Sarah Slater Professor Wyman Writing 121 04 3-18-24 Final Exam The readings I am going to be talking about in this paper are “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan and “Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name” by James Lincoln Collier. Both readings are similar in the way that they both overcome their worries. For example, in “Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name” Collier overcomes and embraces his anxiety, and in “Fish Cheeks” Tan embraces her family heritage and is not embarrassed to show what her culture is like. Fish Cheeks is an essay about a Chinese teenage girl and how she lives in two diverse cultures. The essay is set during a Christmas Eve dinner at Tan’s family house. Her parents invited the minister’s family, who were American, over for Christmas …show more content…
For instance, there was a time when his friend, Ted, invited him to go work on a ranch in Argentina for the summer, that Ted’s dad owned. At first, he thought it would be so much fun, but the more he thought about it, the more he got anxious about going because Argentina was so far away, and he was not sure if he wanted to spend all summer far away from home. Later when Ted and his friend got back from Argentina, Collier heard how much fun they had and then Collier felt regretful for not going with Ted because he was worried about being away from home that long. After that summer Collier made a rule for himself, which was to “do what makes you anxious; don’t do what makes you depressed.” He thought that it was better to have some anxiety than to be depressed when it came to doing things that sounded fun. During the end of his senior year, he was in another situation where he experienced anxiety. He wanted to be a writer after college, but his professor was urging him to apply to graduate school. He said that thinking of giving up on what he really loved, which was writing, made his stomach feel like it was sinking and gave him the blues. After that, he produced another rule he made for himself, which was to avoid the feeling of depression, he was going to endure some worry and concern, which was better than feeling depressed. Later, Collier said he interviewed big-named people, specifically Duke Ellington, who he admired a lot, and every time right before he interviewed them, he got anxious. While talking to Ellington, he learned that even though Ellington was an immensely popular guy, who looked so relaxed and calm on stage, he got very anxious as well. After Collier heard that,