Paper Daughter

Do not waste your time reading the rubbish that is the memoir Paper Daughter by M. Elaine Mar. First, most people should know that I think memoirs are shit to begin with.

Second: this memoir especially is SHIT. M. Elaine Mar, why the fuck do I want to listen to you complain to me for 292 fucking pages about how difficult your life has been because you are Chinese? Do you think I care? Do you think no one else has had it difficult? And moreover, did you ever stop to think that maybe your woes are not the fault of the United States, but the fault of your incredibly stupid parents as described in your shitty "book"?

Third: grow a pair of balls, M. Elaine Mar, and write fiction. Memoir writers are fiction writers without balls. Grow a pair and write a memorable, significant piece of fiction. Instead of telling the readers what the restaurant in your memoir represented, grow a pair of balls, write fiction, and make the restaurant symbolic of some bigger concept that you could have tackled through writing fiction, but instead pussy-footed around in your little, nice nice memoir.

Fourth: in case you didn't know, M. Elaine Mar, but Toni Morrison already did the "I'm a minority trying to live up to the white, blonde hair, blue eyes, Shirley Temple, American ideal" thing. It's called The Bluest Eye. Read it. It's a good novel.

Fifth: learn how to write. No reader enjoys whining, complaining, self-loathing. For example, on page 79, you write, "I was sick of being ugly and stupid and hated." Awww, sorry, M. Elaine Mar.

Sixth: on that same note, I don't know if you talk to other human beings about childhood, or if you thought it would be wise to do so before you decided to dedicate 292 pages to writing about childhood, but in case you didn't know, most people do in fact find childhood difficult. It's not just you! I was picked on too in elementary school. And middle school. It is nothing new, nothing special. Instead of telling the world for 292 pages about what it's like to be picked on as a kid, an experience that most people know about anyways, grow a set of balls and write something significant about childhood (ie, write fiction).

Seventh: your memoir explores nothing interesting or new. Every child has faced the issues you discuss in your memoir. To make these issues interesting and/or symbolic, you could have grown a pair of balls and written fiction, and created a piece of art that reaches out to the entire world, but no, instead you wrote a memoir, focusing only on yourself. Poor, poor you.

Ok I am done with my rant. That, people, is why I refuse to accept the memoir as a art form with any credibility.

50 words!?

So my writing teacher told us to pick a scholarly article and to do a "textual analysis." She said to start our "textual analysis" by summarizing the article in 50 words. 50 words? 50 words!? My first sentence (ONE sentence!) is 53 words. I hate obligatory writing classes. I hate this. My first sentence was, "In her article “Be(e)ing and ‘Truth:’ Tar Baby’s Signifying on Sylvia Plath’s Bee Poems,” Malin Walther Pereira asserts her claim that a critical reading Sylvia Plath’s Bee Poem sequence (a sequence consisting of five poems) through Tony Morrison’s ant colony metaphor in her novel Tar Baby shows Plath’s limited, white perspective on feminism." Do I really need to take a writing class with freshmen? PC said I didn't have to, but apparently at URI even English majors can't write.

Cold Weather

Ever notice the difference between the different types of cold weather?

Reductio Ad Absurdum

I haven’t updated in a wicked long time. I started classes. They’re going well. The usual blah blah blah. I’m enjoying my reading. Speaking of reading, I have to read Benito Cereno tonight, and then start Jane Eyre tomorrow. I also have to start Paper Daughter tomorrow. So much reading!

I like the writing I do for my advanced writing class, but I don’t like the class. I’m not going to say it’s “too happy” for me, because I don’t want to sound like a completely miserable person, but, well, it’s too happy. In this class, everyone is a winner. Everyone’s writing is wonderful, and everyone’s writing is a winner. I hate it, because it’s just not true. And I am not saying that to be stuck up because I think my writing is better than everyone else’s. I am saying that because when I read a piece of my writing out loud to the 11 other students in the class, I want feedback! I’m mad because I know my writing sucks! If my writing didn’t suck, I’d be a published author selling books at Barnes and Noble. But I’m not a published author selling books at Barnes an Noble, so my writing sucks! (my philosophy teacher would cream her pants over that deductive argument I just used in my journal entry!) Moreover, I want negative feedback so I know what to improve in my writing! In this class, when we read out loud to the class, the rest of the class is not allowed to respond or comment, because the teacher said, “I don’t want anyone responding or commenting, because if someone or some people respond more to one person’s writing and not as much to another’s, I don’t want that other person to feel like her writing is left out, or not as good.” I’m not in kindergarten anymore. I can handle criticism, and I can handle it when someone doesn’t like my writing. In fact, I really, really, really want to know when someone has a problem with something I wrote! I write (and all writer’s write) for an audience, whether the writer acknowledges it or not. Therefore, if the intended audience doesn’t understand what I am saying, or has ideas as to what I can improve, I definitely want to know! I am taking a writing class to improve my writing, not to have everyone hold my hand and say, “aww isn’t that nice?” Ok, that rant is done now.

I’m gonna order myself a pizza tonight, eat it, then pass the fuck out because I am so tired! I worked two shifts at Bagelz yesterday, then wrote a 5 page paper, then read half of a novel. I also went to class Tuesday 8-5 non-stop, then worked 5-10 Tuesday night, and went to class today 8-5. Fuckers!