Dear Reviewer,
Hello. Guess you'll have the (mis?)fortune of reading my portfolio today.
Before you delve into the deep recesses of my imagination, I figured I would let you get
to know me a little bit better. My name's Nick Ruktanonchai, and I'm a senior at
Pikeville High School. It's been a long ride, and this is what I have to show for it. A
sarcastic short story about a quasi-bad guy, an essay about old people and driving, a
paper about food in Spain, and an editorial about scientific fraud. These are the papers
that stood the test of time, that are the creme de la creme of my work as a writer.
When I write, I always try to infuse at least a little bit of my sense of humor into it.
For example, the story "The Ramblings of Doctor Octopus" is completely
tongue-in-cheek. It's actually based off of a movie that my friends and I made. We
had a website, foxhoundproductions.net, and everything, but the domain has since
expired. Anyway, the original concept was a parody of your typical Die Hard action
movie, and so obviously, this short story is by proxy, meant to be a parody of action
movies. It's over-the-top, in-your-face, unadulterated action, and I love it! However,
when originally written, this story lacked cohesion and organized thought. When I
wrote it, I was more or less just putting my chaotic thoughts onto the page, so when I
revised it, I had to make sure that it made sense and that it was easy for the reader to
follow.
"Driving" was also intended to be mostly humorous. Originally, however, it was
kind of serious, with some actual statistics and facts that backed up my information.
However, after looking over it again, I realized that anecdotes and exaggerations are a
lot funnier. Of course, I don't actually think every single old person is a bad driver, but
for the sake of "Driving", I figured that would make it a more interesting read. When I
revised it, I decided to take out almost all the facts, opting instead for things I thought
were funny. Whether they actually are funny, well, your mileage may vary. It did not
have the same organizational problems that "The Ramblings of Doctor Octopus" had;
by the time I wrote this piece, I had learned the importance of organization in any kind of
essay.
One of my greatest loves in life has to be food. That's why I wrote "Food in
Spain". Not enough enjoy the intricacies of the culinary arts; too many people just stuff
their faces with McDonald's, eating just for the sake of satisfying hunger, when food can
be so much more. My intent with "Food in Spain" was to hopefully show someone that
food has such a profound and rich history, that it deserves more than just to be
relegated to "fast food" status. Food reflects upon us as a society, and in the future,
people will look at our food to learn about us. Do you really want them to think of
Wendy's and reheated chicken nuggets, when they think of us? That's the point I'm
trying to drive home in this piece.
As a writer, over the years, I think I've grown a lot. My old pieces, from when I
was a freshman and sophomore, are a lot more scattered and lack any kind of structure.
It's like I just wrote down whatever was on my mind, which I did. Now though, I realize
that organization is essential when it comes to writing a good piece of writing, and I
always use prewriting now to organize my ideas.
Of course, there's always room for improvement. I feel that one of my weak
spots in my writing has to be my inherent succintness. I hate elaborating on things,
and it shows, because most of my writings are very short, and don't have many details.
That probably makes my writings lacking a bit in the colorful department. Simply
writing a page about myself as a writer is difficult, in fact.
Sincerely,
Nick Ruktanonchai