expect the unexpected

in this case, the expected was me. hating my freshman writing class. the unexpected was coming out of that class (with an A, might i add!) with a new writing style, and the odd feeling of catching myself wondering how i would write about certain events or my thoughts in general.

i never would have imagined myself sitting down at my computer to type these words; i have never been a fan of writing. but, this past semester i've learned a lot. i haven't learned all the secrets, or fancy techniques that magically turn words on a page into something desired. no, i've learned about passion. my teacher was constantly encouraging us students to write about things we were passionate about. even if it was a boring topic to someone else, he said, our passion for our writing would come through to make the paper absolutely interesting. he also suggested (or demanded) that we never write ANYTHING boring.

i struggled at first, because i walked into that class worried. i worried about getting a good grade. i worried about the ten-page research paper. i worried about all the other intelligent people around me reading what i wrote. i worried that i would hate it.

when i saw the rubric that my teacher would be using to grade my work, i was even more...worried (surprising?). the highest scores would be achieved by choosing an interesting topic and writing more of a letter to a friend, not paper to a professor. this went against everything i had been taught in high school! to me, writing was about the teacher forcing a topic on the dreading student. the student would be expected to write like a robot--but still keep a "voice." have you ever tried talking without any contractions? um, excuse me, but that is definitely not how i talk. i told my teacher these things, expecting him to agree with the teachers i had suffered under before. i was shocked to hear my college writing teacher tell me that i was now expected to write like i talked. contractions, forbidden in my junior year english class, were perfectly welcome. i could choose topics like beauty pageants, mormon mommy blogs, and foster care for my papers and still get an A! at first i was extremely confused. then, my opinion on writing really started to change.

i handed in my first paper with a pounding heart. i had done everything my teacher had asked. i had written about children in beauty pageants. other kids in my class wrote about evolution or politics. through our peer-edits, i felt like i was taking the easy way out by writing about something that i was completely invested in (just for the record, i wrote against pageants. a pageant girl, i am not). when i got that paper back, i was afraid to look at the red two-digit number after my works cited page. i blinked for a long time, then scrolled down and opened my eyes. i think i might have scrolled too far with my eyes closed and all, but i finally forced myself to look at the 94 staring back at me. never had two numbers put together made me so happy!

i could go through the rest of my entire semester of writing, but this post is getting long. the point is, i've gone from a writing student to a writer. i believe what i have to say is important, and so i'm gonna write it.

keep it hilaryous,

hilary