Sheila's Classroom Reading

The readings that were given the other day in class definitely covered the spectrum of what I would think Sheila's work entails. That being said, she proved to be a very gifted writer. It's not often that I enjoy listening to those types of readings, but in this case I did. I would have to say that overall though, my favorite of the readings was the happy one. While I would never condemn the idea of expressing the sad or unfortunate situations in one's life through verse or any other medium, I simply like to write, read, and hear of happy events more so than I do sad ones. Besides, the thought of being in Maui is one that I could think about all the time. Especially if my family and my girlfriend was there to join me. My hope would be that everyone would get some while we were there too! That aside, she talked of beacons in your life. The ones that you can picture more clearly than most other memories. Not just the images, but the sounds, the smells; the entire scene is embedded forever. Those beacons are the ones that should be grabbed tightly and held on to forever. They make the best of poems and stories in my opinion.

Other than the what I think of as "happy poem", the other piece that I really enjoyed was all of the stories of her childhood and the occurrences at place like Six Flags and Action Park. I could really relate to those stories. The car trips with the siblings and the parents, wondering when we would get there, having the anticipation mount as we pulled into the parking lot of wherever our destination was. All together, I think what I most enjoyed about those few stories was how honest and familiar they felt. The language and imagery made me revert to my childhood memories of roller coasters and loosing my bathing suit going down the water slide. As a side note, when you have swim trunks that are already entirely too loose for your waist, never go down head first. The overall honesty of the writing was very captivating and made listening all that much more enjoyable. To conclude with all this, I have to say thank you for giving us a free reading to respond to. You have no idea how much this helped me out. Thanks again for a great year!