Letter to Will

Gene F. Brady Jr.
ENG 200 01L
8/31/05

Dear Will,

I’m not all that enthusiastic on the idea of cyberspace. Learning about the bad things that happen there, like losing your identity, people trying people’s checking account numbers, and funding for terrorism on the net! I think cyberspace an easier way to do crime, like asking a stranger to me you somewhere and the next day there’s a report on “A Girl Miss Near Park” or something like that. Also, it’s easy for kids today to look up pornographic pictures or get a hold of pornographic pictures without paying for it, and nasty people, putting child pornography on the net. Crimes are happening and no one is stopping these kinds events from happening. Recently, I was a victim of identity fraud three weeks ago because of an offer that was offered to me through the Internet. Someone or some “company” got a hold of my credit number and kept charging me for what I previously bought on the web. Its ailing, on how people can get into your computer from event another country or state, and ruin your life.

Based on my personal desires, I want to be a harder worker than I am. I believe in some of the past English classes that I have taken, I could have worked a lot harder. I’m a person of great integrity. Strong minded, sometimes not in the likely sense when I get mad or faced with an unlikely situation that’s not favoring of. I don’t get mad very often, but when I do, I tend to blow up. I can confess that I have an obsession for things being orderly. I have this crazy idea, that everything has an order to it, like putting dishes in the dishwasher in which they can fit; packing boxes into a car or van so that everything can fit. I don’t believe in wasting space. I believe that everything has a place. I hate being rushed into doing things, and being late on handing in a paper, paying someone money, or going somewhere in a car. I like that saying, “It’s better to be safe, than sorry!” I want to learn to become a better writer, and I want to improve on my strengths and weaknesses.

Some of the strengths and weaknesses that I have as a writer tend to put restrain on my capability as a writer. By looking back on some of the classes I took for English, I knew that I had problems with my grammar and structure, and I don’t really do much to improve on it. I was embarrassed to look over some of the work I’ve done. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t even ask the teacher for extra help. There was something else that was weighting me down, my reading disability.

I hated the fact that I had that labeled upon me. I didn’t want to believe it. Living with a problem that I didn’t believe in. I thought to myself, “I was fine in middle school, getting A’s in writer’s lab and language arts.” Everyone I thought, in the way, was kind of putting me down. My parents made me take classes in high school that I didn’t want to take, one’s with helpers. I thought it was bullshit. I know that they were there to help me, but I wanted to feel normal, I wanted to be in a regular class, with regular kids. It was hard for me to accept my disability.

During my first three semesters in college, my parent’s thought the extra help with the DRO would help me, but I felt that it didn’t. The weekly meetings with the DRO Specialist once a week, the time spent was worth nothing, because all I was getting from them was negative feedback. It’s hard when someone tells you to your face, that you have to this or that, or you’re not going to amount to nothing. I know that no one wanted to be cut down by anyone. I regret my lack of effort towards the people in my life that wanted to help me. I know now that, what happen to me, happened for a reason. I felt like that experience made me stronger to want to try harder. I think the best thing that someone said to me in college is, “Just keep on writing Gene, that’s the only way your going to get better.” I believe I was at my last one-on-one meeting with my poetry-writing teacher Jeff Mock, during the spring of 2003.

It wasn’t until my 2003 fall semester, when I really started getting into reading. I really didn’t have a big interest in reading novels, ones with more then 300 plus pages. That all change with I got into English 217, the political imagination, with professor Cynthia Stretch. During the semester, the first two novels that the class had to read were, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood and Kiss of the Spiderwoman, by Manuel A. Puig. At first, I wasn’t all excited about reading novels, but when I started reading those particular books I was hooked. I fell in love with the novel Kiss of the Spiderwoman, by Manuel A. Puig. When I started getting deeper into the stories, reading that particular book, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, the words started to take me in like if I was in a movie. I could see what the characters in the book could see, by each small, tiny description that Manuel A. Puig laid out for me. I could start to feel the emotions, the drama, and their pain that the characters were experiencing. I felt like I was there with them, going through their agony and struggles. Reading became my newfound obsession. I wanted to keep on reading, because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I felt, in-a-way for the first time, that the character’s struggles became my own. Reading started to become fun!

Whatever I get myself into, I want the experience to be worth wile like the time spent during my years in college with my friends and advocators. I respect and honor the aspects of what’s contained in the syllabus. As a teacher, you explained what you wanted and what you aspect out of the class very skillfully. It’s not the longest English syllabus that I had seen, but it offers a great deal of important information that this class needs to know to get through this semester. I know that this paper exceeds over three pages, but I wanted to speak to you from my heart. I want to be more serious about writing, and think this class will help me find my self-intellect. I’m definitely interested in what this class has to offer, and excited to know what we can learn from this experience this semester. I’m a person that wants to work hard to achieve goals in life, and I thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Gene F. Brady Jr.