THE PAST

The objective that I set in the beginning of CP English 12 was to improve my writing skills; to be precisely the storytelling skills. I can say that I partially achieved it, but I still have a long way to go towards my ultimate writing goal: one book per life. 

Before, I thought that the story should be like a fine, curvy line. A beautifully and smoothly told story, with no time for breaks or any hesitation. But no, a writing craft is not a permanent marker, and you can revise to achieve beauty. And smoothness is not always the right way; you can always be smooth because you need to zoom in and zoom out, to show scenes and context, micro and macro. 

My biggest inspiration for my biggest writing work so far was "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir for my second artifact. I realized that I can end on an idea to start another, and it is not required to have something in between as long as you are in the macro zone. 

As a reader in the beginning of this class, I was forceful. I read books because they were mandatory. This requirement had been so for eight years until the ninth and tenth grades, when there were no consequences for not reading books; probably because I was in an English Learning program. And I abused it: I didn't read as much as I should have. 

After the transfer to West Park High School, where I started participating in classes with almost all native speakers and a number of books per semester system in English classes, I felt pressure. I forced myself into reading as I used to do it, and my biggest mistake was to not actually use the freedom of choice. 

During this semester, I just asked: "maybe there are books and genres that I can read with joy, not force myself". And indeed, there were. It changed my perspective; I didn't feel burdened or pressured. After I "challenged" myself to find these genres, I did it pretty quickly. I felt ashamed for not doing it earlier, because it was easy. 

For the first 8 years of school, a post-Soviet education system mandated me to read and read specific books: the classics. For the next two years, I was free, but this freedom degraded me. Next year, I was required to read, but given the freedom of choice which I didn't used. And this year, I used the given freedom to get rid of the mandate's pressure. Maybe that's why I didn't finish X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz.

HOBBIES