Exploration Two: Lindsey Bridges

           My name is Lindsey Bridges. I am nineteen years old and i recently graduated from Ridgedale High School in Morral, Ohio. I was a cheerleader in high school and was also involved in many clubs, like the Spanish and Art clubs. I have always known I wanted to pursue a career in the medical field and I come from a large family of nurses and one day I hope to become  a nurse practitioner. My fun fact was that I work at Meijer. Not really a fun fact since jobs aren't fun, but money is a necessity in college. I am also a huge Harry Potter fan, I like painting, also I love football and am naturally a Buckeye fan. I am very excited to see what my future holds.
         I chose to research the life of Eudora Welty, mostly because she was one author that I was not so familiar with. Welty was born in Mississippi and died at age 92. Her writing focused on human relationships and revealing a persons virtue underneath social prejudice, which was so prevalent at the time. She started out writing short articles in various magazines before her writing really took flight. Eudora then began with a short novel and then later wrote full length novels, eventually winning the Pulitzer Prize What I found very interesting about Eudora was the fact that she was a photographer before she became such a famous writer. Some even called her "the greatest southern writer," so I was surprised she started out as a photographer instead. Clearly she was very versatile.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/639577/Eudora-Welty
         I decided to talk about Frances W. Harper's poem, "Bury Me in a Free Land." I liked this poem the most because I felt that it showed how slavery not only affected the African Americans that were slaves, but it also affected those that were not. Harper was born free and yet her poem still shows how slavery affected her. She saw how the slaves were treated and the tragedies they had to face. She makes it clear that she does not want to be buried "in a land where men are slaves." I feel that being born free, she had an advantage over enslaved African Americans because she could attend school and so her writing did not surprise me as much as it would if she were a slave. The poem shows that although someone is not born into slavery, their lives are still very much affected by the hardships of their ancestors.
       I believe there are endless amounts of writing that make an impact on people, in different ways. One work of writing that had an impact on me as a reader was "Thirteen Reasons Why," written by Jay Asher. In the book a young girl in high school commits suicide, a tragedy, but to add to that tragedy she recorded thirteen tapes, all addressed to different people before she decided to take her own life. Each person was to receive the tape addressed to them, so they would know what part they played in this girl's decision to take her life. This had an impact on me in a few different ways. First, the way that people are treated by others have a greater impact on their life than some people may think. Second, the book actually made me think. There are some works of literature out there that are designed to entertain the reader, but sometimes the true message is unclear. Jay Asher, the author, clearly portrayed a theme and message in the book, which bring me to the third and greatest reason why the book so hugely impacted me. People go through life everyday, usually not noticing others around them. I am guilty of that. This book made me realize that even the smallest thing ca change someone's life, whether it be good or bad. In this book, for example, all the small things were bad, and they added up, causing this girl to take her own life. Everything a person does or says has an impact on another person in some way, and that is something to be thought about when making your life decisions.