Intro

Hi everyone! 

I'm Melissa and I'm currently a junior here at Fredonia State. At first I began as a Journalism major, but soon switched over and now I'm studying Public Relations with a minor in English. I'm from Brockport, New York, which is around Rochester. Something interesting about me is that I've been swimming competitively for about fifteen years now, yes I began when I was only four years old. I continue to swim in college on our Fredonia State Swimming and Diving team. I swim breaststroke, both 100 and 200 and the individual medley(meaning all strokes in 1 event). I realize that many of you have no idea what that means, so I'll just put it as Michael Phelps swims that event! Being a swimmer at a collegiate level has taught me a great deal about time management. If you don't get your work done and receive a good grade on your work, you cannot participate in meets. It's tough, but I deep down, I truly enjoy it.

My interest in this class began as a CCC for Western Civilizations, then expanded to an elective I could include in my English minor. How could I pass up using this class for both requirements?! After some more looking into the course material, I realized that it truly is mesmerizing the amount of female writers that there are to discover. My expectations for this class are to simply teach me something new and exciting that I have never even thought I'd learn. Show me some writing by these incredible women that I'll want to pass on to friends and hang their inspiring quotes up in my room. If I'm captivated by a work or even a few sentences by the end of this course, so much so that I memorize them, I'll be satisfied. 

While reading the Introduction, I found some quotes to directly pop out at me. One of which was from Sylvia Plath,  

"What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination." 

This quote struck me because I've written about this in a previous class. She stated this because of her doubts of power she can have through her writing. The fact that women are overlooked in literature and as authors can cause a lack of confidence in their work. So with that lack of confidence, why even write any longer? The Introduction continues to say that those who keep writing, despite the critics and despite the large workload women had of taking care of their loved-ones (something that they were expected to do no matter what) are known as "survivors." This is beautiful to me. Not only are they doing their duties as wives, mothers and family members, but they are also taking their precious time and using it to do something they may never even get credit for or be acknowledged for. However, they still write and create, never allowing that death of imagination to occur. This is truly something in my eyes.