5-5:10pm: Introductions, current work and ideas…
5:10-5:35pm: Irby…. What’s your direction? What outside source did you find? Anybody go on YouTube and see one of her interviews?
5:35-5:50: Your writings about YOU… your stories. They are yours, and you should look further into them, for a number of reasons. When someone asks for a story from your life, where’s the first place you go? What’s the first moment you think of?
5:50-6pm: Close…. What’s on your page for the night?
For me: KEEP THE WRITING PERSONAL. STOP THINKING SO MUCH.
ASSIGNMENT: Irby essay.
That’s it. I want all your focus to be on this paper. My hope is that you will make it yours. While still keeping it professional, you will ensure it’s personal and that you own your writing and the ideas you convey. The more you focus on structure and that it’s an assignment, the more harm you’re doing to your paragraphs. Write from your ides, your opinion… the support you provide is in the strength of your written voice, demonstrating that not only you read her work, but have a formed and framed position on it.
ENJOY YOUR WRITING.
#professormikey 
Hey y’all how’s everyone’s day going ?
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It’s good! trying to stay worm haha. Hows yours?
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Whatup Jake..
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Good Evening! I have been staying really busy lately more than I would like to trying to juggle school, work and my family. I actually work at a restaurant and this week with the weather we have been getting slower with customers. It definitely makes the day go by slower but it is what it is. How is everyone doing tonight?
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Hi Shantel!!
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Hey everyone 🙂
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Hey Y’all! hope all is well with you folks! Currently in quarantine. My mom and sister tested positive for covid. They are quarantining at my sisters house. Thankful to be covid Negative and thankful for this class to keep my mind off the situation.
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Oh boy! I’m sorry to hear that. My boyfriend was actually exposed to Covid at work and he is on quarantine as well. It is definitely no fun! stay safe and healthy
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Oh no that’s so scary. Way to be positive and have a good outlook. I understand the fear though, my doctors office just called me today to tell me another patient that was there around the same time as me tested positive for covid.
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Sending love and positive thoughts… let me know if you need anything from me..
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I just got home from getting an oil change and a car wash, and now my car is all clean. It took forever but thankfully I got home in time because my phone was about to die
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Yes it’s hard not to be able to help your loved ones when they are sick. Hope your boyfriend gets better soon!
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Digging these positive vibes to start our class… Thanks y’all..
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HI EVERYONE!!!!!!! I’m here…. Sorry I’m late…. How is everyone!!!! So excited to see you all!!! 🙂
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Hey everyone. just finished my math exam, my last two braincells are exhausted D:
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Oh man sounds hard. What kind of math
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calculus
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Yikes..
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Ivan this made me laugh
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Thanks for being here. Enjoy the conversations tonight.
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Hi everyone! Happy Tuesday! The past week has been very busy for me. I’ve been having fun taking the time to journal and really reflect on life. I’m also journaling about writing my essay haha. Finding that I’m using my journal as sort of a place to brainstorm and collect my thoughts about Irby. There’s so many aspects to her and her personality!
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Welcome!! And yes, there are!!
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Hi everyone, I’ve been doing good recently just steadily working on my Irby essay and my semester final for my business class. I’ve also been listing my clothes making some extra money off old clothes things seem to be going up for the end of the year.
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Hey everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend. I have been busy with schoolwork and honestly have not had a lot of time work on the essay as much as I had wanted too. Although I have been able to get down a draft just with some basic ideas or reactions I have about her. I love her humor and the way she is able to use it, I don’t really agree with her idea of opportunity though I also add that we also have very similar personalites, such as our introvertedness or comforbility alone. Would love to know everyone else’s progress and ideas since I have been feeling inadequate lately with this.
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Hey Finn.. I’d love to see other ideas as well.
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I have been really thinking about what her idea about freedom might be, I strongly believe that she wants people to be free to make the choices they make, I was trying to make a thesis based off of this idea though I am trying to see how to create an accurate concise message that explains this expression of freedom from Irby.
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Yes!! I agree… colleagues?
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What is your direction with the Irby writing?
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To show our connection and our lack of connection and how that impacts her writing for me
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Connection with…..?
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I love that direction Nianna. I was also thinking obligation and her subtle fight to it..
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Our connection as people and on a personality basis
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Singular words??? Mine… style, voice, people, LIFE. Something I’m for-real writing on Irby centers around comfort. Comforting in how she communicates to us, and how she examines her past, and present. Feel free to use that!!! 🙂
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For tonight’s page…… please just communicate your idea, stop thinking.
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I’m going in the direction of relating with Irby. All her work really speaks to me and I almost find comfort in reading. So it’s pretty easy to write about my relationship with her and elaborate on the idea
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Perfect!!
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Hi, I just did my math exam and it went much better that previous exam.i hope I score above 80 from this exam or I have to repeat math class in next semester
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For my Irby writing I decided to go in the direction of our relationship we have. I did find an interview on her which I used for my essay
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What was it? The interview, I mean…
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https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-samantha-irby/ heres the link for it. Just an interview by Niela Orr
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For tonight’s pages…. Know Irby’s language!! That is, how she writes. And maybe not so much her style, but her mood, and intentions!
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Hey everyone! How’s everyone’s day?
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I am going to direction of describing words for Irby! Three words that come to mind when I read her work. I have been using Youtube interviews to help me with my essay since her essay’s weren’t working for me and helping me with ideas for my essay.
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Tell us about these words..
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Irby is like a big sister, in that you are given some quirky, odd but poignant advice… COMFORT.
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Good way of wording it !
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Thanks!! Always thought of her that way, and that’s what kept me reading when I was first introduced to her!!
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I can see where that comes from! When looking at her as a big sister in that sense I can relate because I can see myself in her with sharing advice and knowing what I say is what needs to be done.
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Yes, and as a reader we are able to learn more about her and ourselves. Identity is a hard thing to find, in my opinion. She offers advice on how to…. OOOOOOOH!!!! Essay topic?? lol
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I found an interview from NPR where Irby said,
“Are people really going to want to hear me complain about my swollen ankles in 10 years, probably not”
I thought this was awesome because of how humble she is in this interview. I honestly think that she sincerely believes that her writing is far away from important or educational as it gets. I find it hilarious how hard she is on herself.
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I like that one!!!
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I went on YouTube to try and get more insight into how Irby thinks, what her thought process is. Her thought process comapred to Sedaris just has less of a filter when it comes down to large differences in their writing style. As I mentioned before a couple blogs back Sedaris is vague to let the reader make more interpretations but Irby is leaves less room for interpretation and instead just tells things how she lives them without trying to attach a message, well at least most of the time.
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Would love to see some of my high school teachers read her, especially this book and especially essays like ‘Fuck it.. just be fat’. She breaks institution and expectations…
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I think Irby would give my high school english teachers a heart attack
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Lol…. and that’s a shame. Why? Because there’s an embrace of language and expression and even structure that is different from the standardized scene. Why isn’t openness more encouraged with writing in high school??? Grrrrrrrr…….
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I think part of it is because society doesn’t want to teach you to have an opinion, it wants to teach you to live by others opinions
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Word..
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For my essay, I think I’m going to stick with the topic of my relationship with Irby
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How?
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By talking about how I can relate with her but also how I can not.
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Specifics?
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Irby teaches identity!!!!!!!! Some please write about this, or consider it for your paper in some way!!! Hoe does she teach? By endorsing not resisting but using the moment in front of you. Maybe not when it happens, but eventually and especially if you write!!
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This gave me an idea instead of just focusing on how identity is perceived through writing I will try to compare the differences of what each author is trying to teach.
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Great!
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I think that Irby teaches by using her own personal stories and mess ups as examples. Irby is very genuine and shows off her imperfections, I think helps convey to other people that mistakes and mess ups are just a part of life and embracing them can take a lot of stress of yourself.
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For tonight’s page….. See yourself teaching yourself when writing your essay.
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HI everyone! Sorry for being late, I just got off work! My day went pretty well, kind boring though. For my Irby essay I think that I am going to stick to my relationship with her like Giovanni Vaca said he was going to do as well.
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What is that relationship, in a short explanation?
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my relationship with Irby is our human-ness. I see us having a lot in common about the way we view the world and how we attack our problems as well. I like the way she thinks and her humor.. like with sedaris, Irby has a take it or leave it type of attitude.
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I’d say watching some YouTube videos gives you a better sense of who she is. I mean she’s basically how she is in her writing. It’s always good to see someone have the same personality on paper and in person.
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Hello everyone. My apologies for being late. Had some problems with my internet. I hate to be late but there are things we can not predict or control and apparently the biggest lesson of this year is to be patient.
Besides that, I hope you all are having a great day so far
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Welcome Debora! Was just thinking about you and if you were here. Jump in!!
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You know… essays like Irby’s ARE academic. They teach, they offer something different, they encourage strength and openness, identity, how to be better on the other side of some occurrence, and the value of humor and how it leads to happiness. This could be. topic, in fact one I may consider for myself, for a couple projects.. IDENTITY, not something that’s just going to happen. You have to think, fight, compose, and resolve. EDUCATION…. isn’t that what academic institutions are supposed to do? Hmmmmm…..
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I haven’t found any outside sources yet that I’ve liked, so I’m searching the comments for recommendations 🙂 I’d say my direction is style and tone. I want to discuss how Irby’s style allows her to create a tone of familiarity and confidence with the reader that you don’t come by very often.
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Which essays emphasize this, in your opinion?
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Additionally.. I think Irby helps me come to terms with my “humanness”.
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NICE!!
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Have you been writing about you and your experiences at all? Work, lockdown during covid, the change in weather….?
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yes, I have been writing a lot about life and emotions. When I write about work it is usually at least slightly angry
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Angry writing gives me the most fuel because it is so passion driven
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Sometimes the anger teach us about our character composition and what around us in our day-today scenes we want to re-write!!
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sometimes I want to rewrite my coworkers personalities lol
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Then do it! When they’re on the page, YOUR page, they’re powerless.
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I like that thinking. My page, My power
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YES.
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I have been writing a lot lately actually, most of it is random thoughts that pop up while im writing and sometimes I write about a topic I’ve been thinking about for the whole day. Usually everything I write ends ups connecting to Covid somehow.
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You’re not the only one, I’m sure.
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I’ve been writing about my childhood lately.
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For Irby’s essay I watched some of her interviews on Youtube and some of her reading on her instagram. For me, even though we have a few things in common, she shows the two bases that I consider in one relationship which is honesty and vulnerability. She does in such an unique, humorist way.
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My problem with Irby writing is that she doesn’t inspire her readers to achieve something great.Problem is not that she want us to accept for who we are but she want us to be in that same place.in short she lack spirit os adventure and it clearly reflects in her writing.
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She inspires me. I think believing and loving yourself is achieving something great
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Okay.. how can you make an argument out of that?
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100%. But a critical essay is not a composition. is it Mr. Madigan?
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It is everything that composition stands for, actually. Composition = writing, composure, composed….
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The first moment i think of is when someone ask for my story isn’t necessarily just one moment. I just tell them about what’s going on at the moment. You gotta live in the moment otherwise time will go by too fast or too slow. Yeah your past makes you who you are in the future but let’s not dwell or get ahead of ourselves.
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For tonight’s page…. make a single, boring object exciting.
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This phone to my right. Just a phone. One of those desktop phones you see in an office. But it’s here, in my house, invading my space and time and life. Covid, I blame you. Or… credit you. You got me out of the office, this phone teaches appreciation but also reminds me that tomorrow there are calls to make, work to do. It’s like a coach, wizard, deity, chef…
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I have written a lot lately about feeling overwhelmed. If i know one thing from Irby is that you have to make a choice for yourself wether it is worth it or not. That choice I am starting to see is a lot harder than I thought and now all of these due dates looming over my head don’t seem any lighter than they felt a week ago.
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Try committing to writing as much as you can in 10 minutes. Not now, but at some point. Not letting yourself stop. Just writing. Anything. You’re writing to write… You may shock yourself.
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They are yours, and you should look further into them, for a number of reasons. When someone asks for a story from your life, where’s the first place you go? What’s the first moment you think of?
Stories are something I love! I love my story. I love hearing my story. I loving telling my story. I love seeing my story. The most common story time is road trips, sitting in the front or back seat taking a nice drive through the great redwoods hearing all the family stories is something I cherish. When someone asks me for a story from my life I instantly go to one of my vacations in Hawaii. One of my Grandma’s live in Hawaii on the Big Island and one year when we went to visit her there unfortunally was an infestation of Mice across the whole island. It was misserable because all the stores were completely sold out of traps and poison. Instead of being negative about the whole situation we didn’t let it ruin our trip and the time with my grandma. On the bright side the hotels were empty and we were able to have the whole beach to ourselves. This is just one of the stories I jump to. Not saying it has anything to do with the individual I am today but it is a story.
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Love this!!!
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Thanks! ahah I do have many other stories from the Ag Classroom and on FFA trips. But we won’t go there….. lol
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Where the rest of y’all at????
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My mug. this mug has some tea in it, although it might seem plain. This tea in the mug is a spark of light in my day. everytime I load that tea packet in the cup and pour my boiling hot water in a rush of calmness and relaxation hits that is much needed in a bleek and stressful environment at home. I think that honestly covid has exemplified importance of finding activites that promote a healthy me and make me more fulfiled and happy.
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When I started writing about myself the first place I went was here the moment I realized how strong I can be. And how that moment made me not have expectations at all about life. Teaching me that I don’t have to expect nothing but I definitely should be open for things, people and situations. Like I said earlier, there are just a few things we can control, so why should I waste my energy trying to do the opposite? With expectation I don’t get disappointments. And I am open and content with everything that life brings me. It also made me realize that I transformed my grief into courage and strength
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when people ask me for a story from my life.. I tell them when I wrecked my quad into a brick wall. I need plastic surgery on my face and they never thought I would look the same.. I do look the same but it was a bad accident. I also talk about my heart broke situation which was an even bigger accident. but im working out now and I know my purpose and I also know my worth and what I want in a person and for my family. these situations made me feel like I had nothing or ugly In a sense. although I have everything and more. little things like saying grace or not yelling when I get mad and having boundaries to what I want to do with my career. I would have never learned these basic things if it weren’t for the bad situations I had to get through. sorry for this. I know its a lot to read.
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This is great!!! Tough to go through all that, but lots for you to write!!! Appreciate you sharing this brother. Cheers..
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my mind doesn’t necessarily go to a particular memory, but its usually just a really happy or funny memory, something that makes me smile. And a lot of the time it has to do with my family
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thanks Professor Mikey I know to some people these situations are minor but the way I felt at the time really made me want to sink in suffer or rise for the better and I know I have my days like everyone else but I also know that we need to have bad days in order to appreciate the good ones.
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Yeah man. We learn from your struggles. So it’s very kind of you to share them with us. RESPECT, son…
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I feel as though a lot of stories from my life I can only remember parts of stories that I thought would last quite some time. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of a story from my life is getting in trouble with my first best friend. We were inseparable, causing trouble biking everywhere just doing what any other 8th grader would do. I look back on those days fondly and think about how far I’ve come from being that person and how grateful I am despite the current state of affairs how my life has turned out.
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This is great!! Consider developing it for a longer writing!!
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What’s on tonight’s page y’all…?
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to communicate your idea and stop thinking, and that it is my page and i have the power to write anything
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One thing….. Mind the pace you set in your writing.
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