Hello, and welcome to my very first blog entry on this site! My name is Joanne Tran, and to start off, I just want to say please bear with me as I am currently trying to figure out the world of blogging. This is all still relatively new to me, so I thank you in advance for sticking with me as I figure out kinks and correct my blogging-manners. Now that that small announcement is out of the way, let us start all over and jump into the real, hearty material that will define this first blog:

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Hi (again)! As I mentioned before, my name is Joanne, and I am a Biological Sciences Major at the University of California, Irvine. Currently, I am in my second quarter of my college career, and in the next ten, fun-filled weeks, one of the classes I will partake in is none other than Writing 39B! My first week in the class has actually recently just passed, and my very first assignment, Me in Six Words, which was used to break the ice with my classmates, was just turned in as well. While that initial week of class was exciting, it was also pretty nerve-racking. Writing 39B is my first ever college writing class, and that thought alone makes my heart race every time I think about it. The last English class I ever took was AP Literature and Composition during my senior year in high school. The focus of that class was to dive into the world of fiction, breaking down and analyzing novels, poems, and even plays through the use of close reads and essays. One of the most important things I learned in that class was to take risks, to break the conventional rules of writing in the works that I produce; this way, I can truly develop my voice as a writer. Another thing that I learned in the class was that I should never be afraid to voice my interpretations of the works I analyze, for writing, especially fiction, is open to interpretation, and it is this aspect of writing that allows people to create beautiful things. 

 

English has never been my forte, but because of my AP Literature class, I have grown to love writing as an academic art and have majorly improved as a writer. and communicator.  However, I believe I still have a long way to go until I can truly call myself "confident" in this realm, and this may come across in some of the works I produce for this site as well. And, to me, that's okay because I have also learned that English is supposed to be a journey, albeit, a rocky, sweat-inducing one, but a journey nevertheless. In fact, within the next ten weeks, this site will document my progress with English; so, stick around if you do so desire. 

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As a reader, I would rate myself a solid 7 out of 10; I do not think I am absolutely terrible at reading, but I do not think I am exceptional at it either. I believe I can read and understand complicated written texts; however, I find that my ability to comprehend such texts can only be expressed if given an ample amount of time for me to do so-- that is, if given enough time to revise the words and ideas I want to say such that the millions of interpretations and thoughts that run through my head after reading such texts can be concisely integrated. On a regular basis, I truthfully do not read complex, academic writings, unless it is for school. Usually, I read fiction, like novels written by John Green.

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Considering all of these things all together, it is pretty evident that I am not a complete beginner in English, but at the same time, it feels like I am, simply due to the fact that there is always room for improvement AND there is always so much more to learn. Thus, it constantly feels as if I am back to square one at times. When it comes to reading, writing, and communicating, my main problem always comes down to time management. More specifically, I spend so much time trying read the assigned text and piece together my thoughts that I lose the time I have to actually write them down. This can be more easily understood in the context of in-class essays that I had in AP Literature: imagine only having 40 minutes to write an exceptional essay, analysis and all, after only having a handful of minutes to read the work that the analysis is on. Most of the time when I had to do these essays, I found myself spending over 10 minutes just simply trying to brainstorm! This problem then snowballs into me uneffectively communicating my thoughts on the work in question. Another problem I find myself having is that I doubt myself and my writing too much. Because of this doubt, I constantly reread over my work, worrying so much about accidental plagiarism or accidental changes in verb tense that I end up editing my words to the point where, sometimes, I become completely unconfident about my work. 

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Although these are my weaknesses, I believe that these aspects about myself are actually my strengths at times as well. For instance, because of the pressure of time, I end up resorting to write about the most prominent ideas out of the thousands that run through my mind after reading a text, and because I do so, I end up communicating my strongest points at times, which plays to my advantage in essays. In addition, the doubt that I have about my writing encourages me to reflect on what I wrote, allowing me to catch any mistakes or expand on any ideas I feel may be incomplete, which in turn, only improves my work. And looking back at my time in AP Literature, these weaknesses and strengths of mine allowed me to produce some great, and honestly, some terrible, essays, all of which helped me progress as a writer nevertheless.

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To end this blog entry, I would actually like to mention my first personal accomplishment in my college writing career, specifically in this class: receiving a score of 94% on the Language and Grammar Diagnostic at Connect! I did not think I was doing so well as I was taking the test itself; but seeing my score after proved to me that I am not so bad at English as I might think. But, as always, there is room for improvement. The types of questions I had the most problem with were ones that dealt with the formatting of articles, T.V. shows, etc. Luckily, I channeled my high school self and reached into the very back of my "English-class memories" to remember these rules, which I learned roughly around my sophomore year. 

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Now, to officially end this entry, I would like to leave off on a happy note by placing an image of my diagnostic test results and a rough representation of my reaction to when I saw my score. 

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Until next time,

Joanne

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