Essay 5

Difficulty in the world without hearing

Hearing, as defined in Webster's New World College Dictionary, is “the act or process of perceiving sounds (Hearing)”. In other words, it is how one understands and interprets the miscellaneous and numerous noises heard on a day to day basis. Personally, I have sometimes wondered in my spare time what it would be like to be deaf. “Deafness is defined by partial or complete hearing loss. Levels of hearing impairment vary from a mild but important loss of sensitivity to a total loss of hearing (deafness)”. To go through a daily routine without hear for someone with hearing sounds impossible, no pun intended. To truly get a grasp on this situation, I have decided to compare going through everyday life with sound vs. having no sound (using my own routine to do so). I am no expert on being deaf, as I am able to hear, but I will leave the reader with ideas or questions that they can think about.

This is a typical day of my week, with hearing:

Every morning I wake up to the sound of my alarm buzzing annoyingly in my ear. This is a sound I dread. After I'm awake and dressed, I head out to my favorite class of the day, English 101. On my way there, I cross the stress a few times. Since I am still groggy, I tend to use my ears to listen for traffic. When I finally get to class, I find that I’m a few minutes early, so I sit at my desk and listen as my professor plays music over his computer using Pandora. Listening to the music calms me down and makes me say to myself “Nick this music means its time to get your shit together and make sure you’re ready for class.” I know that class is going to begin whenever my professor turns off the music and says “Ok guys lets get started.” Hearing this at times is also a dreadful sound. The class itself is usually a discussion. We talk a lot about the assigned readings; to really comprehend what we are doing, we grasp all of our understanding through different perspectives of other classmates.

After class is over, I gather up my things and go to my next class. As I walk out of the building, I instantly know that the campus is now awake by the sound of random chatter from the students who weren't brave enough to schedule an 8 am class (or maybe they were really smart). Once again, I’m on my way to another class so I cross another street. I don't trust my ears alone to hear if a car is coming, but I still use them as an alert system in case some jack ass decides to run a red light. My math class isn't as verbal as my English so I tend to rely on the overhead for understanding the assignment.

Moving on to my third class of the day, I head outside, feeling a sense of awareness in the atmosphere from the sound of students, birds, cars, and other things going on. My next class is strictly a lecture. I take my notes by what is described in my professor’s lecture. In other words, I learn through listening to her voice and not by looking at the PowerPoint slides on the overhead. I find this more beneficial, because sometimes teachers using PowerPoint slides tend to leave important information out of the lecture.

After my lecture, I head over to my psychology class. When I am sitting in class, I find the only way to learn, like my previous class, is by listening to what my professor has to say. Most of what she talks about is not on the PowerPoint, making it almost impossible to learn effectively with listening intently.

After this, I head down the hall to my final class- philosophy. I find that, like my previous two courses (where I am strictly taking notes from the words of the professor), the main idea of this class is not fully explained through reading the book, chalkboard, or overhead; most of the learning is achieved by listening to the words that come straight from my professor’s mouth.

After philosophy all my classes are done for the day, so I go to relax with my friends. My friends like to listen to good music, so that’s mostly what we do in our free time. Hearing the music helps me manage some of my stress and get it all out to prepare me for the next day. After visiting with them, I start my next big plan for the day, practicing for my audition into the percussion department. I use my sense of hearing critically here. I constantly listen to see if I'm hitting the correct notes on the marimba, if my sound quality of my flams is good on snare, and if I’m matching the correct pitch on timpani. Without hearing, I don’t know what I would do to become better at this.

After practicing, my day is pretty much over; I return back to my room and call it a night. I make sure I set my alarm to start it all over again the next day and I lie down and try to sleep while I listen to all the random noises in the building. From having to listen to the metal head down the hall, to the smokers outside goofing off, somehow I manage to fall asleep.

This would be a typical day of my week, if I was deaf:

If I was deaf, my day would be entirely harder to manage. I can say that I would mostly have to rely on my sense of sight to keep me going effectively. To start, I would wake up to a flashing LCD light alarm clock. I then would start my way to English using sight to watch for traffic on my way to class. When in class, I would have to rely on my eyes to do the learning. I would most likely need a note taker to help me with lectures in class.

Moving to math, I would only know that there are people around by seeing them. When I am in class I would be just as well as every other student. I would be able to follow along in the text book and learn through the examples. It makes me think more about math now, seeing that it is a very visual subject.

After math, I go to my lecture. I would find that the only plausible way to do well in this class without asking for special assistance would be by printing out the outlines and taking word for word notes off of the PowerPoint. An alternative would be to get an aid to help take down the key points that the professor only says and does not write out.

My next two classes, psychology and philosophy would be the roadblock on my highway of learning. Since these classes are so hearing intensive, I would almost require some sort of special aid. Possibilities for improving my learning would be an in-class assistant to help me take notes, or having more learning materials (ie. books, visual-aids, etc.).

Being with my friends would be another hard challenge for the day. Being able to enjoy music would not be the same for me. For us to have a good time we would have to resort to other things that aren't hearing intensive such as video games or just relaxing and talking about our days (while using sign language). This would be hard because they might not be great in sign language or with understanding me.

My final trial would be my music. I do believe it is possible for a deaf person to be an excellent, astounding musician, but for me, I would have a really hard time practicing by myself. I would most likely need a mentor to help me, but if I was deaf my entire life, I would most likely acquired the skills I need to become a good musician on my own.

Overall, with both of the views stated, life for me, at least, would be dramatically different. My life as it is would be entirely different. Without hearing, I would not be able to learn efficiently, communicate with my friends, use music as a way to relax, or fulfill my dream of becoming a musician while using the way of attaining information as I do now- relying heavily on hearing. With all this said, I want you as a reader to walk away wondering the question “What would my life be without hearing?”

Works Cited

“hearing.” Webster’s New World College Dictionary. 2009. Your Dictionary. 23 March 2009

<www.yourdictionary.com/hearing>

“definition of deafness.” Medical Dictionary 20 Mar 2009 <http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=6791>.

Post and pre writing

To start I would like to say I had a really tough time thinking of what or how to set up my paper. I went through my previous essays and looked at other students previous essays for ideas and still did not get any results. When i finally narrowed down my options i picked the genre of compare and contrast. What i want to compare and show to the reader is a day in the life of someone who can hear, and then that same exact routine in the ears of a deaf person. The compare would be that the routine is similar, and the contrast would be that one is hearing-able and one is deaf. Looking at it now it may have many evaluative properties but the genres are close together as they can tend to mix.

After writing my paper I believe I was descriptive in writing it and describing my two cases. I believe I wrote the paper well but I’m certain it is not my best work. I think that I completed my goals and met all of them, but I think I could be clearer in future versions. I actually enjoyed writing this paper more than I thought I would as well. It was a paper I was dreading but when I got down to it, I felt as if it was easy to meet the requirements. Over all I think I could possibly look at making my ideas clearer in future versions.

Essay 4

The Many Facades of Touch

Writing, typing, texting, hi-fiving and even being punched in the face have one thing in common. They all involve the same sense. Touch is a very versatile sense that I use “hands on” everyday. “Touch is different from the other four senses for the fact that it is not located in a specific part of the body, but rather it is within the skin which covers your entire body” (The Senses). Touch can be physical in two ways- the way in which a person uses it and the way in which said person receives the sense. Touch can also be more psychological. An act or event can impact ones life so much that it “touches” one to be motivated or it can be a traumatic act that can leave one severally emotionally vulnerable. Something I hope to explain to you, the reader, is my views on touch and how they can affect everyday life.

To begin, I would like to start with the two sides of physical touch and defining what they are in two ways: through research I had found, and my own person view on touch.

“Touch- put body in contact with something: to put a part of the body, especially the fingertips, in contact with something so as to feel it” (“Touch”)

The definition I had used I particularly like because it does describes both parts of physical touching- Acquiring touch and receiving touch. When one acquires, touch they are using there fingertips, feet, lips, or any other sensitive part of the skin to feel an object. Personally I acquire a sense of touch as i type this, having my fingertips glide over the hard plastic keys I’m typing. I also acquire touch when I grab a soda that is next to my computer. I feel the cold metal of the can every time my fingers touch it.

The other view of physical touch is what I view as receiving. Receiving touch is anytime the skin receives information on an object touching it, but one is not expecting touch. An example of this from my personal experiences would be when I’m sitting in class and a pretty girl brushes against my arm. I was not expecting contact but I received a sense of touch by this. In a way when receiving touch it can sometimes be surprising. A startling drop of rain touching your skin, or an unexpected slap on the back from a friend is also good examples of this.

With physical touch understood, it is time to move on to another type of touch; that of emotional and mental touch. The transitive verb definition for touch is this:

“To have effect on somebody or something: to have an effect or influence on somebody or something (touch)”

I really agree with the definition because it is a solid fact that touch is not all physical. What I do not agree with about this definition is that it is very vague when it says “to have an effect or influence on somebody”. It doesn’t state that it could be a positive or negative influence on a person and I know wish to go further into this. In fact it’s actually both. It is difficult to go in depth with the sense of non-tangible touch and not completely stray of the topic of touch. Note that not everyday does one experience a traumatic or life changing event. These are the main reasons for an emotional sense of touch but they aren’t the only ones. Sometime, for example, I will sit in class and a teacher will explain something that sounds so complex but suddenly it will hit me in a way that makes me think differently. I consider this as another way of being touched, as it changes my views on things.

When someone goes through a life changing experience, such as a close family member dying or a near death experience they tend to see the world in a new perspective. This act of seeing things in a new light would be the effects of touch. These negative incidents tend to make the people experiencing them want more out of lives such as closer relationships within there family’s or to do more with there lives in general. For me personally, I have experienced a loss of a close family member. After they had passed away it made me realize that I could have been with them more and had a better relationship with them. This encouraged me to be more social with all of my family members and to keep in touch with my elderly ones even more because I don’t know exactly how much time I may have with them.

On the other hand, positive experiences can result in similar ways as the negative ones do. A positive experience could be hearing a certain song that makes one think in ways they never would before or even welcoming in a new member to the family. These events usually amplify healthy activities in your life. For instance, I love music. I hope to one day be a famous jazz drummer, or even a music professor, but it wasn’t always like that. I had always loved music but one day I had listened to an un-named piece of music and it had touched me in such a way that it moved me to want to touch others the same way or at least influence others in music.

Music especially has been shown to touch people in amazing ways. It has always been a theory that music helps people recover or cope with illnesses or melancholy but hasn’t even began to be proven until recently. One article even shows how even a debilitating disease such as dementia can not erase musical abilities. “Other researchers have found the sound of drums may influence how bodies work. Quoted in a 2001 article in USA Today, Suzanne Hasner, chairwoman of the music therapy department at Berklee College of Music in Boston, says even those with dementia or head injuries retain musical ability. (Music & emotions)” Now with all the general ideas of touch defined and a few examples given of each, I would like to explain how the all the sense of touch fit into a day to day routine. I’ll use an example of my daily routine emphasizing many of my senses of touch, but to name all of them would meaning writing an entire paper all to itself. I’ll show examples of both types of physical touch and some examples of how it situations can effect my mood.

When I first wake up I touch the off button on my alarm and feel the cold plastic. Next i get out of my bed and my feet touch the hard cold ground. I then proceed to brush my teeth grabbing both my toothpaste and toothbrush. After that i grab some clothing and get dressed. I next proceed to getting my book bag, open the door and leave. (Already i have mentioned six times i used the sense of touch omitting many small details.) Next I feel the cold wind on my face and proceed to English class. When I get to class I make sure to get my grade sheet that is covered in plastic. During the class, we discuss the sense of touch. The discussion makes me think outside the box and this is when I really understand what an emotional sense of touch is, which in itself is an example of what this emotion facade of touch is. moving on to my next class I go through many plethora of feelings such as the cold wind on my face, the warmth of the sunshine out in the open, the dry feeling of loose leaf, the cold metal of a fork from the dining hall, a high five from a friend, and eventually leading up to my head feeling the cool, softness of my pillow case and the warmth of my bed sheets.

In retrospect, Touch has many different sides to it. It has a physical side that is used almost at all times, and is also divided into touching and receiving touch. Touch also has an emotional affect to it. It can change a person’s outlook on many things in life rather drastically due to a negative or positive experience. Music plays one of the most common roles in this and is well on its way of being 100% proven as a way to “touch” a person. Both types of touch are also seen in day to day life at all times. I hope this helped to get a better “grip” on the sense of touch.

Works Cited

The Amazing Sense of touch.” The Five Senses- The Sense of Touch. 1Apr 2009 <http://library.thinkquest.org/28457/touch.shtml>.“

“How Does Music Impact Our Emotions?” Music & emotions 15 Mar 2009 http://chordpiano.com/articles-chord-piano/music-emotions-4.htm.

“Touch .” Encarta Word English dictionary . 2009. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. 15 Mar 2009 <http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861721074/touch.html>.

Revision Statement

When I first began to revise my paper I wanted to make a better introduction. So I added a bit of a random eccentric opening statement to catch the reader off guard. Over all I was given good advice on where to go with my paper. Looking at my peer editor’s rubric my lowest points were in formatting, hooking the reader, and grammar. After revising my opening sentence I went and used my handy dandy spell check to clean up fragments and misspellings I then proceeded to make sure my paper fell within the MLA guide lines noticing that last time I wrote my paper I did a horrible job formatting everything. I added another source into my paper after that and cleaned up my worked cited page. Over all I did a lot of basic simple corrections which I believe cleaned my paper up a ton and should appeal to my editor more than the previous one.

Essay 3

Daily Ritual of Aromas

Raw, strong coffee beans, fresh air from an open window, or of course the ever dreaded smell of sweat. Everyday we awake and start our day with one smell or another. It could be the alerting aroma of black coffee, or the putrid stench of halitosis. For most of my life experience with smell, it has seemed somewhat useless. What would be the difference if I didn't have my sense of smell? It might actually be a good thing. My smelly roommate may not bother me as much, right? Smell plays a huge role in our day to day lives and Defines many aspects of our life. Smell also is one of the senses that I feel is strongly under credited. The reason I say this is because smell does many things that I personally didn’t know about before I started researching. Smell is the prop ninja working diligently behind the scenes bringing out the best of our other senses.

Smell is truly a very versatile word. When I first sat down and began to personally define smell in my own words I had a great deal of trouble. What did smell really do for me? For this I remembered back to our workshop on taste. I can now say that taste is the sensation we get when any sort of material, sustenance, object, etc., enters our mouth and or touches our tongue. If one is sick, to the point where they can not breath through there nose, they can not taste. This is the prime example of how the sense of smell affects other senses.

After noting that it affected another sense, I thought about comparing the sense of smell to some of the other senses. One of them that I would like to share is sight. When you see a beautiful flower of some sort we tend to smell it, and let our nostrils soak up the scintillating aroma. This makes the flower more real to us, because we are using more than one sense to define the flower.

The way to under stand taste and smells work style, is most easily put in a paragraph I had found on a site. It says: “Smell and taste belong to our chemical sensing system (chemosensation). The complicated process of smelling and tasting begins when molecules released by the substances around us stimulate special nerve cells in the nose, mouth, or throat. These cells transmit messages to the brain, where specific smells or tastes are identified (Smell and Taste)”.

Besides strengthening the other senses smell also looks out for them. A person’s sense of smell can save them from many perilous fates. In one way it protects are taste buds. If we didn’t have a sense of smell, when we choose to eat something we would most likely go for something that is visually appealing. But as we all have experienced at one time or another that is not the case. A plate of food could look like the most beautiful work of art, strait out of a painting, yet it could taste like the painting itself would. Our sense of smell protects us from eating foods that may be harmful to our body. If something smells like moldy gym socks that came out of a dumpster in the strip district of Pittsburgh, chances are its not too healthy or safe for you to eat. In short, smell helps protect the body from bodily harm.

The sense of smell is most notorious in my eyes for how it affects our opinions. If something has a pleasant odor, than it is more likely to be approached and kept around. On the other hand, if something has a rotten stench, I myself would keep my distance and tend to not be around it as much as possible. Take sushi for example. If sushi was to be judged by its smell alone, many people would probably enjoy it, but pairing it with a visual image and the definition of what sushi is, people tend to shun it. To refer to my statement about the sense of smell protecting the body from harm, it can also make it miss out on a possible good experience by persuading the other senses.

Smelling my possibly one of the best mood swingers available to man kind. For instance, when I'm in my dorm room doing some class assignment, I tend to get stressed out, and sometimes it makes me very upset. After I am done, I then get up and leave my musty atmosphere that smells like my roommates dirty laundry and go outside for some fresh air. The air revitalizes me because the scent of it can only be described as clean and fresh. The scent relaxes my brain and gives me peace of mind. On the contrary, smell can really piss me off sometimes. I could be in the best mood ever and suddenly an odor that could only be described as a Manhattan fish market during mid-day of the hottest day of the year. It can go as far as making you nauseated, give you a headache, and make you sick.

One thing that is defines your sense of smell, is that unlike all the other senses, it is used all the time. Smelling is something you do both subconsciously and consciously. If a smell is something you are well acquainted to you are subconsciously smelling it, but it does not make a big enough of an impact on you that you don't notice. If a smell is one that you have great favor or disdain for, you will consciously notice it because it is what I call an extreme smell. An extreme smell is a smell that is noticed immediately. The cologne I throw on in the morning and garbage dumpster behind the dining hall are both extreme smells (and both respectfully on a different end of the spectrum.)

In an over all summary of smell, my definition is very expansive, yet very specific. Smell helps strengthen our other senses. As stated smell helps us taste the food we eat. It works with other senses to make objects have depth; associating an odor with a visual image. Smell can change moods making one anything from happy to sad, or angry to ecstatic; the spectrum is immense. Smell can affect your Health. Some smells can be toxic to the body causing any illness from nausea to migraines. Smell can form opinions of certain subjects for you; if a food smells bad, you assume it must taste bad, or it’s unhealthy as well.

Works Cited

Smell & Taste. American Academy of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery. 08 Apr 2009 <http://www.entnet.org/HealthInformation/smellTaste.cfm>.

“Smell & Taste Disorders.” ear, nose, & throat associates of corpus Christi.ear, nose, & throat associates of corpus christi.12 Apr 2009<http://www.entassociates.com/smell&taste.htm>.

Post and Pre writing (Revision statement)

Before I started my Revision I looked over the notes given to me by my peer editor. I had a fairly low score and was able to understand everything that I did wrong and agreed full heartedly with her advice. My first goal was o make sure my formatting was properly done in MLA style. I then saw that I had no In-text citations and started to research a few points. I then went on to write these post and pre writing goals to complete the other huge section of missing points. Now I hope to correct all these points and make an enjoyable, readable paper.

As I finish writing I can say It is a much better essay compared to the first draft. I added in a bunch of content and fixed up my introduction. I then moved on to correct my grammar and a few sentence structure issues. After that I felt as if I had done a huge improvement and wrote down a few things to improve on in my third revision. The first is to make sure I stay on task of my genre. I believe I could change a few things to make it more defined. The next thing would be to add more sourcing an a little more information. With those things done I believe my paper would flow better over all making it a strong essay.

A Visual Skirmish

A Visual Skirmish

It is undoubtedly the coldest day in history. The air swirls with snow like it is a maelstrom from deep within the icy waters of the northern sea. The air was thin, and with every breath it seems like it would be harder to breath. The exception to this is that rage, greed, malice, blood-thirst and a hunger for unlimited power fuels me. A most hated advisory standing between me and my final goal. One would want to say this was a match of good and evil but with the emotions and dark desired motives, one would only find nefarious sinister reasoning behind either of our endeavors.

"Our eyes have separate mechanisms that gather the light, important and novel image, focus it precisely, pinpoint it in space, and follow it" (Ackerman 229). This was indeed the correct way to describe what happened when I saw the creature emerge from underground. I found myself within a cold barren waste land; rocky crags, high mountain peaks, and wide open planes filled with nothing, but seeming to never stop. The non stop snow made these mountains appear to be over a never ending height and the planes to be of a never ending distance. It had only taken seconds to realize this. Out of all these geographical images, none of them stood out as much as the being standing in front of me. It stood out as a bright star stands out in a cloudless night.

The being was hideous. It was a creation of demons, and the product of a fallen hero. He was once tall, strong, and proud. His amber eyes were said to be a sigil to the glorious destiny that laid the road before him. Now they were blinded, covered with dark fel cloth from some other world. His body was no longer that of man. Rather, it was twisted and warped. His once smooth, handsome face was scared with smoldering horns, twisting and turning out of his forehead. His charming hair had become coarse, like that of a corpse. His feet had become wrecked and morphed into sharp-pointed talons, like ones you would expect to see on a bird of prey. In his hands he wielded two glaives, stained dark with blood, signs of a demon hunter that he was, now engulfed by what he once hated. But by far his most horrific transformation was that of his black webbed wings. They were not that of an angel - bright, warm and full of promise; but of a demon - rough, scaled, dark, and cold. This is what now remains of the once great man, Illidan Stormrage.

From what my eyes are telling the reader, they may imagine only someone with pure intentions could stand against a beast such as this. In actuality, I can sympathize well with this monstrosity. I was once a handsome prince. Dark skinned, blonde haired, and bright eyed. A true natural at law, becoming a paladin of the light at the young age of seven-teen. My armor gleamed with bright light and was coated with silver and gold, royal colors to reflect my noble disposition. Corruption set its sight on me and soon claimed me as my own. My glorious kingdom had fallen under a plague of undead and in order to save it, I had it culled. "Your father ruled this land for seventy years, and you've ground it to dust in a matter of days,"(Uther the Lightbringer"). This was how my beloved mentor described my choices of exterminating an entire infected city.

I fell to the power of this scourge. I joined this armory of the undead willing. I slew my mentor, my father, and my close friends; rulers of neighboring nations. I transformed into a prodigal Lich; neither alive or dead. I had control over hordes of those who had fallen. I wielded a demonic sword that gave me such power, sleek and shining, imbued with dark energy from beyond the grave. I did not fully understand what had taken me to this point. I destroyed the kingdoms that I had set out to save and become what I had once loathed. The sword spoke to me. Its glistening blade whispered into my cold dark head. It told me the source of unlimited power would be found within a frozen throne on the icy northern continent.

That is why Arthas Menethil stands here now, covered in blood of friend and family. His plate mail blackened, darkened with the blood of friends and family. A once strong heart no longer beats to keep him alive, but rather his will, a will as solid as iron. A will fueled by greed. He traveled with nothing but the shining bright rune blade. His corpse like body could not feel any of the extreme cold around. The maelstrom of snow did nothing to him. His vision was set. He wanted power and so did the twisted demon in front of him. Both, once handsome, noble, gallant men, now corrupted with what they once hunted down. One, a ruler of the living dead, the other a demon lord.

They had challenged their metal in combat once before. With steel clashing and the flash of metal shining through the air like shooting stars, these men found themselves at a stale mate. Before, neither of them could best the other. It was as though fate had written a book that assigned them each equal wins and losses, and against each other was no exception. This time they both wished to rewrite the book. They both hoped that with each strike, each magic word uttered, and each blow the other would wear more than they.

With silent agreement they began. Illidan, with his behometh wings flapping through the air rose into the snowy sky. He flew towards Arthas, both his glaives shining through the snowy air. Arthas' blade did not let him down, catching both of Illidan's glaives. He easily knocked them away as if he was sweeping the floor with a broom. Illidan found himself off guard with both of his monstrous arms in the air. Arthas took this time to strike, lifting his sword into the air as if it was as light as a feather, he moved at lightening speeds. He then jumped into the air, slashing his blade furiously through the air, flashing so bright as to blind you. It cut through Illidans chest like a knife through butter. His blood melted through the snow all the way to the barren rocky ground beneath it, staining whatever it reached. The battle was over for finally and Arthas had began to claim his prize.

He ascended up the frozen stairs in front of him to a citadel of ice. The stair case of ice was surrounded with a deep chasm as black as night and appearing to have no bottom. The room was encased with a high ceiling of ice. As he neared the top of the ice stairs, he saw the prize he was finally searching for, a frozen throne. On top sat a dignified skeleton armored in black plate mail, and encased in ice. The sword whispered to him again and told him to break the ice that lay in front of his eyes. It said that the remains that sit in front of him is its physical body. Lifting the blade one last time Arthas cut threw the ice and a spinning gust of energy flew out. It encompassed his body and became one with him. The swords soul merged with him and the two became one. From that day forward, Arthas lay in wait on his throne, claiming the frozen north as his own, waiting for someone to challenge his might, or maybe waiting to make the rest of the world his own.

Works Cited

Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. 1. New York: Random House,

1990.

"Uther the Lightbringer." Wowwiki. 2009. 30 01 2009 <http://www.wowwiki.com/

Uther_the_Lightbringer>.

Reasoning

My essay has gone through three revisions so far and still leaves the audience with the same question; “Where is this going?”. The idea for this essay wasn’t to tell a story, or explain a definition, nor was it to compare to things. To put it best, I wanted this essay to come out to be in the descriptive genre. My main idea when I sat down to write this paper was to describe a picture of a famous scene in a book/video game. In my final draft I attached the picture to give the reader a better idea of what I am talking about, but I waited to put it at the end to let the reader see if what they visualized from my words actually matched the picture attached. I believe my paper is in the descriptive genre because it meets the main criteria for the genre, being very descriptive. By the end of the first paragraph alone I have used over twenty different adjectives, and many more follow in the proceeding paragraph. My paper also has narrative characteristics and it would be wrong for me to deny that. The story is told through the eyes of one of the characters in the picture. The character describes the story threw his eyes. This being said the genre would be best defined as a descriptive narrative.

The Peking Garden

The Peking Garden

I’ve known people who have judged something before you really got to know it. I’ve also known people who stereotype someone because of race, color or ethnicity. I can also say I’ve known people who have judged a book by its cover. That last one was a bit cliché, but by now I should have the point across. Judging is something we all do at some point. It doesn't even have to be intentional; it sometimes turns out to be subconscious. One of the things I believe we judge very often, especially at a young age, is food. This is exceptionally true about me. I hated almost every meal that wasn't a hamburger and french fries. Even tacos were out of the question.

If I would describe myself now, I would say I am someone that is a fine connoisseur of food. I love everything from Chinese to Italian. If there is a food I am not acquainted with I’m more than willing to give it a try. This happened, believe it or not, in one night- a night that I experienced a wide variety of food and a night that changed me in many ways. It was a night my taste buds will never forget.

It all started on a Thursday afternoon. At its started, it was just another ordinary day to me. But I had made plans weeks before for the evening to be something that was far from ordinary. This was the night of the Spiderman 3 premier, and despite my near perfect school attendance record, a few of my friends and I planned on going to school and skipping class on Friday. When the day finally came the classes seemed to go slower then ever, so it gave me a lot of time to think about how awesome it was going to be. Popcorn, a night with all my closest friends, a kick-ass action movie (let alone the fact that it was a premier), what more could I, a teenage guy, ask for? There was only one thing that was hanging over my head - the food plans for before and after.

My friends had told me we were to be dining at an "amazing" Chinese restaurant called the Peking Garden. To me the adjective amazing didn't seem to fit well here at all, it seemed horribly out of place. The first thing that came into thought about Chinese food was lots of vegetables, strange sauces, and raw fish. Not exactly the type of foods to make my mouth buds water.

Blocking the thought of stringy, sour vegetables mixed with raw fish out of my head, I tried concentrating on getting through the rest of school. Ironically school lunch this day was General Tso's chicken, the closest thing to eating Chinese food in school. I watched everyone else in the lunch room eating their meal, and decided I would pass. If I were to be eating it later, I’d rather upset my taste buds once than have to frown at my choices twice that day.

Three hours later, school was finally out and I was ready to go. It was four o'clock and my stomach was starting to get antsy since I skipped lunch. I was thinking about making a sandwich, ham and cheese sounded wonderful right about now. It was making my mouth start to salivate. Just one quick sandwich- white bread, honeysuckle ham, and American cheese; the norm. That will hold me over until midnight when I can gorge myself with buttery, salty popcorn. I went to my kitchen and got out the bread, but the next thing I know is my doorbell is ringing. I looked outside and to my surprise it was my friends ready to get going. Who would have thought that day dreaming about a ham sandwich would have taken up an hour?! That part of the story in itself taught me a lesson on procrastination and initiative.

I was crammed in the back seat of my friends Honda accord. Comfortably, it seats five, today we had seven. "If only my stomach was this full," I thought, as we sped down the highway to our destination. The ride was only an hour and despite the rough ride, it wasn't that bad. The entire way down my friends discussed what sushi they were going to get, I didn't understand anything they were talking about. When my friend Jake asked if I would split an order of California and tuna rolls with him, I made the first decision that would betray my taste buds and said sure.

We finally arrived at the Chinese restaurant at six o'clock. As I got out of the car, I looked at the building. It was in a shopping complex and was snuggled between a dentist’s office and a Subway. It looked ordinary. I expected the building to be as strange as I thought the food was and this made me start to warm up to the idea. I was hungry, I promised a friend I would split some sushi with him, and the place didn't look bad at all. Things are actually looking pretty good.

After we were seated, the waitress brought out hot tea, some thin crackers, and an orange sauce for us to eat as a sort of appetizer. The food looked inviting, and I was hungry. So, I decided to eat. I didn't question what it was until later when I found out it was krupuk (a cracker made from a seafood paste) and duck sauce. The fact that it was a mystery food was a huge step for me, and now knowing what I was eating, it was an even larger leap than I first thought.

When it came time to order, I had Jake order for me. He chose hot and spicy chicken. "Spicy chicken and rice?" I thought, “It doesn't sound too bad." I couldn't have been more right. When the meal came it was delicious. I was so hungry, I forgot I was eating and ENJOYING vegetables, chicken, and rice all mixed in a strange sauce. I was going through an epiphany. Just because something may look or sound un-appetizing at first, doesn't mean that it is. Then it hit me, I still had one more culinary obstacle to overtake: sushi.

Just as I realized that I still had the task of eating raw fish ahead of me, it was being placed on the table. I looked at it and it wasn't what I expected at all. A tiny little roll laced in rice with what looked like cucumber and crab meat inside. My friends all watched me as I picked it up. If I was going to vomit, this was probably one of the most enjoyable things they were waiting for. I was starting to sweat a bit. It could have been the fact that I had just finished something hot and spicy or it could have been the fact that I was about to eat raw fish with 6 other people watching. To this day I still don't know.

It was now or never, so I popped it in my mouth. It was like something I've never tasted before. It was sweet yet spicy, and to this day I still can not categorize it in any flavor but its own. My friends, looking for some type of amusement were shocked when I told them how delicious it was.

For the remainder of the night I didn’t eat much of anything else. Well, I did have some popcorn and a coke at the movies (not doing that would be breaking a movie theater commandment). But nothing that night had been more enjoyable than that meal. It had opened my sense of taste to a plethora of options. Weeks later, I experienced the wonders of Taco Bell. Months after that, I joined my friends once again at an Indian restaurant in Pittsburgh. To this day, I still make a monthly trip to the same Chinese restaurant; every time trying something new and always looking for a new way to stimulate my taste buds. This reminds me never to judge anything, by any means, ever again.

Auto Ethnography Final copy

Nicholas Mongell

English 101

Marlen Harrison

March 30, 2009

“I”’s affect on my writing

When I first came into this semester, I had set goals for myself. I was in a rough spot with my academic career already and I was focused and determined to go through with achieving a good passing grade in my English class. What detoured me the most was the fact that I wasn’t confident with writing, ever. I can be the first to admit that I half assed my way through my high school college prep classes walking away with a B average. Over all I felt as though I was a smart, capable writer who just needed to put more into his work.

This class was meant to teach me how to be a good effective writer; it was supposed to help me learn how to express my ideas thoughts and points of views on paper. I don’t think I fully reached this stage in my writing career, but the class actually taught me much more than just writing skills. It has taught me to find the hidden skills in college courses. I can now say that, without a doubt, this course has made my mind work harder than any class before. By revisiting my papers throughout this past semester, I can point out many key points in my own writing process that shows what type of person I am. As ridiculous as it sounds, this class actually helped me find out who I am.

Throughout this entire course I have created an identity. This identity is shown in my writing through my choice of words, structure, and my methodical process in how I write. By writing this paper, I wish to show examples of how my identity has shown through in my writing and how I can use these examples to give a hard definition of who I am as a writer.

The first assignment that really made me think was Kawai’s, “What Is I?” paper. At first, I viewed this assignment as just another paper, not really putting much thought into it and trying to complete the assignment by answering the question simply. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until recently that I applied the question “What Is I?” into my own life. I came to the conclusion that “I” is the end product of me. “I” is created by the things that influence me, my like, my dislikes, and who I am as a whole. Now knowing what “I” is to me, I can look back at all my work done within this semester and explain why a paper is written this way or that way, or how I came up with this idea.

When looking back into my original response to “What Is I?,” I find an excellent example of my identity as a writer shining through.

“Personally this makes me think that ‘I’ is always assumed to be about the physical self, such as ‘I like to ride bikes’ could be interpreted the same as ‘riding bikes is a passion of mine’.”

This excerpt shows that when I am faced with a question, I try to find a clean cut answer- something that is inside a box and doesn’t overstep boundaries. I also want to note, that even though at this point I was thinking inside the box, I said “physical self” as apposed to a mental self. This, I believe, is a great example of how I write; when I try to explain things on paper, I have a different mind set and I tend to write outside the box without knowing. I would also like to note that distinguishing between mental and physical will come up many times in my later essays.

“What Is I?” may have been the most important assignment to me at this point in time, but Anne LaMott’s, “Shitty First Drafts” was the first real influence on my writing style. This reading was one that I always referred to throughout the year. It fed the idea into my head that every paper is not going to be perfect in one draft; it may take multiple drafts for it to even be acceptable. With that in mind, it made me a more of a confident writer within my blogs and essays. It made me less timid and more likely to put something in my papers or writings that I would think would be a risk. It gave me a new mind set. Instead of sitting down to do a paper and thinking, “Well, I need to have X amount of info on this topic, X amount of info on this topic, this needs to have 3 citations, grammar needs to be perfect, etc., etc., etc.” I would think “This is my first draft, I’m going to write my thoughts and my ideas down on paper. It doesn’t need to be perfect. This is my shitty first draft.” This makes me feel extremely relaxed when writing and I contribute a lot of my success to that.

Getting through my first essay was surprisingly easy. It had only taken me one minor revision and it was graded. Reading this essay now, compared to some of my previous blog entries and previous high school papers, I can see a huge difference in my writing style. Most of it I can credit towards my new relaxed approach to writing thanks to Anne LaMott and my second I would have to attribute to lovely Diana Ackerman. At first, I was really dreading reading “A Natural History of the Senses,” but now, I can appreciate her writing style and its influence on me. Her down to earth sense of writing and her sexual oriented twists on her writing related back to me and made it interesting and enjoyable.

My first essay showed a lot about my writing personality. It showed that when I write, I like to be very descriptive. Even though the genre was narrative, it included many descriptive qualities that tend to show up in other essays. Also, this essay is the first piece of writing that actually lets me write as me. For example, in my previous writing carrier I was always taught to write a formal paper – not to use “I” and no profanity. This was the first paper I could say “fuck that” and actually write what was on my mind and be truthful to what happened. A perfect example of my descriptiveness would be this small paragraph from my essay, “The Peking Garden”.

“Three hours later, school was finally out and I was ready to go. It was four o’clock and my stomach was starting to get antsy since I skipped lunch. I was thinking about making a sandwich, ham and cheese sounded wonderful right about now. It was making my mouth start to salivate. Just one quick sandwich- white bread, honeysuckle ham, and American cheese, the norm. That will hold me over until midnight when I can gorge myself with buttery, salty popcorn. I went to my kitchen and got out the bread, but the next thing I know is my doorbell is ringing. I look outside and to my surprise it was my friends ready to get going. Who would have thought that day dreaming about a ham sandwich would have taken up an hour?! That part of the story in itself taught me a lesson on procrastination and initiative.” (The Peking Garden 2)

I was really pleased with this paragraph. I thought that I wasn’t formal and I felt as if I was talking to a friend. This also shows another characteristic of my writing identity, my view on the audience. At this point in the course, audience wasn’t something that was heavily stressed, but it was talked about. I can say from that point on, I tend to view my audience as someone who I can call a friend. I try to avoid viewing my audience as a superior or a teacher because that’s how I have been forced to view them as throughout my entire life.

I thought about Ackerman’s writing style, and I looked at it as a way to include “I” in my writing, yet be informative. It taught me how to explain my views in more than one way. In my first essay on taste, I tried to break away from my normal style of writing and used techniques I had picked up from LaMott and Ackerman. The paper was a narrative and I wrote it as if though I was talking to a friend. I used the same type of language and kept it somewhat personal. This is one of the things I attribute to my success of my paper and future papers.

Moving on through the semester, I came to my 2nd essay on vision. This essay is one that I never really liked and i am still currently correcting. Even though I do not like this paper, I can learn a lot about myself through reading it. While I look over it, I see that I am trying to explain a picture in detail but I have no goals or aims for the paper. In other words, I am just writing a huge essay describing a picture. This shows a great deal of immaturity as a writer. It tells me that I haven’t organized my goal statements, which I know is very crucial for me to have set in stone before I write a successful paper. To make this paper come out as a respectable gradable essay I wrote a reasoning letter at the end describing why I think it fits the descriptive genre. I believe, as I had stated before, that it was a 5 page paper describing a paper. I believe I used some very good descriptive passages. One of my favorites that shows my skill at writing these passages would be this one.

“Arthas took this time to strike. Lifting his sword into the air as if it was as light as a feather, he moved at lightening speeds. He then jumped into the air, slashing his blade furiously through the air flashing as bright as to blind anyone in its path. It cut through Illidans chest like a knife through butter. His blood melted through the snow all the way to the barren, rocky ground beneath it, staining whatever it reached.”( A visual Skirmish 4)

The third essay I had written was on smell. I had used a definitive genre and overall, I really had enjoyed writing this essay. My first draft I had one noticeable problem, I did not make the length requirement. This was one of those “I’ve written everything on my mind that I have, what else can I do?” What I like to call “fuck” moments. When I was faced with this situation, I learned how to truly appreciate the reason why Marlen pushed us to write goal statements before our blogs and previous papers. Reading through my goal statement, I noticed where and what I could elaborate on and what I could add into my essay allowing me to add enough in to meet the page requirement without my paper being boring and full of rambling.

By the time I had finished this essay I wasn’t feeling the same as I did at the beginning. I actually think I turned it into a decent essay. The thing that I think I had changed that made it this way was my opener. I through out a very descriptive opener, and added a new first sentence. “Raw, strong coffee beans, fresh air from an open window, and of course the ever dreaded smell of sweat.” (Daily Ritual of Aromas 1) I believe this once again shows that im a strong descriptive writer no matter what genre I am writing in.

After this paper, I went through another incredible process that made me improve as a writer, the peer editing process. At first, I didn’t know how to feel about this experience. I wasn’t making a big deal out of it, until I actually had to do it. I felt as if I had to be critical as I held someone else’s grade in my hands. Not only that, but I also felt that I’m not an expert writer, so I don’t truly have to over analyze there paper; I soon learned this to hold true. My approach to this was pretty simple. Just like an essay, I would set my goals on what I wanted to look for. First, read their goal and pre-writing statements. Then, read through their essay, read the post writing info, and the grade the rubric. I enjoyed this experience a lot. By reading another peer’s paper, it allows me to see how other people in my position are writing. I don’t consider it cheating or copying, but rather learning because I’m gaining different ideas from there styles of writing.

My fourth essay brought around nothing very new or exciting to me as a writer, but the fact of consistency. The essay writing process, to me, was just now beginning to feel natural. At this time I was not thinking to myself “Fuck, I have a 5 page paper to write this sucks,” but rather of “I have a paper to write. This is easier than my other work.” I think that my writing at this point has gotten as good as it can be for the semester and I can say in retrospect that this isn’t true at all. When I reread my paper after the peer editing process I see that I have a problem construing my point of view in my writing without confusion. I tend to often confuse the reader more as I talk about something.

The beginning of my essay has a story to it that started out bad but actually has a good result. When I first got my peer editing project back, my partner said I had a week introduction and week hook for attention. At the time I was thinking to myself “ill give you an introduction alright, why don’t I just punch you in the face?” I would like the reader to know that I don’t mean this literally. I turned that statement though, into my introduction. “Writing typing, texting and getting punched in the face all have things in common.” (The Many Facades of Touch 1) I believe this was a semi decent introduction and I’m quiet pleased.

Moving to my fifth paper, I had more anxiety in the beginning compared to any other assignment. I think what brought this about was Marlen’s last remark before leaving class on the Friday before it was due. He said “Guys this is your last essay, so show me your best.” Immediately I began to think that this can not be a shitty first draft, so I took a new approach to my pre-writing. Like usual, I began writing my pre-writing goals and defining what I wanted to do and explain in my paper. I then began mind mapping and came up with two possible routes for my paper and narrowed it down into two different genres. I then began writing a paper on the pros and cons of hearing and comparing it to the other senses. By the time I had three pages written, I was completely disgusted with what I had written and felt like I wasn’t meeting any of my goals. Before I went as far to scrap it, I called my sister to peer read it through an email. She didn’t critique it as hard as I did, but the end choice resulted in me rewriting the entire paper over again. This time, I took my best points from my first paper as something to add into my goals.

When I had finally finished my essay on hearing, I was able to take a step back and look at my progress on this assignment and compare it to the other essays. Over all, I spent much more time and work on this essay for a first draft compared to the other. Personally I believe this effort showed. I believe my interests and key points were clearer than the ones in my other papers and I had a relatively easy time writing my paper. Because of the extremely long pre-writing process I went through, I had an easy time putting my thoughts and ideas on paper. I think for future papers, in other subjects, I will take the time to do this again.

The end of essay five is the point where I really can say I learned what “I” is. “I” was defined in all of my essays. This is what I think “I” is in my writing:

“I” is my first thoughts on assignment when I learn of it. “I” is my thought process on organizing an essay. “I” is how I feel when writing a paper. “I” is how I write an essay through my eyes. “I” is my sense of gratification when the first draft is done. “I” is how I refine my essays.

Outside of my writing, I have learned a lot about myself asking the question “What Is I?” “I” is my point of view on everything in the world and the way I let the world affect me. It is a paradox. To define what is “I” is to use your point of view and putting your interests into it. I have defined who I am as a writer by writing. I believe that is the only way it can be done. Writing is the single most way of expressing yourself, and I believe this contradicts the age old saying of “actions speak louder than words.” Actions do not tell you what you think about something, how you would react to it, what you do not like about it or anything very descriptive compared to writing. A good example of this would be the workshop on hearing. We were using our sense of hearing to stereotype people by there taste of music. I disagreed with this a lot, but I did not show it in any way other than in my blog responses.

Over all, I have found out through my writing that I am a very descriptive writer and that I’ve earned the right to use larger and avant-garde adjectives to describe something. I also have learned that I am a very straight forward writer. I like to tell my audience what I’m going to be talking about by using a phrase such as, “Before I begin, my paper will contain,” or “Throughout this paper I will be…” to explain how I will be organizing my thoughts.

As poorly as I am doing in this class, it has taught me that the writing process is similar to life in general. When you begin something, you need to organize your thoughts and roughly plan ahead. When you begin your first attempt, its ok if it turns out shitty, but the second time around I should learn from mistakes to make progress. Recently in life I have gone through a terribly shitty experience. I was denied yet again into the music department. My life and passion are blocked now. I can look at this with the view of a shitty first draft. I say to myself ok, I did this and it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. Now I just have to revise my life so it turns out acceptable to me.

Through this class, I have learned I am a procrastinator. I have learned that I am indecisive on where I stand on topics that come up that I write about (all of my papers show characteristics of my indecisiveness). From the unclear motives in my papers, to the neutral style of writing in all of my essays, this is quite evident. I also have learned that maybe who I think I am, isn’t really true; I have to dig deeper.

I’m hoping to take something away from this course other than just writing skill – organization. I really need to organize my life and my priorities if I’m going to make it to where I want to be. It’s taken me a long time to figure this out, but it’s finally hit me. I need to stop procrastinating and get things done if I’m ever going to accomplish anything in my life. This class has made me sit down and organize things in papers, now I just have to apply this concept to more important and urgent aspects of my life. Maybe with this skill I can turn my life around and find something that gives me a benefit.

Works Cited

Mongell, Nicholas. The Peking Garden.

Mongell, Nicholas. A visual Skirmish

Mongell, Nicholas. Daily Ritual of Aromas

Mongell, Nicholas. The Many Facades of Touch

Autoethnography Reflection

First thing that comes to mind was stress. I could not think of how to organize my paper and have it be very informative. I ended up writing more of a reflection of the course and how it has helped me become a better student and how i feel as if my grade doesnt correspond to what i hhave truly learned. I Found it hard to quote myself in my writing. The reason is that in all of my papers i am very informative and not really myself. The only way i can seee myself in my writing is if i write a narrative. i feel like i can really let loose and explain things from my point of view. that leads me to another problem i had. I tend to try to ove analize thinsg in my autoethnography. I cant really explain who i am in my terms by my writing. my writing does not fully explain who i am as a person but who i am as a writer. like i have two identities. I found this project harder than the rest because it is writing about who i am through my writing style when i am going through a particularly hard time in my life. I can honestly say that i dont know who i am right now and that my writing isnt helping me at all. I can also say that by explaining how i feel about this project is almost like doing the project over again. I always feel like im not doing something write, im not following the guidelines of an aassignment, yet i truly am trying as a student and working hard. thats one of the reasons it makes me feel like i may not pass this class, just for the fact that i dont feel like im doing as well as on a grade standpoint as i am from a working standpoint.

Essay 2 reasoning

My essay has gone through three revisions so far and still leaves the audience with the same question; “Where is this going?”. The idea for this essay wasn’t to tell a story, or explain a definition, nor was it to compare to things. To put it best, i wanted this essay to come out to be in the descriptive genre. My main idea when i sat down to write this paper was to describe a picture of a famous scene in a book/video game. In my final draft I attached the picture to give the reader a better idea of what i am talking about, but i waited to put it at the end to let the reader see if what they visualized from my words actually matched the picture attached. I believe my paper is in the descriptive genre because it meets the main criteria for the genre, being very descriptive. By the end of the first paragraph alone I have used over twenty different adjectives, and many more follow in the proceeding paragraph. My paper also has narrative characteristics and it would be wrong for me to deny that. The story is told through the eyes of one of the characters in the picture. The character describes the story threw his eyes. This being said the genre would be best defined as a descriptive narrative.

post #10

As i finish up my first 5 pages I feel like i have a good skeleton to my paper. When i started my paper I thought the best way to do this is to get the main ideas out on the paper. So i went on by listing every influential reading, all the papers, any activity that gave me a huge wake up call to writing, or anything that i can look back at that i can say made a new plateau for me as a writer. I have much more to do, but thankfully i left a lot of things out that im feeling hopeful that will make this a good paper.

I based my research around Kawai’s “what is I”. I believe this entire time all the papers and essays I have done have made me able to answer this question, but truly this question is a paradox as i explain in my paper. I then moved on talking about my first essay, Anne LaMott’s shitty first drafts, and how Ackermans writing style influenced me. I specifically left out details and quotes of interests from these readings and my own to add into the paper later. I believe these are very key points and might not have been the best things to leave out, but it helps me for that fact that i know that i have my basic ideas on the paper at the moment. In other words i used LaMott’s idea of a shitty first draft here in my writing. 

Through out the rest of the paper i explained my views on the other essays and a workshop that influenced my views on writing in the class. I intend to wrap up my paper by revisiting “What is I” and defining it. In sum, things i plan on adding in within the next 5 pages are expanding ideas already within the paper by quoting my own work and the readings we have done, as well as notes from peer editors. I also will show, in a clear manner, how ive evolved as a writer this semester using more examples and being more specific. Hopefully when i finish this auto-ethnography i wont have to attach 100 dollars worth of chocolate in my final portfolio for a passing grade.

Autoethnogrophy 1 rough

Nicholas Mongell

English 101

Marlen Harrison

March 30, 2009

“I”’s affect on my writing

When I first came into this semester I had set goals for myself. I was in a rough spot with my academic career already and i was focused and determined to go through with achieving a good passing grade in my English class. The thing that detoured me the most was i wasnt confident with writing ever. I can be the first to admit i half assed my way through my high school collage prep classes walking away with a B average. Over all I felt as though I was a smart capable writer who just needed to put more into his work.

The first assignment that really made me think was Kawai’s, “What Is I?” paper. At first I viewed this as trying to complete the assignment of answering that question, but it wasn’t until recently that i applied the question “What Is I?” into my own life. I came to the conclusion that I is the end product of me. I is created by the things that influence me, my likes and dislikes, and who i am as a whole. Now knowing what I is to me i can look back at all my work done within this semester and explain why a paper is this way, or how i came up with this idea.

What is I may have been the most important assignment to me at this point in time, but Anne LaMott’s “shitty first drafts” was the first real influence on my writing style. This reading was one that I always referred to through out the year. It fed the idea into my head that every paper is not going to be perfect in one draft, It may take multiple drafts for it to even be acceptable. With that in mind, It made me a more confident writer within my blogs and essays. It made me less timid and more likely to put something in my papers or writing that i would think would be a risk.: It gave me a new mind set. Instead of sitting down to do a paper and thinking ” Well I need to have X amount of info on this topic, and X amount of info on this topic, this needs to have 3 citations, grammer needs to be perfect, ect ect ect” i would think ” This is my first draft, Im going to write my thoughts and my ideas down on paper, it doesnt need to be perfect. this is my shitty first draft.” This makes me feel extremly relaxed when writing and i contribute alot of my success to that.

Getting through my first essay was suprisingly easy. It had only taken me one minor revision and it was graded. Reading this essay now compared to some of my previous blog entrys, and previous high school papers i can see a huge difference in my writing style. Most of it i can credit towards my new relaxed approach to writing thanks to Anne LaMott and my second I would have to attribute to lovely Diana Ackerman. At first I was really dreading reading “A Natural history of the senses” but now i can appreciate her writing style and its influence on me. Her down to earth sense of writing and her sexual oriented twists on her writing related back to me and made it interesting and enjoyable.

I thought of how ackerman’s writing style, and i looked at it as a way to include I in my writing yet be informative. It taught me how to explain my views in more than one way. In my first essay on taste I tried to break away from my normal style of writing and used techniques i had picked up from LaMott and Ackerman. the paper was a narrative and i wrote it as if though i was talking to a friend, i used the same type of language and kept it somewhat personal. This is one of the things i attribute to my success of my paper and future papers.

Moving on through the semester i came to my 2nd essay on vision. This essay is one that i never really liked and i am still currently correcting. Even though i do not like this paper i can learn a lot about myself through reading it. While i look over this paper i see that i am trying to explain a picture in detail but i have no goals or aims for the paper. In other words i am just writing a huge essay describing a picture. This shows a great deal of immaturity as a writer. It tells me that i haven’t organized my goal statements, which i know find very crucial for me to have set in stone before i write a successful paper.

The third essay I had written was on Smell. I had used a definitive genre and over all i really had enjoyed writing this essay. My first draft I had one noticeable problem, i did not make the length requirement. This was one of those “I’ve written everything on my mind that i have, what else can i do? fuck.” moments. When i was faced with this situations i learned how to truly appreciate the reason of why Marlen pushed us to write goal statements before our blogs and previous papers. Reading through my goal statement, I noticed where and what i could elaborate on and what i could add into my essay allowing me to add enough in to meet the page requirement without my paper being boring and full of rambling.

After this paper I went through another incredible process that made me improve as a writer; the peer editing process. At first i didnt know how to feel for this experience. I wasn’t making a big deal out of it, until i actually had to do it. I felt as if i had to be critical as i held someone else’s grade in my hands, but i also felt, as i soon learned was correct, that im not an expert writer so I don’t truly have to over analyze there paper. My approach to this was pretty simple. Just like an essay, i would set my goals of what i wanted to look for. I would first read there goal and pre writing statements, then read through there essay, read the post writing info and the grade the rubric. I enjoyed this experience a lot. By reading another peers paper it allows me to see how other people in my position are writing. i dont consider it cheating or copying, but rather learning because im gaining different ideas from there styles of writing.

My fourth essay brought around nothing very new or exciting to me as a writer, but the fact of consistency. The essay writing process to me was just now beginning to feel natural. At this time I was not thinking to myself “Fuck i have a 5 page paper to write this sucks” but of “I have a paper to write this is easier than my other work.” I think that my writing at this point has gotten as good as it can be for the semester and i can say in retrospect that this isn’t true at all. When i reread my paper after the peer editing process I see that I have a problem construing my point of view in my writing without confusion. I tend to often confuse the reader more the more i talk about something.

Moving to my fifth paper I had more anxiety in the beginning compared to any other assignment. I think what brought this about was Marlen’s last remark before leaving class on the friday before it was due. He said ” Guys this is your last essay, so show me your best.” Immediately I began to think that this can not be a shitty first draft, so i took a new approach to my pre writing. Like usual, i began writing my pre writing goals and defining what i wanted to do and explain in my paper. I then began mind mapping and came up with two possible route for my paper and narrowed it down into two different genres. I than began writing a paper on the pros and cons of Hearing and comparing the with the other sense. By the time i had three pages written i was completely disgusted with what i had written and felt like i wasn’t meeting any of my goals. Before i went as far to scrap it i called my sister to peer read it through an email. She didn’t critique it as hard as i did, but the end choice resulted in me rewriting the entire paper over again. This time i took my best points from my first paper as more to add into my goals.

When i had finally finished my essay on hearing I was able to take a step back and look at my progress on this assignment and compare it to the other essays. Over all i spent much more time and work on this essay for a first draft compared to the others, but personally i believe it showed as well. I believe my interests and key points were more clear than the ones in my other papers, and i had a relatively easy time writing my paper. Because of the extremely long pre writing process i went through i had an easy time putting my thoughts and ideas on paper, and i think for future papers in other subjects i will take the time to do this again.

After essay five is the point where i really can say I learned What I is. I was defined in all of my essays. This is what I think I is in my writing:

I is my first thoughts on assignment when I learn of it.
I is my thought process on organizing an essay.
I is how I feel when writing a paper.
I is how how i write an essay through my eyes
I is my sense of gratification when the first draft is done.
I is how i refine my essays

Outside of my writing I have learned a lot about myself asking the question “what is I?”. I is my point of view on everything in the world and the way i let the world affect me. It is a paradox. To define what is I, is to use your point of view and your interests into it. I have defined who I am as a writer by writing.I believe that is the only it can be done. Writing is the single most way of expressing yourself, and i believe this contradicts the age old saying of “actions speak louder than words.” Actions do not tell you what you think about something, how you would react to it, what you do not like about it or anything very descriptive compared to writing. A good example of this would be the workshop on hearing. We were using our sense of hearing to stereotype people by there sense of music. I disagreed with this a lot, but i did not show it in any way other than in my blog responses.