"I am predisposed to the essay with knowledge to impart- but, unlike journalism, which exists primarily to present facts, the essays transcend their data, or transmute it into personal meaning. The memorable essay, unlike the article, is not place-or time- bound; it survives the occasion of its original composition. Indeed, in the most brilliant essays, languages is not merely the medium of communication; it is communication." - Joyce Carol Oates.I am struck by this essay in a myriad of ways. I usually want my writing to be remembered, but there are the occasional pieces I think are utter crud, and want nobody to even think about! My LAS paper last semester is an excellent example of a paper I don't want remembered! It was crap, and I know it, but I just didn't want to do anything to fix it. I managed to throw that paper together in 36 hours. Which, I know, you aren't supposed to do with term papers, but I kept getting so frustrated when I took a thesis to him and he said no. Every thesis I had was rejected. So, I finally asked him for one, and, amazingly enough, managed to receive a workable one out of him. My problem, he hated it after I turned it in. I swear the man had it in for me.
Other essays of mine I hope are remembered for an eternity, or as long as a person has their memory. My extemporaneous one's from speech are an excellent example of what I want remembered. I loved extemporaneous speaking, and I was GOOD at it! I made it to state my Senior year. But, I went over time. In extemp, that is very hard to do!
I guess I better explain extemporaneous speaking, if you don't understand it. What we do in Extemp is go up to an official, when it is our assigned turn, and draw three topics. We can read the topic and choose which one we would like to do and put the other two back away. Once we return to our seat, the fun begins! We have one hour to write a 5-7 minute speech about our topic, and they are nothing easy. For state speech, I had a question that went along this line: Is the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations (ASEAN) becoming more like the European Union (EU)?" We can use what ever sources we brought with us, provided they are hard copy, and our mind. We are not allowed to use any electronics in there whatsoever! But, man was it fun. After our hour, we went to our designated rooms and gave our speech.
Once that was over, we waited to do it all over again, for a total of two times, three if you made it into State.
