When I was little I remember being in preschool and getting a little goody bag full of things. There were probably lollypops and stickers, but the one thing I distinctly remember being in the bag was a sparkly red pencil. Yes, it was preschool, so no I didn’t really have much use for the pencil yet. I couldn’t even write my name, but I still loved that pencil (even though sparkly pencils are impossible to sharpen). I thought it was so pretty and when I was old enough to write my name with a pencil I remember using it to do so. Kindergarten brought crayons and the accomplishment of writing my name, however sloppy it may be. There were different colors on every worksheet and it was a truly sad day when my 1st grade teacher told us that we were no longer allowed to write in anything other than pencil.
Fast forward a bit and I knew how to write, not neatly I might add, but I still knew how to form each of the letters on paper successfully. I was learning the mechanics of English, and well…my sentences were not great, but they didn’t have to be, not yet. When I go back and read some of the things I wrote back then I wonder how my mom managed to keep a straight face (with all my spelling and grammatical errors) when she read my projects. I, for one, can’t do it now.
My spelling never was the best, and it still isn’t, but that’s what practice is for right? Well practice….and autocorrect…lol. Throughout Elementary school (and even now), I took spelling/vocabulary tests in my classes. My mom would study with me for hours on end having me write the words over and over until I could spell them correctly without any help. Sometimes her efforts would be successful and I would do well on the tests, but other times I had short term memory loss and forgot completely how to spell even the easiest of words. I guess that explains why I never got A’s in English during my elementary years. Over the years however, I have gotten better, and by better I mean I know when I should probably look something up because I have absolutely no clue how to spell it. Whatever works right? Haha.
Third grade brought cursive. Oh it was hard. They tried teaching us what these swirly things were and how they supposedly represented the alphabet and that we would need to write like that for the rest of eternity (which hasn’t happened yet btw). We practiced every letter and then words and paragraphs day in and day out. My letters were never pretty and I didn’t like it. I wanted to just write in print. That’s what I was “good” at, but looking back, my handwriting sucked either way. My handwriting has changed a bunch throughout the years and sometimes it’s neater that other times. If I go through some of my 4th grade notebooks I can see why the teacher told me that I should probably learn to write neater. After comments like this, and observing my friends’ “perfect” handwriting, I worked hard to make mine prettier. Sometimes I spent my free afternoons or my weekends writing certain letters over and over again until I habitually wrote each letter in that perfect way. I forced my handwriting to that state that I thought was perfect. I mimicked different people’s and I tried my best to make mine perfect. I’ve done this for years and to this day my script changes every so often. Sure it’s not as dramatic of changes, but I do occasionally change a letter here or a number there. Depends on what I’m feeling looks best at that specific time. Currently, my handwriting looks something like the mix between cursive (yes the thing I once hated so much) and print. But if I’m feeling like it I sometimes write in all caps, from my days in architecture class. I switch it up sometimes just because I get bored with just one “font” to write in all the time. I guess all that repetitiveness from my classes and teachers drilled something in me and my style(s) of writing.
I didn’t like reading. I really didn’t. I didn’t enjoy it, and I didn’t want to do it. When I did it, it was because I was forced to for homework or something. I’ve watched my mom read book after book my entire life and I just never understood how she could like something so boring. In middle school however, I figured it out. I found a series I loved and I couldn’t read them fast enough. After that, I read book after book after book and I couldn’t get enough of them. It was that way for a while, but then the stress of high school hit and I couldn’t read whenever I wanted to. Now, I’ll squeeze in a book on a plane ride or 4 or 5 during winter break. If I have the time, I still love to read them, but what is time right? Reading helped me to find a way to writing.
My hatred of reading somewhat coincided with writing since I would usually have to write some report about some awfully boring book. And yeah, that still sucks (I don’t think that will ever be enjoyable), but essay writing was more enjoyable once I took AP World History. To prepare for the AP exam we had to practice writing each of the 3 types of essays that would be on it. My teacher showed us how, and she helped us through the practices. She “held our hands” for the first one, and she gradually gave less and less help as we progressed through them. This helped me learn so much about essays. I learned how to write in a way that made sense to me and gave me a bit of a formula to follow while I did them. And yes I know you are probably thinking that History essays are different from English essays, so how did this help me at all? Well, it helped me because I now knew how to start. I understood the planning before an essay that I never was able to grasp before. The whole brainstorming thing never worked for me and I just couldn’t get it. But I did after that class. It all made sense then.
Around my freshmen year I fiddled around with the idea of writing a novel, and I actually started writing one. It was ok, but I never finished it cuz I figured out that it was actually quite awful. The summer between sophomore and junior year I tried again. This time I had a bit more of an idea of what I wanted to accomplish in my “book” and I went for it….but as luck would have it, my laptop gave out on me and deleted everything I had, so it was gone forever. I never thought I was a good writer or anything, but I always liked the idea of trying to. I liked writing my scenarios out on paper, so I did. For some of them anyway. Junior year I had a teacher who had us write short stories for a project. I wrote mine and I thought it was actually really good. I presented it to the class and some people thought it was good also…others…not so much. That was okay though, I wasn’t expecting everyone to be amazed by my talent (or lack thereof).
The main writing I do these days is for homework and for notes in class and I suspect that in the near future that it will continue to be this same way. I find ways to make my notes interesting though because I LOVE colored pens. I write in a different color every day and I make different “fonts” in my notes to entertain myself more and to make them easier for me to go back and read. In April’s ideal world, there would be so many different colored pens it would be magical. (Also my pencil pouch would be Mary Poppins’ bag so I could fit an infinite amount of pens in it). Typing things out is how assignments are often done these days, and I like it because it is neater and faster, but at the same time I don’t get to show my creative side by doodling on my notes or making the title all fancy. Sometimes that’s a bit sad, but then I realize that it’s saving me time that I don’t have, so it is totally worth it.
Maybe someday I will start writing a book and actually finish, but until then I think I’ll stick to my colored pens and sparkly pencils.
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