Blog Post #15

Final (Best Essay)

Match Point

Love

I was sitting in my freshmen orientation class in high school when a few girls came in asking if anyone wanted to join the tennis team. I had never played tennis before and had no idea how. No one was getting up, then the girl next to me asks if I wanted to try it out. We stood up signed our names on the sheet and I didn't think much of it. I was starting a new school and joining a the tennis team might help me make some friends.

The other girl changed her mind.

So there I was, a freshmen, lined up with other freshmen girls who signed up to join the team. There weren't many of us so no one was getting cut. That was a relief, no matter how terrible I was I could still be a part of the team.

It was interesting to find out that even though we weren't great players (yet) we could still have fun learning this new game. That's the thing about being raised in the inner-city, games like tennis require practice and money (if you want to be good at it) so there weren't many kids who had learned to play it growing up.

Every day I would get home sore, hardly being able to move without feeling pain in all my aching muscles. But every single day I looked forward to the end of classes so I could get back on the court. The pain meant that we were working hard and that work yielded improvement so I wasn't going to stop. I have never felt happier or more invigorated than when I stepped onto the tennis courts.

Love-15

After a year of being on the tennis team we had actually come a long way and improved our skills. We stayed in shape during the winter and spring then had an intensive clinic for a month in the summer. By the time fall rolled around we were ready to face our opponents.

I noticed it during class first. My hand would cramp up when I wrote for too long and it became impossible for me to hold a pen. My wrist would ache and the area between my thumb and my index finger looked like I got stung by a bee. In reality it was swollen because the tendons had taken a severe beating with all the tennis I had been playing. The doctor said it was tendinitis. Great.

At that point maybe I should have stopped. I should have rested my wrist to make sure it didn't get any worse.

Playing tennis was the only way I knew how to grow to accept my body. I was the chunky shy girl who suffered from asthma so I didn’t like to participate in gym class. But playing tennis it didn't matter because I could keep up during a match. I knew how to compensate for speed by hitting harder and smarter shots. I was not about to give that up.

So I bought a wrist brace instead.

Love-30

Senior year of high school a recruiter from the Kean University tennis team came to watch our practice and matches a few times and was interested in me and my friend joining her team. Unlike high school tennis, college tennis has mandatory practice for two weeks before the semester began. 

Summer heat can be annoying and uncomfortable. For someone with asthma it could make breathing damn near impossible. High levels of humidity and high temperatures are not a good mix for my asthma.

The double practice sessions during the summer in preparation for the fall season at Kean were torturous. After playing with a wrist injury for 3 years in high school I was used to that discomfort so I learned to ice my wrist and hand after every practice/match. But my asthma was a different beast that could not be kept at bay.

"Come on! You're almost done, just one more lap."

That one lap seemed like trying to run across the U.S. with no water along the way. I felt like I was suffocating but I kept going because I didn't want my teammates to think I wasn't trying hard enough or couldn't finish the lap because I was lazy. That plan never went well though. I either ended up needing to stop because I got dizzy or threw up. Sometimes both.

I wasn't the only one who had problems though. It was something else that united the team, not only did we love the game but our injuries where a testament to our dedication. Our coach never made us play if we were injured, so we didn’t complain about our injuries and hoped we didn't fall apart during the match. Our first singles player played most of the season bandaged practically from head to toe. She had her wrists, knees, ankles, and thigh taped for each match. Despite all her injuries she was one of the best players on the team and she never gave up during a match.

Giving up during a match is not something I consciously did, but there was always a little voice in the back of my head during a challenging match telling me that I couldn't do it. That I wasn't in good enough shape, that my shots where off. During a tournament at Drew University all my other teammates had gotten eliminated, but I made the final rounds. It was a tough match that kept flip flopping between me and my opponent. Then I lost two games in a row and thought for sure that it was over. Then one of the assistant coaches came up to me during a switch and she said "You're faster than you think."

I didn’t know what she meant by that at first. I didn't think I was fast at all. Then I noticed it. I kept running into the ball, which meant that I was going faster than I thought and needed to prepare my shot sooner. These other girls ran their laps and looked like models and I could keep up with them on a tennis court. That had not crossed my mind until I realized that it didn’t matter that I wasn't the perfect picture of an athletic body. I was an athlete who performed the task just as well as the traditionally built girls I was playing with as well as against. Tennis is about more than physical capability; once my head was in the game again I was able to win the set. And although I did not win that match I left satisfied that I had made my opponent work hard for that victory, that I was someone who could challenge her abilities and even defeat her if she made too many mistakes.

Had the assistant coach not told me that I was faster than I thought during that match I would have probably been defeated both on that court and in my mind. Once you start losing in a match you keep track of every single unforced error you make and that just makes things all the worse. The fastest way to end a match is to lose confidence…or get injured. 

Love-40

Body aches are part of life when you're playing a sport. It's expected for something to hurt and the remedy is to ice it, take some Advil and push through it. If it still hurts, you ice it again. My shoulder was a different beast compared to the injuries I had before. Wrist pain, knee pain, tendinitis on my ankle; all things I learned to cope with. But my shoulder was not cooperating. A sore shoulder was a normal thing when you spent all day playing tennis, the constant motions for serving and hitting the ball is a workout. But my shoulder pain went down to my elbow and gave me a stiff neck. Not good signs.

The strain on my shoulder caused my wrist to feel worse. There was swelling and reduction of sensation, meaning some sort of nerve damage.

I went to the first few practices of the 2010 season despite the pain. My hand swelled up and looked more like I had a golf ball stuck under the skin between my thumb and index finger. After 3 practices the pain was unbearable and I had to quit the team. It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. I couldn't even say it out loud; instead I emailed my coach telling her I wasn't going back.

Game

7am my alarm goes off, I reach for it and feel excruciating pain rush down my back. I was laying on my stomach and I couldn't turn myself around. There was no one to call, no was home to help me and I could't reach my phone. I tried to push myself up from the bed but any force I did immediately sent sharp pain up my arms and down my back. I couldn't move my legs either, that sent pain up my back.

I was stuck.

My heart was racing, I was panicking. How could I get myself up.I can't keep my head up, my neck was hurting. I had to figure out a way out of bed.

I locked my jaw and pushed myself up on my elbows. I fell back down.

I locked my jaw and pushed myself up on my elbows. I fought through the pain and let one arm fall so I could lay on my side. Then I laid on my back. Then I caught my breath. It didn't matter that my room was cold, I was sweating. It felt like I was on top of a volcano ready to explode as I felt each pulse of my muscles twitching and the pain that accompanied it.

There was no way I would be able to sit up. The pain went from my back to my ribs. Even my chest hurt. Breathing hurt. With each breath a new wave of pain came over me.

I rolled my legs, very slowly, to the side of my bed. Once my feet touched the floor I could try and get up. I used my arms to prop myself up and hoped that my legs wouldn't give out from the pain. I would not be able to getup from the floor if I fell.

I stood up and walked slowly to my door and up the stairs. I got some medicine and then went to lay back down again.

The doctor says my muscles were spastic. It turns out that my shoulder pain was  result of a dislocated bone in my posterior rib cage. After some physical therapy the pain went down and I was able to function. But now any heavy lifting or sleeping wrong could cause my back muscles to spasm. Apparently all those months of physical therapy did nothing to fix the problem.

I went to see an orthopedic surgeon who wants me to get scans in order to see what the problem is. It's been a year since he ordered the scans and I still haven't gotten them done. At first I thought it was just laziness in my part, but really I just don't want my worse fears to come true. If I need surgery it will take 3-6 months to recover. I suffered enough from all these injuries and if I have surgery I would need to put my life on hold. I know that in the end it would be better to get the surgery and fix the problem, but I've gotten so used to this pain that I don't know how it feels to live without it.

I guess I'm reluctant to let go of this pain just as I was reluctant to let go of tennis years ago. Despite knowing all of this I still would not have given up tennis without being forced out.
The sport became part of who I was. In  of high school when I began trying to figure out who I was, tennis gave me something to be passionate about and without it I guess my life just feels a bit empty. 

Short Essay #2

This story includes a "snapshot" conversation pieced together from different different conversations.
The English Major

One of my high school friends went to NJIT and majored in Electrical Engineering and for the past five years it's been sort of a joke that I chose an "impractical" major (AKA a useless major) according to him.

"So you're going to be an English teacher?"

Apparently that is the only possible option for people who major in English. Whenever I tell someone what my undergrad degree is in they either assume that I will be a school teacher or that I have no career plan.

"So what are you going to do?"
"I want to be a professor"
"Doesn't that mean you have to go to grad school?"
"Yeah I'm in my first semester right now."
"Oh."

I don't know if some people assume it takes some sort of higher power to make someone a professor or they think professors just sprout from trees ready to fill young minds with knowledge while they drink their coffee and read Hemingway.

Blog Post #13

Reflective Essay Draft

Throughout my undergrad career I focused on analyzing texts and writing critical analysis of my readings. When it came to my writing I stayed within the parameters of fiction and enjoyed the creation of new worlds and new characters that could convey a personal message in a fictional world. When this course began I was both intimated and intrigued by the prospect of speaking to an audience from my prospective about personal experiences. I did not (and mostly still don't) enjoy writing about myself. For years I've tried to keep a journal and failed at it because writing in the first person about my experiences, even though I was the only one reading it, felt unnatural.
I love to write and this course exposed me to a new genre of writing that before felt too foreign. I developed an understanding of creative non-fiction and have since written pieces I am very proud of. What helped make it easier for me to write was to choose topics that I really cared about. For my first two long essays in particular I chose to write about events in my life that have shaped me to be the person I am. Throughout the course I learned how to be more detailed about these experiences and how much reflection was necessary in order to have the reader understand what my focus was.
From writing these essays I learned how to use my personal perspective to tell a story that has meaning beyond just a retelling of what happened. I didn't know what creative non-fiction was at the beginning of the semester but now I am confident in my writing within this genre and it is something I wish to explore further.

Short Essay #1

*Names have been changed.*

I didn't think so much attitude could fit into such a little person. She wasn’t even one year old yet and she challenged everyone. Angie was playing with a toy when Bria pushed her and grabbed the toy. As Angie tried to get back up Bria shoved her down and once Angie was laying on the floor she placed a hand on her stomach and pushed down. Angie began to cry and when the teacher told Bria to play nice and not to push, she just grunted and slapped the teachers hand. She acted like this in front of her mother a few times and the mothers reaction was to laugh and say "oh my god, Bria," Because that's clearly the best way to react.

"He's not cleaning!" whined Ray. "It's not time to clean up yet, you can keep playing" the teacher replied. He looked at the kids at the table and mumbled what I assume was another complaint about them not cleaning. Ray walked up to the table and leaned over to snatch a toy away from John. John yelled "hey!" and looked to me for some help as Ray began to take the toys and put them away. After telling Ray, again, that it was not clean up time and giving the toys back to John and his friends at the table Ray began to cry. Apparently, he really wanted to clean up. The crying quickly escalated into a full blown tantrum as he threw himself on the floor and kicked the chair and the table disrupting everyone around him. This sort of thing happened just about every time Ray was told he couldn't do something.

"That’s mine!" he rips the toy from the other boys' hand and proceeds to push him to the ground. The teacher asks him why he did that, the toy was not his and everyone has to share. The little boy pouts and turns his body away all the while holding the toy even tighter. There are other variations of this scene that happen all the time at the day care I work. We start off as selfish little humans that seek attention and pampering from our parents since we cannot do them for ourselves; but when the kids start to grow up and they learn about sharing and playing nice with others is when the tricky part comes in. I've seen teachers handle the incident above in three ways, take the toy from the child and give it to the other, leave the child with the toy and tell the other child to play with something else, or the teacher takes the toy away and no one gets to play with it. Each option is sort of like picking your poison, which isn't too hard when you’re not the one who's going to be poisoned.

"Hey that’s mine!" complains Derek. Jay grabs the toy from Mark and tells him to give it back to Derek but Mark would not let go. I tell Mark that he cannot take someone else's t, "Derek was playing with it, please give it back and apologize."

That didn’t work.

Derek stared at me, almost challenging me to do something. I walked up to the boys and took the toy away from him and gave it back to Derek. Mark wasn't very happy about that and started throwing toys across the table and then finally stomping his feet, sliding back his chair and throwing himself on the floor. When told to sit back in the chair he gave a shrug and slid away from the table. He continued in this mood all day.

It's safe to say I'll be looking for a new job soon (and I'm highly considering home schooling my future kids). 

Blog Post #12

Rhetorical Analysis of Publication Venue: Fugue

1. Editors' description of essays accepted by the journal/magazine

They accept Poetry, Fiction, nonfiction, and experiment pieces from September 1st through May 1st. If a person wishes to submit to more than one genre each piece has to be submitted separately. They will consider submissions sent to another journal but they will not consider multiple submissions. Once a writer has submitted a piece they must wait for a response before submitting another. They do not specify the length of Creative Non Fiction works but do specify a 10,000 word limit for fiction works.
Writers who's work is chosen to be included in the journal are given two complimentary copies of the journal as well as payment. There is no mention of a submission fee and
Fugue only accepts online submissions at this link https://fugue.submittable.com/submit

2. Audience and purpose

Fugue is a literature journal edited by the graduate students in the English and Creative Writing Programs at the University of Idaho. Fugue publishes a diverse selection of new and established writers.

3. Description of representative essays published in the targeted venue

The essays published in Fugue are reflections and narratives and their Spring issue included short non-fiction pieces. The longest non-fiction piece included was 17 pages, it was titled Twenty-Five Facts For People Who Might Enjoy Taking A Bath While Dying by Joshua Unikel. The piece was a reflection on death that was separated into numbered sections with funny catchy titles and included references to Rasputin, Virginia Woolf, and a man who drowned in Ketchup.  From looking at a number of their publications I noticed they only choose about 3 non-fiction pieces to publish, at most there where no more than five but they do publish a lot of poetry. 
They made their back issues available online for free and you can click on any issue and are able to view the full publication. 

Blog Post #11

Drafty writing/brainstorming for Short essay 2


For my second short essay I think I will write about how my families expectation of my success is both encouraging but mostly stressful. I'll discuss how I'm simply expected to get good grades and get a good job. Part of it will also be discussing the (annoying) question that gets asked half a million times "what are you going to do with an English degree?" of course now that I'm in the graduate school the question has evolved into two questions, "What is writing studies?" and "What are you going to do with that degree?"

I feel that this is going to turn into a rant about some people not understanding the difficulties of academic studies and the stress that comes along with it as well as the fact that society does not value English or writing studies as much as they do math or science.

Blog Post #10

final draft Long Essay

Match Point

Love

I was sitting in my freshmen orientation class in high school when a few girls came in asking if anyone wanted to join the tennis team. I had never played tennis before and had no idea how. No one was getting up, then the girl next to me asks if I wanted to try it out. We stood up signed our names on the sheet and I didn't think much of it. I was starting a new school and joining a the tennis team might help me make some friends.

The other girl changed her mind.

So there I was, a freshmen, lined up with other freshmen girls who signed up to join the team. There weren't many of us so no one was getting cut. That was a relief, no matter how terrible I was I could still be a part of the team.

It was interesting to find out that even though we weren't great players (yet) we could still have fun learning this new game. That's the thing about being raised in the inner-city, games like tennis require practice and money (if you want to be good at it) so there weren't many kids who had learned to play it growing up.

Every day I would get home sore, hardly being able to move without feeling pain in all my aching muscles. But every single day I looked forward to the end of classes so I could get back on the court. The pain meant that we were working hard and that work yielded improvement so I wasn't going to stop. I have never felt happier or more invigorated than when I stepped onto the tennis courts.

Love-15

After a year of being on the tennis team we had actually come a long way and improved our skills. We stayed in shape during the winter and spring then had an intensive clinic for a month in the summer. By the time fall rolled around we were ready to face our opponents.

I noticed it during class first. My hand would cramp up when I wrote for too long and it became impossible for me to hold a pen. My wrist would ache and the area between my thumb and my index finger looked like I got stung by a bee. In reality it was swollen because the tendons had taken a severe beating with all the tennis I had been playing. The doctor said it was tendinitis. Great.

At that point maybe I should have stopped. I should have rested my wrist to make sure it didn't get any worse.

Playing tennis was the only way I knew how to grow to accept my body. I was the chunky shy girl who suffered from asthma so I didn’t like to participate in gym class. But playing tennis it didn't matter because I could keep up during a match. I knew how to compensate for speed by hitting harder and smarter shots. I was not about to give that up.

So I bought a wrist brace instead.

Love-30

Summer heat can be annoying and uncomfortable. For someone with asthma it could make breathing damn near impossible. High levels of humidity and high temperatures are not a good mix for my asthma.

The double practice sessions during the summer in preparation for the fall season at Kean were torturous. After playing with a wrist injury for 3 years in high school I was used to that discomfort so I learned to ice my wrist and hand after every practice/match. But my asthma was a different beast that could not be kept at bay.

"Come on! You're almost done, just one more lap."

That one lap seemed like trying to run across the U.S. with no water along the way. I felt like I was suffocating but I kept going because I didn't want my teammates to think I wasn't trying hard enough or couldn't finish the lap because I was lazy. That plan never went well though. I either ended up needing to stop because I got dizzy or threw up. Sometimes both.

I wasn't the only one who had problems though. It was something else that united the team, not only did we love the game but our injuries where a testament to our dedication. Our coach never made us play if we were injured, so we didn’t complain about our injuries and hoped we didn't fall apart during the match. Our first singles player played most of the season bandaged practically from head to toe. She had her wrists, knees, ankles, and thigh taped for each match. Despite all her injuries she was one of the best players on the team and she never gave up during a match.

Giving up during a match is not something I consciously did, but there was always a little voice in the back of my head during a challenging match telling me that I couldn't do it. That I wasn't in good enough shape, that my shots where off. During a tournament at Drew University all my other teammates had gotten eliminated, but I made the final rounds. It was a tough match that kept flip flopping between me and my opponent. Then I lost two games in a row and thought for sure that it was over. Then one of the assistant coaches came up to me during a switch and she said "You're faster than you think."

I didn’t know what she meant by that at first. I didn't think I was fast at all. Then I noticed it. I kept running into the ball, which meant that I was going faster than I thought and needed to prepare my shot sooner. These other girls ran their laps and looked like models and I could keep up with them on a tennis court. That had not crossed my mind until I realized that it didn’t matter that I wasn't the perfect picture of an athletic body. I was an athlete who performed the task just as well as the traditionally built girls I was playing with as well as against. Tennis is about more than physical capability; once my head was in the game again I was able to win the set. And although I did not win that match I left satisfied that I had made my opponent work hard for that victory, that I was someone who could challenge her abilities and even defeat her if she made too many mistakes.

Had the assistant coach not told me that I was faster than I thought during that match I would have probably been defeated both on that court and in my mind. Once you start losing in a match you keep track of every single unforced error you make and that just makes things all the worse. The fastest way to end a match is to lose confidence…or get injured. There was an away match and the team was down by two matches. My friend, our second singles player, was down by a few games during her match. I was sitting watching another match going on when I notice my coach going over to my friends court. Apparently something had happened and they had called the trainer over. She was crying and obviously something was wrong. The trainer taped up my friends wrist, apparently that was the problem, and she continued to play.

When my coach came back I asked her what happened to cause the injury and she said "she was overwhelmed." There was not wrist injury. My friend just had a breakdown because she was losing the match and was getting frustrated with herself.

The wrist injury would have been easier to deal with.

Love-40

Body aches are part of life when you're playing a sport. It's expected for something to hurt and the remedy is to ice it, take some Advil and push through it. If it still hurts, you ice it again. My shoulder was a different beast compared to the injuries I had before. Wrist pain, knee pain, tendinitis on my ankle; all things I learned to cope with. But my shoulder was not cooperating. A sore shoulder was a normal thing when you spent all day playing tennis, the constant motions for serving and hitting the ball is a workout. But my shoulder pain went down to my elbow and gave me a stiff neck. Not good signs.

The strain on my shoulder caused my wrist to feel worse. There was swelling and reduction of sensation, meaning some sort of nerve damage.

I went to the first few practices of the 2010 season despite the pain. My hand swelled up and looked more like I had a golf ball stuck under the skin between my thumb and index finger. After 3 practices the pain was unbearable and I had to quit the team. It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. I couldn't even say it out loud; instead I emailed my coach telling her I wasn't going back.

Game

7am my alarm goes off, I reach for it and feel excruciating pain rush down my back. I was laying on my stomach and I couldn't turn myself around. There was no one to call, no was home to help me and I could't reach my phone. I tried to push myself up from the bed but any force I did immediately sent sharp pain up my arms and down my back. I couldn't move my legs either, that sent pain up my back.

I was stuck.

My heart was racing, I was panicking. How could I get myself up.I can't keep my head up, my neck was hurting. I had to figure out a way out of bed.

I locked my jaw and pushed myself up on my elbows. I fell back down.

I locked my jaw and pushed myself up on my elbows. I fought through the pain and let one arm fall so I could lay on my side. Then I laid on my back. Then I caught my breath. It didn't matter that my room was cold, I was sweating. It felt like I was on top of a volcano ready to explode as I felt each pulse of my muscles twitching and the pain that accompanied it.

There was no way I would be able to sit up. The pain went from my back to my ribs. Even my chest hurt. Breathing hurt. With each breath a new wave of pain came over me.

I rolled my legs, very slowly, to the side of my bed. Once my feet touched the floor I could try and get up. I used my arms to prop myself up and hoped that my legs wouldn't give out from the pain. I would not be able to getup from the floor if I fell.

I stood up and walked slowly to my door and up the stairs. I got some medicine and then went to lay back down again.

The doctor says my muscles were spastic. It turns out that my shoulder pain was  result of a dislocated bone in my posterior rib cage. After some physical therapy the pain went down and I was able to function. But now any heavy lifting or sleeping wrong could cause my back muscles to spasm. Apparently all those months of physical therapy did nothing to fix the problem.

I went to see an orthopedic surgeon who wants me to get scans in order to see what the problem is. It's been a year since he ordered the scans and I still haven't gotten them done. At first I thought it was just laziness in my part, but really I just don't want my worse fears to come true. If I need surgery it will take 3-6 months to recover. I suffered enough from all these injuries and if I have surgery I would need to put my life on hold. I know that in the end it would be better to get the surgery and fix the problem, but I've gotten so used to this pain that I don't know how it feels to live without it.

I guess I'm reluctant to let go of this pain just as I was reluctant to let go of tennis years ago. Despite knowing all of this I still would not have given up tennis without being forced out.

Blog Post #9

Post Brainstorming/ideas for Short essay

For the first short essay I'm thinking of writing about my experience with teaching/observing primary education students and how I came to decide on pursuing a graduate education and becoming a professor instead. This is going to be written because I am currently working at a day care and at the WC as well as taking classes so I do not have much time to explore other mediums of expressing my ideas for this essay. 
For the past 5 years I have worked in day cares and after school programs. When I first began working with the little munchkins it was not too bad, but the more I was exposed to the environment the more I swore I would never have children. 
My opinions have slightly changed since then; I'm not opposed to having children but I really want to home school them.
The focus of this short essay will probably be how, from what I've seen, parents spoil their kids very easily and (most of the time) because they are so busy that they do not respond well to their children's needs both in terms of sleep/food/etc. and (sometimes most importantly) disciplinary. It will basically be scenes from my interactions with the students and how the way they are being raised is a reflection of society. 

Blog Post #8

Discussion of how you would work more on Long Essay 2 + discussion of which essay you are going to revise.

For Long Essay #2 I would like to add more details and vivid descriptors of how the pain felt but I'm not that skilled in describing pain. Apart from that I am not really sure what else should be added to it and how I would expand it.There is not much dialogue because I don't remember much talking. What is clear to me is the feelings associated with tennis but I don't know if they are coming across and I definitely think that I could add more describing the feeling or (i would prefer) trying to get the reader to connect to it and understand what kind of feelings I'm trying to describe.

At this point I'm not totally sure which essay I will revise. As much as I love this one I don't think I will be able to continue discussing it because it still makes me sad and I still have the aches and pain to remind me of all my old injuries. I'll probably end up revising my first long essay and include stories about control because after my conference I realized that fear and control are connected. That gives me a lot of material to work with and I feel more comfortable expanding on that one.

Blog Post #7

- I know more needs to be added but I am wondering what aspect (details) would be more interesting to the reader and how much to include. I can talk more about how I felt during my experience and also go more into the actual activities that I participated in but I'm not sure how to balance the two.
- Say back what you think the essay is about.
- What emotions can you perceive from this (partial) essay?
- What do you think about the segmenting?
- What else do you think I need to add?

Long Essay #2 Draft

Match Point

Love

I was sitting in my freshmen orientation class in high school when these girls come in asking if anyone wanted to join the tennis team. I had never played tennis before and had no idea how. No one was getting up, then the girl next to me asks if I wanted to try it out. We stood up signed our names on the sheet and I didn't think much of it. I was starting a new school and joining a the tennis team might help me make some friends.
The other girl changed her mind.
So there I was, a freshmen, lined up with other freshmen girls who signed up to join the team. There weren't many of us so no one was getting cut. That was a relief, no matter how terrible I was I could still be a part of the team.
It was interesting to find out that even though we weren't great players (yet) we could still have fun learning this new game. That's the thing about growing up in the inner-city, games like tennis require practice and money (if you want to be good at it) so there weren't many kids who had learned to play it growing up.
Every day I would get home sore, hardly being able to move without feeling pain in all my aching muscles. But every day I looked forward to the end of classes so I could get back on the court. The pain meant that we were working hard and that work yielded improvement so I wasn't going to stop. I have never felt happier or more invigorated than when I stepped onto the tennis courts.

Love-15

After a year of being on the tennis team we had actually come a long way and improved our skills. We stayed in shape during the winter and spring then had an intensive clinic for a month in the summer. By the time fall rolled around we were ready to face our opponents.
I noticed it during class first. My hand would cramp up when I wrote for too long and it became impossible for me to hold a pen. My wrist would ache and the area between my thumb and my index finger looked like I got stung by a bee. In reality it was swollen. The doctor said it was tendinitis. Great.
At that point maybe I should have stopped. I should have rested my wrist to make sure my wrist didn't get worse. I bought a wrist brace instead.

Love-30

Summer heat can be annoying and uncomfortable. For someone with asthma it could make breathing damn near impossible. High levels of humidity and high temperatures are not a good mix for my asthma.
The double practice sessions during the summer in preparation for the fall season at Kean were torturous. After playing with a wrist injury for 3 years in high school I was used to that discomfort so I learned to ice my wrist and hand after every practice/match. But my asthma was a different beast that could not be kept at bay.
"Come on! You're almost done, just one more lap."
That one lap seemed like trying to run across the United States with no water along the way. I felt like I was suffocating but I kept going because I didn't want my teammates to think I wasn't trying hard enough or couldn't finish the lap because I was lazy. That plan never went well though. I either ended up needing to stop because I got dizzy or threw up. Sometimes both.

Love-40

Body aches are part of life when you're playing a sport. It's expected for something to hurt and the remedy is to ice it, take some advil and push through it. If it still hurts, you ice it again. My shoulder was a different beast compared to the injuries I had before.Wrist pain, knee pain, tendinitis on my ankle; all things I learned to cope with. But my shoulder was not cooperating. A sore shoulder was a normal thing when you spent all day playing tennis, the constant motions for serving and hitting the ball is a workout. But my shoulder pain went down to my elbow and gave me a stiff neck. Not good signs.
The strain on my shoulder caused my wrist to feel worse. There was swelling and reduction of sensation, meaning some sort of nerve damage.
I went to the first few practices of the 2010 season despite the pain. My hand swelled up and looked more like I had a golf ball stuck under the skin between my thumb and index finger. After 3 practices the pain was unbearable and I had to quit the team. It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. I couldn't even say it out loud; instead I emailed my coach telling her I wasn't going back.

Game
7am my alarm goes off, I reach for it and feel excruciating pain rush down my back. I was laying on my stomach and I couldn't turn myself around. There was no one to call, no was home to help me and I could't reach my phone. I tried to push myself up from the bed but any force I did immediately sent sharp pain up my arms and down my back. I couldn't move my legs either, that sent pain up my back.
I was stuck.
My heart was racing, I was panicking. How could I get myself up.I can't keep my head up, my neck was hurting. I had to figure out a way out of bed.
I locked my jaw and pushed myself up on my elbows. I fell back down.
I locked my jaw and pushed myself up on my elbows. I fought through the pain and let one arm fall so I could lay on my side. Then I laid on my back. Then I caught my breath. It didn't matter that my room was cold, I was sweating. It felt like I was on top of a volcano ready to explode as I felt each pulse of my muscles twitching and the pain that accompanied it.
There was no way I would be able to sit up. The pain went from my back to my ribs. Even my chest hurt. Breathing hurt. With each breath a new wave of pain came over me.
I rolled my legs, very slowly, to the side of my bed. Once my feet touched the floor I could try and get up. I used my arms to prop myself up and hoped that my legs wouldn't give out from the pain. I would not be able to getup from the floor if I fell.
I stood up and walked slowly to my door and up the stairs. I got some medicine and then went to lay back down again.

The doctor says my muscles were spastic. It turns out that my shoulder pain was  result of a dislocated bone in my posterior rib cage. After some physical therapy the pain went down and I was able to function. But now any heavy lifting or sleeping wrong could cause my back muscles to spasm. Apparently all those months of physical therapy did nothing to fix the problem.
I went to see an orthopedic surgeon who wants me to get scans in order to see what the problem is.It's been a year since he ordered the scans and I still haven't gotten them done. At first I thought it was just laziness in my part, but really I just don't want my worse fears to come true. If I need surgery it will take 3-6 months to recover. I suffered enough from all these injuries and if I have surgery I would need to put my life on hold. I know that in the end it would be better to get the surgery and fix the problem, but I've gotten so used to this pain that I don't know how it feels to live without it.
I guess I'm reluctant to let go of this pain just as I was reluctant to let go of tennis years ago.

Blog Post #6

For my second long essay I will write about tennis and how it affected my life.

Segment 1: Love
This scene will go over when I joined my high school tennis team and how I fell in love with the game.

Segment 2: Love-15
This scene will describe my first injury (wrist) and how it affected my playing and my life.

Segment 3: Love-30
This scene will describe the difficulty I had playing in hot and humid weather due to my asthma. 

Segment 4: Love-40
This scene will will probably be more detailed because it will include my shoulder injury which led to leave the team at the beginning of the season in 2010. 

Segment 5: Game
This scene will discuss the progression of my shoulder injury to include sciatica as well muscle spasms and a shoulder impingement which means that I will probably never be able to play tennis again. 

Blog #5

Brainstorming for Long draft essay 2 => write into your ideas AND develop some scenes (for the idea you plan to go with), and/or a map for the presentation.

For my second long essay I will write about tennis and basically how it affected my life.I played for seven years and ended up having to stop due to an injury (series of injuries) that made it impossible for me to hold a racquet let alone play a match. I'm thinking of using the scoring system for tennis to segment my essay (me vs. tennis) to show how, ultimately, I was defeated by it. Despite my injuries I wish I could play tennis and after 3 years of not being able to play I still suffer from pains and aches. I want to explore why, despite my body basically falling apart, I still want to play. Is it because of the feeling of inclusion that comes from a team. After spending over 4 hours together 6 days a week it's hard to not become close to the other people on the team. Also there is the stress of being on a "team" but having to play the matches on your own (or with a partner if you play doubles) but having the pressure of the team depending on you, while not playing with the team as a whole. 

There are a lot of aspects I want to get into and I'm not sure how the scoring will work in separating my segments but so far these are the ideas I've got. 

Blog #4 edited

To Signal Danger

Amaxophobia

My mother got into a car accident and she stopped driving. She is petrified of big cars passing us by and is constantly reminding whoever is driving to “Drive slower.” She is always telling me to be careful when I drive and to watch out for other drivers and not go too fast on curves. Curves. That’s where the accident happened. It was right in front of me in the pouring rain. A Jeep speeds down the wet pavement on the highway and then he crashes into the back of the Jeep in front of me. I stomped down on the brakes and froze for a minute. I didn’t know what to do, so I slowly drove away. When I told my mother she reminded me to “be careful.” Is it my responsibility to be careful and cautious of EVERYTHING that happens on the road around me? There is so little control that we actually have it’s sometimes futile to even try.

Yet, every time I get into a car I feel the need to be vigilant because something might happen and I need to be ready; ready for what though? If a car is speeding down the highway, how does my paying attention really help prevent him from crashing into me? If the idiot driving swerves my way there is very little chance that I’ll have enough time to move out of the way. But I guess the illusion of power in such situations is better than the overwhelming realization that at any given time a crash, a fire, a stray bullet could end your life without you so much as having the ability to move a finger.

Escalaphobia

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, my family and I were at the airport on our way to board our flight. Taking the escalator up to the next floor was a fun little ride on such an exciting day. We were going to Dominican Republic; we would sit in the sun, go to the waterfall and enjoy our time away from the city. When I got to the top of the escalator I heard noises coming from below, my mother was stuck on the escalator with my younger sister. Somehow they had fallen and now the guards were trying to free her from the escalators grip. I watched at the top as my sister cried and my mother struggled to get up. I don’t remember where my dad went but I know that I couldn’t help them so I just looked on. The steps are much simpler, easier. You place one foot in front of the other and the steps don’t move on you, they don’t try and trick you. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I could go on an escalator again. Even now I have trouble stepping onto one. I have to stare at the metal pieces disappear and time my steps appropriately so that I don’t trip or fall.

            For years I was able to avoid escalators, but one day on a class field trip I was forced to face my fear. We were at Liberty Science Center (back when it was cool) and when it was time to leave I was left behind staring at my classmates as I stood at the top of the escalator unable to move. I didn’t care that my peers where staring up at me wondering what was wrong. I don’t even remember if they made fun of me for it or not. All I knew was this crippling anxiety. If I could climb down the walls of Liberty Science Center instead of going down the escalator I would have not thought twice about it. But there I stood frozen. My legs didn’t know what to do. My heart was racing, my head was throbbing and I was sure I would pass out or throw up. Neither of those things happened. One of the chaperones came up the stairs and walked me down with her. Slowly. Cautiously. I rode the escalator down to what didn’t turn out to be imminent doom but to my classmates who waited as I made my way back to them.

Not Aerophobia but thanatophobia

When I was young I didn’t think about death as something that could happen at any time. Death was something that happened to “old people” and if it happened to anyone else it was a tragic event that occurred to the regret of the world. I remember that when I was a child going on vacation with my family one of our plane’s wings caught fire and I could see the smoke from the window. As a kid on that plane I thought it was an adventure, a story to tell, that there was no way we would die (despite the fact that the plane was on fire and we were in the middle of the ocean). My memory of the plane being on fire is blurry. I know it happened, I can remember being told to put my head between my legs, I know there were nuns and a boys soccer team on board and somehow everyone thought that was reassuring because of course a plane with so many innocent children and a bunch of nuns won't go down in flames. But then I remember tragic stories of innocent people dying in horrific accidents and how there really was no guarantee that we wouldn't become one of those stories you hear on the news.

When we landed back at the airport many people chose to go home instead of getting on another plane and continuing on our way. But not my family, we got on the next flight out. Maybe that helped keep the fear of flying at bay. I love planes and would love to be able to fly to different places around the world (if I had the time and money). Flying is such an amazing experience. You are traveling in a huge chunk of metal thousands of feet in the air.

It’s funny that after all of these experiences I can be more afraid of an escalator than a plane. None of this made me a religious person or made me question my existence or any of that, at least not at the time. The car accident happened only a few weeks ago and left me a bit shaken up. Every time I pass by that curve on route 22 I think about the collision and how stupid that driver must have been to drive so fast in such bad weather. But then again we never think that bad things will happen to us. For the most part we’re all so very confident that “it won’t happen to me.” But it can happen to me (and to you).

I don’t try to hide the residual effects of these events. They shaped how I view the world and how I react to the world. Every now and again it will get in the way of relaxing and just enjoying life but there is no sure fire way to avoid accidents. Things happen. What matters is how much power those events have over our lives. 

Blog #4

- Is this worth reading? Is there an identifiable main idea? Does this organization work? Any suggestions on any aspect of the essay? What is the story about? What is the emotional high point?

I have not decided what my segments would be so for now I have placed stars.

 

(I’m not too sure how this story will flow and how I will connect all the pieces so I basically wrote some parts that I wanted to incorporate hoping that once they’re written down I am able to make sense of  how I will thread them together. I haven't included other stories because I'm not totally sure how to phrase them and how to connect them. These were about accidents/incidents that occurred while the others are just situations that I was in (not life threatening) so I didn't include them until I decided on which ones are important and how they will be incorporated.  Also, I have an idea of what I want my focus to be but I don’t exactly know how to make that focus clear. Although my stories so far are about fear in various situations that is not my intended main topic, I guess when I figure out how to connect these stories fluidly I will be able to insert more details in order to make my main focus/topic clearer.)

                                                           Long Essay #1 Draft

My mother got into a car accident and she stopped driving. She is petrified of big cars passing us by and is constantly reminding whoever is driving to “Drive slower.” She is always telling me to be careful when I drive and to watch out for other drivers and not go too fast on curves. Curves. That’s where the accident happened. It was right in front of me in the pouring rain. A Jeep speeds down the wet pavement on the highway and then he crashes into the back of the Jeep in front of me. I stomped down on the brakes and froze for a minute. I didn’t know what to do, so I slowly drove away. When I told my mother she reminded me to “be careful.” Is it my responsibility to be careful and cautious of EVERYTHING that happens on the road around me? There is so little control that we actually have it’s sometimes futile to even try.

Yet, every time I get into a car I feel the need to be vigilant because something might happen and I need to be ready; ready for what though? If a car is speeding down the highway, how does my paying attention really help prevent him from crashing into me? If the idiot driving swerves my way there is very little chance that I’ll have enough time to move out of the way. But I guess the illusion of power in such situations is better than the overwhelming realization that at any given time a crash, a fire, a stray bullet could end your life without you so much as having the ability to move a finger.

*****

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, my family and I were at the airport on our way to board our flight. Taking the escalator up to the next floor was a fun little ride on such an exciting day. We were going to Dominican Republic; we would sit in the sun, go to the waterfall and enjoy our time away from the city. When I got to the top of the escalator I heard noises coming from below, my mother was stuck on the escalator with my younger sister. Somehow they had fallen and now the guards were trying to free her from the escalators grip. I watched at the top as my sister cried and my mother struggled to get up. I don’t remember where my dad went but I know that I couldn’t help them so I just looked on. 

The steps are much simpler, easier. You place one foot in front of the other and the steps don’t move on you, they don’t try and trick you. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I could go on an escalator again. Even now I have trouble stepping onto one. I have to stare at the metal pieces disappear and time my steps appropriately so that I don’t trip or fall.

*****

When I was young I didn’t think about death as something that could happen at any time. Death was something that happened to “old people” and if it happened to anyone else it was a tragic event that occurred to the regret of the world. I remember that when I was a child going on vacation with my family one of our plane’s wings caught fire and I could see the smoke from the window. As a kid on that plane I thought it was an adventure, a story to tell, that there was no way we would die (despite the fact that the plane was on fire and we were in the middle of the ocean). My memory of the plane being on fire is blurry. I know it happened, I can remember being told to put my head between my legs, I know there were nuns and a boys soccer team on board and somehow everyone thought that was reassuring because of course a plane with so many innocent children and a bunch of nuns won't go down in flames. But then I remember tragic stories of innocent people dying in horrific accidents and how there really was no guarantee that we wouldn't become one of those stories you hear on the news.

When we landed back at the airport many people chose to go home instead of getting on another plane and continuing on our way. But not my family, we got on the next flight out. Maybe that helped keep fear of flying at bay. I love planes and would love to be able to fly to different places around the world (if I had the time and money). Flying is such an amazing experience. You are traveling in a huge chunk of metal thousands of feet in the air. It’s funny that after all of these experiences I can be more afraid of an escalator than a plane.

                                                                 *****
I couldn't control how these events affected me and I sure as hell couldn't prevent them from happeneing. But what I did do was make sure no one saw the damage. I avoided a lot of things but it was all covered under a veil of confidence and simple disinterest in the things that frightened me.

 

 

Blog Post #3

I'm not sure what I'm going to do for this assignment. I have never been able to keep up a journal because I don't feel comfortable talking about myself (even if no one else was reading it), but this assignment requires that I choose something and my mind immediately goes blank. 

After thinking it over for a week I've got some ideas that do come to mind but I'm not too sure what I want to write about. 

- I played tennis for about 7 years and had to stop due to an injury to my shoulder. I plan on including flashbacks to when I played and then insert instances in which my injury got in the way (for example, the time my shoulder got so bad that it caused  muscle spasms in my back and I could not move because of the excruciating pain). The problem with this one is that I'm not too sure what my point would be.

- Just last week I was seconds away from being involved in a pretty bad car accident and I remember that when I was a child going on vacation with my family one of our planes wings caught fire and I could see the smoke from the window. What stands out to me is that fact that even though I was not in a car accident I was very aware of my mortality, my small car would have been whipped around by the large Jeep that sped down the highway. However, as a kid on that plane I thought it was an adventure, a story to tell, that there was no way we would die (despite the fact that the plane was on fire and we were in the middle of the ocean). If i juxtaposed the two situations and reflected on the difference with which I analyzed the real danger of the situation. Here my problem would be the fact that my memory of the plane being on fire is, for lack of a better word, blurry. I know it happened, I can remember being told to put my head between my legs, I know there were nuns and a boys soccer team on board and somehow everyone thought that was reassuring because of course a plane with so many innocent children and a bunch of nuns won't go down in flames. But then I remember tragic stories of innocent people dying in horrific accidents and how there really was no guarantee that we wouldn't become one of those stories you hear on the news. 

Well I guess I fleshed out that second idea more that I had initially anticipated. I still have my doubts as to how I will write my story without falling into the realms of fiction and without being too preachy or letting the reflection take over the story. 

Blog Post #2

Based on our discussion in class and the reading assignments we had for homework, creative non-fiction is a retelling of a true story by using some elements from fiction writing such as dialogue, point of view, dramatization and others. It is important to remain truthful and not create characters that do not exist or events that did not happen.

Digital publishing allows for feedback from the audience and also opens up the dialogue for the writer to see a situation from different perspectives. Digital publishing also allows for a writer to go back and edit their work after publication. 

Blog Post #1

Each text that was assigned for reading this past week were similar in that they all had a purpose. Each writer had a specific focus despite their varying styles. The features of creative non-fiction that I saw based on the four texts assigned were: dramatization, metaphors, diction, involving/inviting the reader into their world (giving the reader a clear picture of the situation), and probably one of the most important parts would be the authors own unique voice speaking out through the experience they chose to share. All of the author's were reflecting on some aspect of their life and by telling their story they took the reader through a journey that would then (hopefully) lead them to that realization as well.

The shorter pieces tended to be more direct and to the point (Marquart) while the longer pieces flowed more like a traditional story (Beard). Ebert's piece was just difficult to get through, probably because, as a reader, I could not relate to the speaker of the text. Beard's piece and Marquart's piece, although different in length and style, were easy to follow and relate to. Marquart's piece seems better written because the word choice and the conciseness of the piece spoke a lot about the main topic of the story. The author utilized even the brevity of the story to perhaps signify the brevity of the "procedure" she had been through. Marquart's piece was by far my favorite because she took everything about this text and made it work toward her topic.