How It Happened That I Became An English Major In The First Decade Of The
Twenty-First Century
I started writing regularly in the summer of 1994. It was in a
correctional program. See, I was on probation for possession of a controlled
substance with intent to distribute. On the day of sentencing I walk into the
court room, wearing my pleated khaki pants a white shirt and a black tie. I
walked through the little wooden gate when my name was called by the clerk and
took the seat next to the public defender that had successfully lost my case for
me the week before. Much later after I finished my Psychology degree with a
minor in justice studies did I realize I, myself could have done just as good a
job as he did in defending me, probably better as I had a stake. Ironically had
it not been for the happenings of that day I would not be an English major. I
would not be writing regularly, and reading religiously.
The judge called the counselors to the bench and I could hear a murmuring
as they were discussing my future. The two counselors returned to their
respective tables. The judge told me to rise. “Your sentence for the crime of
possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute is as fallows.
Because this is a first offence and I’ve only seen you in my courtroom when you
brought other members of your family to make their court dates, the prosecutor
has agreed to a $15,000 withheld judgment, time served, and a Cognitive Self
Change class.” He slammed down the gavel. Got up and left the room. The
counselors closed their briefcases and started walking toward the little wooden
gate. I about dropped to the floor when the prosecutor asked my defender, “so,
How is Darcy anyway?...She was so cute in the fourth of July parade”
“She’s doing great this summer, she’s peewee baseball this summer and is
a rising pitcher” My defense replied.
A few weeks later I met my probation officer, and he introduced me to
Jerry Smutch. The man that is responsible for my successfully release for the
department of corrections. In a group setting we used Erin Beck’s thinking
errors to point out exactly where our own thinking processes went wrong and
allowed us to be in the correction program in the first place. I learned taking
this class that writing can be a huge psychological release. As part of the
program I had to journal daily, weekly we turned them in for review. He would
write comments on post-it notes and give them back to us, “Great job- wow that’s
a great buck- How long have you been playing the fiddle?” Just enough feedback
so we knew he read them. Now I’m certain he was looking for recurring patterns
of behavior that might lead us back into the correction system. He encouraged me
to go to college.
I chose Psychology with a minor in Justice because I intended to go into
Juvenile Corrections after graduation. As time went on my idea changed. It
happened in an instant. After writing countless papers over the years in APA a
formal structured objective writing style I was re-introduced to the subjective
I in the form of MLH. This was a huge release for me. I could finally tell my
stories. Jeremy Hsu has a strong point in his paper about the link between
social interaction and storytelling, and I find it quite interesting that
telling stories is a two way interaction. Not only do stories come from the
human psyche, but the human psyche can evolve from the telling of a
good story.