My English class that first quarter was English 101, and my instructor was quite thorough. In retrospect, I can thank her for caring so much about her job, as I have seen many instructors since who clearly do not have the amount of passion that this one does. Everything was very well-explained and she had a multitude of material available weeks in advance. The work load, however, was quite heavy. On the first day of class, we were all required to post an introduction of ourselves, and given an assignment to write briefly about our strengths and weaknesses in writing and what we hoped to get out of the class. To me, this seemed like a silly question. What I hoped to get out of the class was a decent grade so that I could move on to the next. The instructor anticipated this reaction and asked us to specify what, other than to pass, we wanted. I avoided the question as well as I could and hoped that would be the end of it. When I received a response pointing out that I had not answered the question, I frowned. What could I say to pass this first, intimidating test? I decided to say that, because I used to love reading and had not picked up a book for pleasure in more than five years, I wanted to renew my love of reading and, by extension, writing (as I used to journal and write poetry in high school). This was a cop-out. Sure, it would be nice if it happened, but I didn't intend to expend any of my precious energy on making these things happen. The quarter progressed and I became more comfortable in all of my classes; I learned the expectations of each of the instructors (some far higher than others), and I threw tantrums when I became overwhelmed with work. Several times, I threatened to give up, frustrated that there was just too much to do, or the work (invariably math) was too difficult.
As I came to the end of the quarter, I could confidently say that my writing skills had improved. I was more confident in my interactions with peers, and beginning to think that I may actually have some sort of real talent at writing, beyond what I could trust my friends and family to reveal. I still had not picked up a book, and still preferred to occupy my free time playing computer games and watching television. I could recall that reading a book once brought me great pleasure, but when weighed against the arsenal of electronics at my disposal, the written word paled in comparison.
On March 5th, I had the great pleasure of boarding an airplane to Maui. It was my fourth trip to Hawaii, but it was my boyfriend's first. There were two weeks left in the quarter, and I had spent the previous one working overtime in attempt to get a week ahead on all of my class work so that I would be able to take this vacation. Generally, I can't stand sitting on an airplane for longer than five hours, but when you're heading off to Hawaii, everything else seems inconsequential. Still, I needed something to do, and my general policy is to bring a book. The only books that aren't packed up in storage are the few that I took in my bag when I moved out of my mom's house more than three years ago. The book that I took with me was Barrel Fever by David Sedaris.
Sedaris is an author that I fell in love with when I first began to read Me Talk Pretty One Day more than eight years ago. I had all but forgotten this love when I opened this book on my flight to Maui. By the time I returned home, I was rereading the other books of his that I have, and shortly thereafter, buying new copies of all the others that I had packed up. Just days after my return from vacation, I was in turmoil trying to decide what to do with my life, knowing that pastry was not the final stop for me. I worried and fretted and weighed my options; I did research and talked to counselors and made myself sick with stress. Throughout it all, it kept coming back to writing. I would ask myself questions, like, "What do I really like to do? What would I do as a career if I didn't limit myself with fear?"
As the final assignment for English 101, we were required to reflect on the statement we had made at the beginning of the quarter and determine whether we had met our own goals, and what still needed improvement. I found it quite ironic as I wrote, sincerely, that my goals had been met. I had supposedly set out to renew my passion for reading and writing, and had accidentally accomplished both with much greater vigor than I could have imagined.
I really enjoyed full circle part one and two. They were really enjoyable to read, because they captured my attention and my imagination. You have a wonderful way of bringing your audience into your stories. I wanted to ask your opinion on one thing that you had talked about. You wrote: "I still had not picked up a book, and still preferred to occupy my free time playing computer games and watching television. I could recall that reading a book once brought me great pleasure, but when weighed against the arsenal of electronics at my disposal, the written word paled in comparison."
ReplyDeletesince the iPad is come out, and other similar pieces of technology, e-books have been the whole rage along with digital magazine subscriptions that have interactive content. One of the first programs that emerged out of the iPad App Store was an interactive book for children. This is become really popular now, where there's music videos and other content embedded in the book itself. I personally am really interested in writing a book that explores this new world where you can have the digital along with the words. When you think about this? Do you think such a thing will harm the development of readers?
First of all, thank you! I appreciate your kind words. As far as your question goes, ebooks are a world that I have not yet explored. I don't own an iPad (although I would like one, mostly because I would like to word process on it; I think it would make the idea of keeping a journal more attractive to me), so unfortunately the only access I might have to ebooks would be (of course) on my computer, or on my iPhone. Cell phones have always been too small to me to read books, effectively browse websites (although I appreciate that many have cell phone friendly versions), or watch movies on. Then, of course, I have also been simultaneously resistant to and intrigued by the idea of ebooks. My resistance comes both from the fact that I have many fond memories of holding paperback books and that I really do value possessing books. I still like the idea of someone being able to determine more about me by looking at the books I have lying around. Books actually comprise a lot of what I am, as I developed most of my world views and ideas around the books that I loved in high school and so on. This is getting to be quite long, but my point is that I am attached to the physical presence of books, so I have some trouble thinking about adapting to a world in which they do not exist.
ReplyDeleteBut, that wasn't the question. That's just my experience with ebooks, which has been quite limited, as I've extensively described. Finally getting around to the finish line, here, I didn't know that ebooks could contain digital media. It makes sense, but it had never occurred to me. I don't think it will harm the development of readers, but I'm not sure it's something I would earnestly enjoy. It would seem too textbook-like to me to have bits of media strewn throughout the text, and personally I think I might find it disruptive to the flow of the story. That, however, depends entirely on how the writer integrates the media. I guess that in many ways, that is a new field of writing that is emerging. It will take time and experimentation to figure out how to make media flow within your stories. I would actually be quite interested to see what this type of ebook looks like in ten or fifteen years. I imagine that they will become quite stunning visually as the field progresses.