Response to Marina's Piece "Host Mom & 'Lourde' Luggage"

I really liked the way you structured this piece. The chronological order did a good job of gradually building up to your big confrontation, and then the final paragraph tied it all together and showed how you'd grown from the experience. Your voice really came through for me, especially at the end, and I liked how each scene had a good balance of imagery, dialog and reflection. The dialog was very helpful in explaining how your host mom acted towards you and showing how ridiculous she was. I loved all the imagery in the piece, you did a great job painting a picture of your host mom, her apartment, the dog, etc. Reading it, I could just picture your face standing there at the bus stop as Erin and I drove away with our crazy mere haha. The only suggestions I came up with while I was reading your piece was possibly adding some more examples of your interactions with other French people and how they reacted to you and how that differed from how your host mom did. I know that you referred to the vendors, and that you said you already had trouble keeping the piece short enough, but just a little bit of that might make the contrast between her and everyone else you interacted with a little clearer for people who weren't there to witness some of the stuff first hand like I was.