English and Composition used to be my most favorite subject. Then later it became my worst, most despised. Now here I am again, falling in love with the art all over again.
The very first memories I have of reading brings me to the flashbacks of my mother and I reading printed flashcards of introductory words such as ‘the, then, when, why’, and so forth. This was an intimate nightly ritual she and I shared every night before bed. I am pretty sure the very first words I was able to comprehend outside of home were Farm Fresh, Burger King, and Chesapeake General Hospital; all of which are within walking distance of our home. Then of course the all time classic books her and my father would read to me–Dr. Suess’s colorful, delightful, and playful rhyming books. Remember, “Green Eggs and Ham”, “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish”, or perhaps “The Cat in the Hat”? My love for reading was flourishing every day. Watching educational shows like ‘Reading Rainbow’ on PBS for hours and playing Reader Rabbit on the computer also quickly became my childhood growing up.
Before I could learn to actually write, I would doodle cursive-like scribbles all over papers and notebooks I could find. I enjoyed pretending that I was writing scholarly letters. My “office” was a blue Fisher Price or Little Tike desk with a yellow plastic chair for me to sit on and brainstorm. My desk was surrounded by my parents’ nursing books and college material. My dad had a collection of maroon and gold paged encyclopedias upon his bookshelf, this was of course, before the time of internet dialup and Wikipedia, which I would carry around the house along with a notebook, pretending that I had homework to get done.
I then attended B.M. William Primary School in Chesapeake, Virginia. There was a schoolwide competitive reading comprehension program amongst all students which consisted of reading books from their database, followed by a test on each book completed, and depending on how well you tested on that particular book, it then resulted each student with their own accumulation of points. Up until 2nd grade was when my reading skills had truly flourished. Naturally being competitive, along with the desire to please and have my parent’s approval, I achieved the highest amount of books read, tested, and points accumulated, schoolwide! Each milestone was presented with an award; I received ribbons starting from 20 points, 50 points, 100, and ended with my high score of over 500. Hearing my name announced on the intercom was one of the most rewarding feelings as a child. I fell in love especially reading Junie B. Jones, The Berenstain Bears, and Frog and Toad.
Writing was an absolute forte and sense of comfort at the time as well. My first artifact of early writing was a diary. If only I could recall what movie or show started my “Dear Diary…” phase. I loved writing stories and elaborating about my feelings and days. I loved making self reminding notes of tasks and activities I wished to complete. My second grade teacher I remember in particular, Mrs. Dodson, would praise how much I was able to produce pages of ideas according to whatever subject she had assigned the class to creatively write about. I honestly can’t recall what about though. The fire was so real as far as I could say. I excelled in spelling tests and grammar, and had been one of the first and only students in my class who had enjoyed writing in cursive as well.
Now when I moved to Las Vegas, I feel like that was when my love for education had truly gone downhill. I also became the eldest of two younger sisters, which then meant my parents’ attention and praise was no longer on me. From the first years of middleschool up until my last highschool years was when my love for education, and specifically skills in reading and writing, had its downward spiral, which then ended with a crash. Now don’t you mistake this for some tragic story, there’s light at the end of this tunnel, I promise! Allow me to continue…
Now during my years of middle school, my drive for learning just went down into a spiral, especially reading and writing. I then dreaded essays, reading assigned novels throughout the semester, and what was once creative ‘Dear Diary’ entries quickly became resentful “I hate my parents” monologues. My parents were then working quite a lot, which led to me being secluded most of the time and unable to emotionally rely on them. Lack of social interaction as well caused my creativity to diminish. I no longer had the excitement of expressing my ideas and feelings. I was eventually no longer emotionally present in my entries either, the relationship between my parents and I had been victim to the classic adolescent “rebellious” phase. My privacy was also violated as well, as a vividly recall overhearing my mother reveal to my father what I had written about my first experiences with boys. Excuse me while I cringe. *Shiver*
Now that I’m a little bit older I have overcome such issues of the past. As I have carefully thought out my relationship with writing, I now have a different mindset and goal concerning my educational future and capability in composition. I believe now my strengths are in formal, objective, informative writing. I seem to have comfortability explaining things in a chronological order. My goal now is to be able to creatively respond to scholarly articles with such eloquence, creativity, and unique voice. I desire to become more verbally capable and conversational, capable of comprehending college level readings and or beyond. As far as writing technology goes, before, my go to writing utensil used to be the pencil, I hated using pens and ink. Now, the tables have turned and I always prefer the pen over pencil! I religiously use my agenda to carefully organize and visualize my plans throughout the month, I write daily affirmations and “I am grateful for” monologues, and lastly I have my new Macbook Air to help me efficiently express my thoughts, along with the use of the handy thesaurus and dictionary. Writing has once again become my therapy and sense of comfort. I still owe it to my mother for first teaching me how to read and master my penmanship, and in regards to the future, I hope to evolve my way of thinking and writing style to take me beyond my skills and comprehension.
Platinum thoughts... 