We are Not Men Who are Green Tomatos

As a writing center tutor, I am a transplanted, vine-ripening tomato. The stage at which I began my career in the writing lab was not germination. It was, however, a transplantation into a whole new world. I had been gaining nutrients and growing stronger throughout my undergraduate coursework, not only in my English and language arts classes but also in my education classes. However, I was considerably green when I stepped foot into Daniel Hall (where I would later spend countless hours tutoring and attending classes in writing center theory and pedagogy).

To be frank, I couldn’t even have been considered as a candidate for a dish of fried green tomatoes by the time I met my first tutee. But relentless beats the sun that nourishes, the food that fights our entropy. In my new environment the sun, my ultimate source of energy and power, became the time spent in actual tutoring sessions. That there can be no substitute for experience is a statement nowhere more true than in tutoring. Working in tandem with the sun in ripening me is the water of collaborative reflection on tutoring experience. Tutoring experience would have merely dried me out if I were left unable to reflect on that experience in the presence of advanced writing tutors. The only items that I, as a vegetable, require in addition to sunlight and water are nutrients (AKA food). Utilizing the power of sunlight, I am able to break down the food of our Writing Center Theory and Pedagogy readings into pieces profitable for my own specific use.

I may never become a tomato that is edibly ripe, but I am ever-ripening. As sunlight, water, and food continue to work together inside of me, I become more and more red.