Immersion essays, volume 1

First, allow me to apologize about the delay in new blogs. Life has a habit of becoming quite hectic, but I promise to come back with more great observations soon.

Anyways, on to the essays. While they all had their own great lines, I shall start with Anthony Setari's "Hunting the Smiley Face". One line in particular that I loved:

"Wal Mart does something to people. I don't know if they are all built on elusive Stephen King Indian burial grounds or what but there is something unnatural about this place."
Quite an apt description for Wal Mart, especially with how he writes about for the rest of the essay. His essay is rich in the descriptions of the people around him, and also what he sees. The listing for corn is quite hilarious, and drives home his central point very well: that Wal Mart itself is quite an interesting, if not insane, place.

Zach Bush's essay, "And What Could Be Said of Saturday's Emergencies?" to me takes a facet of Creative Nonfiction, which is rolling with what happens during a story, and incorporating it into the story. His contrast of what happened earlier that day with actually being in an emergency was great. The last line was particularly poignant for the story:

"I leave wondering, would this emergency room, with its two young nurses, been able to have handled the kind of crisis that I almost walked into early this morning?"

That was a very powerful line, and is a great way to end the story.

Lastly, we have Turqoise and her story on fasting, "Expect the Unexpected." In many ways, her and Zach's story are quite similar in that situations out of their control effect the writing of the story. The journal entries are a nice touch, and add some legitimacy to the story itself. One line I enjoyed was:

"I have no other choice. I can't turn my family off, they're permanent stress!"

It sums up the turning points in the story that are out of her control very well.