| Farm Girl | Assignment 1.1 Summary and Personal Response | | |

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The essay that I’ve chosen to write about is “Farm Girl” by Jessica Hemauer. The author’s most important point is how she can’t have the same life as her friends. Since she’s a farm girl, she has to make that a priority in her life. Regular students make their social lives their main focus. For Jessica, doing her farm chores is more important than extracurricular activities in school. Although she’d rather play a sport or join a club; milking cows comes first in her life.
“I hate this!” (Roen, Glau, & Maid, 2011, p. 83). Jessica doesn’t like being a farm girl. That statement is said by all the siblings every morning on the way to put on clothes. Jessica states, “It seems our daily lives operate in shifts, not like a real family,” (Roen, Glau, & Maid, 2011 p. 84). Jessica and her siblings wake up five hours before school to do chores, while other students wake up one hour earlier. Jessica hates being at lunch because she can never engage in conversations with her peers because it’s always about clubs before school and sports after.
At some point in Jessica’s life she has a turnaround of events in her favor. “In eighth grade …I become the basketball team’s starting point guard,” (Roen, Glau, & Maid, 2011 p. 85). Jessica finally gets what she has been asking for. She becomes the point guard on her basketball team. It proved difficult because it took a great deal of her time to balance both. “A few times a teacher catches me with my eyes closed during class,” Jessica admits (Roen, Glau, & Maid, 2011 p. 86). After her freshman year of high school, Jessica is allowed to stop working on the farm to participate in school a lot more. She joins four clubs and gets a part-time job. She is well organized and is an exceptional worker according to her peers and fellow employees. So it’s safe to assume that Jessica is satisfied with how her farm girl life finally turns out.
“My life growing up has been much different from the lives of my peers.” (Roen, Glau, & Maid, 2011, p. 86). Jessica has had to manage her time carefully growing up to complete both chores and extra activities that she chose to participate in. She has to be fast at everything she attempts to accomplish. I can understand how she feels when she says this statement. When I read this essay, I understood how she felt. My life was compatible to hers. For a long time, I couldn’t play sports or go outside because of chores and being an older child of a single struggling parent. My response was sincere. I felt exactly what she was trying to say. Today I do whatever I want. My past shaped who I am also. It may have been bad back then, but my past made me a better person. In my opinion that’s what I think Jessica was trying to get me to understand when I read it. So I got it.
The writer’s purpose of this story was to explain that although her life was not as sociable as she wanted, she turned out pretty well. As noted: “Though I hated it growing up, working on the farm has taught me many lessons about life, and it has shaped me into the individual I am today.” (Roen, Glou, & Maid, 2011 pg86). In other words, Jessica shared her experience as a farm girl. So readers who didn’t know the experience now have an understanding of a deeper lesson about life as well as an idea of being on a farm as a young person; Although you may not understand or like what’s happening at that present moment in your life; your actions in your younger days molds who you are in your later days. The writer’s tone started off as unhappy, but later became ironic. The writer was writing to convince the reader that in the end, being a farm girl isn’t all bad. In other words, cherish your childhood and household chores, because in due time, the skills learned at a young age can be used to advance you later in life. “Try hiring some farm girls. I hear they turn out pretty good”. (Roen, Glau, & Maid, 2011, p.87).

Reference
Roen, D. Gluon, G., & Maid, B> (2011). The McGraw –Hill guide: Writing for college, Writing for life. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.