I also really enjoyed Dan Harris's 10% Happier, and really think that it influenced me to set out to write about the anxiety and other struggles surrounding being so close to the collegiate finish line. He discusses stress and his journey to being more at peace with the (asshole) voice inside his head so elegantly. I would love to look at what moves he makes rhetorically to do this without looking like a psycho with an anxiety disorder.
Right now Yes Please and 10% Happier are where I am starting with my mentor texts. I am sure this collection will grow by the end of the semester, but at least it is a start.
Right now Yes Please and 10% Happier are where I am starting with my mentor texts. I am sure this collection will grow by the end of the semester, but at least it is a start.
I'm excited to see the direction your project will take. My excitement is in part because your project seems the most similar in scope to my own, but is also driven by my desire see what Amy Poehler and Tina Fey's love child might look like.
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ReplyDeleteYou might take a look too at Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety - it's self-deprecating and brutally honest, and pretty funny too, in its starkness. What you're producing wouldn't be a novel - since it's non-fiction - but I'm just quibbling over a word there :)
ReplyDeleteKEEP GOING!
ReplyDeleteI feel like a football coach on the sideline:
ReplyDeleteGO GO GO!
Cicily:
ReplyDeleteThe least interesting thing up here so far is the outline! I say that because I don't think it's going to be the piece that drive you as you move forward - what will drive you, and what is interesting, is the way you begin to get at and explore the anxieties that are both easy to empathize with (in some cases) and deeply personal - there is something important that might come out of this, both as a text and in terms of some of the type of reflection that it offers you.
You said at the beginning of the semester that you want a deep experience in revision, and if you want that, you simply have to produce more - you have to have a document, a nice full piece of writing, that you can sit down and question and doubt - so far you haven't gotten this going. Stop not writing it - even the outline is a distraction from the writing. Let the dishes sit for a while, put off the next episode of whatever, and write!
Well? What are you waiting for?
Cicily,
ReplyDeleteYou've got a really neat writing style that does you credit and lends itself well to your topic. The self-deprecation and humor you present we have talked about in class and I just want to re-iterate, is definitely one of your strengths. I find it quite fascinating that even in your outline your voice is really clear and distinctive - "Dad called in the middle of the day? Anxiety. Get out of bed? Anxiety." - In fact, your outline almost feels like just another piece of your overall project. You are dealing with some really sensitive issues with our age group, our generation, so it is especially pertinent, but I think a lot of these things apply accross generations. The anxiety, for example, caused by the success of other people, whether in their careers (teaching English in Nepal), their personal lives (friends getting married and having babies), working out, Facebook, I'm willing to bet that these anxieties aren't going to end with our departure from our twenties. It would also be interesting to look into some of these things from a research perspective. I'm pretty sure some stuff has come out recently about how Facebook and the like can be extremely detrimental to one's mental health for precisely this reason - the comparison that occurs between one's bad moments and 'behind the scenes' awareness to the best moments and pictures from another's life, and the anxiety that results from that comparison.
Anyway, I like what you've got up so far!
Analisa