5-5:10pm: Narrate your day… write it out!!
5:10-5:40pm: Open discussion on EVERYTHING… what you want as a career, Lawson, writing, the essay we’re writing… EVERYTHING. The more you write, the more credit you accrue.
5:40-6pm: Our next author, Samantha Irby…. Look her up right now. What did you find? What does she seem like? Like Lawson? Different? Someone you want to get to know?
6-6:15pm: Advice to your colleagues on writing this first longer essay, which is due on Monday. Anything you suggest? Have you discovered something in your essay writing routine and way that another student might find helpful?
6:15-6:25pm: Close….. What’s on the page?
ASSIGNMENT: Lawson essay (DON’T FORGET THE WORKS CITED PAGE!!); Research Samantha Irby!!!!
Do some creative writing, about yourself… Narrate your days!!! What do you learn about YOU?

My educational goal is to acquire my sociology degree and my career goal is to become a therapist so I can help make a positive impact with at risk youth. I really want to put my effort in a lot of places. Over the span of my life I want to be able to assist at risk youth in foster care, in group homes, at their homes, and youth that are incarcerated.
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I’m still unsure what I want to do, career wise that is. All I know right now is that I want some sort of passive income so that I have time to do what I want and not have regret later in life. The lack of career choice on my part has hindered my determination for school. I have no idea what I want and since I have no goal in mind there really is no motivation except my own will keeping me in school right now.
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Take your time, enjoy the exploration…
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I find the journal useful because I can go back and look at comments made in the past or ideas I have written down and use that on my essay to further make it a better essay overall.
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When I took one of those career quizzes on the Jcs website, I got some pretty interesting results. It went librarian, parole officer, and several jobs in the psychology field. Luckily, I do have an interest in psych so that’s what I’ve been studying. I have no idea what I want to do for a career. I like helping people and leading. But I don’t want to be in management or in business. I’ve been doubting my path a lot lately but I’m trying not to be too hard on myself since just getting through school during a pandemic is an achievement on its own.
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Recently I’ve been thinking of switching what I want to study. Currently, I’m studying to major in Business Administration, but I’ve been giving it some deeper thought and it sounds boring. I want to open some sort of business in the future, but at this present moment, I’m not sure what I want to do. I’ve been thinking of studying to become a firefighter instead. I’ve always given it some thought, but never took it seriously, but I’m giving it some more thought this semester because the thought of helping people or saving one’s life sounds like something I would want to do in life.
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Be open to everything, and don’t pressure yourself too. much…
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I took an EMT course at this school which shares a training facility with the Firefighter classes. It looks very interesting from what I could see and I had the same ambition as you. I think that helping others and hopefully saving a life is a very rewarding career. If you are interested even a little bit in the classes, I would recommend taking it just to test the waters.
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Irby is also a comedian, interesting, I wonder if she reelects that in her writhing
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You’ll see… lol
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Enjoy the exploration…
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For my career path, I have a plan but I am still trying to make it all actually happen. I am hoping to transfer from Santa Rosa to Long Beach State where I would finish my nursing degree. I am also hoping to get a volunteer position at Kaiser Permanente as a way to put down experience on a resume. After I hopefully get a job as a registered nurse, I am hoping to get my Masters and become a nurse practitioner.
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I’m thinking a lot about liget. This high energy coursing through our body, the rush of emotion, and the cosmic breathing we do, and the fore we push back at the world around us. I have heavy thoughts on my mind, and that makes life hard, but I’m pushing back at the world and doing my best. Also I’m using these ideas in my essay.
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Good!! Always lean on your journal’s pages!!
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I’ve been thinking about majoring in interior design and minoring in business when I transfer next year. These couple of days I’ve really been thinking about it just because it’s such a big decision for me and I’m very indecisive. Hopefully, I get to do that then go on to master interior design and architecture. For my career, I would love to start my own interior design and event planning business I get really excited when I think about it and I always wanted a career that I would get excited to wake up for. I love Lawson’s way of writing I’ve never read a book like that its flows so well and the book is very well written even though it’s mostly her thoughts and experiences on paper. If I try and write my thoughts and experiences on paper it’s not going to sound like that. I’ve made some progress with the essay I’m writing came up with a few ideas and I figured out what idea I wanted to choose which is a quote from the book “How mental illness had just gifted me with a magical moment. I realized it would have sounded a bit crazy, but that made sense. After all, I was a bit crazy and didn’t have to pretend to be good at it, I was a damn natural” (Lawson 43).
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Good connection to Lawson, and good for you for the correlation to her writing!!
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I wish I knew what I wanted to do for a career but right now I simply do not know what I would want to do. Theres different things like being a musician, music teacher, or even something to do with technology that interest me but I wouldn’t know which to choose and start studying for at this point. I hope to figure it out soon and create goals for myself.
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Play with the ideas, let them speak to you..
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Hey cory, I feel like a lotttt of people share those feelings with you. You sound really creative and I feel like that’s a great feature to start with. My mom who went from rags to uhh comfortable, always told me to stay creative and look for opportunities wherever they arise. try and don’t stress too much on what you HAVE to become, but rather what you CAN be. it’s the best thought I can share on this, I hope its not just empty words to you
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I also found myself quite interested in majoring in music as well. I know that some of the technology classes can be a bit much sometimes so maybe if you wanted to even minor in music, it may be beneficial.
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she says she is the last blogger, on top of writing free jokes on her blog she lives in Kalamazoo
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I’ve had the desire to start writing a book for so long. I have the main idea and the content flows to me randomly. However, I can’t find the inspiration to actually write it down. I get caught in my own doubts. Does anyone have any tips?
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Just. WRITE. Be fearless, careless, free, and a lover of your own voice. ❤
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Thank you Mr. Madigan, would you be available to proof-read my work, might be far in the future
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Of course. And PLEEEEEEEEEEASE… call me Mike. 🙂
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Career wise I have been having doubts. There are days I doubt myself, but I hope its the right direction. I feel pressure being 27 and making sure its the right direction because time is running out in the sense of being able to support my parents financially.
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You have time. Be kind to yourself.
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Currently thinking about how difficult it is to focus over the sounds of my neighbors banshee screams she calls a laugh. THIS TOO SHALL PASS.
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OMG… I am NOT a fan of my neighbors either. lol
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COVID has essentially doubled down on the anxiety I already had about life, with my dad also being at risk which causes even more concern. Life is precious, and it unfortunately feels as though in this social media fueled day and age we have gotten away from the true things that make life so precious
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Life is here, and we have to love all its calls.
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I agree that with Covid, everything that was even a little bit anxiety causing has been amplified. I find it best to just rant about it. I am lucky enough to have someone there to listen to all of my complaining but it is so helpful to just be able to talk about it
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I’ve been thinking a lot about legacy lately… like, how a character is remembered after leaving the Earth. Thoughts?
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How you treat others, what you have taught your family and those around you. The subtle or not so subtle impact you have made can ripple.
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YES…
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I think about this often, wanting to pair my art loves with bringing awareness to our planet and leaving a lasting message to take care of the earth
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Yes!! Anyone who wants to bring true awareness to something entailing love should be remembered and held in the highest of respects and regards… 🙂
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A great idea!
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It’s something we share in common, I think about the legacy my mom has spent her lifetime trying to leave for me, but at the cost of her own happiness. I am forever great full for her efforts and the outcome, and I would like to do the same for my own, but I could not bend my back as much as she did. It makes me feel conflicted because I would feel selfish for bringing children in this world who would have to struggle to get where they want to be.
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Yes, I think about that often and I’ve had some ideas not so great ones but one of my plans is when I move to turn the garage into an art place and start doing some art that would bring awareness to leave something bigger than me, but I don’t know what to do or how to approach it yet with my art.
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I feel like sometimes true character gets lost through translation
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The whole career thing is so confusing till now I’m not really 100% sure what I want to do some days things are very clear and in others, things are all over the place, I guess its gonna take me a while to decide what I want to do for the rest of my life.
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This is a real thing
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I have this problem that I rate for myself where I feel like as time progresses I am constantly falling behind others and that I am not good enough at things that I could actually make a career out of. This added with my short attention span and ADD produces some massive procrastination of my work and more worry of the future and longing for great memories of the past. I still don’t know if my major is what I want it to be or what career I could end up with and its pretty easy to worry and almost fear the future because of all the uncertainty and lack of guarantees.
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I feel the exact same way when it comes to thinking about my future.
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Nowhere to go but forward though, even though it seems like you’re surrounded by fog and don’t want to move since nowhere is sure footing.
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Legacy is a funny term to me, as legacy is similar to story in that in my opinion it’s about the perspective rather than the acts themselves. You could do something you view as brilliant and revolutionary and to half the planet they could view you in a negative light for it.
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I am aiming to enter Architecture as my career, I want this to be my career as it has all the elements I am interested in such as design, drawing as well as a more practical element like construction. I also like that it involves math as I find that subject to be one of my favorites. I’ve been drawing since I was really young and recently got into drawing houses and now that’s all I do and I really enjoy it so hopefully it all works out. I was also thinking about civil engineering but I’m mostly leaning towards architecture. Lawson’s way of writing is to put her thoughts down on paper. It’s really interesting and different to read and I prefer and enjoy reading her way of writing than to other books I’ve read. I just think it flows so well. I’m currently thinking about more ideas for my writing cause the ones I came up with I didn’t really like so we will see how it goes.
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I read this, thought hey maybe I should be an architect I like to draw too, and then I realized it would require me to fully understand the law of sines. Maybe not for me.
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Don’t surrender too quickly!!
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I wish I had a long term goal but I just don’t, I’m studying kinesiology and nutrition along with general ed to test them out but I’m not sure. My nutrition class told me I need to be eating like, way less than I do even though I have never been anywhere close to overweight so I’ve been kinda iffy about it. I think the program just messed up because it told me to eat a really small amount for the amount I work out but still it’s kinda toxic. Kinestheology is cool though I just don’t know what direction I would want to go with it. I think I’m more passionate about kinestheology but I also want to improve everything wrong with how nutritionists handle certain people.
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Agreed.
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I love Samantha Irby, FYI…
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Thats an interesting topic, Mikey. I feel like the I dead of leaving a legacy seems so impossible, in a time without the internet, at least. I feel like in order to be remembered by humanity you have to have met and impressed enough people for not only those individuals to remember you, but for them to tell there children about you, and then have them tell THEIR children and so on. So for the average Joe, leaving your legacy seems like quite the impossible task unless you slay a dragon or invent the lightbulb. Nowadays it is much, much easier to be remembered for the internet never forgets.
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Just an idea…
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I think about this differently. I think that to leave your legacy, you don’t necessarily have to meet a bunch of people. I think that if you were to live your life being as honest and loyal to the people that REALLY matter, your legacy would be left in more valuable/more meaningful ways. In the way your loved ones tell stories about you, remember your voice and humor, the way they will tell their kids about you. People will realize how unique your presence was, and extend that honesty and loyalty to the people in their lives. I don’t think one to necessarily be famous to leave a legacy, and I think that the broader idea of leaving a mark on humanity is more nuanced when you think about how long the lives of trees, mountains, oceans, stars are.
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I like this approach..
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OR, Think of what you do….even the small things effect this world for 7 generations to come. That means that you could inspire someone and change the course of history if you had not been here.
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Everything is such a broad prompt. For my career? I want to one day do social media marketing/media planning for small businesses and local artists. I think that there are more ethical and effective ways to run market using one of the most relevant tools of the twenty first century. I think the internet is a fantastic tool, and it’s ironic that even though I want to go into social media marketing I try to keep my personal life relatively distant from social media. I enjoy having limited time set for all my social media because it’s like a continuous pat on the back from past-me reminding myself to take a step and be more mindful. I want to one day have worked at my career long enough to be making a comfortable amount of money. I have a lot of weird fucked up trauma related to money, and one day I just want to be able to support me and my partner. I want to one day be able to own a home. When I was in high school I couldn’t EVER imagine wanting to own property. At the time I didn’t think I would live past 18, and was considering dropping out altogether. But now, there are parts of my life I really want to see. I want to own a place and be as close to nature as possible while being to maintain a job in a field I am actually interested in. Lawson spoke to me a lot because I have never heard another person talk about the suffocating weight of depression. The way it clings, the way that every breath is a conscious effort, the way it convinces you that the only way to be better is remove yourself from the equation. Lawson validated all of those hard to describe feelings, BUT crazier yet, she ALSO made me laugh a whole bunch. I don’t know if I want or expect anything too huge from this paper. I just want to take baby steps into exploring form and exiting “proper” language/writing style.
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LOVE these lines. Thank you!!!
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I just went on google and searched who is Samantha Irby and honestly, she seems like such a nice person to be around she kind of gives me the same vibe as Lawson she’s a blogger writer and comedian also she co-hosted a show. Overall seems like shes an interesting writer so I’m looking forward to reading her work.
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I’ve been thinking about just selling everything and living in a van and going to explore this world.
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Jack Kerouac…
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Bro I’ve seen so many youtube videos on people doing that, and it looks amazing. A big part of me would love to do that as well but I’m not sure if I am ready for a big step like that.
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Like Lawson, I found that Irby is also a blogger. She is also a comedian and author. I also found that she is on a show called Guts and Glory.
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Irby hasn’t posted anything on her blog since 2018? Is that right? Also her wife is funny too. I found an interview with her. With Lawson, it was said right from the beginning that she has depression. In the interview with Irby, she also says she has depression and anxiety. I’m curious to see if she extrapolates on her life dealing with her mental illness.
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if there was one ultimate place where you could live anywhere on earth, without having to worry about money, where would you guys like to live?
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Id have to travel more first…In cali? Santa Cruz…Anywhere on a beach
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Monterey is dope too…
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I can totally see that!! I went there for the first time and that place has some magic over it. Hope you’ll end up there one day
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Going there this weekend to study with a artist IDOL of mine. He is who I want to be.
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A very hard question. I’ve thought about this a lot as well and I am stuck between Texas, California and Mexico.
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Santorini, Greece OR like bora bora/tahiti area.
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I think a lot of people get too caught up in leaving a legacy, that they forget to live in the moment, its best to live in the monument plan out what you want to do in life, defiantly try things but one you find that one thing that makes your heart beat stick to it, and give it is best version of yourself.
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After looking up Samantha Irby for the first time, I first learn that she has a blog named “b*tches gotta eat” and is a American comedian. She already reminds me of Lawson. The cover of her book is similar to me to Lawson’s book cover. I feel as her writing will also have a comedic tone to it which I always like.
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What are you finding on Irby?
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based off what I’ve read about Irby it seems like she’s an open minded person like Lawson
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I just read the first part of Irby’s blog post of a Christmas card from dad. It was pretty funny! I’m wondering if this book is going to be in a similar, free thoughts flowing kind of style like Lawson’s.
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I honestly don’t think about my legacy too much. It might sound selfish but all I worry about is missed opportunities. The idea of regretting decisions in my life is dreadful to think when im close to the end.
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I always try to live in the moment. I’m here to help those that are in need, and in whatever way I can do that is what I’m after. I don’t need accolades. I’m just here to help those that need it more than me.
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samantha irby is a person of color who is an author and comedian. woot woot! she has a blog, “bitches gotta eat!”
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She’s so badass…
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love that name LOL
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Isn’t love awesome?? Love of another human, a country (I am OBSESSED with France…), music, Art, the moment…. I feel that all three of our authors are drive by LOVE.
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What would there be in the world without love? Caring is a form of love, so we would be robots, or not existing.
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Have you ever been to France?I feel like love is a great drive for life.
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I have!!!
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As a group of four once said, “All you need is love”.
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lol
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Miss Irbyyyyy, my main lady. lol. She great i loved reading her book last year. Definitely different but similar to Lawson. Anxiety they have is common and their humor aren’t too far off from one another I think
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Yep!!
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Irby reminds us that there is material and ideas in EVERYTHING.
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Irby is awesome! Reading her book last semester, I feel her essays are different than Lawson. Her Blog name will always be my favorite.
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I just searched her up and I really like her I think she is kind of like Lawson. I read that she runs the blog called bitches got to eat and after I read that I knew I liked her and she is definitely someone I would want to know.
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Samantha Irby is an American comedian, author, and blogger. She runs the “blog bitches gotta eat”, where she writes posts about her personal life and events. Irby also co-hosted the live lit show Guts and Glory.
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So I looked up Samantha Irby and found her blog! I liked the way she made some words have colors but it also distracted me so I had to read the article twice. She seems like a really cool person! Kinda like Lawson sure but also not, I think something about Samantha right away seems very confident, bad b vibes if you will. I also love that she promotes eating what you want, I have issues with that so I always love a good role model in that area because you don’t see it often in media. I’m excited to read her book I like her attitude!
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Yesss I got the bad B vibes from her as well.
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Samantha Irby has a bunny on her novel! Ahhhh “Life Imitates Art”. (I just got a bunny) 🙂
If you look up her website http://www.samanthairby.com/ You’ll find an image of a toilet above her full name… LOL!
She has a blog called Bitches Gotta Eat. I concur, I think about FÜD all the time… In an interview she mentions, “Success just really looks like pajamas and never going outside.” That seemed quite accurate during early pandemic stage; I believe that is when she mentioned that. Also, she wants to show that, yes, she is a “New York Times Best Seller,” but also her house is falling apart, “no door knob on this bathroom”. I love her humility so far and I’m looking forward to reading wow, no thank you.
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You just made me laugh Dais.. love the enthusiasm here. cheers.
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First thing I found out about Samantha was she’s a American comedian! I think she will be kinda like Lawson in their sense of humor. She’s also a blogger, just like Lawson! You can tell a lot about Samanthas funny personality by her blogs name
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Samantha Irby is similar to Lawson but different they both have a sense of humor which I enjoyed in Lawsons book. I can’t wait to start reading her book especially after reading some comments on how some classmates loved the book last semester.
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I looked at the back cover and Irby already seems to be great at relating and creating that personal atmosphere Lawson did so well. Can already relate to the neck pain part lol!
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She appears to give of an initial impression similar to that of Lawson, having a book titled “New Year, Same Trash”. I’m hopefully that she keeps me as hooked as Lawson!
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