This article treats the act of writing about past experiences as a material influence on the "self" I am becoming, particularly the "self" I call English Teacher, and explores how language is a material component in the "new materialist turn" in the humanities. The vignettes in this article describe experiences in my past, each with its own self-contained narrative; I then thread them together as part of a larger chronological narrative written in a more expository style that further explicates themes that emerge from the vignettes and reveals how I am affected by the language and stories I encounter through literature, and in my own writing. Inherent in the structure of the article is the exploration of different narrative styles, intertextuality and the affective potential of "thinking again" through re-writing past experiences.