Seung-Hui Jeong/Assignment 1/Thursday 1-3PM

 Writing was always part of my life, though it doesn't necessarily account for my skills in writing. One of my earliest memories of writing was when I wrote poems on small origami paper and gave them to my cousins as a gift. I can't account for the quality of those either nor whether they even liked them but I find it interesting how I actually seemed to enjoy writing poems as a child. I prefer to stick with lengthier sentences now. When I went into elementary school, I became so enamored with the Nancy Drew series, I wrote my own mystery 'novels' in glittery Gelly Roll pens on A4 paper, complete with illustrations. I vaguely remember each of these 'novels' were ten pages long though I can't remember what any of them were about nor whether they made any logical sense.

 

My first pleasant experience with writing was when I was in a group study in elementary and the teacher praised my writing and gave it top marks. It was a shining moment for a twelve year old and this affected my early writing experiences as a child. I became more confident and keener on receiving feedback to improve my writing. This was good because I became less willing on receiving feedback as I grew up and started receiving grades on things like my thesis statement.

 

I write for myself very often, which includes diaries, journals, letters to friends on birthdays and anniversaries. Writing letters is an awfully personal and emotionally but also literally time consuming activity which is why I prefer to do it on rare occasions. I also enjoy writing journals and diaries which is why I somehow have two ongoing ones at the same time. I was given my first diary by my mother when I was in elementary, who encouraged me to write in my diaries often. It was after reading the Princess Diaries series when I actually began to pour heart and soul into them, though nowadays writing in my diary has disintegrated into a few sentences of how I haven't written much every two months or so. The one important and obvious factor that differentiates such writing from my school assignments is that these are personal. Personal to extents that I would be horrified and mortified at the same time should anyone else other than the intended person or myself read it. When I write these I become focused on only myself and the intended reader and on dissecting my thoughts and feelings. This process or this relationship between me and the writing becomes less intense on a personal level when it's for a school assignment because I become aware of all the other factors like the teacher, peer students, grades, the body paragraphs' coherence with the introduction and the thesis, wrapping everything up nicely in a bow in the conclusion, and so on.