Journal 4: Photo story

The picture I chose was a picture of me, my older sister, and my two older cousins. We are all basically babies. I am barely one. Every other child in the picture is unusually wide awake. Me on the other hand is as sleep as can be. I was told to tell a story about his picture. But the storyhas nothing to do with the paricular day. It is a story about family. This picture doesn;t hesitat to tell it like it is.

Journal 3: My favorite physical feature

My favorite physical feature is my eyes. But, then again, I think eveyones best feature is their eyes. Eyes are mysterious. Secretive. Sometimes very guarding. But, if you look close enough, they tell everything. Everything. I like to think you can look at someones eyes and know them. Experience their depths, if even for a moment. My eyes are brown. Light brown, almond shaped, and very large. But that's not all they are. They say somwhere down my long line of ancestry that somebody saw something surprising. Their eyes grew large and now my eyes are large. They are filled with little specs of blue and oulined in grey. Saying that I get alot of stuff in my eye. I'm very observant. The grey being the same color of murky water whose bottom you can't see. And I think you can't see how deep I am either. Depending on the day my eyes tell a different story. Sometimes they are understanding, sympathetic. Sometimes sad. But usually very dreamy. As if I am asleep even when I am awake. Yes eyes are very telling.
And very secretive.

Response 2: "How to tell a true war story" by Tim O'brien

I think that O'brien has the right idea. Being a writer I find myself in a position were I can't remember a key detail all the time. Instead of completely omitting it, I find myself having to fill in the details from what I feel, rather than with what I know actually occured. I always find that filling in the details gives my story a completeness it wouldn't have had otherwise. So what he says about basically sometimes having to tell a "lie" to accurately tell the truth makes sense. This can most definitely be applied to stories in geneal. I can't be made to believe that every author that ever wrote a personal story had it completely accurate. They just coulnd't have. But they know how the momment felt. They remember the momments entirety. So they tell what the felt and fill in everything else as they know it to be true. I like this story. It has a realness to it. O'brien says "I don't care what anybody has to say, I'm going to tell what I think". That boldness is something I truely respect from anyone, especially a writer. Overall, O'brien's style of writing may not be the most eloquent, but it easily hits home. He has the ability to make you feel something deep inside because he speaks to you like a close friend. In my opinion Tim O'brien really knows how to tell a true war story.