The event that forever changed your life

[picklemonkey]

what was it?
could you write a 4-page paper about it?
would you read it aloud to your peers?
how would you keep it interesting to your peers?
what would the moral of your story be/what point would you work toward to close the paper?


my girlfriend has a paper due today that fit these criteria. she has been trying to work on it all week... she sat down yesterday at 6 to start, and woke me at 3:30 saying she had barely anything done because 'everything I write is stupid.'

she can get a 2-day extension on two of her papers... so i'm looking for quick suggestions on how she may be able to structure a paper. any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Wanni]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

I would talk about the first pill I ever took. Honestly.

[Dhar_2]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

thats what i thought. first pill!!

either way keeping people interested for 4 pages is gonna be hard.

obviuosly should review this event from the prespective, before, during and after. and dicuss any feelings that had changed or preconceptions dispelled.

[picklemonkey]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

that's what I said at 330 this morning.

"you're going to an art school. your peers and your teacher have all done drugs. just talk about the first rave you went to." we both grew up in small towns, then moved to Kansas City and realized how sheltered we were.

regardless of the event, how would you give the paper momentum? how would you close it? would there be a moral? what would you be trying to achieve in the writing? you can't just write to write and end it.

[Morgan]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

You should end with some conclusions on lessons learnt and that larger context of the paper, possible from a society / social viewpoint.

[picklemonkey]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

i understand that looking for some defined examples you guys might have so I can try to steer her in the right direction instead of waking again to her crying at 330 asking if I think she's stupid.

[RiseandShine]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

go the trippy way: explain how it opens up doors
seriously, take both positions: the subject and an external observer and go through the experience chronologically.
a life changing experience is the kind of thing you come out completely changed, just go through these changes one by ones and make the reader feel them.
it should go:
1. why you decide: fears and curiosity
2. last minute apprehension and excitement
3. understanding what's going on (or trying)
4. build up
5. living it - peak
6. down
7. back to normal
8. aftermath

[KinKyJ]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

waking again to her crying at 330 asking if I think she's stupid.

Hey, that's better than getting bitchslapped on v day, isn't it?

@ all those who said "first pill"... Damn, you have boring lives. How did that "forever changed your life"?

I'd go for first orgasm. Now THAT changed my life dramatically

[thesightless]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

finding my grandfather dying on his couch and trying to revive him for 5 minutes befoer the paramedics arrived. that honestly changed my perspective on life,health, and a lot more.

[unkownartist]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

i would say the first time i heard underground electronic music and i could write a fuckin book about it , i thought about the first pill i took as well but if its for a school thing then i think that would be unsuitable but u could introduce a paragraph or 2 about the drugs in dance music into the electronic music thing

[jarble187]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

finding my grandfather dying on his couch and trying to revive him for 5 minutes befoer the paramedics arrived. that honestly changed my perspective on life,health, and a lot more.

Death of a family member would of been my answer as well. When I lost my mother at 16, my life was dramitically changed forever. I could talk 4 pages easily about it, and wouldnt have a hard time sharing it either.

[unkownartist]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

she could do stuff about 9/11

[tiddles]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

i don't think i'd do the drug angle. writing about music/drugs is hard to do without sounding dumb (at least for me) but...
"we both grew up in small towns, then moved to Kansas City and realized how sheltered we were."
that might be a good thing to talk about...

she could do a fear and loathing sort of thing and talk about some crazy drug/club/music experience then lead into "but i never would have done that if i didn't move out of some backass redneck town".

so many things she could say about the transition/shock of city life: take dumb shit and turn it into a big deal:
differences in how people drive, the pace of life, how people talk, seeing more poverty in the city, more dumb foreigners, politics, nightlife, dogparks, public transportation...etc

end with how is going to explain her drug use when she runs for a public office or something

just be creative with it, last semester i had to do something like this and i wrote 4 pages about how i bought my first song from the iTunes store

[peloquin]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

moving from kent, england to portland, oregon when i was 13. been here ever since.

[88Mariner]

Re: The event that forever changed your life

Completion of Atlas Shrugged. Took me just over three days but, definitively speaking, it was the one event that changed everything.