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.

How long must we sing this song?

Week one of my final year of school is finished. For the first time in my college career I find myself taking classes that I don't absolutely hate. This is the first time in my five years of higher learning that I am not stuck taking a science class, a math class, or a foreign language.

Et oui, j'aime apprendre le français, mais seulement quand c'est convenable.

Five attempts at Algebra, I finally mastered it.*

The last science class I took was BIO 120. Train. Wreck.

But here we are, I am embarking on something fantastic.

After a week in class:

Writing 350- Business Communication

From what I can tell this class is essentially a reprise of Writing 250, intro to professional writing. That's okay though, perhaps my two semesters spent with Keith Rhodes will give me a leg up on all the computer science and accounting majors in the class. The professor, Christina Olson seems cool. I like my profs the way I like my winter roads, dry and slightly self deprecating. And she, dear friends, is very dry. It doesn't hurt that I find myself sitting next to Michael Vartan's identical young cousin and in front of my best friend from seventh grade. Resumes, memos, data reports, blah blah blah... Hello to the rest of my life.

CJR (Journalism) 256- News Reporting I

I do not aspire to be a journalist. I am not sure why this class is required of professional writing majors. I suppose that successfully gathering and reporting information by a deadline is key to any writer's prosperity. I feel like this is a class where the prof wants me to work. Let's face it kids, I'm pretty lazy.

Writing 360 - Intermediate Non-Fiction Workshop

I have been dying to take a class with Austin Bunn since I saw him speak on a panel at Kirkhof last year. Unfortunately my indiscreet admiration of him may be a hindrance to my writing. We turned in a memory piece on Thursday and I was so concerned with his approval that my writing was not in my natural, even-flowing, perfectly professional, and smooth style.** I am excited to learn how to become, if nothing else, a better blogger. Who knows, maybe someday they will make a movie about my mundane and non-impressive life. It will follow my unnatural obsession with a similarly named individual that no one under 40 cares about. Someone like ... Steven Seagal. Yes. Stephanie and Steven. I will blog about my year spent suffering through the entire Seagal movie collection***, Good Morning America will do a profile on me. Austin Bunn will not love it.

COM 203 - Argument and Analysis

What. On. Earth. I think that the professor uses this class as an excuse to rape our minds. She is insane!! I had to return my textbook to make a car payment. I will go back and buy it again next week. However, I think that her... eccentricities... will allow for leniency and light grading. When you get down to year five of college, I feel that you can go one of two ways. You either realize the importance of what you're learning and buckle down and dominate, or you constantly seek the easy way out. Guess which way the black sheep Gamble is going?

Writing 251 - Document Design

My professor is probably two years my senior and he has a chin strap beard. No. Oh, and I have already threatened to meet one of my classmates in the parking lot. He doesn't know this, he was too busy providing the class with a poorly constructed, yet colorful, commentary on the lecture, to hear my idle threats. Robyn heard them. That's what matters.

So here we are, fifteen weeks that will bring me that much closer to my much desired diploma. College cannot be over soon enough.

*By mastered, I mean that I passed with a C+. I do not need Algebra. I have a calculator on my phone.
**Ha.
***I have yet to watch a single Steven Seagal movie.