This was my last English assignment...what am I supposed to post now?
Are You There, English? It's Me, Alex.
I’ve found that my first year of college has been full of clichés. I’ve lost and gained weight, stayed out all night, spent all night in the library. The biggest cliché that I’ve fulfilled during my freshman year is “finding myself.” Honestly, I never thought I lost myself. It’s not that I had a sudden realization and changed who I was, but there was a point in which I sat down and realized without a doubt who I am and who I want to be.
It started out as a typical Thursday: I went to my art class until five o’clock, then met up with some friends to get dinner. Something that wasn’t typical, though, was that I had been invited to go out later that night (not that I never get invited to go out; it’s just not too common). When I agreed to go out, I knew I had homework to do. I had assignments for economics and for English due the next day. Knowing this, I still didn’t take the initiative to get these things done before I went out, but I was responsible enough to write myself a little note to remind myself to do them when I got home. I had known about the English assignment all week: I was to write an autobiography. I’ve always considered my life boring, so I seriously thought all week about making up my entire life story.
I finally got to my dorm room at 4:30, fumbled for my keys and struggled to find the lock on my door. I got into my room and I couldn’t see a thing. After an initial panic from a going-blind-scare, I turned on the light. After being blinded once again, this time by the white light of heaven coming from my ceiling, I stumbled through the room. To make it to my desk, I had to hold onto everything, including my roommate’s bed and myself. I’m convinced my clumsiness came from the startling fluorescent light. What else could it have been? I finally fell into my desk chair and went to open my computer to get on Facebook. That’s when I noticed the pink sticky note that said “autobiography” on top of my laptop, no doubt left to encourage me to get straight to work instead of getting on Facebook. After about thirty minutes of hardcore Facebooking, I knew it was time to get some serious writing done.
At this point I was faced with a dilemma: I never decided how to write this paper. I fancy myself a writer, so I couldn’t just spit out a boring paper. At that point, I stood up to go get myself a drink and a thought hit me: I could use Reba McEntire’s song “The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia” as my life story. Or even better: “Fancy.” Honestly, I think that’s the funniest thing I have ever said and I didn’t even say it out loud. I laughed out loud at the thought of portraying myself as the murderer of my brother’s cheating wife or an eighteen year-old prostitute in a satin dancin’ dress. Ultimately, I decided against using both of those and realized that I should just make my own life sound interesting.
Making my life sound interesting was hard work. I ended up creating a childhood based on a book I had read by my favorite comedian, Chelsea Handler. I wrote that my parents had six kids, my dad was a used car dealer and I raised myself, none of which are true in my case. All the while, I was laughing at myself. After somewhat summarizing Chelsea’s childhood in the place of my own, I went back to my own life. At this point I figured that I’m witty enough to make anything interesting. As I wrote the rest of the story, I laughed at myself even more. I accused my middle school PE teachers of murder and criticized the Facebook generation. I even added the fact that I had considered using Reba McEntire songs. By the end of the second page (two page maximum), I was cracking myself up. I was so happy with what I had just done that I didn’t even proofread it; I immediately submitted it and went to bed.
The next morning, I had a break before my English class in which I went to breakfast with some friends. I was still proud of my autobiography, so I forced my friend Maggie to listen to it. As I read it to her, I relived all the humor from the night before and could barely make it through a sentence without laughing while Maggie was faking laughter because I told her how funny I thought it was – sweet of her, as always . I decided it might be a good idea to fix all the typos that had occurred in my 4:30 AM haze and resubmit the paper before class. When I got to class, I laughed to myself the entire time. I was expected to sit through lecture and listen, but every time my teacher said “think about your autobiography…” I had to hold my hand over my mouth to keep myself from laughing. I think the guy sitting in front of me heard a little bit. By the end of class I realized no one was going to read it. I have never been so disappointed.
Since I believed the world needed to read my autobiography, I posted it on Facebook when I got home. My friends who actually get my sense of humor thought it was funny, so I know now that I’m not the only one. Even my mom complimented it. I’m not sure why she read it, but she told me I’m a great writer. Honestly, I’m still laughing about it. This whole experience made me realize a few things: Top of the Hill leftovers are amazing at four AM, I can write a great paper when I’m in a pinch, and most of all, I am capable of being extremely entertaining.
The story that the autobiography told didn’t mean a thing to me. I didn’t care if the information was accurate or if I left out any part of my life; I just wanted it to be a good, entertaining read. It was then and there that my potential for being a writer started to show. I always thought I wanted to be a journalist. Sure, a journalist is somewhat of a writer, but journalists are all about dates, times, and other facts that are usually read as “blah, blah, blah” by anyone with a personality or an attention span short enough to be called a Generation Y-er. Apparently, an autobiography is supposed to contain facts like the day you were born, where you grew up and your weight and social security number. It never even crossed my mind to include those things. All I could think about was making this paper entertaining.
I don’t think I realized it at the time what all this meant. Again, I never thought I was lost, so I was never looking to find myself. I was just writing what was in my head. It wasn’t until I forced myself to analyze my story – i.e. writing this paper – that I saw such potential. Now, as I go on through the rest of my college years making C’s and D’s on papers, I’ll always know that there is a part of me that can write a decent paper. The part of me that can write a paper may not be able to correctly cite sources, recite facts or analyze American history, but it can tell a damn good story. Even if that’s all I’m good for, I’m happy with it. I’m going to continue on my path to being a journalist – not because it’s what I want to do, but because it’s what’s best for me to do. I can’t go my whole life hoping to become a successful writer for fear of living in a shitty apartment eating food out of a can and bussing tables just knowing that my “big break” is coming with my next novel. In the future when I conclude a hard-hitting piece on corrupt politics or close out my national evening news show, I will always know that there is a writer suppressed by all those “blah, blah, blah’s.”
