I had always assumed that my talents in relation to writing had a relatively mediocre limit, a “glass ceiling” of sorts. All my early literary efforts resulted in collapse and a greater distaste for writing. For me, writing was like trying to catch sand slipping through my fingers: never attainable. I remember a much smaller version of myself sitting down with a freshly sharpened pencil, extra-wide lined paper, and leave engulfed in eraser shavings. The beginning of the story would always start off promising, but no longer than twenty minutes into writing, I would realize that my story had no conceivable ending and needed to be immediately shredded. Soon after I broke my shredder, I decided that in my life, I would be able to write well.
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Jones and I would be disappointed if it did not end the same way. At the age of five, I was sure of two things: first that Junie B. Jones was my idol, and second that I loved to read. My mother was prohibited from leaving my bedroom until I felt satisfied that I heard enough about the fourth grader’s outrageous escapades for one night. My proclaimed love of reading soon dwindled as I grew older and was limited to the required reading for school. This was until I read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. It brought about a zeal for reading that I had never experienced before. I will never forget Lee’s messages that are so simple but sometimes overlooked. It occurred to me that there was other books out there that could conceivably be as good as To Kill a Mockingbird and I wanted to find them. There is so much to be learned from the thoughts of others, like Lee’s message of tolerance, “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks” She was able to tackle centuries of prejudice in just one sentence. She strips the issue down the most rudimentary of terms, and provides a solution: accept each other as human beings. Presented in a straightforward, understated way reveals how easy it should be for everyone to …show more content…
“Before my time” meaning the 90’s. Armed with an iTunes gift card and an electric purple iPod nano, I was ravaging through the music of the entire decade, one girl-band and grunge group at a time, when I encountered the heavy sounds of “Nirvana”. Convinced it was the greatest thing ever, and after listening to “Smells like Teen Spirit” an unhealthy amount of times, Kurt Cobain became a god. Obsession-fueled research about him led me to reading his suicide note, addressed to his childhood imaginary friend, he wrote before taking his own life at the age of 27. Despite being the most heartbreaking thing I had ever read, I recognized an art form all its own in the way Cobain composed it. It was not difficult to understand, but every sentence appeared to be so deliberate and purposeful, “I have a goddess of a wife who sweats ambition and empathy and a daughter who reminds me too much of what I used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm.” He was able to make the words bleed emotion and just like most who read it, I was acutely aware of them. It was not that I praised his actions, but it was his subtle genius within the language of the note that floored me. It was the first time I saw language used in that way, albeit destructively but also articulately. Because of it, I took less
Jones and I would be disappointed if it did not end the same way. At the age of five, I was sure of two things: first that Junie B. Jones was my idol, and second that I loved to read. My mother was prohibited from leaving my bedroom until I felt satisfied that I heard enough about the fourth grader’s outrageous escapades for one night. My proclaimed love of reading soon dwindled as I grew older and was limited to the required reading for school. This was until I read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. It brought about a zeal for reading that I had never experienced before. I will never forget Lee’s messages that are so simple but sometimes overlooked. It occurred to me that there was other books out there that could conceivably be as good as To Kill a Mockingbird and I wanted to find them. There is so much to be learned from the thoughts of others, like Lee’s message of tolerance, “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks” She was able to tackle centuries of prejudice in just one sentence. She strips the issue down the most rudimentary of terms, and provides a solution: accept each other as human beings. Presented in a straightforward, understated way reveals how easy it should be for everyone to …show more content…
“Before my time” meaning the 90’s. Armed with an iTunes gift card and an electric purple iPod nano, I was ravaging through the music of the entire decade, one girl-band and grunge group at a time, when I encountered the heavy sounds of “Nirvana”. Convinced it was the greatest thing ever, and after listening to “Smells like Teen Spirit” an unhealthy amount of times, Kurt Cobain became a god. Obsession-fueled research about him led me to reading his suicide note, addressed to his childhood imaginary friend, he wrote before taking his own life at the age of 27. Despite being the most heartbreaking thing I had ever read, I recognized an art form all its own in the way Cobain composed it. It was not difficult to understand, but every sentence appeared to be so deliberate and purposeful, “I have a goddess of a wife who sweats ambition and empathy and a daughter who reminds me too much of what I used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm.” He was able to make the words bleed emotion and just like most who read it, I was acutely aware of them. It was not that I praised his actions, but it was his subtle genius within the language of the note that floored me. It was the first time I saw language used in that way, albeit destructively but also articulately. Because of it, I took less