Goodnight Hollywood Boulevard

Chrissy has demanded that I update my blog.

I'm sorry that I have been neglecting it since the semester started. When you are popping out a paper or two each week, pleasure writing finds itself on the back burner.

I have five weeks left of this semester. Despite the frequent frustration and in class humiliation, I think I have learned a lot. I'm not sure how much will translate to my future career, but I know plenty of people who have nice jobs and do not utilize their college degrees.

Perhaps college seems silly to me because I'm experiencing it. I can't really fully appreciate because I will never be someone who didn't go to college. I will never seek out a career without a college degree behind me.

I have to write a memoir/personal essay for Austin Bunn's class. I'm 22. What life have I lived? I wonder if I could resurrect my old Xanga and weave those together in a retelling of Stephanie Gamble, the High School years.

Oh goodness, it would be full of thespian society drama, me hating Corin, dangerous drives in Jenny's Blazer, and probably some whining about particular boys not liking me.

(High School aged Gagwaggers at Michigan's Adventure)

Austin Bunn gave us some ideas on how to start a memoir. I don't know that they are particularly effective but here they are:

a. A bad decision we've made:

Now, I have made at least 6,798,243 bad decisions in my life. However, I don't know any that warrent a memoir. The Black Sheep Gamble is starting to feel a bit more vanilla. Perhaps I should review that post.

b. A Quirk or Obsession:

I am one big walking quirk. This is not something I want to share with the class. As for obsession? What am I obsessed with? Receiving accolades? Being told I'm right/awesome/pretty/funny/intelligent/a winner? Again, not sure that I want my class to know that my strongest hunger is for compliments, one that is closing in on obsession.

c. A subject about which we are curious:

One thing about Gambles, we are not curious folks. We tend to interpret things at face value and we are not the ones to ask why or why not.*

So I need to write a personal essay.

Maybe I can pull a James Frey and use a little "creative liberty". :)

*I believe that this stems from my parents answering, "because that's the way God made it" when we asked why as children.

You're not bigger than this, not better, why can't you learn?

As we all know, I am currently in a non-fiction workshop.

Today we workshopped the piece I submitted.

Remember how I was frantically searching for a new subject the day of my deadline?

Yes. We remember.

I grabbed the Lanthorne (Grand Valley's silly attempt at a news paper) and found Tyler Way. Tyler designs and markets shoes to NBA stars. He's met Rip Hamilton, LeBron James, Tayshaun Prince, etc. They wear his shoes.

Yes. Please.

So I skimmed the piece, noticed it was focused heavily on the design process and not so much on him as a person. I thought, hey, I can write this better.

So I did.

I thought I did.

We workshopped my piece in class today.

In typical professor fashion, Austin Bunn facilitates discussion, demanding that we first cover the strong points. One person says they like my opening. Thanks, whoever said that.

The rest of the time was spent telling me how the Lanthorne piece covered everything I did, the prof even pulled out a copy of it and handed it out to the class, and asked them to compare the two pieces.

Now, anyone will tell you, I love being made into an example. Its not humiliating or belittling at all.

Let me be honest here. If I really believed that my writing was a carbon copy of the Lanthorne's piece, I would have completely restructured it. I am far too critical of my own writing to turn in something that I thought would be poorly received.

If I am too blind to see the major flaws that a class of fifteen other people all caught on to, what am I doing?

Twenty five more weeks.