The Dreaded Box

Hello everyone, my name is Katie Woodward and this is my second year at Chico State. I’m from Yuba City and for those of you who have been there I’m sure you’ll agree that there is absolutely nothing there. Except of course for the annual Sikh Parade, which brings thousands of Sikhs from around the world to our small little town. I chose Chico State for the trees and I absolutely love it here. Unfortunately, at the end of my first year at Chico I felt even more lost and confused than when I first moved here. Because of that, I decided to adopt a kitten to make myself feel better. (Which of course only proved to my mom how irresponsible I truly am.) I have been reading A LOT of memoirs lately. I guess I’m hoping that someone else’s hard learned lessons will point me in the right direction. Or maybe it’s just comforting to know that other people feel just as messed up as I do. But the main reason I love them so much is that I find it amazing that someone has chosen to so openly and bravely reveal to the world all of those mistakes that the rest of us try to shove to the back of our minds.

I found Szwed’s writing quite interesting. I don’t believe that we should be able to label certain pieces of writing as not being “adequate literature”. When considering that we all come from different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, religions, etc. It seems ridiculous for us to all have to follow strict rules that tell us how we should form what we want to say on paper. When we write our goal sometimes is to get it all out there. Sometimes it will come out jumbled and disorganized, but we did it. We got our story out there for those that might need to hear it. When we participate in class discussions it quickly becomes apparent that we all have unique thoughts and ideas even though we all read the same article. So why should writing and literature be put into a box when we all grew up hearing our teachers tell us to not be afraid to think outside of the box.