Category Archives: Uncategorized

Eden Goring Fro Blog

I thought the speech the author gave was interesting. I didn’t think that so much effort into writing a single novel. The way he uses his own family members and anecdotes is unlike anything I thought the author would have done. All though the lecture was rather long and vague I found the overall performance very informative. It made me think that maybe I could write a novel for a split second. Than I remembered I would never in a million years do anything like that. I really wish he gave more insight to the development of the story but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.

Hello, my name is Brandon Jimenez. I was born in Costa Rica on April 19^th, 1993. I moved to Long Island at age 15. It was my father’s dream to take us to the US back when he married my mom, but he did not live to see it come true. At age 8, my grandparent asked for my mom and her sisters to come to the US, but it did not happen until 7 years later. It was very hard at the beginning because my stepdad had trouble finding a good job; my family was struggling. After a confrontation with my stepdad I moved out and later moved in with my aunt and uncle. I love living with them, and after a couple of months my older sister moved in with us too. I have a 15 year old sister, 11 year old brother, and a 5 year old sister. I loved Southampton High School, it was great. At the beginning it was hard to get used to, but after my second year I started having lots of fun. I decided to come to Baruch because it is highly rank in business and business is my interest. It is cheap, and since I pay for my own tuition it is a plus. I did pretty well in school, so my scholarships really help me pay for it. I take a lot of care about my health and condition. I workout 6 hours a week or more, I play soccer on Fridays, volleyball in the summer, I ride bikes, run, eat very healthy stuff, and just take a lot of care with my physical shape. I love many genres of music, but house music is my absolute favorite. I have a careful eye for clothes and shoes. I love quality materials, and details in everything; I am a perfectionist. I am a speed fanatic, I love cars, bikes, and any type of engine powered vehicle. I like my jobs; I am a Barista at a coffee shop, and sometimes a manager at a gallery owned by my uncle. I want to be a business owner; I am not sure what kind of business. A coffee shop is something that I would like to own.

I thought the workshop was interesting, although I only read about half of the actual book. While I obviously didn’t understand many of the references he made, I liked how he was down-to-earth and eager to answer any questions we had. I did read SOME of the book, so the parts he mentioned that I knew about, I enjoyed. I really liked how he got the idea for the story – it’s very cool how one incident can spark inspiration and wind up becoming a best-selling novel. I want to be a writer, so I was very interested in the tips he gave and the points he made on his writing process itself, mainly the part about setting aside time to write, and becoming all-encompassed in your writing. That part spoke to me because, as a writer, it makes me seem less crazy for devoting time to working on finishing a piece.

It was very interesting. When the workshop started it seemed as if it was going to be worse than the workshop we attended before, but it was not. As he developed his presentation, I started to understand where he was going with it. I love reading because it  takes you to places you have not seen. And Brooklyn did that just well. I can connect myself with the plot in Brooklyn because I am also an immigrant that endured hard events; however, with a pretty successful story so far. It was great to see him talking about specific parts of the book because I am currently reading the book, and he mentioned a part that was a page behind my progress. I like fiction books, and his is pretty unique because it is based on a not complete true story. I would like to read a second part to it, it will be interesting.

First off, I wasn’t expecting much from the workshop. This is entirely due to the fact that the previous workshop just did not do it for me, so i set up this unconscious bias against any and all future workshops. However, the most recent workshop swayed my opinion.

Colm is a wonderful orator. He has excellent tone to his voice, which kept me interested to the point that i decided to pull out a notebook and write down a couple of memorable phrases of his. Admittedly, i didn’t read his book. I wikipedia’d the piece before the start of the lecture and found it to have a somewhat interesting plot. This enabled me to get just that little bit more into the presentation- i find it interesting that he wrote the book from a woman’s perspective. Brooklyn seems like it would be interesting, but in my heart of hearts i know i won’t get around to reading it anytime soon (or at all). His accent was a nice touch, though!

Hearing some insight into the novel “Brooklyn” was definitely a memorable experience. It was nice to connect a face to the story, and hear Toibin’s inspiration for writing this novel. Something I found interesting was that Toibin stayed in a friends home in Brooklyn while writing “Brooklyn”. To go all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to write a book shows alot of dedication. Even though Colm Toibin was rather dull, putting me to sleep, I appreciated the opportunity to delve into the mind of a prolific writer.

I personally found Brooklyn‘s language to be rather plain and dull. I did not enjoy it. However’ Colm Toibin did provide some interesting insight on his thought process. Being an Irish immigrant himself, it was quite a personal experience for him. He didn’t simply imagine himself in Brooklyn. He said he actually asked a friend of his in Brooklyn if he could use his house for the book. Toibin went to the house and placed characters in certain places. He said he even met the daughter of this woman he wrote about. I think this workshop was a very interesting experience.

The workshop was a great experience to hear directly from Colm Toibin the author who wrote our summer reading book “Brooklyn.” Rather than give a simple summary of the events that happened in the book he gave us very interesting insight into his past experiences and the motivation behind writing the book. He spoke about his own immigrant experience from Ireland to America that many in the room could relate through their own experience. I also found it interesting in how much research he conducted into the 1950 time period while writing the novel. One of the main messages that I took from the workshop was to always remember those who have helped you along the way to help you achieve. He often spoke about how he envisioned people who he knew very well going through experiences and how they would respond to certain events. He uses this to help write his novels. In fact the novel Brooklyn was based upon a true story in which a woman who lived in his village in Ireland traveled to the United States and married an Italian man from Brooklyn. The women attempted keep this marriage a secret but eventually everyone in the village found out. Hearing this story as a young child helped encourage Toibin to write the novel. All in all it was interesting.

Jerry Cheung

Honestly, it was a waste of time for everyone. The students showed little respect by talking, using their phones, and even their laptops. Some of the people that attended listened but were essentially there because they had to. I personally don’t think it was beneficial to anyone including the author who mindlessly talked about something no one cared about. It sounds tough and unappreciative of the event, however it is what I thought occurred during those hours. To the few who got something out of it, I applaud you for having in interest in what he was saying. However, for the rest of us, we really didn’t care. I also have reason to believe that many of the students didn’t read the book, I included.