A trip down essay lane

Okay, so granted it probably wasn't the best time to take one of these trips (while I was supposed to be studying), but have I ever claimed to have good time management skills?

Anyway, I was reading the latest posting on Blogger news, which reports that someone self-published (on CafePress.com, yay) the Best Of his blog. This in turn prompted me to go back and look at my archives (I know...so self-obsessed), starting from the beginning. And doing that, I remembered that I wanted to go back and look at all the English essays and etc. from over the years that I still have saved on my computer, and it was amazing -- not my writing, but the fact that I'd written stuff that I had no recollection of anymore. Isn't that a weird feeling?

Anyway, here are some of the more significant essays/assignments from the past:

Grade 10

• Chapter 1 of a Harlequin called Sunset Romance
• Literary essay on Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle
• A poem I wrote called "No Goodbye" (which I'm sure I thought was fairly good, at the time...)

Grade 11

• Apparently the only work I did in English Media class that year (that was worth preserving on my computer) is an argumentative essay supporting censorship (ohhh yeah. That was fun...)

Grade 12

• A comparative essay entitled "The Effects of Family Relationships on Sanity and Sense of Self in Fugitive Pieces and The Wars". Whoa...what is up with that title? What a doozy...
• Another comparative essay: "Two Hollywood Visions of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet". Hmm, I probably enjoyed writing that one...
• A presentation on Oscar Wilde's biographical influences on The Importance of Being Earnest

Grade 13

• An autobiographical essay, which I employed Susan to do some serious editing on. Or maybe she volunteered. *shrugs* At any rate, it needed editing, and she helped me out. :)
• "A Comparison Of Two Film Versions Of A Streetcar Named Desire Using The Aesthetic Standard"
• A "profile", which was supposed to encapsulate your memory of a certain place and how you view it now. I wrote about the bakery we used to go to and how odd it was to go back there after so long. It looked different, which might have had something to do with having a different perspective when you get older, or it may have been because they renovated the place...
• ISU Assignment: "The Handmaid's Tale Censorship Controversy: Feminism, Pornography, and the Freedom of Expression". I remember that one took quite a bit of research. Interesting project, though.
• A chapter of my life memoir, which I kind of forgot about until now. I called it "Friends Forever".

1st-year Uni

• "Disney Movies: Good for the Child's Soul", which my prof actually photocopied to show as an example to the rest of the class. :)
• An essay analysing the reasons why Watson, and not Sherlock Holmes, is the narrator of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories of the famous detective. I ran out of ideas for titles (having tapped out my creativity on that Fugitive Pieces and The Wars essay title), so naturally, I decided to call it "It's Elementary, My Dear Watson". So original.
• "The Representation of Women in The Rape of the Lock and The Yellow Wall-Paper" -- a tedious paper, as I recall trying to find several different ways I could say "male-dominated society" without being overly redundant. That said, though, I really enjoyed reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper for reasons that I no longer remember. Anyhoo, if you ever come across it, I'd recommend it.

2nd-year Uni

• "Beauty and the Beast" and "Donkeyskin": Beasts, Gender, and Society. In retrospect, I don't think I really much like writing about gender and society, but I got a lot of that in my university English courses, for some reason. Guess it's, like, sort of an important topic or something. But it does get a little dull to write about sometimes...
• "The Story of the Treasure Seekers and Swallows & Amazons: Rules, Regulations, Adults, and the Imagination". Now, this one was a lot of work, but it was fun/interesting enough because I enjoyed the novels the essay was about, particularly Swallows & Amazons, which I would also recommend. Kids' books rock.

And sadly, there ends my relationship with English classes as this year I need to take a Science elective to fulfill my program requirements. Astronomy (of the "no background in science required" sort) is interesting enough, and I don't miss the time and effort that needs to go into writing decent essays. ...Then again, I have plenty of assignments this year that take ridiculous amounts of time to complete, so comparing those essays, maybe writing essays wasn't so bad. Oh well. At any rate, I still have a half-year elective I have to choose for next year, and it "cannot be a MGT [Management/Commerce] course". Fine by me! I'm MGT'd out already, man. :)

All right, so there you have it; my history (from grade 10, anyway) with English essays and...um...one presentation? That's it? Hmm, wonder why I don't have my A Streetcar Named Desire presentation saved anymore. Bugger. It was pretty, too. Guess it's gone on to a better place....

Um, and on that loopy comment, I guess it's time for bed. This bloody post has taken me a stinkin' hour to compose. Good God, I'm stupid. I need to study... (Ha, and you thought I'd get through an entire post without whining about my work? Tsk tsk.)

Ttyal...I'm out. :)