Me the Writer

When it comes to writing anything it tends to come with ease to me. I’m really lucky since I know many people struggle with writing or even putting their ideas down on paper. However, I must admit that sometimes it can be frustrating to not have the right words to express what is going on in my crazy head.  I think that the free writes we had to do for this class were a way to warm up our train of thoughts in order to be able to write a great essay. With my past English and even history classes I’ve gotten thrown an essay out of the blue and expected to have a beautiful masterpiece by the time I was done. Of course, I always put my best to whatever I was writing and even if I didn’t have anything to warm me up, but in this class I was able to have this luxury which I think played a huge part in the out come of my final drafts. The thing that I enjoyed the most was that I was bale to let my thoughts flow freely with out having to worry about my spelling or if everything sounded grammatically correct.

As to the blogs I found them to be more fun since I had only one thing that I can elaborate on, opposed to only ten minutes on a free write. I would get some of my ideas from my free writes though, like the ones from the holidays. I was able to have separate things from like three or four free writes that contributed to the make up of one blog post. The only thing that was clearly different was that I also had to include pictures and hyperlinks, which irritated me at times because I would want to find the best image possible and sometimes it would take me more time than usual.Over all, these mini writing assignments were away to write with out worrying if they are on topic especially mine since they don’t really have a clear theme. They just look like pieces of writing that were put together from different areas of my life, which is what they were in the end of the day. I didn’t seem to stress too much when it came to either, but if I had left them to last minute or had to catch up to the number I needed by the end of the week I would start to rush. Even though sometimes my free writes seemed irrelevant to the things we were doing in the class by the time we were done with a certain section I it would make sense since it would connect back to the essay we might have been doing at that moment.

Having this class opened my eyes to the different types of writing I can do, as well as showed me that I am not limited to the things that I learned in high school. I think its unfair the way teachers teach English because they close the minds of creative writers by telling them that they are not writing the wright way, when in reality there is no right way to write as long as you have a purpose. I will take all the lessons I’ve learned since I can and will apply them to the rest of my writing forever.

Thanks Caitlin!

Late post #2…last post of the semester smh

This saturday,
(the day our blog posts were due)
my day was full.
I read lines for actors for an MFA film audition
my friend from my a filmmaking club I`m apart of asked me to help him with his Mastery of Fine Arts graduate film
and
went to… work (dun dun duuuun!)
and I was closing (bum buuuuuuuuhhhhhhh!)
I`ve never seen so much underwear in my life
If I ever have to fold another thong…

So I read lines for auditions for 5 hrs and worked straight after.
I didn`t come home until 12am.

But when I came home, I saw the cutest thing:
My sexiled neighbor and my roommate cuddling and they were both snoring XD
and saturday night,
my mom decided to text me while I waited at the bus stop b/c she remembered I was closing that night :)
so…it wash`t all bad…
except for the fact that this blob post is almost 24 hours late
as of now 22 hours late to be exact

I might not feel so great, but here`s a vine video that hopefully makes your day better :)

I`ve loved this class and believe it or not,
I do love writing blob posts (when I remember to write them)

Thank you for reading! and have a GREAT 2nd semester!!!

Thanks Caitlin and everybody!

Throughout all my years of schooling, I was not always one to connect with teachers or adults. I was always very cynical of adults and even a little bit till this day, but during my senior year of high school one teacher changed that. His name was Mr. Curtis and he was my Physics teacher at the time; the first day I walked into the class, I thought he was literally a mad scientist. While he was explaining the syllabus he was talking crazy fast and he even pretended to throw a boulder at someone but luckily it was fake. At one point he even cut off a piece of this girl's hair and used matches just to burn it. But as the term progressed the whole class saw what kind of teacher he was. Although we did not understand ANYTHING he was talking about, he was possibly one of the most caring teachers/human beings you could meet. He always stayed after school to help his students, went out of his way to help boost our grades up and even offered us water or juice whenever we were thirsty. Even though I did not learn that much from him educationally, he ended up being my favorite teacher in high school because of the compassion he showed for his students and how he went out of his way to help us understand what we were learning.

 





The quotation above from Albert Einstein with the combination of Mr. Curtis was almost if not exactly the kind of teacher Caitlin had turned out to be for me. I am not just writing this because I know she is going to read it or because I am being graded for this, but because I know I am speaking for almost everyone in this class (well hopefully everyone agrees with me lol). Throughout this whole semester, I believe that Caitlin has taught us more about writing than what we could have learned in the past 4 years of high school. The first day I walked into her class, I thought she was going to be like those college professors who didn't give a rat's ass about their students and were only their to teach because they were paid to do so. Caitlin was the opposite of that; she actually took her time to sit down and discuss our essays with us, gave us useful writing skills and techniques that will be applicable for our future papers or any kind of writing in life and she even brought donuts for us during the grammar lessons....what college professor is that awesome enough to bring their class donuts?!

Anyways as I was saying, Caitlin has done what Albert Einstein has stated which was to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge especially with these blogs and the free writes. Caitlin has become one of my favorite teachers along with Mr. Curtis and as I mentioned previously, I am not the type to connect with adults. I really wish that we could all have English 214 with her and each other again. Although I didn't talk to everyone in the class I feel like we all connected through these blogs even if it is anonymous. I hope you all enjoyed having Caitlin as a teacher as much as I did and enjoyed this class. Good luck with the rest of any finals you guys may have, next semester and college! Thanks :)

 

Christmas Time

Christmas is by far, the best holiday there is! It is a time where families gather together to have a great time and enjoy each other’s company. Christmas is where bonds are strengthened and where many more are created. Also where loved ones are cherished and a time to be thankful for what we have. More commonly, it is a time to reflect on the past year and to think of New Year resolutions.

As a kid I would wait all year long for this one day to come. As December rolled by, my siblings and I would watch 25 Days of Christmas on ABC Family, just to get into the holiday spirit. We would talk and think of what we wanted “Santa” to get us, idea after idea rolled into our minds and after an hour we would have 5 pages worth of gifts. But we “knew” the only way we would be able to get any gifts is if we were good and we didn’t fight. So throughout those 25 days until Christmas, we were on our best behavior. So to prevent any fighting we spent most of our time in our room by ourselves. This was the hardest part for me because I would always be so bored not arguing with my siblings, but eventually it paid off. When you’re a kid you want everything, and you would do anything to have it. But as we grew older we realized “Santa” didn’t exist, and that our parents would be the ones to give the gifts. However, even though we grew older we didn’t leave behind the tradition of watching 25 Days of Christmas. My siblings and I also began new traditions and started going out to buy gifts for our parents and friends. We also saw a new side to Christmas; it wasn’t about all receiving gifts but about the time we got to spend together as family. And as family members moved away for college, we can’t help but cherish the little time that we have with them. As Christmas rolls around my family would sit together by the tree on Christmas Eve and countdown until it was Christmas and we would open the gifts that we got each other. This would last until 4 in the morning because the time we spent using the gifts that we received takes so long. Then we would sleep for a couple hours and wake up at 8 to start the Christmas day.

Every year Christmas is always that time of year to look forward to, but when it comes we don’t noticed how fast it passes by. We are stuck wondering how the holidays slipped past us. But the good thing that is left over is the memories that we get to keep for the rest of our lives.

Finals!

So this semester is almost over which is crazy, it has gone by so fast. I feel like it was just a few weeks ago that I moved into my dorm, ready to start my first year in college, and now it’s almost halfway done. Now we are all stressing out because it’s finals week and we have to write multiple papers and study for tests. For me, I am really overwhelmed right now. This semester has been pretty easy I think, work load wise, because unlike high school you don’t have to deal with unimportant busy work that teachers constantly gave to us just so we had something to do. That is why I think college is easier then high school, because in college we basically just have essays to do and reading for tests which is kind of hard but it is not that overwhelming if you just manage your time well because we have plenty of time to do it if we don’t procrastinate. I try to not procrastinate, but that never actually happens so I have become good at cramming last minute and writing essays in a few hours. That is one thing I’ve learned from college, how to be a good procrastinator :)

Anyways, so it is almost over and we only have a week left of school or shorter depending when your finals are. For me I’m pretty lucky because I don’t have any in class finals that I need to study or prep for. Mine are all take home so that is nice but it’s hard to force myself to sit down and get it all done (me and my struggle with procrastinating :/). Soon we will be on break and it will be over before we know it. We will be back in school with a whole new schedule and we will have to go search for our classes, get to know a whole new group of people in our classes, and have to deal with new professors who are hopefully nice and fair graders. So for everyone reading this that has a ton of finals here’s a video that I found that might help inspire you to get your s**t done!

Farewell everyone

It’s almost the end of the semester. One more week left, and realizing now it felt like time flew by so swiftly.  English Class, hands down is one of my favorite classes right now.  We’ve all been through so much this semester.  Studying for midterms, doing papers, and even competing for classes. 

As I look back to this semester, I remember the first time Caitlin announced to the class about free-writes, and blogs.  My initial thought was, “This is going to be such a pain in the ass.” I was never a writing fanatic.  I never took any writing assignments seriously.  As I got into free-writes; however, I realized that it was not as terrible as I would make it seem to be.  Free-writes and blogs were a great experience.  It allowed me to open up to new ideas.  It allowed me to let my thoughts and feelings out.  It also allowed me to realize that writing is not as boring, and dull as it seems.  As weeks past, writing actually became fun to me.  I would write on my leisure time, in the bus, in my house, and heck even in my bathroom.  This also factors into blogging. I initially thought that blogging would be okay, just a do it and never look back kind-of assignment.  But as weeks past, sharing our blog posts’ to other people became interesting.  People talked about things we all can relate to.  Some were funny, and some were serious.

Overall, English 114 was a great experience.  As I mentioned before, this by far was my favorite class this semester.  I’m really going to miss the class, and all these blogs we’ve been sharing together.  I hope we all do well for finals week, and may the odds be ever in your favor. Peace out!

The End to a New Beginning

It's all coming to an end now guys. We're going into our last week of Fall Semester, and looking back it seems it all went by so fast. For most of us, we have a lot of studying ahead of us while others somehow were blessed to have finals early and be able to head home early. I for one cannot leave until after Saturday afternoon because lucky me has a Math final to attend and hopefully pass. It feels odd
saying this is my last blog, but it is. No more free writes and no more blogging. To be honest I had mixed emotions about this whole experience. At times free writes were fine if not relaxing but at other times free writes were just such a bother. Especially at times when I was packed with work from other classes. Same goes for the blogs, except when it came to blogging I would sometimes forget about it and remember the day they were due. It was fun though just saying anything you had on your mind and a big plus was that grammar was thrown out the window. If I wanted to I cud jus tipe lik dis if i wantid 2. Of course I don't think I could handle going head to head with auto correct every other word. Now this blog is also comforting in the sense that it does not put as much pressure on your shoulders as the reflective essay and portfolio do. Well, more so the essay because that thing was just... uhmm fun. All jokes aside is anyone else worried that there are no revisions for this one and
just watch, because of that it's going to end up being the paper in most need of revisions. (Knock on wood). Something I fear more than any assignments though is my future in english. There is no more Caitlin Fields after this week and our next english class will be a different teacher who I fear will not be as friendly. Maybe we all committed a freshman mistake of becoming comfortable with our teacher thinking they won't change as if we're in high school all over again. I am sure that we will all do fine though. We're all tough cookies and heck we got through one semester, why not get through all of them. This is my farewell from this blog fellow classmates. Stay Golden

Blogging & Free-Writes

It's nearly the end of our English class, which means that by now we should all be finishing up our blogs and free-writes. When we first started this class and Caitlin told us that we had to free-write once every two days for 10 minutes, I thought it was going to be dreadful. I've never been a huge fan of writing, especially not for 10 minutes straight. I thought to myself, "This is going to be difficult.. I don't have the patience to sit down and write for 10 minutes." It wasn't until I finished the first one at home and I realized that it wasn't going to be as bad as I thought. It felt a bit good, actually. I was able to just write about anything for 10 minutes straight and not have to worry about my grammar or if it even made any sense. I just had to get my ideas down without stopping. Caitlin reassured us that we would never have to look at our free-writes again and honestly, I didn't believe it. I've always had to look back at previous work in my previous English classes but Caitlin was right. I never looked at my free-writes a second time after I finished writing them. Even though I avoided my free-writes after I had wrote them, they were still able to help my essays. Every set of free-writes we did was actually a great deal of help when I had to decide my topic. That wasn't all free-writes were useful for, though. Let's not forget about blogging. Well, actually I'm not sure how we could forget about blogging since you're reading my blog right now. But, anyways, all of my blog posts have been based on the set of free-writes we did during the 3 week period. At first, I didn't understand the whole point of free-writes. I thought it was useless and didn't serve much of a purpose, but boy, was I wrong. Free-writes were incredibly useful. If it weren't for free-writes, I would've had so much trouble deciding what to blog about and write about for my papers. Caitlin definitely knew what she was doing when she assigned us free-writes and that's the first and last time I ever question her teaching methods. Well, enough about free-writes. Blogging was pretty fun as well. I've never owned a blog because honestly, I don't think people really care about what I have to say. But, after reading and writing blogs during this first semester, I found it to be quite interesting. Maybe after this semester, I'll even make a personal blog. Just maybe.

The People I Expected to See: What I Saw of Myself

Before I attended the first day of classes at San Francisco State University - before I even attended freshmen orientation - I had an image in my head of the people whom I expected to meet. This image was built up over time as I overheard my sister's complaints of various types of people which she had met at SFSU. I had expected to meet poseurs, fanatics - all sorts of eccentrics and intolerable people.

Here, I blame my sister for my pessimism, but in actuality, I had thought this way even before I heard her rants. I had always expected to see terrible people whenever I went somewhere new. I hadn't always been this way though; I believe high school ignited this pessimism. Though, I expect terrible people not simply for the sake of pessimism. I expected to meet terrible people so that if I were ever to wonder about making friends, I could tell myself that I made little to no new friends because the people I met were the absolute worst kinds of people.

To my expectancy I did meet some of those kinds of people, but surprisingly to me, they were few and far between.

This pessimism, I believe, traces back to my fears, which I will not explicitly name here, for you or anyone. That is all I have to say on the matter.

What I take from this pessimism is that I delude myself in an effort to save me from myself. I seek a hermit's shelter.

I expect no sympathies from whomever may read this. I also want no sympathies. Do not make this a pity party. Just critique the words and how they fit together.

Free-writes and Blogging = Relaxing

This is crazy! Our first semester of freshmen year is almost done. How did time fly by so fast? For me, one of the reasons why this semester went by super fast was because of this class. Everyone is amazing and really supportive. I feel like there isn’t much judgment in this class.

As I’ve said in my first blog, I’ve always struggled with reading and writing. However, because of this class I feel more confident about pieces of writing I’ve done. I realized that writing isn’t limited to certain things like the use of “I” in essays. “I” is a powerful word that expresses a person’s voice on writing. And, throughout this class, I’ve learned to use “I” because of the purpose it brings to writing. The readers are able to hear about my beliefs and my voice. Pieces of writing that I’ve used the word “I” many times were my blogs, free-writes, SF review, and narrative essay.

When I wrote the free-writes, I felt relaxed, but also scattered. In the past, I’ve never written free-writes before writing an actual essay because I thought it was unnecessary. I felt relaxed because some of the free-writes felt like journal writing. In particular, the prompt from weeks 1-3, weeks 7-9, and weeks 13-15—these prompts were more opinionated and geared towards our telling our story. The fact that these prompts allowed us to freely express ourselves was a reason why I felt relaxed as I wrote these free-writes. I felt scattered because I rarely write without going back to edit. However, now, subconsciously free-write before I write essays and my writer's block goes away.

Because of the free-writes, the blogs were fun to do. Originally I thought the blogs would be a hassle, but the blogs are actually really fun. We’re able to write about anything in this class and post different stuff. This blog is a great way to learn about other people in this class. This blog allowed us to learn from each other through our different perspectives on writing and, reflections of the world and ourselves. I realized that blogging isn’t just an opinion piece, but a type of writing that allows the writer to express his/her feelings about a situation or time in their lives. Blogging is fun and interactive, I want to create a personal blog now.

Overall I love this class (as I’ve said throughout this whole blog)! I’m really going to miss you guys and this blog forum. I hope everyone does well on your finals!

Finals, Finals, Finals!

As we find ourselves finishing up our last assignments for the Fall 2013 semester, we all have one common thing on our brain: FINALS. This is why I've decided to use my last blog post to offer some advice on how to be successful in these next couple of weeks.


Tip #1: Stay away from social media.

Our generation carries the privilege - yet also the burden - of having the whole entire internet at our fingertips. Although we're grateful to have access to virtually any bit of information we might desire, many of us have also developed an attention span the length of a paperclip. We sit down, we start to type, develop a nice title for our essay, and then we start to wonder what's happening on Facebook. Before we know it, 3 hours have gone by and we're looking at funny cat videos on YouTube! This is why during finals week, we might want to limit ourselves to only using the internet for research/educational purposes.

Tip #2: Don't deprive yourself of sleep.

I know we all have the habit of waiting until the night before the exam to study. Hey, the information is fresh in my brain, right? Although we might wish this were the case, it's always better to study in advance - a little at a time. Try to space out your studying in the days before the test and the information will stick a lot better; this way you also have time to ask questions about anything you might not understand. Plus, nobody wants to take a final exam on 4 hours of sleep because they stayed up too late studying.

Tip #3: Cut back on the social life.

We all know that you're a social butterfly and love surrounding yourself with good friends. During finals, however - you might want to spend some times as a one man wolf pack. Unless you're the type who likes to study in groups! In that case, go for it! Just make sure that you actually spend your group time studying and not just socializing. It's important that you focus your mind on the things that you learned throughout the semester. (This is not to say that you shouldn't give yourself a few short breaks between study sessions - those are always much needed).

Tip #4: Go for the brain foods.

Healthy eating is an important part of a well-functioning brain. Maintaining a well balanced diet is always a good thing but it's especially crucial during finals week. Try to cut the junk food for a while and stick to foods that are high in protein and low in sugar. Also, make sure to eat a nice and light breakfast on the morning of your tests. Studies show that those who eat a good breakfast prior to testing typically score higher than those who don't.

Tip #5: Wear glasses and look sexy.

Just kidding. Tip #5 is actually: have confidence. If you go into a situation believing you're going to fail, chances are: you're right. It's important to be calm, cool, and collected during a test. Stressing is only going to make it harder on you and cause distractions. Besides, if you've practiced the last 4 tips, there's nothing to worry about! Hopefully your professors have prepared you enough for their exams and given you all the information you need to know. Once you've looked over this information enough times to comprehend and remember, you're ready for finals!

Those were my top 5 favorite tips, but if you want some more, click here!

Also, I hope everyone does well on their finals and has a great winter vacation!

It was great sharing a class with all of you this semester, and I hope to see you all again in the years to come. Thanks guys and thank you Caitlin!

Its Time to Say Good Bye! :(

     English class this semester was really fun and exciting. I learned a lot about my writing through Caitlin's wise words. Caitlin made us read lots and lots of examples of good writing to help us with our own writing. We read pieces about Vonnegut, Elbow, King, etc. Remember those exciting readings... ;)

     As I look back on all the writing I did this semester, my essays, free-writes, and blogs; I noticed that I am becoming a better writer. My language definitely improved. I do not sound like I have verbal diarrhea anymore. My sentences are well structured, I do not have as many grammar mistakes, I am spelling my words right and my sentences are more cohesive. I actually sound like a college student.

     Caitlin made us practice writing a lot. Everyday we would have to do a free-write on anything we want. At first, I had writers block and had issues picking a topic to write about. I would also have issues starting to write my thoughts, but after many months of practice I think I finally nailed it down.

      Now when I start writing my essays or any other kind of writing, my ideas flow quicker to me. I learned to write down my ideas and then revise them later. I worried to as I write, not to worry about my spelling or grammar because you can always come back and fix it later on.

      From now on as I do my future writing, before I do an essay, I'm going to write a free write about my topic to wake up the brain and get it going.

      As the semester ends, I am really going to miss Caitlin's class. I learned so much in one semester of her class then I ever did in high school. I am also going to miss my classmates. My classmates really helped me out in my English class. All of their commentary on my blogs or commentary on my essays really helped me become a better writer. It is always good to hear feedback from others and their opinions.

  
       English class this semester was my favorite class. It was both insightful and fun. there was never a day where I would be bored out of my mind. Caitlin and my peers made class a joy and delight for me. I am really sad to be leaving. I wish Caitlin could teach Eng 214. That would be awesome!
                           We should all sign a petition to get her to be our teacher again!

Final Paper Thoughts

We learned in ENG 114 the importance for drafts and revision. Noting that, I am thinking that although it is entirely up to us to how many drafts we turn in and direction of the paper, I think it's a test and that I would be better off doing the same process as any other essays. A test to see if I produce the drafts the efficient way, and if I have gained any direction in a paper.

The whole idea of freedom and ambiguous instruction leaves me uneasy because it's testing if I can swim in the big ocean that is college.

The final paper is testing: 
-if I can be productive without a deadline for each draft and rhetorical guidelines (since we make the rhetorical guidelines ourselves)
-if I can get a good grade without after-submission revision
-if I have learned how to compose

I apologize if I have scared you, but it's my premonition powers. The pressure is on.

You and me both are looking like:

All the thoughts I am currently thinking: 
"It's a trap!"
"YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO CAITLIN!"
"Do 3 drafts! Have direction! "
"Apply some rhetorical terms!! Make it academic somehow!" 

The final test of if we have learned anything this semester isn't as "chill" as I thought it would be. No, it's an exit pass to test composition knowledge. Be wary of this deceptive freedom (okay maybe it's not that ominous), freedom comes with a price. May the odds be in your favor. *Hunger Games Whistles*

Kind of overreacted... Caitlin told us today (after I made this post)that she assigned us the essay for us. To express our own writing.  It makes me excited to write with no conventions... and worried...

Time is Ticking Away

Can you guys believe this is our last blog post!? So crazy, it feels like just yesterday we were graduating high school, going to orientation, and moving into our dorms. At least we can say we made it through our first semester of college! It's just crazy how fast that was. Four months and then bam, a new semester starts. And those next four months will probably be just as fast and then we're second years! I never really realized how fast time is. I mean, I have noticed, I just never thought anything of it. But now as I step back and take it all in, I realize how everything is changing. Our parents are getting older, friends are getting married and having children, little ones we use to know are growing older, and more loved ones are passing away. We need to take time out to stop and appreciate everything happening and take time into our hands and live our lives to the fullest.

The movie "In Time" was super inspirational to me. It has more meaning to the story than just a bunch of action moves and what not. In this movie, the time a person has to live is treated like money. The more time you have, the longer you have to live. I think the meaning of this movie is just to open everyones eyes and have time realize that time is so much more precious than we really think. One day, our time will run out and it'll be something we regret. If you have yet to see this movie, I highly recommend it. Not only is it an amazing movie, but Justin Timberlake is in it! That's a major plus (: