Reflection 4.2

I spent a lot of time on the revision of this essay, mostly because I was given so many valid and good ideas in my workshop critique. I think this is probably the toughest essay to revise yet--not only because there were so many ideas and suggestions, but because the topic itself isn't that easy to write about. It is very abstract conceptually, and because I don't fully understand fate (or even necessarily believe it) myself, I found it incredibly difficult to convey it to the reader.

In the revision, I reorganized several sections of the paper, and added a sentence or a paragraph here and there to inform the reader more. Most notably, I added a paragraph near the end that incorporated the definitions of fate and destiny into my story, and how they relate to it.

During the workshop, it seemed as though people were slightly confused about how this was an illustration of fate. While it makes perfect sense in my head, it was extremely difficult to describe this in written word. This is probably because I do not know if it was necessarily "fate" myself; therefore, I've found I'm not really "arguing" anything in this paper. Because I am exploring the possibility that it was fate, and explaining my reasoning for this, it was difficult for me to come up with a specific claim besides that fate MIGHT exist, and heres an instance why.

Finally, there were a lot of people that told me I should incorporate a story or stories that illustrate how my roommates and I share this sort of "connection." Unfortunately, this essay was almost 2100 words as it was, and to add more stories and explanations would push this essay over 3000 words. For this assignment, I did not feel it was necessary to explore it this deeply. I fully understand the rationale for "showing" our friendship rather than "telling," but for this assignment, I felt it was unnecessary in the end.

Overall, I am content with the final draft of this paper. It was extremely challenging to write and revise, simply because the topic is so abstract and the story's relation to fate is hard to describe. In any case, I hope the paper is convincing enough to have the reader wonder whether it was fate in the end as well-- not necessarily believe in fate, just be open to the possibility of its existence.