Jake Shields

English 1010

Syphus

27 January, 2020

Time I Spend With Other People

I believe I experience life in a relatively unique way from most others around me,

especially when it comes to my interactions with people. I’m around people a lot, but usually it’s

the same people every day. On a normal day, my alarm goes off at 6:00 am, I hit snooze 3 times,

and then my dad wakes me up at 6:30. I quietly and sluggishly get dressed, go downstairs, and

pet my dog until my dad says it’s time to go. My mom kisses me on the cheek, and my dad

drives me to school. I walk to my first class and wait for the teacher to get there. When they do, I

sit down and wait for the bell to ring at 8:51. I go to 2nd period, then I walk home. Then I do

nothing with my dog until my sister comes home at 3:00 pm. At 3:15, I drive the both of us to

work (we’re sweepers at an elementary school). I put in my headphones and vacuum for 2 hours,

then drive me and my sister home. My parents ask me “How was work?” and I say “Boring.”

The day is essentially over at this point. It’s about 6 after I hide in the bathroom for 10 minutes,

then I eat dinner and bide my time until I can shower and go to bed. A lot of the in between time

is spent scrolling through Twitter, and answering every notification I get because I have nothing

better to do.

This paints a pretty lonely picture. Truth is, I don’t mind being this lonely. I don’t really

think about it. I talk to people a lot through texting, GroupMe, and Twitter. More importantly

though, this isn’t what every day is like. What I described above was an average
Tuesday/Wednesday. On Sundays I’m home until we go to my grandma’s house where I hang

out with my cousins. Saturdays are basically a complete tossup. I might spend the whole day

inside, I might go to a movie with my dad and my sister, my older sister and her fianc​é​ might

come over, it’s always something different. What I really want to talk about though, is Mondays/

Thursdays/Fridays. For some background, I’ve been playing a video game series called Super

Smash Bros since I was 6 years old. 2 years ago, I started to play the game competitively. This

means I go to tournaments and play against others in a 1v1 format. When I was a sophomore, I

joined my school’s Super Smash Bros club. As a senior, I’m the president of the club. I’ve met

my 3 closest friends through this club. The club meets on Thursdays, and I used to look forward

to it every week, but most of my friends don’t go anymore, and it’s mostly sophomores who

don’t take the game very seriously. On Mondays I go to a tournament 20 minutes away with my

friends. This usually means one of my friends picks me up after work, and I spend the rest of the

day with them. Fridays are similar, but the tournament is about an hour away. Mondays and

Fridays are the best days. I really don’t mind my lonely day-to-day, but I’m especially happy

when I’m with my friends. We all share such a niche and deep passion, so we always have

something to talk about and relate to each other over. Beyond that, we all desperately want to

improve and be the best, so we all help each other get better. It’s a great way to connect to each

other, and help each other grow.

Beyond just the game, becoming such close friends with these guys allows us to converse

over many things. While we almost always meet through the excuse of Smash, our

conversations evolve into our deep thoughts about life, relationships, self-improvement,
self-worth, politics, whatever we’re feeling. So while I’m not around other people a lot, when I

am I make the most of it. Quality of interactions are infinitely more important than quantity.

A video game that we all played as kids 12 years ago has allowed us to make deep,

meaningful relationships over a decade in the future. Without that game, every day for me would

be a Tuesday/Wednesday. Again, I don’t mind being by myself, but if I had no reason to hang

out with my friends, I never would, so I’m very happy that’s not the case.

To change gears, not all interactions are face to face. Twitter specifically has changed the

way that I socialize. A common pattern I see in my life is meeting someone at a tournament,

following them on Twitter the next day, and then that being our main form of communication.

This makes it a bit awkward when we then see each other at another tournament, having had

most of our conversations through a glass screen while we’re miles apart. It’s almost as if my

social skills reset with specific people when most of what we say to each other isn’t very

meaningful, and isn’t face to face.

Another interesting facet of socializing is non-human interaction. There’s something

especially interesting about making connections with creatures that can’t fully understand you.

My dog’s name is Toby, and like many dogs, he’s always extremely excited to see me when I

come home. It makes me feel good to know that he knows me, even if he doesn’t really

understand me. He knows when I say “Toby!” he’s supposed to come to me to get petted. He

wags his tail and jumps on me when I say “You wanna go for a walk?” He has a rudimentary

understanding of our relationship, and it seems that he has emotions, but I can never really be

sure, as he has very limited ways to express himself. Barking, whining, wagging his tail, walking
low to the ground, fake fighting. Most of these are physical. The only way I can get any kind of

understanding for his feelings are by reading his body language.

Many forms of communication and interaction exist today. Verbal, physical, online. The

communication I share with the important people in my life on a daily basis is a combination of

all of them. I’m constantly online talking to my friends and people in the smash community. The

only communication I can have with my dog is through visual cues. Of course, most

communication is verbal. Most of the time I spend with people is very verbal. Like I said, my

friends and I never run out of things to talk about, and even if we did, just enjoying each other's

company is just as good as having a conversation.

 Mentor Text

The mentor text I used for this essay was “The Clan of One-Breasted Women” by Terry

Tempest Williams. The primary inspiration to me was her use of personal stories. In this essay, I

incorporated a lot of personal experience to give context about my life. I told things about myself

that I’ve never told anyone. I shared personal thoughts and feelings that I’ve never even

contextualized for myself before. I believe I got across a lot of emotion in this essay, and I’m

very proud of it for that. Much like how Terry Tempest Williams tells of her family and

community members, I did my best to relay how I feel about my friends and loved ones. I tried

to be very honest and straightforward about my writing, while still keeping it interesting to read.

The last thing I wanted was to write something boring, so I tried to inject a little dramatization

into what is generally a pretty normal and mundane subject. I may have exaggerated a bit when it

came to the monotony of the day to day, but it accentuated my point of being extraordinarily

happy when with my friends. One thing about Terry Tempest Williams’ writing is her plainness

and simplicity of language. She talks about her ancestors, “The Day We Bombed Utah,” and

breast cancer like cold hard facts. She writes almost like she’s writing a history book, or an

informative essay, rather than a personal story. I tried my best to infuse that style of writing into

my essay. More than that, I liked how personal she was with her writing. As she writes when

talking about the women in her life affected by breast cancer, “I cared for them, bathed their

scarred bodies and kept their secrets.” I really like this detail about the small moments she had

with these dying relatives of hers. Although she writes very professionally, this one sentence

stood out to me as being very human and very personal. I based a lot of what I shared in this

essay on that kind of writing.