850 words

A Story by Gisell Espinal

Gisell Espinal

Introduction to Sociology

Professor Dalton Conley

September 23, 2014

Assignment #1

These are just words. They are supposed to be words pertaining to the assignment due on Monday, September 29th for Sociology, but I can’t seem to get the right ones to come out. Must be because I’m sick or something. Wait, I mean because I am sick (no contractions!). Now I would have to go back and correct all the contraction related mistakes I made (but I am not because I do not want to; ew, that sounds weird). My introduction is supposed to go here. However, I don’t have one. So, here’s more blabbering.

I haven’t written words in a very long time. No, not words like the ones I use to communicate with other beings to let them know of things they actually (maybe not) care about. Not the kind of words that become everyday rituals and just make themselves part of your daily routine. No, not like that. I’m talking about words that I write not for the joy of others, but for myself. Whether others read, connect with them is a complete different thing and quite frankly, of little importance to me. These are the words I read. I enjoy. I write.

What to write. I can’t believe I haven’t made it to 700 words yet. Pause. Maybe I’ll start a new line. Maybe I won’t. No, I won’t simply because I can’t write lines in an essay. I write sentences. Even if I wanted to start a new sentence, I can’t because every new sentence is an old sentence as soon as I start it and I’ll never get that satisfaction, so it’s all moot. Here’s a new sentence becoming old. It ages quickly, like literally the moment it begins. Kind of like us. We all start out new, but we get old. And I don’t mean (wow, I’m not clear about what I mean most of the time) the aging we experience as time goes by--because that aging just takes too long--but the aging in our recognition into this not-so-new world. Think about it: the second we’re born, someone (maybe a lot more) is being born, making us not-so-new because guess what ? There’s someone else being born who’s much newer, making us old ! And who said we’re new? We’ve been alive for 9 months! Half way there, to the 800 (700?) word count line.

Life. That’s a good place to start. When you don’t know what topic to zoom-in on, just write about life. I wrote a sentence before this one, but it was so off track, I decided to delete it and write this one instead. What to write about. If I choose to write about way too personal things, I might end-up breaking down and reminiscing on the past- which I don’t want to do. And if I decide to go with something not so personal, then I’m basically screwing myself because I’ll end-up writing a paper/essay that sounds like a current events report. I’m sure that is NOT what he wants, although it’ll intrigue him enough to (sorry, had to check my phone) write an email on how to (or not to) write an appropriate self-to-world connection paper. Cracked a knuckle.

God, this is getting hard. You know, one would think that after writing so many essays and papers in one’s life, it would be easier to continue on with writing them. In actuality, it makes it tougher. Way tougher. That’s because everyone is severely traumatized by writing the first hundreds of them and this later impacts the ability of any neurotransmitters (or blood flow, for that matter) to lightly mobilize themselves. That’s complete bullshit but it’s a theory in the works. Maybe it’s not. I seem to be confused about everything today.

I’m coming to this conclusion: 700-800 (850?) is a another way of saying a three-page paper. From the looks of it, at least. Ugh, my left shoulder hurts. Why couldn’t he just have said that instead of making me write this all out to see how many actual pages are made (700!) from that amount of words? I don’t know if that question made any sense, but as long as I get it, that’s what matters. Speaking of what, what should I write about? I keep scrolling to the bottom of the page like if there’s going to magically be an answer there. Imagine? I guess my first thought is to write about relationships (guys, yes), but what the hell am I going to connect that to ? Technology: how are smart phones ruining relationships, specifically communication? Science: less heterosexual couples, less reproduction ? War: men v. women, rise (?) in domestic violence could lead to warfare? The latter has no connection to what I could possibly write, but sounds interesting enough to approach and put under test. I’m lost and I’m reaching that 850 mark. Poverty could also be another topic, but…no. Not for this assignment. I’ll poke my brain. Reached it.