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When we had our meeting with Shiffra, she asked us about our most memorable writing experiences, good or bad. While I referred back to my high school English class, I just as easily could have referred to my ordeal with the pathos cap essay.

My spring break fever had taken a hold of me, and I found myself without even a start to the pathos essay the day before it was due, so I had no choice but to grind one out at the library. Unfortunately, after spending what seemed like an eternity in the cramped confines of the 5th floor memorial library cages, I had gotten nowhere. So I a furry of panic and emotion, I bolted out and scurried back to my apartment, in a daze of disbelief and disappointment. My topic had led me nowhere, and I found myself yet again at square one.

I arrived at my apartment to find my roommates having a beer, and what seemed like a very entertaining night, such was not the case for me. They asked me if I’d like to join, and against my better judgment, I agreed; as it turns out, this might have been the best idea I’d had all night. I now felt calm and relaxed, but most importantly confident. At 10:30pm I said goodbye to the roommates and headed into my room to begin a completely new paper from scratch.

With the new topic came new energy and interest. The words flew out of me faster than ever before. My opinions and thoughts flowed freely onto the page, a stark contrast to the monotonous word by word writing I had done in the library. And before I knew it I had a whole page written, and then two, and then the essay was completed. I had set a new personal record. Unfortunately this didn’t exactly bode well for my confidence, one does not usually expect to do well with a paper written in under two hours, or at least I don’t. But to my pleasant surprise I did well, better than usual in fact. And reading over the paper, I had realized something, that with that beer and a change of topic, I began to truly understand more about the pathos unit we had been covering, more specifically I saw how to analyze an audience and how different language affects them. This marked a turning point, and the highlight of the class.

Understanding one’s audience, and their needs, will be the most important lesson I take away from this class. That and a few other things like never write a paper in the memorial library, and maybe, sometimes the best cure for writer’s block is relaxing with friends and a beer.