Monthly Archives: November 2012

Baruch has a lot of different resources located on campus that are available to every student, such as Starr Career Center and Sacc Tutoring Center. The one that I found the most helpful is the Writing Center on 8^th floor. Tutors in the Center help with writing papers and improve student’s writing skills. Every tutor has, at least, Masters degree in English or Journalism and some even have Doctorate degrees. It’s always a good idea to schedule an appointment at the Center as early as possible because sometimes, especially during finals week, it becomes impossible to find any available spots. It’s a great resource that everyone should definitely visit sometime during their time at Baruch.

I really liked the book “Brooklyn”. After meeting Colm Toibin I can say that i like it even more since now I know the fascinating story was true even if partially. I liked how casually and interesting the author spoke to us. It didn’t feel like a meting with the famous person at all, more like a casual conversation. The fact that he wrote a book about an imaginary story about his mother made me laugh. He has a descent imagination.

It was a great event.

I found Colim Toibin addressing us very interesting, I never really met and saw an author that I read a book from. I also found it interesting the way he was inspired on writing the book “Brooklyn” and his inspiration for the book and what he was thinking while he was writing it and the fact that he used many stories that he had heard and saw while he was a child to write his book. I also found it very interesting how he tried to compare our lives to the book by explaining the similarities when moving away from home and living by yourself. I found it very interesting how he was talking about his differences in America then Ireland, and really showed the differences between the two different cultures and lifestyles, such as his example of watching a baseball game and having no idea what was going on.

Col Tobin’s visit to Baruch college was an intersting experience as well as a rare opportunity to get up close and personal with a renowned author.This was my first experience in actually personally seeing an author. There were many interesting points he made in his speech. In his speech he mainly discussed his background of his life, his inspirations for the book “Brooklyn” which was our text for freshman seminar as well as some of his motivations toward this book and analogies that relate to thus book as a whole. The main points addressed about his background were basic, he was born in a small town in Ireland, experienced many travels before he became an author, his many of these trips inspired many of his works nonetheless.The points addressed about his inspirations toward this novel were mainly focused on his Irish background as well as some people he met. He stated that a woman he met claims that this book is about her mother. His main motivations in writing this novel was mainly concentrated again on his Irish heritage as well as his research on cultural norms of Irish Americans in the 1950’s. The analogies he made for the book mainly focused on examples of social and cultural norms of Irish Americans nonetheless. Overall most of Tobin’s subjects addressed in hsi speech clearly related to the novel Brooklyn in some way.

Overall I found Tobin’s speech interesting since he gave additional interesting information related to our Freshman seminar text. I learned that many of his inspirations were based on experience while some were based on research. I learned about his strong attachment to his Irish heritage as well. There were also some parts of the speech that were more uninteresting such as many of the analogies he made toward to book as well as his sections that had little relation to the novel as well. I also had some trouble understanding certain parts due to his accent. But overall I can say that Colm Tobin’s speech was a very informative one.  learned many different ideas and inspirations about his life and the novel. I appreciate the opportunity I had to get up close and personal with a well known author.

*Clears throat* Ahem. Right, I’m not exactly sure how to start… but whatever. Maybe I should start with something about myself… yes, that should work. Hmm. Let’s see here… ah!

All right, long story short, I’m someone who’s still trying to discover my talents. I’ve tried a lot of things. Long distance running, basketball, tennis, cooking, video games, arguing, debating, writing, taekwondo, kendo, acting, beat boxing, singing, public speaking…oh, the list goes on and on. But see, there’s something I gained from trying all these different sports and such. That is, skills are something you develop while talent is something that makes gaining skill easier.

Oh wait, you probably knew that. Probably. Ok, let me try something else. By myself, I’m a pretty quiet guy. I might make a witty comment or two sometimes, but yeah, I’m a pretty generally pretty quiet. However, I’m glad I get chances like this to express myself a bit. Heh.