Blog #5: Response to my Personal Essay

The personal essay I wrote was about growing up between the ages of 9 and 15 and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my parents. In the beginning of my mom and stepdad's relationship, we began watching Buffy and it really brought us closer together. It also helped comfort me in times when I was upset, and was with me during my entire youth. I almost feel like I had a second family in the characters, that I grew up with them, mainly because the age that I watched the show was so young and such a developmental stage. I think I could've been happier in the way the essay turned out. I like the ideas that I had, and most of the things I said were exactly what I wanted to say, but I wish I had expressed my ideas differently. I'm just not sure how I could have done that better.

Blog # 3: Brainstorming on my Memoir

These are just random pieces from my freewriting during class which we wrote about several topics that were prompted to us. Oddly, I kept going back to a few specific places, time periods, and people. I'd like feedback on what seems to be the most interesting for an essay.



Memories of my Grandma's house, the big red house, the only red house on the block. The paint was always chipping off. The house number, 1112 (i actually cant remember, i'm making this up) was painted on a white stone in black lettering. There were flowerbeds every spring and the front porch had a wicker chair that she always sat in. The front living room was full of pictures of my aunts and uncles, mom included, and grandma and grandpa. The wall in the living room had a picture of each of my aunts and uncles on their wedding day, with my granparents wedding picture in the middle. Only two of the original couples are still together. The back room consisted of games for my sister and I to play with. Bingo, puzzles, and colorforms were our favorites. There was a small TV with no cable, so we always watched channel 13 which was PBS or any number of daytime sitcoms like empty nest or golden girls that played during the "old people hours" when everyone else was at work or in school. I could always be found digging in the piles of pictures in that room, lost in the photo albums with their psychadelic 70s prints, filled with pictures of my aunts and uncles from the "good old days". the photographs were faded and torn, and the hairstyles and clothes looked dated, but i always longed to be inside those pictures.

the kitchen looks the same in my mind as it always will. there was a long table in the center of the "dining room" and a phone with huge, i mean HUGE numbers on them and the longest cord known to man. that cord used to wrap around me and my sister. there was a fishtank in the dining room too, and after my aunt told me a story of how a fish once jumped out and fell onto her feet, i never ventured too close to that tank. my fondest memories of that kitchen were when grandma made us her famous"salad platters" which never really consisted of salad at all...just some lettuce, olives, ham, salami, cheese, and dressings, basically whatever she could find on a paper plate. and a hard boiled egg if she was so daring that day. i loved that horrible food.

I think i'm definetly going to write about my grandmother's house and my grandparents in general, I just dont know where to go from there, what to tie it in with. Maybe my family now, all of their children (my aunts and uncles) because both my grandma and grandpa have passed away.

Blog # 2: Schwartz: My Father Always Said

In Schwartz's essay "My father always said," she segments it into parts which all come together to tell the story of her and her father's relationship and each of them reacting differently to the same experience. The story begins by the author telling of her father's behavior and "favorite lines" about his native town of Rindheim. Her father is affected by World War II and got his entire family out before Hitler invaded, and moved them to Queens in NYC. Because of this, he clings to his recent past of Rindheim, and tells his daughter of then that "In Rindheim, you didnt do such things!" The family then travels to visit Rindheim and sees the old town where he grew up. The trip takes place only a few years after the war had ended, so it's really the first occurence for Schwartz were she truely sees an accurate account of what had happened to the Jews. Her father shows her around the town, shows her the buildings and tells her stories of the hardships of his people. In between telling the reader about this trip, she includes that she went back to visit Rindheim in 1993 when she was much older, insinuating that she researched her family history and the history of the Rindheim Jews more. The trip ends up doing two different things to her and her father. It makes a lasting impression on them both, but serves to make her father aware that the war is over, and it's time for him to move on and become part of the American way of life. For Schwartz, it serves to make her aware of her history and her past, and causes her to find out about her ancestors and their hardships.

Blog: My Personal Essay Draft

In the spring of 2003 during my freshman year of High School, I opened up my mailbox one afternoon to an issue of Entertainment Weekly with Sarah Michelle Gellar, the star of Buffy, on the cover. Initially excited at the prospect of reading an article about my favorite TV show, my face dropped the instant I read the headline: “Buffy Calls It Quits.” I dropped the magazine to the floor and stared into space in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t be real. I guess I always knew that the show couldn’t last forever, that it had to end eventually, but it all seemed so sudden. Thus, I received my first dose of heartbreak at 14 years old. My “boyfriend” of seven years had finally decided to break up with me, not really giving me many reasons, leaving me standing in the sunlight wondering why, what had went wrong? It’s the spring of 1997, a Saturday afternoon, and I’m eight years old. My mother and my father had just finalized their divorce a few months earlier, so my mother, younger sister and I are living in a two family house which barely has room for all three of us. I’m comforted by the small living room, which brings the three of us closer together as we all sit on the couch watching TV or playing with toys. Actually, by this point it’s the four of us. My mother’s boyfriend Steve, who is now my stepfather, is basically living with us. Since I’ve known Steve since I was just a toddler, I don’t feel threatened by this, nor do I feel protective over my mother. However, I do feel that my once seemingly fine family is crumbling around me, and I do wonder why my Daddy left us. The sun is shining brighter than normal this Saturday, but as soon as the television turns on, it seems to dim the lights in the entire house. An eerie music fills the room as Steve raises the volume and tells us what we’re watching. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” he says. “Maybe the girls are too young for this.” My mother seems to agree, but I beg to stay and watch the show for a little while at least. Even at eight years old I know what I’m interested in. My mother reluctantly agrees, but makes my sister leave the living room, after all, she’s only six. For the next hour the three of us are memorized by one of the first episodes of the newly premiered show, listening to the hip dialogue, laughing at all of the jokes, and jumping in our seats when the “bad guys” come on screen. Instantly I am hooked. Like most children who can remember everything about the first time they played with a certain toy, or most adults who can remember what they felt the first time they heard Led Zeppelin, I can remember exactly how I felt that first season of watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I felt oddly protected, not only from the strong blonde heroine of the show, but also by my mother and stepfather who were just as entranced with it as I was. We had formed a bond over Buffy, a ritual Tuesday night viewing of the show that was all I seemed to talk about in school. Even my friends called me “Buffy,” which must have seemed weird to my teachers. I was the nine year old who preferred vampires and demons to Barbie dolls and Pretty Pretty Princess. The first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer began airing just after my ninth birthday in March of 1997, a full ten years ago. Based loosely on an early 90’s movie of the same name, “Buffy” was created by writer Joss Whedon when he decided he was sick of seeing the young blonde girl in horror movies constantly portrayed as the victim. He instead drew up the idea for a teenage girl named Buffy Summers who would be blonde, beautiful, smart, endearing, and oddly tough. Buffy was, as the title suggests, a vampire slayer, the “chosen one” who had the power to slay the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness. Try as she might to live a normal teenage life, such as join the cheerleading squad, attend her school prom, study, and date someone who didn’t turn out to be a vampire, normal just wasn’t in the cards for Buffy Summers. As the series progressed, so did my life. Just a few episodes into season two, my mother and stepfather got married, and we soon moved into a new house which would become the place where I watched “Buffy” for the next six years. Almost all of my memories of Tuesday nights with my stepfather and mother involve being in the family room on my couch, hypnotized for an hour by what was happening onscreen. In season four, Buffy and the gang embarked on College, and was starting Middle School. These occurrences were obviously not the same, but in my eleven year old brain I found this coincidence to be helpful and strengthening. After all, if Buffy could deal with changing schools and simultaneously battling vampires on a weekly basis, I could certainly handle the sixth grade. Sometimes the bullies, popular girls, and even teachers seemed like the forces of evil. Having Buffy in my mind at all times kept me stronger. I could do it all. Seasons five and six were especially dark, and did nothing to stop my mother’s claims that perhaps this show was to advanced for someone my age. Of course, she never won that argument, and I continued watching “Buffy”, only now I was too embarrassed to view it with my parents. I instead began watching the series alone, unless the episode was lighthearted or extremely important, in which case I would have to view with them and discuss all of the jokes and significant plot movements. During these years, when I was just beginning the leap from adolescence into pre-teens, and then finally being a teenager, Buffy was growing like I was. She was maturing, finding herself, going through dark and rough times, and I was finding myself too. Perhaps I didn’t have to fight an evil hell-god named Glory who would stop at nothing to find a key back to her home dimension, but my struggles seemed real and impossible at times too. When the final episode aired I had to watch it in my kitchen sitting between stacked boxes and my microwave. We had just moved into our new house, literally three days before, and it was the first day our cable was installed. Of course, I panicked all week at the thought of my TV not working during the series finale, thinking of alternate places I could watch the show at. I sat on a folding chair surrounded by a cluttered mess of moving material, directly in front of the television, transfixed as I waited for 8:00pm for what I knew would be the last time. I was watching the episode alone, something I rarely did, because my parents were busy setting up our house in all the other rooms. I also put out strict instructions that if anyone in the house interrupted me during this house, I wouldn’t speak to them ever again. By 9:00 I was a wreck, crying and clutching at the screen, wanting more. I felt betrayed, abandoned, and lost. I also felt slightly embarrassed for crying over a television show, but at that point I didn’t care. “Buffy” had trapped me since 1997, leading me into a fantasy world that was full of vampires, demons, and ass-kicking blondes equipped with witty banter and sarcasm. I looked around my kitchen, at a house which was strange and new, a house which I had never watched “Buffy” in before, so it seemed fitting that I would never sit down on a Tuesday at 8pm to watch it here again. I knew my life was changing and that I was on the brink of growing up, and that by this time next year, I would be sixteen and wouldn’t have time for silly television shows. For that night however, I was still fifteen, I was still innocent and naive, and losing “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was still the scariest thing the world had thrown at me. Looking back, I long for that night. Currently my grandmother is in the hospital, my mother has to go get tests done from the doctor, and my ex-boyfriend and I just got into a huge fight. I am a wreck. There are literally thousands of ways I could be dealing with my pain; most of them are unhealthy, some of them are illegal, and a few of them involve cookie dough ice cream. Instead, I sit here on my couch curled up under a blanket watching my favorite season of “Buffy.” For at least an hour I don’t have to remember why I’m sad, and I don’t have to think about what I’m going to do after the episode ends. Right now it’s just me and Buffy Summers, and I am as content as I was when it premiered ten years ago, as emotional as I was when it ended four years ago, and as nostalgic as I’ll always be.