The Life of Molly Fletcher

I realise I have been quite silent for the past few days and it’s not that I haven’t had the time or made the effort but that I’m genuinely having issues thinking of what I can write about. It’s very tempting to just write a diary like extract of my life and what I’ve been up to but I’d much rather draw some conclusion and meaning out of my experiences... and that’s where I’m struggling a bit.

However, I’ve finally come up with something to talk about and it should keep me going for the next 4 blogs or so and that is about my classes and the modules that I’m taking. Now don’t stop reading just yet give me a chance! As I’ve explained in a previous blog the system of learning here is phenomenally different, to the extent that I don’t have lectures or seminars but, as the Americans call them, ‘classes’. And they really are very much like classes from school: we all sit in rows and the professor stands at the front and teaches, and occasionally shows us a slideshow or a clip from a youtube video and asks questions, which we answer – or are supposed to. It sounds bad and childish but actually being much more actively involved in a class rather than sitting passively through a lecture changes the way you think so much.

Anyways, I’m rambling slightly. The first ‘class’ I will introduce to you is my ‘Black American Writers’ class. Focusing on autobiography, we study the works of Frederick Douglass, an African American slave who escaped his master and worked towards abolition, Malcolm X, Barack Obama and a few others. So far we’ve just been looking at the theory behind autobiographies which, although quite interesting can also be a tad slow and boring, but part of this study involved us having to write our own three page autobiography. Easy, I thought as I packed up my books and sauntered back over the massive campus to my room.

So that evening I sat down at my computer, opened a word document, and sat staring at it for about half an hour. It was impossible. Seriously, I dare you to try and write a three page autobiography of your life. In the multitude of amazing things that have happened in my 19 years of life I could not think of one thing worth putting down, I had no plot to my life, no mind-dazzling, life-changing experience which I thought worthy of my first American ‘paper’. I ended up talking about my life as an army brat and moving around and about for most of my life and concluded with the day my parents told me that I was moving to America in 2004. I still remember the day very, very well. In fact I may include it as part of a future blog...

Our professor of course didn’t grade our autobiographies; we just got ‘credit’ for having completed the assignment and handing it in on time. But we did briefly discuss them and the different ways that people had interpreted the task: some had simply given the facts of their life; others had discussed an important family member or a favourite memory. It’s interesting how we all perceive our own lives in such different and varying ways and how this can change depending on the time, the place, the mood. If I was to rewrite mine now for instance I probably would have chosen a completely different theme, maybe my time in boarding school or my experiences having left school and travelling etc. What’s even stranger to think of, is how will I perceive my life this time next year? Or in 10 years? I’ll let you know...