Hey,

My name is Hayley and Chuck Palahniuk blows my mind. I'm in the Reserve Officer Training Corp for the United States Army. I enjoy anything that ups my adreniline otherwise i'm bored out of my mind. Surfing, shooting guns and sailing take up most of my time. I got into Chuck in an intro English class; the teacher assigned us to read Guts.

I had just finished another English pre-req that was full of talentless writers and taught by a uptight snot nosed graduate student. To give you an idea, we had to read "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams. After spending a semester reading poems about a man eating plums and Emily Dickinson's bizarre reclusive tendensies that lead to a collection of crap poems I started to loathe English.

My family is full of English majors and English Professors so i was raised listening to family rants about classics. I hate classics. Literally, my family would sit around the kitchen counter and read the dictionary. I would rather have poured salt into my eyes.

So needless to say I had zero apprecation for any writing because I had been exposed to what i saw as unintriguing garbage.

I didn't initally read Guts for my English class, but i went back after listening to the discussion and read it. I was caught by Chuck's out of the line writing so i checked out the website and read "Negative Reinforcement."

I think that is perhaps the greatest short story ever written. I now read Chuck's novels and have apprecation for writing.