I didn’t do anything much to prepare for this exam. During the exam itself I looked at the prompt and requirements and prepared a list of points I wanted to include in each paragraph. This way I wouldn’t be stuck thinking of what I should write about for each paragraph, but I had a rough idea of how it should be organized. I did struggle with what I actually wanted to write, because even though I knew what I wanted to say I didn’t know how to say it, and the time was also stressing me out. In order to combat this I would jump between paragraphs so I wouldn’t have to waste time thinking about what I wanted to write. Later I would then go back to what I was struggling on and because I had the rest of my essay developed it made it easier to make the points I wanted to make. I think I did well overall in terms of how much I wrote and what I wrote but I think I can improve on the way the information was presented. Oftentimes when I am under pressure it is hard to write the information the way I want it to be read. When it comes to what I hope to work on in my writing in general I feel like I struggle sometimes in the organization of my ideas. While I know what I want to write, I want it to be easy for the reader to follow what I have to say.

For the in class discussion I read the story and tried to think about what Machado’s intention was in writing this text. I also tried to come up with things I disagreed with in her writing and incorporate it into the discussion questions. I think the peer led discussion went well because everyone in the group was able to provide good questions for the class to answer, and that provided good conversation. In terms of how I think I did, I wanted to focus more on the broader point that Machado was trying to make and how it applies to us as a society. Since we had to talk about Eight Bites I wanted the class to consider body image as a whole and whether or not they agree with the point Machado was trying to make. I also wanted to question the text itself as a way to see if people agreed with Machado’s overall message to the readers. This prepared me for my in class essay because speaking was similar to the in class essay in the sense that you don’t have much time to organize your ideas and whatever is spoken is already said out loud and it cannot be edited or changed. In this way presenting or speaking might be harder because it has to be coherent in order to be understood. We had to write and say more for our in class essay so knowing what you want to say can help you further expand it and give you time to perfect your wording. 

Machado’s world is a reflection of what it is like for many women who suffer with body image in the modern day. The protagonist was constantly thinking about her body and the way that she looked which resulted in an unhealthy relationship with food. While it is ok to want to change the way your body looks, there is a difference between doing it in a healthy way that benefits you in the long run and engaging in unhealthy habits which inhibit one’s happiness. There is a trend in society today where weight loss medications and surgeries are being pushed onto people. While many might say that these are the wrong ways to lose weight because the work isn’t being put in, you could also argue that people who go to the gym also practice toxic habits. For example, someone who goes to the gym 6-7 days a week who is super active might look at themself and think they look disgusting while in reality they are in perfect shape. This might result in the use of steroids or stricter diets in order to achieve those unrealistic goals. This isn’t to say someone should just go on and do surgery, but in a broader sense not everyone is going to be happy with the way you look so it only matters what you think about yourself. This is shown with the guilt the protagonist feels after the surgery and the way her daughter criticized her due to them having the same body. While it did make her daughter feel bad, it wasn’t about her and if her mother wanted to change the way she looked because she wasn’t happy that is ok. Despite this the protagonist should learn to love her body with or without surgery because even if she has the most perfect body, unless she truly thinks highly of herself she will never see that. 

When thinking about what I wanted to write for my Op-Ed I wanted to focus on a topic that I was passionate about while focusing on topics that were important to what is going on in America at the moment. When doing the rhetorical analysis assignment on other Op-Eds I was more interested in finding articles that opposed my position rather than supporting it. This way I would be able to have more knowledge on the other side’s viewpoints. In this case I picked an Op-Ed about anti-abortion and the way that the movement has changed and been shaped over decades. Through this I was able to see it from their point of view. It inspired me to want to write an Op-Ed about pregnant women and the mistreatment they face due to the healthcare system, along with how it affects them financially. With this topic I was able to address abortion while also touching on a broader topic being about the state of America’s healthcare system. I wanted to emphasize that while many republicans push for a higher birth rate in America and say they want to support the mother and the child, it is very contradictory because it is hard to even pay in order to birth a child. I wanted the audience to consider the fact that abortion shouldn’t be something a woman is ashamed of because many women struggle already with surviving on their own, and having a child on top of that doesn’t benefit either of them. Healthcare is an important topic to me personally because I have heard many similar stories of people choosing rent for one more month over pills and medication they need. Due to not having access to that, it leads to serious complications with their illnesses or even death. I am someone who has to take medication for epilepsy, and as someone who has struggled with seizures and other complications I am fortunate that I can pay for my medication. I can’t imagine what it’s like for someone who has the same condition as me, and how hard it would be for them to survive. 

When writing essays I usually struggle with the research part of it because there is a lot of information to keep track of. I liked that I was able to pick my own topic for this reason because I was able to have an opinion while supporting my points with actual evidence and statistics. I didn’t want my essay to sound like a report so I tried to impose a lot of my own personal opinions and views while also asking questions to the audience in order to provide thought provoking ideas. For me, starting to write is the most intimidating part of writing in general. I often feel intimidated by the requirements of the assignment and it makes me want to avoid writing the assignment all together. In order to combat this I try to organize the topics I am going to write about for each paragraph. The order in which I talk about these topics is important because it also allows me to plan ahead of time how I am able to control the way the writing flows. Again I try to avoid the essay or in this case the Op-Ed sounding like a report so the way I transition into new topics is important. 

Overall I did enjoy writing this Op-Ed because it allowed me to write about things that were important to me personally, while also allowing me to address political conflicts going on in the country right now.

In the beginning of the story we are introduced to a narrator who is giving details of people she’s slept with. This was confusing and honestly quite boring because it didn’t really seem like there was any plot. Later on in the story we see how there is an outbreak of some sort of disease, that we as the reader don’t get too much detail about. When I think of an outbreak I think supplies, food, water, etc. So this being the case my original assumption was that the whole story would be based on the need to survive in a setting where there might not be as many resources left. Based on this one might need to keep an inventory on the little resources they have. In spite of this though, with the flow of how the story was being written this being almost every paragraph starting with “One man” or “One woman” it is almost as if the narrator is listing the people she slept with along with details about them. I noticed the hesitation of the narrator to get closer to these people. Even those who wanted to pursue a more personal relationship with her. It dehumanizes these people and gives the sense that sex is not a very personal intimate thing to her, as it might be to some people. Even in the initial isolation she puts herself in being on an island in a small cabin. This might show her state of mind. Despite being visited by so many people she chooses to live a lonely life. So I think while some might interpret the title “Inventory” to be about a woman keeping track of the supplies she has in a time of crisis, by the way she acts with these people I think instead of the inventory being objects the people she is with are the “objects.” Maybe she sees these people as just bodies to sleep with.