In this paper I collaborated with two other students, whose work I admire: Kylie White and Arthur Gandy. We all have an array of different schedules so planning time to work together face to face was difficult. Thank God for technology. Kylie was able to create a Google doc to where we could work at the same time or independently. Art is home during the day with his children while Kylie and I are at work so some of our time was spent during these hours creating ideas and speaking through text. Art and I spent a few hours working on it during a Saturday. He worked on the background portion as I worked on the mental health section. Kylie created a thesis statement that conveyed the idea that took us four days to come up with. With the topic of gun control, so many avenues can be taking and between the three of us the amount of research obtained was frankly overwhelming. We texted late night, early morning, and throwing ideas each other’s way periodically throughout the day. It was exhausting trying to keep up with all three of our thought processes. We did compromise with the mental health and what we saw as a vision. I myself thought more firmly with mandating, but information researched by Art that changed my view. I do not think we struggled as most may with writing one perspective from three individuals. Most of our thoughts were already at the same pace. Kylie and Art are the two people I run to in class when I question my work and receive honest, thoughtful feedback. I was lucky to be asked to work on this paper with them, and look forward to future collaborations.
Memoir:
My memoir assignment was difficult. Professor M. told me with my extensive blogging I would have so much information this assignment would be cumbersome. As a matter of fact it was. I went through each section of my blogs, copy and pasted them into a word document and re-read every one of them. I was looking for that moment that my writing already displayed visual details. So the bulk of the showing writing was already done. I found my moment while doing my found poetry assignment. I highlighted it then moved on to finish one assignment at a time. I revisited my reflection week 4 several times. I remembered how much emotion I was generating during a time of high stress. How embarrassed I was for showing my emotions to others, even if it was my husband, and crying uncontrollably. I chose that moment because I had passion while writing, but still reserved the imagery of my feelings. I took a risk by expanding that dark time I went through, and opening up to show others how it truly felt from the inside out. Going back and elaborating took me in my mind to a time that I was broke and felt unfixable. As I concluded the paper I realized how valuable time with my family was. Stepping away from life’s daily routine, with the ones I love the most, saved me from a deeper, darker path. I am happy I chose to write about this moment because I got it out in words, understood the full timeline before I busted open, and found my fix with my loved ones.