The short answer is that my Advanced Creative Writing professor assigned the class a "professional development" project.
But, that still doesn't answer the question about how I got here, on this blog, discussing pedagogy, quotations, anecdotes, witticisms, best (or worse) teacher practices, or literature. (That last one's the kicker.)
In the summer of 2007, shortly after I just finished my 120th credit at Washington State University, I went back home somewhere in the depths of southwestern North Dakota to live with the parents (how cliche) before heading off to the Real World (not the MTV show) to get my butt kicked and then subsequently smeared onto the lonely sidewalks of Minneapolis, MN. With no one my age lurking around town anymore and my mom, step-dad, and little brother controlling the brain-rotting television, I picked up a book.
Up to this moment, I despised books with almost every fiber of my being. It wasn't because I struggled with reading, I was actually a relatively good reader, I comprehended [most] of what I read when I actually did read my textbooks, I enjoyed the creative writing sections in English classes, and I was antsy for the start of One-Act play and speech competitions. I simply hated being told to read something and when to read it. I hadn't had the opportunity to pick up a book for pleasure. Weirdly enough, however, I liked roaming around Barnes and Noble's shelves inhaling that "new book" odor, riffling through the theatre section, and looking at quotations books.
My mom, an avid reader, had a plethora of mismatched bookshelves lining the basement walls filled with hardcover books she had acquired over the years. My older sister read, cataloged, and shelved her copies of The Babysitter's Club books. My younger half-brother was also gaining quite the little library of Animorphs and other sci-fi books, too. It was apparent that I hadn't picked up the "reading gene" from my mother like my siblings had. This didn't bother me though. Reading was for the weak, the geeks, and the people who had no real-life friends and depended on the characters in books to fill that void.
Imagine my mother's surprise when, years later just after her middle child had just graduated college, I was caught red-handed. It was obviously a shock to her system because as she looked into my eyes after I lowered the lime-green covered book she said, "Kelsey?! Are you really reading a book?"
I fumbled over the words as I tried to mentally find an excuse: "There's nothing good on TV," "Carter sucks at life and I don't wanna hang out with him," "At least it's not a Playboy?" None of these were going to work, so I just muttered the truth, "Because there's nothing else to do and this book is too good to put down."
She looked at me quizzically and just said, "I never thought I would see the day where you are reading when you don't have to."
It was true. Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being A Wallflower introduced me to not-sucking literature. At that point, I wasn't quite sure how Perks would play into my life, but it didn't take long to figure it out.
While I was a theatre student at Wazzu, I shortly contemplated double majoring in English education so I could teach theatre and speech. This ambition was short lived because beer pong, theatre rehearsals, and Nintendo's "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" ruled my life. I realized that I wasn't going to read literature forced upon me by professors if I could simply drink enormous amounts of Mountain Dew and Orange Soda while traveling the globe in search of Ms. San Diego!
However, after getting my butt handed to me by Real Life, receiving two rejection letters from graduate schools (one I hadn't even applied to!), I realized the thought of living in a cardboard box, scraping up pennies to buy a package of Ramen, and doing everything short of prostitution to pay back my looming student loans, I thought about The Perks of Being A Wallflower and my original intention of getting my English education degree. Within a few days, I re-evaluated my life's ambitions and goals.
Once admitted into North Dakota State University, I filled my semesters up to this point with credits ranging from linguistics, oral interpretation, and American Literature. While I still struggle with reading all of my assignments, I've come to finally appreciate literature. Now, when I walk through Barnes and Noble, I catch myself saying, "I need to read that."
Since reading The Perks of Being A Wallflower, I've not only riffled through more books, I've actually read them. Charlie, the book's protagonist, is given a list of classic books from his AP English teacher, Bill. Dave, my favorite person ever, gave me a majority of these books as a gift. So far, I've read Catcher in the Rye, Hamlet, and have started Walden. I often find myself religiously reading MSN and Yahoo! news articles. Some of these articles end up giving me a new perspective on teaching or creative writing so I'll email them to myself. Because email is a life-sucking black hole of doom, I don't have a system to keep the articles organized. And, this is where this blog comes into play.
That, in a nutshell, is how I've come to here. From a hatred of literature, The Perks of Being A Wallflower made me realize how much I want to become a teacher.
I just needed a fictional character in a book to fill in the void.
In the summer of 2007, shortly after I just finished my 120th credit at Washington State University, I went back home somewhere in the depths of southwestern North Dakota to live with the parents (how cliche) before heading off to the Real World (not the MTV show) to get my butt kicked and then subsequently smeared onto the lonely sidewalks of Minneapolis, MN. With no one my age lurking around town anymore and my mom, step-dad, and little brother controlling the brain-rotting television, I picked up a book.
Up to this moment, I despised books with almost every fiber of my being. It wasn't because I struggled with reading, I was actually a relatively good reader, I comprehended [most] of what I read when I actually did read my textbooks, I enjoyed the creative writing sections in English classes, and I was antsy for the start of One-Act play and speech competitions. I simply hated being told to read something and when to read it. I hadn't had the opportunity to pick up a book for pleasure. Weirdly enough, however, I liked roaming around Barnes and Noble's shelves inhaling that "new book" odor, riffling through the theatre section, and looking at quotations books.
My mom, an avid reader, had a plethora of mismatched bookshelves lining the basement walls filled with hardcover books she had acquired over the years. My older sister read, cataloged, and shelved her copies of The Babysitter's Club books. My younger half-brother was also gaining quite the little library of Animorphs and other sci-fi books, too. It was apparent that I hadn't picked up the "reading gene" from my mother like my siblings had. This didn't bother me though. Reading was for the weak, the geeks, and the people who had no real-life friends and depended on the characters in books to fill that void.
Imagine my mother's surprise when, years later just after her middle child had just graduated college, I was caught red-handed. It was obviously a shock to her system because as she looked into my eyes after I lowered the lime-green covered book she said, "Kelsey?! Are you really reading a book?"
I fumbled over the words as I tried to mentally find an excuse: "There's nothing good on TV," "Carter sucks at life and I don't wanna hang out with him," "At least it's not a Playboy?" None of these were going to work, so I just muttered the truth, "Because there's nothing else to do and this book is too good to put down."
She looked at me quizzically and just said, "I never thought I would see the day where you are reading when you don't have to."
While I was a theatre student at Wazzu, I shortly contemplated double majoring in English education so I could teach theatre and speech. This ambition was short lived because beer pong, theatre rehearsals, and Nintendo's "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" ruled my life. I realized that I wasn't going to read literature forced upon me by professors if I could simply drink enormous amounts of Mountain Dew and Orange Soda while traveling the globe in search of Ms. San Diego!
However, after getting my butt handed to me by Real Life, receiving two rejection letters from graduate schools (one I hadn't even applied to!), I realized the thought of living in a cardboard box, scraping up pennies to buy a package of Ramen, and doing everything short of prostitution to pay back my looming student loans, I thought about The Perks of Being A Wallflower and my original intention of getting my English education degree. Within a few days, I re-evaluated my life's ambitions and goals.
Once admitted into North Dakota State University, I filled my semesters up to this point with credits ranging from linguistics, oral interpretation, and American Literature. While I still struggle with reading all of my assignments, I've come to finally appreciate literature. Now, when I walk through Barnes and Noble, I catch myself saying, "I need to read that."
Since reading The Perks of Being A Wallflower, I've not only riffled through more books, I've actually read them. Charlie, the book's protagonist, is given a list of classic books from his AP English teacher, Bill. Dave, my favorite person ever, gave me a majority of these books as a gift. So far, I've read Catcher in the Rye, Hamlet, and have started Walden. I often find myself religiously reading MSN and Yahoo! news articles. Some of these articles end up giving me a new perspective on teaching or creative writing so I'll email them to myself. Because email is a life-sucking black hole of doom, I don't have a system to keep the articles organized. And, this is where this blog comes into play.
That, in a nutshell, is how I've come to here. From a hatred of literature, The Perks of Being A Wallflower made me realize how much I want to become a teacher.
I just needed a fictional character in a book to fill in the void.
Delightful, Kelsey! You had me chortling. Yes, chortling! Keep writing! I look forward to many more chortle-inducing posts. Mazel tov!
ReplyDeleteA.
Wow that was amazingly interesting.... Though I have to say "Catcher in the Rye" is an evil, cinical book. In simple nice terms a broken story. It went no where and had no point other then everyone is a phony.
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