Blog #3: Personal Experience Essay

Choosing two options for a personal experience essay that could be used is very difficult. The only thing I can really think of is that I could write about my dad adopting me, but since I was very young when this happened, I do not remember anything about the process. Nothing other than that has really impacted my life or made me who I am today. 

Ideas for my dad adopting me would be how I found out and how it all happened. Because of me being such a young child when it all happened, it would probably be in my best interest that I write about when I found out that he adopted me. Although I could write about when I found out about it, it would be much more sentimental if I wrote about when he adopted me and when we went through that process. This event really has shaped me into the person I am today because without him, I wouldn't have learned a lot of the values that I have in me now.

Blog #2: Personal Writing-Summer Experience

This summer I really did not do very many exciting things. Because of this, it is very hard for me to choose something to write about. The main things that stick out to me most would have to be the bad things that I experienced such as witnessing two people tear their ACL and noticing that my softball team had more drama between the girls than we had been winning games. We really did not get along too well. Beside all of this though, I did have some really fun times this summer. I had the privilege to work at the Two Rivers YMCA summer camp as a camp counselor.

I gained so many friendships between other counselors and the children that i was with everyday. I earned a connection between each and every one of the kids I was fortunate enough to meet through this camp. The camp that I was working was an all day thing. The kids would normally be there from 6:30 in the morning to 5:30 (give or take) that night. Whenever we would switch who was on the clock to be with them, you could tell which kids truly trusted you because they would not want you to leave.

Every week the children would get to go on a fun field trip to somewhere outside of the Y. One week it was to the zoo, one was to Splash Landing water park, and one was to White Water Junction. There were many more field trips, but these stick out in my mind the most. For every field trip, each counselor is assigned to about 8-10 kids to have with them the whole day. This may seem like a lot of kids to many people, but it was actually really fun and the kids were almost always well behaved.

Of course sometimes the kids would act out or bring drama into their fun days, but those issues were always worked out with the help of a counselor who just tried to make sure that there was no more fighting going on. We counselors wanted nothing more than for the children to have fun because that's what they were there for. Having drama between people is never that much fun, so we always had to be on our toes to make sure that we caught what the kids, mainly girls, were saying to each other. The girls were so harsh to each other even at such a young age. Some of the things the kids would say to each other, such as "your mom doesn't even want you," (something we heard quite often) and "no, you cannot play with us today," hurt the other kids very much, so we would always have to council the children so that they wouldn't be as hurt anymore.

Although it may not seem like my summer was all that exciting, I absolutely love being with kids and this summer I worked my ideal summer job. I loved every minute of it, whether it was during the drama or during the very fun times, and I am so fortunate to have met all of the people that i did meet.

Blog #1: Your Abilities as a Writer

As a writer, I usually take my writings very seriously. I utalize the time I have to complete my piece of work. While I am working on it, I frequently read through what I already have done so I know how it is flowing. I will often print what I have written and have someone read it for me to make sure that it makes sense not only to me but to other people, also. As long as it makes sense and flows to them, I will continue to write as I had been. If the writing doesn't flow as well as I thought it should, I will go back and see what I can do to make it flow together. Because of this, I am pretty confident about my writing ability. I believe that I handle my writings very well to make sure that I get them done to my full capabilities. My main strength is grammar. I have always been good with grammar and tend to be able to pick out my own mistakes in writing. My main weakness is not knowing how to start or end writings. Once I get going, I can just go, but if I am stuck on the introduction or the closing paragraph, I have no idea what to do. I really think that I need to work on that.

I think that we should working on opening and closing essays and writings. It isn't something that has really been stressed over the years so not very many people actually know or understand how to do that. All we have really talked about in previous English classes is how to write the body paragraphs and not the beginning and end of the writings. As for questions about the class, I really do not have any. It has been explained very well and I understand the gist of what we are supposed to be doing.