Sunday, September 11, 2011

Writing Prompts

List of ideas:
1.     Story of my baby blanket, how I lost it and the devastation I felt. 
2.     Moving to Amsterdam
3.     Messing up in a play in college
4.     Getting a bear from my great grandma in her will
5.     Moving out
6.     School difficulties
7.     Emotional problems I’ve had to deal with.

Questions:
·      School – Why has it taken me so long to be able to get back to school?
·      Men – Why are men’s thought processes so different from women’s?
·       Fast Food – Why is fast food so delicious but so bad for you?
·      Television – What is it about crappy reality TV that makes it so irresistible?
·      Public Restrooms – What is it about public restrooms that make people uncomfortable?
·      Shoes – Why are shoes so expensive?
·      Sports – Why did I stop playing sports in high school?
·      Jobs – How did I get so lucky with the job I’m at now?

Fastwrites

Most of us harbor dreams – my dream in particular is now becoming within reach and I’m heading towards it as fast as I possibly can.  I’ve always dreamed of being a teacher.  Since I was little, I would make my stuffed animals come to my “school,” write out very descriptive applications for my “daycare” and even pretend to be my friends’ teacher.  My dream recently developed into a full-blown plan.  I want to own my own preschool.  This preschool is not going to be like a normal school, in which parents pay tuition for their kids to learn how to count and write their name.  My preschool will be devoted to culturing kids who otherwise wouldn’t get the chance until later on in their lives.  I come from a mixed background… no, not culturally, but living-wise.  I’ve had the experience of living in a different country, living in the suburbs, and living in the city.  I know the differences between city-folk and suburban-folk.  My quest will be to blur the lines just a little bit, culturing these children by taking them on volunteer trips to local food shelves and homeless shelters, never putting them in danger but instilling in them that they can make a difference no matter how young they are.  My dream of being a teacher faded about two years ago, when I struggled to acclimate with the new role of being a college student.  It took me a long time to be able to overcome those hurdles, but today I’m glad to say I’m back on the right track and am ready to make my dream a reality.

One of the biggest “turning points” in my life was when I left high school.  Most people have a little trouble adjusting to college life away from their families and discovering who they are going to be for the rest of their lives. I had an especially hard time with this.  I went to Gustavus my first year out of high school, and realized halfway through my first semester I wasn’t ready to leave home whatsoever.  I hated the fact that my family was so far away from me, and I was hurting from past things that I had foolishly kept a secret to everyone.  The next year, I attended MCTC and failed again because I just wasn’t going to school and was still facing the troubles I did at Gustavus.  I decided to take another semester off.  I was still stuck in high school and didn’t want to come to terms with the harsh reality that I was on my own now.  After many sleepless nights and a lot of analyzing my life, I finally have got my act together and made a step in the right direction. Through all the analyzing of myself, I realized that I wasn’t making reasonable goals with myself, and I was setting myself up for failure.  It was one of the biggest realizations to me because I pinpointed at least part of my problem and I was determined to fix it.  It hasn’t only helped me in my school life, but I’m a lot happier as a person now too.

Judging What I Have

Abundance: I generated the most writing from the first prompt, and found myself wanting to actually write more than I did on the subject.   It’s actually what I’m deciding to write my essay on and that’s why I stopped at two fastwrites rather than three, because I want to start writing about the first prompt in more detail.
Surprise: I found it really confusing to write about my biggest turning point, especially in just a fastwrite, because there is so much more information I could give on the subject, but I would have to start from the beginning and it’s just too much to put in a paragraph.
Confusion: I think my first prompt raised a lot of questions, such as how will I be able to make my dream a reality and how soon can it actually become a reality?
Honesty: I’m willing to write honestly about my first prompt, which will actually probably combine with my second prompt in a way.  I’m a little standoffish of the second one because it is kind of a touchy subject.


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