Advanced Essay Writing, Spring 2013

For a while now I’ve been thinking of writing an essay based on the duality of my life – being an active member of my church and being a college student in a massive commuter school. It may not seem like a significant topic at first glance, but lately I have seen how different the two lives are. The only thing is, I still can’t figure out what message I want readers to take away from it, or if I want there to be any message at all…

As for the format, I want to try focusing on music. Either I will include lyrics to a few songs from both aspects of my life in the middle of the essay or I will turn the entire piece into a video where I will sit in a professional suit with my drum in my lap. Both ways should portray the contrast between my religious life and my academic life.

The flow of the essay should be rhythmic, where someone could read it out loud and follow a simple beat. I’m not sure how well I will accomplish this, but it’s certainly a goal I want to pursue. The challenge will be to keep the words I use consistent with my day-to-day speech at the same time. I want to start with my life at Baruch, then use a song from my church as a transition into my religious life, followed by lyrics from a song I might hear at Baruch for the next transition, and so forth. The ending would be a gospel song that has entered my life at Baruch in a bit of a humorous way, which I might explain in the essay if I think it will fit.

I am thinking of titling my final essay, “Little Irish Shangrila”. This essay will be about a weird little symbiosis that exists between hard-core Tibetan party mongers and the setting of an Irish pub. Especially, during weekends, instead of finding grumpy and scrubby Celtics overdosing on their favorite lager, this place is packed with Tibetans and has been for the last four or five years. Fights Break out, Girls fight for boys, guys fight at the slightest agitation and other scenes peculiar to a bar. But doesn’t this sound like any other bar? Yes, but what’s at stake here is the whole discourse that has formed around it: rumors that originate from the bar and end in the community meetings; aphorisms that surround the “type” of people who go to that bar.

I think one reason why I am doing this project is to understand my community a little better and at the same time, defamiliarize ourselves a little. As a Tibetan myself, even I have stereotypes and generally categorize them under various rubrics. But I have always attributed this tendency to the lack of interaction I have had with youngsters of my ethnicity. So I am taking this opportunity to know them a little better and confirm, or otherwise, my reduction of their diversity.

I am planning on starting the essay with a bit of a humor when I do my exposition, and gradually bring in anecdotes from the regular patrons and the staffs who work there. Finally gravitate towards a graver tone of realization.

I believe my essay will be a hybrid because it will be an audio essay with proper background scores and patches of voices outside of me. Hopefully I will do a good job at that. If anyone is interested in the place that I am talking about here, I guess you can go and read the yelp reviews on “”Sean Ogs,” Woodside.

My original idea, which I pitched to two of my classmates and some friends, was to analyze the Beatles. Despite my enthusiasm for it, I had a thoughtful discussion with a dear friend who convinced me otherwise. She urged me to unravel a personal story I’ve never addressed before.

The story centers around my 10 year old self being thrown out of the house on New Year’s Eve by my mother. When I first thought of this story, my immediate reactions were a) this is going to be painful and tedious to bring up b) there isn’t much of interest for people to read. What’s the takeaway going to be? Don’t abuse your kids? I think that lesson is pretty obvious.

After giving it more analysis, I want this essay to be about the consequence of one person’s actions applied throughout my life. I’ve always been interested in the power of words and this will certainly be an interesting personal investigation. The device I’d like to use is having myself take the 3-mile walk again and then reflect on it at each intersection/red light. I don’t know what the final message will be.

The hybrid/lyrical essay component will be interweaving the two tales – the original as a 10-year-old and now as a recent 18-year-old, following in my footsteps. I want to add the sound to the experience, the traffic in the background, my shoes stepping in the snow. I’m trying to borrow a hi-res camera to photograph each intersection.

I don’t know how the essay will progress. I believe it will be chunks of self-reflection which hopefully leads to some sort of conclusion. I haven’t thought of a working title, because it’s silly to give titles to your own experiences. Let’s call it the New Year’s Eve March for the purposes of this blog post.

Dear Everybody,

So, I have come up with two different ideas for what to do with my final project that I would not only love to share but also could use some input.  I’m leaing towards developing a previous essay rather than starting fresh.

The first idea is built off of my essay on what my father collects (II.II). Feel free to take a look at it on my blog and please comment on that draft. I want to develop it further, to get a full picture of how crazy what he collects truly is and how how almost anybody can relate to it (surprisingly). I love this topic because it is something that has always interested me. I think it will be successful because it is relate-able to on several levels and  it is special to me ad I feel that will fuel the fire to make it a compelling essay. The structure will be similar to my II.II essay, unless somebody has a better suggestion as to how to format it. It already has an introduction paragraph to set the scene which I am open to changing. I was thinking of adding some dialogue, cutting the cross-section of the box  altogether a focusing on the closet. The message I want to communicate is really about how different yet similar all humans are.  We feel an unconscious need to hold onto things because they hold greater significance (yet a the same object means nothing to somebody else) and I want to showcase how my father has done this, in a very specific way,  throughout his life so far. The list of  items is really a poem, thus making it a hybrid essay. I’m thinking of adding the epigraph of the cross-section as the closing for the essay as well. I’m not sure how long it will be, although it will adhere to the requirements. I’m going to have to play with the list itself to show the breadth, depth and insanity of the collection, while making it cohesive and make sure the flow is correct so it reads not like a shopping list but like a poem. The working title is “My Father: A Controlled Hoarder” or the previous title of Essay II.II

The second idea I have is either brilliant or really stupid. I’m not sure. There is a fine line between the two. Regardless, it centers around a question: Have you ever noticed how men and women take their T-shirts shirts off very differently? First, men tend to grab it from the back, while women cross their arms in front of them and remove it (I think it is due to the hair business). I was thinking of incorporating some silent videos of people removing their shirts (I may give every person a similar one in the correct size to streamline it) and conducting interviews (which I would transcribe into text) about how one takes his or her T-Shirt off to each participant. What are your thoughts? Is it doable? Is it to risque? What would you take away from it, if anything? The working title is “How Do You Take your T-Shirt Off?”

Best,

Alee

My final essay will be about my grandmother’s life in three stages: coming to America, its affects, and going back home. Although, my grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s, I do not want to frame the story around that, but of her final days with this illness, which gives a deeper impact of all the suffering she had endured.

This has been a topic I have been working on since her death and have attempted various ways and structures to tell her story. It’s a beautiful fairytale with a sort of “Happily every after” ending.

I would like to frame this story around the story of the “Little Red Riding Hood” as told by the Grimm Brothers. This is a story my grandmother told me every night and reminds me of the journey she had taken.

The purpose I would like to get across is the struggle of life and the beauty of death. It will consist of sections rather than paragraphs. I will provide three or maybe four different scenes in her life and give great detail and imagery. I want the reader to feel as if they knew her and can relate.

My essay will be a lyric essay. I am intertwining two stories: my grandmothers and Little Red Riding Hood. This creates a parallel between both characters. It will be abstract as I will attempt to leave holes in which the reader can fill with their imagination. I would also like to incorporate an image if I feel that it fits with the story.

I might change my mind regarding the type of medium I want to use for my final draft.

I will write about 4 pages double-spaced, but I am not too sure. I am still figuring out how to structure it and correctly develop the story. It is UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

The title of my essay will be: ‘Discontinuity’

I think my essay topic will be modeled after a rhetorical question that Mr. Parker (my english teacher in tenth grade) asked.

“Where do thoughts go?”

With this topic, I am hoping to interweave what I believe Mr.Parker meant by that question, my own thoughts on the topic, and some quotes from philosophers that pertain to the subject.

My design will be in four windows, modeled after the Johari Window.

I think my focus for the essay will be language and format. I want it to be poetic. I am not yet sure if I will just write it and present it as a lyrical essay standing on its own, or if i will add another medium to it. It will be a hybrid essay because of the interweaving, maybe not of stories themselves but of thoughts.

I am not sure about the title, but maybe I will call it ” A Dreamer’s Dream”, might be too corny. I usually title my writing either while I write or after, so it is bound to change, as is the format of the Johari Window. It might be difficult to implement all of this in one essay and I am not sure if it will work, but thats the idea.

For my final essay, I initially planned to expand on the same story that I covered for my second essay. I thought it would be fun to experiment with the structure and how I told it. But then I thought of a similar experience that might fit better for a lyric essay: My worst experience at the hair salon. It’s also a childhood experience, but this time I will talk about getting my hair pressed (straightened with a hot metal comb) for a party.

For this piece I really want readers to feel what I was feeling. I want them to experience the chaos and confusion of a cluttered salon, to react to the pointless gossip I was forced to hear, and to smell the filthy odor of burnt hair and cheap perfume in a salon with no windows. I want them to see what it’s like to be in a nine-year-old’s shoes, stuck in a high chair with a scalding hot comb against her scalp. I often say that words can’t describe how embarrassing and painful this experience was, but hopefully, this lyric essay will change that.

This fits into a lyric essay category because it will be very poetic, and it will depend a lot on imagery. I intend to use a lot of description for this, so I want the details to be really vivid. I want it to flow like a creative poem because I want it to have rhythm, so I’ll be experimenting a lot more in terms of the structure.

For now, I plan to go through the experience step-by-step and build up to the climax. To signify the shifts between each main point I might use paragraph breaks, but I’m still thinking of other options. And as for the length, I think it will be about 5 pages.

For lack of a better title, so far I’m thinking: Pressed to Kill

I witnessed a smile recently, a kind of smile that is still breathing in me. I also witnessed a cry few years ago, a kind of cry that is still bleeding in me. However, these two events have nothing to do with each other. One originated in Bangladesh and is the story of one of my best friends,and  the other one originated here is in New York and is the story of time. So these two somehow flow in my mind like two rivers flowing parallel side by side but have no common points whatsoever. For my lyric essay I am going to try to connect the two streams and see what color water is going to be after the merge. It could be yellow or orange or indigo or purple or green or gray or blue.

I don’t know what trajectory my essay will take on its way to the end. It’s a journey. Like every other journey my essay will certainly have an end, a destination, but I can’t tell how long it’ll travel through the wings of butterflies. I set my imagination on the wings.

I will call it ” Seven Colors of Butterflies.”

As empty as a ill-fitting tattered suit

As weak as two week old tea with the teabags still inside of the pitcher

Gathered together like a gaggle of geese headed Southwest

As rough as an uncut blood diamond, found in a gutter on the street, from a broken marriage

Trembling like a newly planted sapling in a drafty spring downpour

Praying like a terminal blood cancer patient

Bouncing like a king in his inflatable castle

Smiling like a cougar devouring its prey

Heart of a Tootsie pop

Mountains of freezer burned ice cream

War is eggshells

The ocean is simply the horizon line

The moon is a wheel of the bicycle of the daily cycle

My love is an ocean

Writing is everything and everywhere

Poem:

Smiling like a cougar devouring her prey

She turns praying like a terminal blood cancer patient

Hoping no one saw her in her house of hell

Eating her love is like an ocean.

As empty as a park in the dead of the night
As weak as a newborn
Gathered together like a pair of magents
As rough as sandpaper
Trembling like an ostrich who has spotted a lion
Praying like a mantis
Bouncing like the pavement below him was a trampoline
Smiling like a young girl opening her gifts Christmas morning

Heart of hardened steel
Mountains of granite arrowheads piercing the sky
War is the clash between two hopes that cannot coexist
The ocean is a turquoise explosion of life
The moon is a pockmarked prizefighter at the end of his ropes
This house of elaborate lies
My love is a dream that never slips away
Writing is blood and sweat transformed into ink