PAINTING A BIGGER PICTURE WITH WORDS // ANOUSHKA GUPTA

I have had the passion for writing and storytelling for as long as I can remember. So, when I found out I was taking a critical thinking and writing class for two quarters of my first year at university, I was thrilled and anticipated the work I would put out in the following months. I have had prior experience with writing and publishing works of fiction in high school, however, only dabbled in argumentative essay writing. In high school, I was taught the classic 5-paragraph essay with sandwiching three body paragraphs between one paragraph for the introduction and one for conclusion. The opposing argument would simply be acknowledged in a sentence or two and the rest of the essay would focus primarily on the writer’s argument.

Food for Thought // Caley Falcocchia

“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”

-David Foster Wallace, “This is Water”

When I walked into my English Critical Thinking and Writing (CTW) class on the first day, I had no idea what to expect.  My professor, Nick Leither, showed the class David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech “This is Water.”  After discussing the speech, Professor Nick switched gears and flicked the screen over to the next slide.  The screen displayed the course overview, reading “Food Porn: Reading Food, Self, & Culture.”  Both intrigued and confused, I left class on that first day with two questions.  First off, how can an english class be entirely dedicated to food?  Also, what the hell is water?  I had no clue what was to come during the two quarters of this class.  

I should first explain that I did not sign up for this class.  Every freshman at Santa Clara University (SCU) is randomly placed into a mandatory CTW class before even arriving to campus.  I was honestly quite displeased when I learned that I had been assigned a 7:30-9:10 PM CTW class.  Convinced that my brain would not be capable of attending class at this time of the day, my naive-self even talked to my advisor to see if I could switch into a different CTW section at a different time.  As you can probably guess, my advisor told me to suck it up, and viola- my “Food Porn” CTW class at 7:30-9:10 PM was here to stay for two quarters.  Although I was first unhappy by my CTW course placement, the class and its material caused me to reflect on my lifestyle and personal values, which which will continue to stick with me- not only for the remainder of my college experience- but for the rest of my life.  

We See Everything and Nothing // Ryan Willett

Look around you, what do you see? I see Billboards and commercials advertising the return of the famous “McRib” to McDonald’s stores, people trying their luck at the newest diet featured in some well-known health magazine, hundreds of different products on the shelves that serve the exact same purpose, and every news station reporting on every shooting, crime, potential terrorist threat, and offensive trump quote they can get. I see all that and much more on a day to day basis. Those days add up, and as weeks, months, and years go by, it all becomes normal. It becomes so normal that we don’t even realize that everything that we see, we see for a reason. That reason being: To incite thought, feeling, emotion, and response within all of us; which all correlates to us purchasing a specific kind of pain reliever because we recognize the name, voting for one presidential candidate over the other because one of them has had something they said twisted and mangled and posted all over the internet for people to ridicule, and to consume a specific brand of animal product because it is “Free-Range” or “Organic.” We see so much in our day to day lives, yet we are blind to what is really happening.