Blog assignment number 5, we are slowly but surely coming up on the halfway point in the semester. I hope you have enjoyed my posts thus far! This week will be a little different than what I have been writing. The syllabus calls for us to watch and analyze three videos; Wizard of Oz: If I Only Had The Brain, Heart, Nerve, Wizard of Oz: Meeting the Wizard, Wizard of Oz: You've Always Had the Power. Once this was complete we were to take the aspects of the video and answer questions about our narrative project. To get an idea of what questions I’m answering or what I’m basing this post off of, I encourage you to visit my English Composition I class page, and view the blog assignment page. It will be under blog assignment 5.
Writing my narrative project has allowed me to take a deeper look into my life and certain things that have effected me personally. Putting my story onto paper has allowed me to take a deeper look into the story. First off it allows the reader to travel into my mind. It shows them how and what I was thinking at the time. It portrays what was going through my head at the time. However, it also allows them to peer into my mind now, and see how I view the sequence of events and what I’ve learned from them. It allows them to see how I’ve grown since the event. My narrative also gives an insight into my emotions both then and now. The story I chose involves a moment in my life of intense emotions. Reading the story will allow you to see my emotions during the time. You will get a sense of how I was feeling during the encounter, and I try my best to convey it in a way that makes you feel the way I was feeling. Once again however, it will also show you how I feel about the story now. It gives you insight into the emotions that I feel whenever I talk or think about the story. Throughout the narrative while you read, you will notice various conflicts. Some of which are just regular every day problems, and others are much more serious. The ones I want you to focus on will be the ones that are more serious, or high stakes. A good story is conveyed through emotion, and one of the best ways in my eyes to convey that is through a conflict. If I can make you feel like you are experiencing the conflict, then the story will become more meaningful because it will feel like you are there. That is a huge goal of mine for this narrative project. Writing my narrative has given me the opportunity to look at the story and my life in a new way. Having me look back to stories in my life I can see how I’ve reacted to certain events, and reflect on how I’ve handled them. This portion isn’t so much for the reader but more for me. By constantly reflecting on my past experiences I will become better equipped to handle conflicts in the future. I’ve learned from my past and I can use that to shape who I am now. Writing my narrative has made that much more apparent to me. With all of those taken into account, I believe that both life events and the stories we tell ourselves about those life events shape our sense of identity. I don’t think that one has more pull than the other. Your life events shape who you are. You need these past experiences to learn and to create yourself. Now, your past doesn’t make you who you are in itself. Just because of something that happened in the past doesn’t mean that is how you will be or the kind of person you will be. That is determined by how you reflect on the events. That is why both are necessary to determine your sense of identity. Your past doesn’t make your future, what you take away from the past and how you use it does, but in order to do that you need the past experiences. They go hand in hand.
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Welcome once again to my blog page! For this weeks assignment, we were tasked with creating another emotional scene. However, this week we are to do so using dialogue and symbolism. So this week I will be talking about a night I spent on the DMZ in Korea. We are basing our blogs off of a story called Hills Like White Elephants (Ernest Hemingway), and using this as a reference. I encourage you to take a look at it! As for my post, once again, I hope you enjoy! It is the night of November 13th 2017. We are in South Korea on an operation to assist the South Korean ROK Marines man the DMZ (demilitarized zone). It is a cold windy night, roughly 17 degrees with a wind coming from the north at about 30 miles per hour. Myself and a fellow Marine named Forbey are stationed on the Mid-Eastern part of the DMZ along with a South Korean ROK Marine named Hancock. We are cold, we are hungry and we are tired.
“Why the hell do they gotta give us shit gear Bauer.” says Forbey, shivering in the unrelenting wind. “Man, I wish I could tell you, but one thing is for sure. This stuff is NOT warm enough.” “You guys cold?” said Hancock. “We are used to this weather, plus we get lots of warm gear.” “You don’t know the half of it Hancock. We have two layers and that’s it! I just want some food and sleep man.” uttered Forbey, clearly disgruntled as a gust of wind froze us to the core. “You know what may help?” I said. “A cigarette? please tell me it’s a cigarette.” “A cig. Come on over I’ve got plenty, just make sure someones keeping an eye across.” At this point Hancock made a gesture to me, letting me know that he would keep an eye out. I should explain briefly. While on the DMZ your sole job is to point your rifle across the border, ready to shoot at any time. If anything happens, the second you get the order you need to be ready to shoot. So we had to have at least one of us watching and pointing downrange. “Thanks man, this is definitely what I needed.” “You got it bud.” “Um. guys…..” “What is it Hancock?” I said. I could clearly hear the sound of distress in his voice. Something wasn’t right. “They are over there yelling.” he said. “They aren’t looking at us anymore, they are pointing their guns to the left.” Forbey and I promptly threw our cigarettes to the ground and grabbed our weapons and pointed across to see what we could. We could hear yelling in the distance and what sounded like a car engine. Then a call came over my radio. “All units load. Standby for clearance to engage.” the radio crackled. “Bauer what the fuck do they mean standby to engage?” “I don’t know what’s going on man, but it doesn’t sound good.” “Neubauer, do you see those lights? Off in the distance to our left.” said Hancock. Forbey and I look over and sure enough there were the headlights of a Humvee coming our way from the North Korean side. “Is… is somebody getting out and running?” “All units prepare to engage. Say again, all units prepare to engage.” crackled the radio. The unmistakeable sound of a bullet cracked over our heads to the left and we hit the ground. There was a slight pause and then. All hell broke loose. "All units, open fire." The focus of my blog post this week is to write about an event in my life and turn it into an emotional scene for the reader to relive through my eyes, much like Maya Angelou did in her piece My Name is Margaret. I am going to use my writing to appeal to the five senses the best I can, and create a scene that makes it feel like you are there yourself. This piece, like Mrs. Angelou's will be driven by my emotion, as well as largely descriptive. I hope you enjoy. "You will take this patch with you wherever you go. Always on the front of you flak jacket. It is absolutely essential in your day to day operations. If you ever go down or your brother next to you goes down, this will be ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to yours and their survival." said Staff Sergeant Magobet, our Platoon Sergeant in 1st Platoon Charlie Company, as he walked around and handed out our respective patches. We are on the flight line in Okinawa, Japan, waiting to board our big grey C130. It's 93 degrees outside and 100% humidity. We are sweating through our utility uniform, the weight of our flak jacket on our chests, and the weight of our 70 pound pack strapped to our backs weighing us down. We are about to embark on a flight headed towards Syria to conduct anti-terrorism operations.
We all receive our patches and board the crammed, non-airconditioned plane. The smell of sweat and jet fuel fill our nostrils. We all sit upright as we listen to our Staff Sergeant once again telling us about these patches. I feel the patch in my hand, it is a rough stitched material. There is an EGA embroidered in the direct center of the patch and course new velcro on the back. "You will each wear this wherever you go. You will put your respective rank on one side, and anything else you feel pertinent on the other. Your critical information is on this patch. If you or someone else goes down you will rip this patch off of their flak jacket and use the information to call for a CASEVAC (casualty evacuation)." I take the rank off of my collar and stab the pointed posts through the material, it proves to be not easy as the material is thick and dense. I do the same with my Engineer Castle to distinguish myself as the lead engineer for the company. I take the patch and press the velcro against my flak jacket, making it stick to the center. I lean forward, and slowly start to fall asleep. A couple of hours go by and I am woken up by a red light. It is the middle of the night and dark inside the cargo hold. As I start to wake up, I notice it has gotten significantly colder in the plane due to us being at such a high altitude with little to no insulation. There is a red light at the front of the cargo hold that has turned on, bright and blinding to those who just woke up. Our Staff Sergeant tells everyone to prepare for landing. The plane is jolting back and forth as we hit turbulence, peoples packs and belongings are shifting all around. I start to feel unsettled, all different emotions hitting me at once. Fear and excitement take over as the C130 touches ground. I load my weapon and put on my kevlar as I am shifted forward as the plane slows on the runway. The plane stops and starts to lower its loading deck and a burst of disgustingly hot air blows into the cargo hold. My mouth goes dry as the air is filled with dust and sand, and you can feel grains of sand pelting against your face. I grip my cold and rigid weapon, and reach to my chest and feel my patch. The patch that will never leave my side, and could be the difference between life and death. The loading ramp drops, and we run out into the hot night, weapons ready, and ready for anything that might be ahead. |
Douglas Neubauer"Expanding my writing through experimentation." Archives
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