The calm days after Christmas Break have continued with a short and sweet four day week.. So, as this week comes to a close and a new week begins, let us brace ourselves for the worst, 'cause who can say how long this will last. It's the "calm before the storm," and it's about to break. Here's something to think about as you go through your week.
No, I do not believe in fate, I believe in free-will. I believe that God has given us the ability to choose for ourselves, but that He knows us so completely that He knows what we will choose. With this same knowledge of every person, He can see further, knowing what choice will be made and how it will effect everyone else. Some people say that no one can know everything and that's s good thing. If we knew everything that was going to happen, we wouldn't learn from our choices.From our mistakes. If we knew only good, there would be only one answer, one way, and no choice.
As I was reading through the entries in my journal, I started to notice a pattern. For the most part, my analysis-based entries seem dry, poorly written and/or short. One such example would be the following excerpt from a response I wrote after watching the video "Teenage Afluenza is Spreading Fast." "The video...literally talks about Erin's life, exaggerating how hard it is and compares it to life for kids in poor countries." In this particular entry the word choice is extremely lacking and the response is over all poorly written. On the other hand, entries that have a less rigid criteria, such as Friday free writes, I'm able to get more excited (well at least, in this case more emotional) about. "I need to learn to relax again. I want to be able to just read a book and not worry about my enjoyment of it being temporary. I want to be able to live in the moment, day by day, and not have to think ahead so far. To not have the next few weeks already busy and full when I haven't even started this week." With entries like this, I really enjoy the creative freedom. My style is more creative writing oriented than expository.
(*A great book series FYI)
Like I mentioned before, my expository writing skills are severely lacking. I find that type of writing very bored and that often seems to bleed through into my assignments. My analysis usual seems very short and not well developed. An early analysis I wrote of Ralph from Lord of The Flies is one such example. "He is a very immature character and is not the smartest. People pretty much only follow him because he is the stereotypical 'ideal male.'" Although my analytical writing has improved in the past couple of months, I still have trouble coming up with more in depth writing. Also related to this is my inability to produce well thought out, "deep" analysis in a reasonable amount of time. More often than not, I psych myself out worrying about the amount given to write, feeling that I am trapped, for lack of a better word. As the new semester progresses, both of these skills will be areas I hope to focus on.
I wouldn't consider myself to be one who suffers from claustrophobia (unless, of course, I'm stuck in a small place) but, for some reason, when writing at school, I begin to feel increasingly claustrophobic. When at ever possible, I would rather write at home, or any place that I choose to write at (choice of surroundings seems to be a major factor in my "classroom claustrophobia"), because that's where the words seem to flow best. As far as inspiration goes, I am often inspired by a variety of different things. In a journal entry from late September in which I discussed my writing, I found an excerpt that neatly sums up my most common sources of inspiration. "I get inspire from all kinds of things, whether that be a *book I've read, or a show I watch. Sometimes it's as simple as something I saw...", for example a rope burn I got on my finger caused me to decide that a fake suicide attempt would be used to frame my main character, Rachel, for murder. I find examples like that to be really exciting because, it proves that inspiration can come from just about anywhere.
