My Favorite Pace

Conner Evans

9/21/14

English 1100-37

Professor Young

The place I spend the most time at

                The place I spend most of my time is in cage on the lacrosse field. I get such a thrill every time I step in that crease. The lacrosse field is a place of freedom, controlled chaos, and for me it’s my harmony. To be able to run around throwing, shooting, and hitting each other without real world consequences, it’s a privilege. My aspect of the game is being the goalie. You have to be a little bit crazy to be a goalie. I mean it takes a lot to be able to throw yourself in front of a solid object going 90 miles per hour. For me I become a different person once I step in cage. I become crazed, I have an itch to be destructive and get the best of any opposing teams trying to score on me. A man who is big and intimidating is not bad at all when I’m in cage. My mind set changes when the helmet and gloves come on. To get the ideal aspect of my game I have had to spend a tremendous time homing my skills.

                Being in cage everything becomes very simple. Stop the Ball! You have one job and it’s my job to give my everything to focus on this one thing. A great man once said “Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.” (Arnold Palmer) Arnold Palmer was a man of great notoriety and a man I can say I look up to when I think about a total effort. I try to do my best total effort whenever I’m in cage. However getting good at this isn’t as simple as showing up and stopping balls it takes a lot of time and training. It’s a very time consuming process but it’s so crucial to be perfect at fundamentals when being a goalie. As you can imagine I am always in cage having people shoot on me, practicing, and training myself to be better. In fact my parent critic me saying “that if I focused on my schooling as much as I work on my lacrosse game I would be a straight A student.” Well I’ve tried but I can’t find myself from the cage to long.

                Why am I obsessed with lacrosse? Why do I put myself in harm’s way and throw myself in such a hostile situation? Why is the place I spend most of my time on the lacrosse field especially in the cage? It’s because it’s my addiction. I’m addicted to the thrill of saving the ball and the notoriety I get for being a goalie. I love being a crucial part of a team and having people rely on me. I love the spot light it brings and the faith people entrust me with being the last defense. That alone drives me to work harder and I’m always thinking of ways I can get better. Some people think I’m crazy but really I’m addicted to a position like no other. I’m the quarter back of the defense and the one who has the best view of the game. I can be the reason for a win or a loss. Being a goalie I have a great responsibility that’s why I’m always in cage working harder and harder.

 I spend most of my time in cage and how ever it may not be as important to others but to me it consumes me. Playing lacrosse literally take me places. For example playing for my elite travel team in my high school years I was able to travel to new places, try new thing, meet new people, and that all depended on how good I was at being a goalie. I had to make the cage, the crease, and the lacrosse field my home. Even now I wouldn’t be attending Fairleigh Dickenson if it wasn’t for me being good at what I do and my desire to play lacrosse at a higher level. That being said I’m not content on being a backup, my next four years here I desire nothing less than to be a starter and win it all. I wish to win the conference and maybe a national championship. I’m more than motivated to do it. Andrew Dakan is my competition and I will not rest until he is beneath me. I am responsible for the success of myself and the down fall of my foes. So if you ask me I’m ready, I’m ready to go to the field and be in that cage and do me. The place where I shine. This my show, my story, and I won’t rest easy until my goals are met and the people who cross me fall to my Persistence. It is persistence that I firmly believe can change failure into extraordinary achievement. I will fail every now and then but I will get back up and when I do I will be better and more experienced.

If I had any super power it would be to freeze time so I can get where I want to be without losing time. But really time is motivation itself. It pushes myself harder and faster. For the reality is that time is the real enemy. You only have a short time to make your mark on the course of history. My history will be here at FDU where I will spend my time wisely to stamp an explanation mark that is my name as an all-time great. My place is on the lacrosse field in cage and nothing will get in my way. All great journeys and obsessions need sacrifice to gain a significant amount of progress. It is time that I’m sacrificing to get what I want, and when I’m old and time has gotten the best of me you better believe I will be back to pass down what I have learned and the wisdom of my life.. Lacrosse is the only thing I have ever been good at, it’s my sick obsession and all my time has gone to it. Remember the name Conner Evans because I’m leaving my mark cemented in walls and hallways of FDU.

49. Doug Williams

Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed the loss.

Essay Final Copy

Conner Evans

9/10/14

English 1100-37

Professor Young

Is Identity Important

            Our Identity is important because it’s based on who we are, who we've been, and who we think we will become. If you do not know your identity, then you do not know who you really are. It’s a person’s conception and expression of their own self. It can be individuality, group, national or cultural. Identity is a part of the soul of each person. If we lose sense of identity and if we are not aware about self-identity, we will live in this world without soul. It is like eating food without any taste buds. There will be no inner pride or joy. Identity can be distinct characteristics; it can be a form of identification, a label, or something that makes someone different from everyone else. Identity has its own psychological background, and has serious consequences if it’s lost.

            A single identity is what defines a person from the next person. It allows us to characterize differences and behaviors to allow people to be different and everyone to be their own individual. An abundance of different characteristics go into creating ones identity. A characteristic is a feature or quality belonging typically to a person, place, or thing and serves to identify it. The way one should look at a single characteristic is that it is one little piece of the whole identity like apple is only one of the ingredients to an apple pie. However a person’s identity is not just all characteristics but is a main part of the very complex puzzle. Characteristics’ can be as simple as someone’s taste in food music clothing, and may be as complex as culture and religious background. There really is an endless amount of characteristics and an even more endless amount of combinations of characteristics that make up a person’s identity.

            Another piece to the puzzle of a healthy identity is a strong signature, or something that makes an individual stand out. What that means is it’s a broader object, place, or thing that can more easily define someone without getting into tremendous detail. It’s simply something that you can say defines you. For example playing a trumpet might be something that defines someone. From this you can get that said person is smart, intelligent, has a strong sense of rhythm, can stand alone, but when around other trumpets is a loud, powerful, union of sweet harmony. After reading Gloria Anzadua How to Tame a Wild Tongue I now know her signature something is her language. “I am my language. Until I take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.” (pg7 line 36) Her language is who she is. It’s her culture, it’s how she expresses herself, and is how she communicates to others. The biggest thing about her is her need to express herself and language identifies that. If language is who she is then being a writer is also who she is. Those two things go two and two and all she every really wanted to do is express herself. In a way it’s her way of rebellion in that expression in her culture as a women is frowned upon, but being a writer and using her language in the way she does is a backdoor entrance to herself but also allows her to embrace her culture. Gloria knows who she is and has a powerful identity that she can express through her signature something.

            What happens when you lose your identity? When we lose our sense of identity, it can be as serious as creating a mental illness, the most common being depression. Depression is a disease where one experiences intense sadness including feeling helpless, hopeless, and worthless. This can last for many days to weeks and keep you from functioning normally. Usually to get out of something like that one would have to endure therapy or medication. It is not just depression someone may feel when they lose their identity, there are even more cases of more serious happenings. Many loss of identity lead a staggering amount of suicides. This is a prime example of why identity is so important. What happens is that once you lose your identity, people tend to think they really are worthless and words like “lost cause” start to turn up, and before you know it someone close to you such as an associate, a friend, even a family member is lost from this world. What really happens is that if no one has an identity we become a society of mindless zombies with no self-expression. In the Book Brave New World the setting is a world where everyone is the same and no one is different. A world where self-expression is the root of evil and that people only survive because they are programed to a job given to them at birth.

            Identity is a person’s conception and expression of their own self. It can be individuality, group, national or cultural. Identity is a part of the soul of each person or group.  Loss of identity is a tragedy due to how significant it is. Identity can be distinct characteristics; it can be a form of identification, a label or even an act someone does that makes them different. Most of all our Identity is important because makes us who we are, shows us who we've been, and makes clear to us who we may become.

Questions

Conner Evans

9/7/14

English 1100-37

Professor Young

1.     The terms writing and free writing have totally different meanings. Free writing, also known as “automatic writing, babbling, or jabbering exercises”, is used to practice for writing. It requires writing without stopping or hesitation. Practicing for ten minutes could improve the quality of one’s writing greatly.  Writing is the activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text. Writing allows editing, while free writing does not.

2.     The meaning behind the sentence “the habit of compulsive, premature editing doesn’t just make writing hard. It also makes writing dead” means editing a sentence numerous times, allows it to become almost to sound like regurgitated information.  Writing whatever comes to mind gives the paper life and makes writing enjoyable to read. By worrying about if the piece of writing meets the standards required, one is taking the originality of it.

3.     Elbow means that if one focuses on how to start their paper “the way it is suppose to be”, the whole paper will just be another piece of writing without any fluidity to it. By starting the paper off with raw thought, will leave an interesting piece of writing that is full of life, rather than another boring essay. For example, the first impression of a paper is based off of the first paragraph. So when the reader reads the paragraph, it would be difficult to read the rest of the paper because of the “just right” sentences.