Foot: Multigenre autobiography / pleasure reading

I have revived many nostalgic feelings inside myself while doing my multigenre autobiography. I am going to break it into sections according to the stages of my life (childhood, middle school, high school, and current) and when I look at how far I have come from my childhood I can't believe how many different shows, books, movies, music and people have had an impact on my development. I like to think of my self as an independent person who has shaped their own experiences, but this multigenre autobiography really has shown me how much myself and others are impacted by the culture we live in. I have also been in contact with my parents and lifelong friends to talk about this project, our different recollections of the past and what I was reading, watching or listening to has sparked some debate, perhaps we all like to remember the past in the way that brings us to peace with the present. This experience of reflecting on my past experiences with literature and pop culture and public discourse has been wonderful, when I become an English teacher I would most definitely assign a project like this to my class at the beginning of the semester or quarter. A project like this may not be academically rigorous, but it promotes self-reflection and will bring the student to a clear understanding of how they have become the person they are today. I believe the main objective of this assignment is to get the student to come to a self-realization of what has shaped them into their current person, it is a very worthwhile activity that should be encouraged in the schools.

During the summer and winter breaks I like to read, but while I am in school I have no time for pleasure reading ( I can only enjoy reading for about 2-3 hours a day, any more and it becomes work). However, the other night I was bored and had no homework so I picked up one of my collections of old short stories, this particular one was my Hemingway collection, and what I like to do is randomly run my finger across the index and whatever story my finger lands on I will read ( this is my lame attempt at fate directing me to great literature), this night my finger landed on The Three-Day Blow . This is one of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, Nick Adams is a very innocent impressionable adolescent that is the main character of a number of Hemingway short stories. The story was interesting, there wasn't any climax, but Nick and the other character give into their temptations at the very end by "getting really drunk". The main idea of the story (at least in my eyes) was about how our pasts always catch up with us and how some of us are destined to be like our ancestors.