The End Already?

To find yourself, think for yourself.
- Socrates 


The duration of high school is a time in which many people begin to find themselves, and along with that their "niche" so to speak. It is also a time in which many people try to just follow the crowd; they conform to the norm-in relation to mindset and other actions. Now, you may be wondering how this relates to my blog post? Well, that's simple enough to answer, so here it is. As I read my blog posts, I noticed and pondered something rather surprising: my growth in character and in who I am greatly influenced my growth in writing, and my growth in writing in turn influenced my growth in character and personality. They seem to have a seemingly abstract correlation, but I feel it may even be more than that. Initially, I came into Honors English a bit nervous for the analytical writing aspect of the class, for it had never been one of my strongest abilities. Looking back upon this, I can clearly see my problem; I conformed to the mass of ideas in writing, I made only meager attempts at new ideas. I'm not quite sure why I didn't try for new ideas, for I guess you could say most of the time I'm a very anti-conformist person. I enjoy coming up with new creative ideas, however abstract they may be. The only reason for going along with the river of ideas in the beginning was my original impression that when analyzing any work of literature, there is only one or two acceptable answers. Again, looking back on this, I realize it was a struggle for me to not be using my creativity in my writing; for that reason I enjoy creative writing. One simple thing put the idea in my head that creativity can be used in analytical writing; just a more structured creativity. What opened this door to my writing were the blogs. Yes, the blogs. These were more conducive to being creative, because I wouldn't be hearing other answers, so I easily came up with my own. Seeing my good scores on these blogs, I became cognizant of the fact that my creativity on these was working. I implemented this in my paragraph and essay writing. All of a sudden these grades went up. Then I wondered if these varying ideas I could come up with would help me in the once dreaded discussions. Very quickly I learned that all I had needed was to open up the innovative part of my mind, which prolifically altered my discussion scores for the better. Of my blogs, since the very beginning, there are two that really stand out to me. One is the one on the poem "Lobsters." I touched on some different ideas in this that don't seem to be mentioned much or at all by my peers. I also just really like how I wrote this one. The other blog that really stands out to me is the blog in which we related Great Expectations to any other art type thing we've seen. I really enjoyed this blog because it connected the novel into my world, and I was able to implement some creativity and abstract connections in it. Both of which I like writing. Reminiscing upon this year I see how the blogs, whether directly or secondarily, influenced my personality. I think that they have made me think even more creatively and out of the box. I have gained a heightened respect for many novels, seeing how complex some really are. I can't say I won't miss these blogs, for I think in the long run they've really had a big impact on me as a writer, as well as a creative analytical thinker. That to me seems like somewhat of a paradox.

Memorable Assignment

Throughout English this year there have been many assignments which have been very creative and rather fun. Originally, I really didn't like the discussions because I rarely ever spoke. I think that was most likely caused by my lack of creative and thought provoking questions. That really changed for me in the Great Expectations discussion. Throughout this discussion I spoke a good amount, and actually had some good ideas for discussion. Because of all this, it made the discussion a more of an enjoyable assignment.

To make this discussion what it was for me, but in retrospect I did work very hard on my questions. I had realized that my questions previously hadn't been creative enough; they didn't make you think much. This time I spent a lot more time on each question; perfecting them to the best of my abilities. I tried to write questions that I thought would go along with the discussion, while bringing up some new ideas. At this point I realized just how helpful annotations are, because without them I couldn't look back on different ideas I had. All in all my hard work paid of in this whole assignment, making it more enjoyable for me.

Experience With Poetry

While reciting poetry may not be at all enjoyable to me, analyzing and writing it stands somewhat higher on my hierarchical ladder of English related studies. This year, reading some of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poetry really opened my eyes, showing me that poetry wasn't necessarily centered around love. I enjoyed reading Shelley's poems because in them he wrote many things which I like to think about, such as his sly ridicule towards authoritarian ruling. The writing style that he used really intrigued me as well, for he used a lot of sarcasm to convey more meaningful messages; a style I really like.

The different formats in which Shelley wrote his poems also intrigued me. I liked the fact that it wasn't a generic format, but a more creative one which seemed to have a different flow and rhythm. I think that from this experience I crawled a bit farther out of my shell of ignorance to the vast and creative world of poetry. It made me realize that anyone can write poetry; you just really need to write about what you know and like in a creative way conducive to a certain audience, or just yourself. Poetry seems like an art: if you like what you produce, great; if others like it, then that's a bonus. At this point in my life I respect poetry and poets, especially those who try to bring their poetry and writing into untouched places, like Percy Shelley; this action, however courageous, ensued with his banishment.