Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Profile on a first year survivor
Her smiling eyes reveal just w excited she is as she assumes me “Yes Mo, I survived first year”. She is undoubtedly proud of herself. Tlatsetso Palime is a 18 year old Lesotho girl looking to complete her bachelor of arts degree in law. “Both my parents are lawyers, and I want to do something similar too. That’s why I am here”, she enlightened. She then zoned into another mode as she added “and everything else that comes with it”. This comment sounded like a disappointment more than anything. Tlatsetso says that university as a whole has been a building and maturing experience. She changed her pose and looks the other way, with her eyes facing down. She thinks back to the beginning of the year and shares that the work was rather intimidating to her. She has now gotten the hang of things though. Doing things by herself with little guidance and supervision was a difficulty which she now describes as one which has taught her self-discipline. Tlatsetso may still have the same height of only 1.4m but has indeed become such a big girl. Because she was not in boarding school, she feels that she was never prepared to share so much with fellow res mates. She appreciates it however, as it is this res environment that helped her make friends. “My friends have been there for me every step of the way, they are truly amazing”, she appreciated with a sincere smile. Her and most girls’ first year story would not be complete without the ever-famous ‘love-life’ section. As I posed this suggestion with curious excitement, she just smiled and shook her head. For a while, there was complete silence. She didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Tlatsetso just briefly summarized that she was disappointed once too many times, that it is still a sensitive issue to her and asked if we could take a break. Out of respect humbly inflicted by her broken voice, the break was permanent.
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3 comments:
This is a story of a young yet brave little girl who is shown according to Propp’s theory, as a hero. She is portrayed as a hero in the sense of how she over came obstacles to become who she is today. Tlatsetso’s Todorov’s stage of equilibrium was when she had the dream of following in her parent’s foot steps. She reached a point of disruption when she came across the villain, in this case which I see as the intimidation of her academic work. With the help of her friends whom are portrayed as Tlatsetso’s helpers; she managed to conquer the villain and reach a new equilibrium of a strong, pompous and moderate lady. Not only was she the princess, but she fought her own villain and came out as the hero. Well done young lady, you have given a lot of girls who are in your shoes the anticipation of surviving their first year.
A touching story bankrupt of the pretentious aestetics so easily and catagorically ascribed to profiles. Tlatsetso's small stature draws attention to the overwhealming feelings often entertained by first years, irrelevant of literal height but rather metaphorical prominence or prestige. Tlatsetso's background openly influenced her decision to study, something so many of us can relate to as well as the underestimated and unrelenting workload that is first year. The opening quote, "yes, I survived first year" affirms her success early on yet as her story continues, chinks in her armour are unveiled; armour each first year comes standard with.
I can see how your story contains a hero because the girl has gone through two difficult things in her life and it is clear that she is having trouble with over coming it. So therefore according to propp's theory your story has got a hero. The part that you specifically wrote well is the part where you incorporated Todorov's theory of reaching a point of disruption. This happened at the end where you started discussing her love life and she was clearly uncomfortable and she could not actually continue speaking.I enjoyed reading your profile because it shows that there are a lot of people who are suffering from personal experiences and we are not a lone in the world.Well done.
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