Portfolio Piece #9: Ready for my Close-Up

Trying a little something new.  Something I’ve wanted to do for a while.  For the next few days, I will be posting the pieces I submitted for my Writing Minor Portfolio.  They are all from classes I took Sophomore to Senior Year at Keene State College.  Most of them are memoir in nature, but a few are slightly different.  These are pieces I love, but know still need work.  If you would like to know more of the stories behind the pieces, let me know and I will be happy to share!  Also, any and all constructive feedback is always welcome – just because these were the final versions to be submitted doesn’t mean that they are perfect.

Oh, and also?  These are mine.  Do not steal them.  Thanks.

Ready for my Close-up

Written for Autobiography Workshop, Written Junior Year

At the tender young age of 31, I was sitting in my French class, fall semester of my sophomore year at Keene State College.  I was bored, as usual.  I had taken French grades 4-8, and had a refresher when I was in my early 20s, but still took Elementary French I.  Now, before you start thinking Oh, you only took it because you wanted an easy ‘A’, let me explain my reasons for taking such an easy class:

1. I needed it for my major.

2. I like French

3. Need I remind you I.Am.Old. It had been years since I last took French.

Lucky for me, I had a nice (and attractive) French professor who didn’t seem to care that I was never, ever paying attention.  Indeed, I would nod off in that class on a regular basis.  Not only because the subject matter was boring (despite how cute Monsieur Adorkable was I was still bored) but because it was at two o’clock in the afternoon, which is normally reserved for naptime.

So, anyway, I was sitting in my easy ‘A’, boring French class, when I decided to look out the window instead of at the Professor for a change.  It was late in the semester, and the weather was starting to fall right out of autumn and into the void that is New England winter.  My view looked like it had been filmed in black and white.  The twisted branches of the visible trees were bare, and there was nary a squirrel in sight.  It had started to snow.  That kind of small, sideways snow that it is no way the end to a romantic comedy, but a mood setter in a suspense, or as I thought of it, the signal that something dramatic and life-altering was about to take place.  I looked down at the doodles on my notebook (I didn’t even try to hide the fact that I had stopped taking notes a month ago) and when I looked back up, the snow had stopped as suddenly as it had started.  My heart dropped.  If it was going to be grey and gloomy, at least give us something pretty to look at! It’s just like It’s a Wonderful Life, when you know George got his life back.  The snow was the signal.  As this thought sledded through my mind as quickly as the snow had come and gone, I realized that my entire life was about the movies.  Not just that I enjoy movies, or am just a movie buff, but in my mind, my life is a movie.