Week One- Introduction

Hello all, my name is Andrea Carter. I’m the girl with all the tattoos, if that helps your memory.  I am a transplant from Berkeley.  Last May when I was 19 I graduated from Laney College (a community college) in Oakland with my AA.  I’m a 20 year old junior here at CSUN and I am an English major, with my focus on creative writing.  I’ve been in Northridge for about four months (give or take) and have experienced quite a lot of culture shock to say the least. I am used to the beautiful Bay Area, where public transportation is not a joke and restaurants are good.  I come from a magical place that has street fairs, community gardens, and pillow fights in the middle of downtown.  I now live in a strip mall with no culture.

I have been serving and cocktailing my way through college thus far and waiting on people, old and young, rich and poor, sober and drunk, has fueled much of my outlook on life, as well as my writing.  Learning how different people act in public is eye opening.  My theory on waiting tables is to never assume you have earned anything. Sure, business men who pay on the company AMEX almost always leave 18% or more. But, if you take a stereotype for granted, you may be surprised as to how quickly that assumption will prove itself wrong.

My theory that I have developed from waiting tables has leaked into my theory when it comes to literature.  Make no assumptions, wait until the end to see what is there.  I often find myself having to push through works to get to the end just so that I can confirm my assumptions or figure out the message of what I just read.  I try to absorb what’s going on in a text as much as I can and reserve judgment until the end.  I also found that when I’m doing required reading, I sometimes have to take notes on what I just read so I actually can reiterate to myself what’s going on.  That typically only happens when reading is particularly dense, but I find that it helps.

Anyway, that is my theory on how to absorb and grasp literature.  I had to take some time to decide what my theory is.  On the first day of class, I wasn’t sure what to make of the question ‘what is your theory?’.  In fact, when writing out my introduction page, I wrote that my theory was to “live every week like it’s shark week.” To some extent, I suppose that is my life theory.  Life should be about excitement, looking forward to excellent events, and avoiding danger.  My theory, now that I think about it, is also based on not relying on a theory.  My theory is typically to go into things with an open mind and to not judge until the situation has played itself out. That being said, I have heard a strong rumor that English 436 is notoriously the most difficult English class.  I am trying not to take that too much to heart, and remain positive throughout the course.  And by that, I mean I will be desperately burning the midnight oil to keep up and work incredibly hard.

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