What to say about this semester? It's my first year in college and I can't believe time has passed so quickly. I still don't really have anyone I would call a friend, and I haven't spent much time with anyone beside myself. I suppose that's my own fault, and no one elses. English 1102 has been a trip, and my most stressful class. This is the class I never know what to expect with, because I almost always can bet no one did their work. I have also been a victim of this, but I feel like I have a general understanding of assignments, and I complete tasks in a timely manner.

Being in this class with people I have never met before definitely influenced how I handled everything. I am certain I am better off doing things alone, because I know however I do them, I do them to the best of my abilities and if I fail, there is no one to blame other than myself. In high school, I knew everyone. There was not a class I didn't have a friend in. Working in teams was always a downfall because I would get distracted by gossip and jokes and chit chat, and in this instance (in college), I was distracted by how no one knew what to do. It is as if my classmates' confusion boomeranged and bonked me in the head, spreading confusion as if it was a virus, through my body. I knew what Dr. Connor wanted us to do, but then put me in a group setting, and I didn't understand. Every person has a responsibility in a writing class. Each individual is responsible for doing their own work, and not doing any one else's. In a group setting, I believe in assigning sections to each teammate that would showcase their best ability or interest. A combination of each individual's talent creates a beautiful piece of art. But, for example, if Tommy fails to write the conclusion piece to a horror story, the audience will suffer never knowing what happens to Tammy, the girl stuck with a zombie. Just as the audience will suffer if Heather doesn't introduce the setting of the haunted house.

My writing in this class has improved a little, I feel, from what it was in high school. In high school most (if not all) of my writing was journalistic because I was on the newspaper staff. Through writing to explore I returned to my creative side and tried to find my old self who incoroporated wit, suspense, romance and horror in writing. Although I know I did not acheive the master goal in writing to explore, my process is always growing and will always grow - and with that, I don't think I will ever catch up to myself and reach my true potential. I will always be searching.

What have I learned most? I have learned that wiki isn't as confusing and hard to navigate as my classmates testify it is. Link, link, link. Create a page and link to the old one. Create a textbook of whatever I WANT to learn about through links. "For more information on this subject, click this link and read. But if you don't care, then mosey on through this paragraph". The Internet has an infinite amount of space, almost like a galaxy, and we can write and write and write, and there will always be space for us to educate!

Also, I have become more curious because of our textbook Earth Democracy. I want to know how our economy and culture and government affects the world and my peers. I want to soak it up like a sponge. The biggest impact Earth Democracy had on me was violence against women. Shiva, I felt, based a lot of Living Cultures around violence against women. Globally and historically, women are viewed as something that can be bought and sold, objects, animals, and even a burden. For me, that is so difficult to swallow. I can not imagine my dad selling me to a guy so that I can have his babies and take care of a house. My dad wants me to be successful and educated, and wants more for me than that lifestyle. I can never imagine my mother or father choosing to kill me because I'm not a boy. I can't imagine my parents dressing me up as a boy so that they can be more accepted in society. And, mostly, I cannot imagine my boyfriend beating me or pimping me out. That is not love in my eyes. He loves me, and he wants to protect me; he wants to keep me to himself. He would never consider pimping me out. I feel I have thoroughly investigated crimes against women, especially sex trafficking. I know it's real, but because I have not witnessed it first hand, it almost seems fake. I want it to stop, I want it to become an extinct industry. I'm still researching it, and I think I always will because I want those who know nothing about it (or who think that it's having sex in a car in traffic, haha Dr. Connor) to know the truth and feel violated and disgusted. I want to educate people to stand up and make a difference. If you don't know, you can't help. If you know and you don't act, you're doing nothing but supporting the travesty.

My thirst for knowledge will carry on into the rest of my years as a student, as well as graduate school. In my work with marine biology, I will have to question animal behavior and ocean behavior. "Why does this animal make this sound, why does this dolphin flick it's tail like that, why does this part of the ocean have these type of creatures?" If I can research it all, and have a great understanding, I will become an expert scientist and I can maybe discover something new that will go down in history.

Organization was is a huge key in my writing. Although it may seem like there is no sequence in the order I am addressing the topics I'm writing on- there is. I am writing about these topics in the order of importance they serve to me. I feel organization is key in getting a point across. If an audience cannot follow the path you have set out for them, they will get a headache. For this particular piece, organization is not necessarily gravely important because a reflection is based off of my thoughts, emotions and mindset. I don't need an audience to understand the order of which I carry out things. In fact, they could read each paragraph as a bullet point. Or an outline. In my writing, I have tried to weave information and narratives together to create an epic article. I want to blow your mind as well as educate you on the purpose of my writing, without you even realizing it. Almost like magic.

Editing. My favorite part of writing. Nit-picking what works and doesn't work, summarizing five words into one, demolishing paragraphs because they don't make sense.... it's the highlight of writing. I would love to do that for everyone. I want to be an editor. I feel like I edit things fairly well, and I give good reasons for the changes I make if you ask me. I haven't really had too much time to edit my peers' writing on the wiki, but feedback is mostly the same thing. I give suggestions to improve, and I write what I like so they know to do it again. AS I type this, I am editing it. The beauty of the medium of a laptop. I can type something, then backspace and it is gone. Without editing, the true colors of my brain would show, and not all of them are pretty.

I used different types of tools to get my point across to my audience. I used video, sound, pictures, graphs, tables, and narratives, as well as facts and personal experiences. I feel I know how to use each appropriately and even all together to create a wonderful piece of art. I feel I can capture the right emotion for each situation I present, and I think I successfully make the audience say "wow" and make them wonder.

I believe my major issue is transitions. In my narratives, I have no problem transitioning between chapters because I generally end them in suspense, closure or realization. In writing to inform, I don't feel it's a great idea to do that. I want to leave a paragraph off so that it resonates within the reader and they feel it had a purpose. I will probably always be working on transitions. Because I don't like formal transitions, but that is what is desired in college, I suppose.

I would like to end my reflection in a personal opinion. I honestly don't feel as if it is possible to grade someone's writing. I feel like all these mechanical and technological terms are inappropriate for most formats of writing. The writing I am interested in, I don't believe, should have to undergo an analysis of syntax, pathos, ethos, logos, or rhetorical situations. I don't like having to think "I have to write this so that I can get a good grade". For me, writing is not about that. Writing is a flow. Writing is pure thought, and emotion, and story telling. With that being said, I hope I addressed what I should have. Because I wrote about what I feel is important, and I said what I had to say. Yes, I believe a good story or essay has great syntax and pathos and strong voice, but I don't believe you can teach anyone how to write well. There isn't a formula to writing well. Writing is something that embodies you. Writing is my soul.

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