Day 1

Writing has never been my strong suit. I think a big reason to my lack of confidence in writing is because of the other languages that I have learned. Despite being born in the US, my first language was Korean because my grandparents helped raise me and they don't speak English too well. It wasn't until preschool when I started learning English. In kindergarten, I began learning Chinese because the immersion program was offered in my elementary school. In this program, I learned English for half the day and Chinese for the other half of the day. As a result, the time that I got to learn English was minimal. People say that it is easiest to learn another language when you are younger, but I think I definitely struggled because I wasn't even confident in English when I started learning Chinese.

This is me trying to juggle Korean, English, and Chinese

This lack of confidence carried throughout elementary school. Thankfully, I did not have many writing opportunities in my English class that I didn't have to worry about this. However, as soon as I entered middle school, my classes became significantly harder. I began needing tutors and studying more hours to be able to understand the material and do well in class. Honestly, this didn't frustrate me too much because I saw it coming. I just had to read the textbook and do practice problems. Writing on the other hand, was another story. All of my friends were extremely smart and good writers. I would read their essays and be amazed by their vocabulary choice and writing structure. I always hated proofreading because I would compare my essays with theirs.

This is me comparing my essay with my friends

Despite feeling embarrassed when my friends read my essay, I would still beg them to help me because I didn't know how to sound more sophisticated when I write. This feeling continued throughout high school as well. I'm not saying that all of my essays were terrible; there were definitely times when I felt that they were decent. However, it still was my hardest class and possibly the least favorite because I struggled so much. When my friends would spend an hour on an assignment, I would spend almost an entire day. I think it's because I didn't know how to express myself truly in my writing. I would just lock myself in my room and be frustrated for hours until I found my writing to be somewhat okay.

This is me closing my laptop because I am frustrated and don't know what to write

This is probably why I was so happy when I first came to college because I knew I only had to take writing for one semester. I felt so much relief when I realized that I didn't have to take writing my first semester. It felt like I was finally getting a break that I really wanted. 

This is me dancing my way through first semester

However, here I am in second semester trying to find myself through writing all over again. I dread the hours I have to spend trying to find good sources, write good analysis, think of a good thesis, and everything else that comes with good writing. As I look at the syllabus in class with everyone, I am extremely nervous because of the amount of writing I'd have to do. At least in high school, I had other projects and assignments, but in a writing class, there's only writing assignments. 

This is me sweating buckets thinking about the informal writing and the 4 formal assignments

This is only the first day of the semester, however. I hope that my thoughts on writing and this class changes. After all, I chose human happiness, I should feel some sort of positive energy right?

Fingers crossed for a good semester!!!

My quote of the day. I hope I can find the light in my frustration with writing and get a positive experience out of this class.