldn't feel the tears on her cheeks. The pine trees cast dark shadows across the dog's dead body, she could feel her whole weight sinking down into the snow. Crippled with pain, she knelt in the fresh powder. The snow soaked through her jeans and Mary Ann reached inside her flannel jacket for a tissue but found none. She could only stare at the dog's lifeless body. The wind blew softly and the pine tree's thick needles kept it from becoming anything more. Wispy grey clouds filled the sky. Mary Ann tilted her chin up to the sky and her lower lip shook terribly as her chest cavity heaved with another sob. The two teenagers had looked at her awkwardly. The larger one was holding the gun and he had turned bright red, the other smaller boy kept twisting his mouth around and had been chewing on the edge of his glove.

"We're real sorry mam," the fat one had said.

"Yeah" had echoed the smaller one.

"Honest we was just trying to get a rabbit, and from a distance-" the fat one started, before he was nudged by the smaller one.

"We can can clean it up for you," the tiny one had offered with no emotion in his voice.

Mary Ann didn't remember what she said, but she knew when she opened her eyes the boys were gone and so was her dog.