ABOUT MY ORIGIN PIECE
I initially struggled with what to select as my origin piece because the majority of my recent writing pieces were centered around academic topics that I simply did not feel the urge to continue exploring. Psychology research papers, Sociology ethnography reports, and English narratives to name a few. I was sick of writing about things that didn't pique my interest, so I wanted to dig deeper and choose something that I was passionate about on a personal level. I would be spending an entire semester crafting a project revolved around this choice. As someone who is known for my agonizing indecisiveness, that was a lot of pressure.
After days of thinking, it finally hit me. What's more raw and personal than someone's diary? Absolutely nothing (at least for me.) Diaries are an escape from the real world where people can express their every thought, problem, and desire without receiving an unwanted external opinion. In this modern era of technological obsession, my diary is a little bit different. Whenever I experience emotions which I might not be able to wrap my head around at the time (stress, anxiety, anger, sadness, happiness, etc.) I immediately jot my thoughts down in the Notes Application on my phone. It's basically a disjointed whirlwind of every important thought I've had over the past year and a half. Some good, some bad. College has been a time filled with A LOT of changes that I often still struggle with as I'm nearing the end of my third semester.
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These diary-esque entries have never been seen by anyone's eyes but mine. I definitely did not write them with the intent that other people, let alone strangers in my writing class, would be given the opportunity to hear about them in detail. I did not know if I was ready to discuss my personal life in an academic setting, so the thought of using them as an origin piece for a semester long project was initially frightening. My ideas would be discussed, workshopped, and edited by my peers on a weekly basis. I would be choosing to voluntarily expose myself without knowing what would come out of it. Through careful consideration and long contemplation I decided to take the risk, and I am happy that I did.
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After going back and reflecting on the raw thoughts I had written in my “diary,” I began to recognize a central theme which the majority of them were focused on: long-distance relationships in college. A vast amount of my Freshman year was dominated by the high school relationship that I was struggling to come to terms with. The relationship that I previously thought would last forever was undoubtedly heading towards failure, and I undeniably used my Notes Application as a coping method. Looking back on this experience with fresh eyes, I have seen how I have grown into a healthier, happier, and stronger individual as a result.
With this in mind, I proceeded to use this topic as a framework for my experiments. I experimented with the concept of long-distance relationships in college through poems, open letters, and finally decided on the unique genre of a BuzzFeed article. A BuzzFeed article was the perfect vehicle for my final project because it allowed me to express my ideas in a fun and relatable way. People go on BuzzFeed looking for a result. Whether it be a predictive a quiz that can so-called "guess" when you will get married (yeah, okay) or an advice article explaining a friendship proposition, BuzzFeed's readers are looking for something that will have an impact on them. Overall, its recognition as a modern media platform seemed best fitting to go along with this play off of my digital diary entries. Combining my personal experiences with research that I've acquired through my various experiments into a BuzzFeed style article has allowed me to grow as both a writer and a person and develop a final project that I'm proud of.