Why did you choose this Writing 101, Decoding Disney?

I've always been a big Disney fan. Disney was a constant presence in my life ever since I was a seven-month old baby sprawled in front of the T.V. singing along to the theme of Winnie the Pooh. Or well, to the best of my ability. While I had the melody down-pact, the words continued to evade me for a few more years. Just across the river from my home in Union City, New Jersey, the Lion King, the Little Mermaid, and all the other Disney characters and princesses danced and sang on the Broadway stages (and every once and a while my sister and I were treated to a show). Disney even made an appearance in the couples' costumes my parents would dress my sister and I in for Halloween. She was Mulan princess, I, Mulan warrior. Once upon a time, on a trip to visit my grandma in Florida, I visited Disney World and I finally met all the princesses I idolized face-to-face. Thanks to my innate tenacity, I had my autograph book bursting with signatures and by the end of the trip it deserved to be framed and displayed at the entrance of the Disney Parks. As I grew up I continued to be an avid Disney fan, to date the only movie in my iTunes library is Up, and in my junior year I returned to the Holy Land that are the Disney Parks with my high school's track team for "spring training."

I thought my love for Disney would never fade, it was like a cousin to me: I used to see Disney movies all the time, but as I got older I only saw them once or twice a year. My senior year Frozen was the movie to see and I had to fulfill my duty as a Disney fan and see my annual movie. I invited over some of my girlfriends, we popped popcorn, and snuggled up to get ready for the movie. And I was really disappointed by Frozen. I was expecting glass-ceiling-breaking, out-of-this-world progressive, sister-love movie and I was disappointed when the only example of this "sister-love" was one instance of Anna saving Elsa. I attributed it to my growing up; maybe I was just getting too old for Disney movies anymore. I had become too mature, too adult to enjoy the callow humor and script of a Disney movie. Jaded, I stopped watching Disney movies for the rest of my senior year and into my senior summer. I began applying to programs at Duke, preparing myself to go away to college, and I couldn't have been more excited to embrace my adult hood and be independent. I arrived at my reorientation program extra-confident and spent the week getting to know my fellow seven crew members intimately. I was ready for college. College would be easy. This is what I believe until my first semester came into full swing and I had to balance classes, socializing, personal time, nutrition, and everything else that comes with that fabled independence. All I wanted to do was sit in my room with my dad's mac and cheese with peas, and curl up watching Toy Story or anything else Netflix had to offer me. Maybe I gravitated toward Disney because it had been so familiar. Disney was like an old friend I'd lost touch with. For the two hours I sat in bed with my laptop, I could forget all the "adulting" I had to do and be a little kid. To me, Disney means childhood and what could possibly be more comforting to me in my freshman year of college, the first time I've ever lived away from home for more than three weeks, the first time I've had to feed, launder, schedule, and entertain myself without any parental guidance, than to immerse myself in the nostalgia and the home that I recognize as Disney? So I chose to enroll in Decoding Disney as my Writing 101.