Personal Writing : Informal Writing

Have you ever look at something and found it beautiful in ways you couldn’t describe? Except it was a different type of beauty. One that you do not see immediately but something that may have had potential to be alluring. Maybe it was the blanket your mother knitted you years ago that your wife dislikes. The reason being it does not go with your bedroom decor. Only because she fails to see the intricate patterns, designs, and oddly satisfying color gradient that underlie creating this one of a kind piece. The value of something so perfectly imperfect. Maybe it was a forgotten playground, with the rusty swings that squeaked when the wind blew past, but the grass still green, overlooking a field of flowers which is much prettier than the playground in comparison. In English we may say “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” In Japanese culture this is called Wabi-Sabi.

So, I guess have fun with the story of, well, me? Yeah, so I woke up…

The sound of my alarm fills the room its 10:30 A.M. I pressed snooze over five times and when I finally got up it was 12:50 in the morning!

My room is dark and silent, as is the rest of the house. The alarm clock reads 2:26 A.M. The curtains are still open and

I barely notice the cool hardwood floor on my back as I bask in the early dawn light seeping through the gap in my curtains. As I stare silently at a darker version of my yellow ceiling for what feels like the hundredth time, I strain my ears to hear the voice again. I miss it like a friend; my only friend in this hollow abyss where I’m imprisoned between the tips of my husband’s claws.

Summer is coming, the season of getting old, when hair is damaged by chlorine in the blue pools and skin grows pale underneath the outlines of swimsuits and t-shirts stick to the sweating backs of the working people. The sun from last year had already made the white walls pale enough to leave outlines of frames hung up, artwork and photos from the years permanently engrained into the room.

To overcome the fear that you may never fall asleep. No matter how hard you try it is impossible. Sleep refuses to accept your invitation and forces you to lay there. Lay there until your eyes can’t take it anymore. Still in fear that when you open them again nothing would have

back. Guilt and hatred swept through my body and death came into my mind. I

and close my eyes hoping that I never have to get up. But, soon enough I hear

As frustrating as writing a paper can be sometimes in different styles, it is still important that we learn how to. We must learn the proper guidelines and techniques that are associated with a particular style in order to truly create a masterpiece. While each paper is ultimately different in the topics that need to be addressed, all of them must start from one idea. Once we have that one idea set in stone, that is where we build upon the paper by trying to understand our exigence-the purpose and the audience- for writing. It is still crucial, though, that our voice remains strong throughout all pieces. Senior Composition has made me reach out of my comfort zone and write about genres that I have addressed before. I believe that my writing has progressed, but there are still major areas for improvement, such as my writing conventions and analysis.

“I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.” Nearly everyone has heard if not said this statement themselves at some point. My passion so far has been purely STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math, and if I don't grow up to be an engineer I will be very surprised. I have always had more of an interest in building than writing. Why waste the time writing about something when I can just do an experiment or build the machine? And while STEM and reading are subjects that I have always enjoyed, my opinion on writing has improved as I have come to realize that writing is the bridge between technical ideas and deep understanding.

بفرجيك دواك عندي (I will show you your medicine is with me.), روح بلط البحر (Go put tiles in the ocean), these are just a few phrases in Arabic that only our people would understand. The first phrase means “I will show you” either relating to a punishment or an attitude. The second phrase means “get out of my face” or “in your dreams!” Arabic is my first language and is the closest thing to my own idiolect, a specific dialect to me. Idiolect’s literal translation is personal language. It does not necessarily mean everyone’s’ idiolect is a language, but that was the source of the beginning of my idiolect. Everyone has their own unique type of idiolect, but my idiolect came in at an early age from various environments. So far in my life, the idiolect, or my type of language I use comes from my family and the culture we have, friends that I have grown close to, and social media and how it evolved to become one of the most important things in my life.

During this course, learning APA formatting for papers has been instrumental. This style of formatting is commonly used in academic writing assignments due to its general universal uniformity and ability to properly credit the sources from which the paper is refer to from. Appropriate uses of references are annotated by using in-text citations that align with the reference list located on the last page of a paper. Together, they allow the reader to verify where the information has been obtained. In addition, to having the ability to confirm material, APA style of writing assist the writer in avoiding plagiarism by accurately stating where the information in a paper was received.

One improvement in my writing is that in my journals I write in a way that shows off my personality. Writing journals allows me to write what I want because the topics are flexible most of the time. My journals express my thoughts and feelings on the topic and sometimes it helps me feel better after writing about the stressful things that happened that week. In my fifth journal for round three I wrote about one summer I went to Romania and I went on a trip with my cousins and “One time on the train I had to go to the bathroom so I went to look for it and when I found it I was like nevermind I don’t have to go anymore, everything was broken and so dirty you could barely see the tiles…”. This sentence is worded to show off my personality and how I voice things, I was describing my experience and described it in my own words. Journals allow for individual interpretations of the topic, it gives me a choice on what to write about and I can write in a way that expresses how I feel. I feel that I have improved on being able to express my thoughts and feelings in my journal to make it more emotional and to show off my personality and my voice through my writing style.

My mind has always been full of stories. Countless hours have been spent filling notebooks and the internet with my deepest thoughts. Tales to compel laughter in children, articles addressing the insecurities of young women, and my personal narratives seem to flow through my fingers. Writing is a never-ending reservoir of possibility. However, I was not always so eager to reveal my untold stories. Crafting sentences was uninteresting and a chore to my young self. My mother noticed this view and decided to give me something that changed my mind. The morning that she gifted me a journal was the start of lifelong passion and endless adventure.