5 Essays Judged by the First Few Lines

Noise (Seneca) p.5
Hateful Things (Sei Shonagon) p.24
A Piece of Chalk (G.K. Chesterton) p.249
This Too is Life (Lu Hsun) p.326
Meatless Days (Sara Suleri) p.459

Change

XI. The Personal Essay as Mode of Thinking and Being (42-45). Would you describe yourself as someone who is open to a radical change in your life right now?

I would like to be because I know that change is an ongoing process of life, but I have a tendency to be stubborn and stuck in my ways. Once I do change, I am always fond of the sense of accomplishment.

Introverted

II. Honesty, Confession, and Privacy (xxv-xxvii). Would you describe yourself as a private person or do you tend to be more of an "open book"?

I would definitely consider myself a private person, and experience levels of social anxiety on a daily basis. It is a slow process for me to choose what to reveal about myself, but I try to put a lot of thought into it. I do try to exert a certain level of sincere honesty in everything I do. I want to sound legitimate and educated. My biggest fear in writing is revealing personal ignorance, weakness, or ineffectiveness. I do feel a certain level of confession when I write, therefore, I try to mean what I say even though it may not always come out as intended.

On Writing

I believe that writing is an open canvas, one in which we may paint all kinds of mental pictures. I think that writing is an opportunity to immortalize our thoughts and feelings. Written material is a unique way to dive right into what the author is thinking. Written material is also valuable in that it outlasts the author, so one's mental work can be appreciated long after the physical body is gone. Writing trains us to put our thoughts into words that everyone can understand. I also believe that if you can write then you can speak, so writing seems beneficial to many social aspects of life. I think written material that has a professional apperance speaks for itself, and that there will always exist a need for professionally written material. Every time I write, I can see more room for self-improvement, so it is an ongoing process of development. Writing is an essential skill practiced throughout the history of humanity, one that should be appreciated and observed for the gaps between us that it continually bridges. Without writing, we would not have many important historical documents that influence our lives today. Writing is a vital aspect of all languages that I can think of, and since English is one of the most extensive languages, then English writing seems very important because of the broad spectrum it has to cover. The study of writing is definitely a worthy focus in my opinion, and is part of why I am an aspiring English major. Reading other's personal writing also gives us the ability to experience things outside of our immediate cognition/perception, and provides some sort of an escape through the eyes of another individual. Writing is an artform, one in which there is always room for improvement. Writing is special because one small piece can contain and express many different thoughts and feelings, often more than one person could collect mentally and recite. Writing is a collaboration of some of the greatest skills under human possesion.