A Reflection

As soon as I heard the word "blog" as opposed to "formal paper" mentioned on the first day of this course, my heart was filled with joy. After taking an extremely arduous physiology course crammed into 6 weeks, I was in dire need of a break. I naively welcomed this "easy class" and imagined all of the things I would be free to do during what I expected to be a very relaxing second summer session.

I could not have been more wrong in my expectations.

As mentioned in my first post, I used to be very fond of writing. But, after nearly a decade of rules, techniques, rules, research reports, and more rules, I found myself "over-taught". My ability to write slipped away. Somewhere along the path of my academic career, I had lost my identity as I writer. In the last three years, I have written countless essays and research papers for various courses. With each and every one, I would struggle to write the first sentence. All of the sentences that followed were equally difficult to force out. After several hours, I'd find myself with two paragraphs written. I'd read them, become highly dissatisfied with the writing, and delete the whole thing only to start the entire process over again. Every paper I turned in was a disappointment. I got the grades I needed, but my writing was embarrassing.

Excited about the prospect of an "easy" course, I went into the first few classes bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was very pleased with the long discussions that were almost always about things that truly mattered to me. And, it was exactly this that made the course difficult. Prompts were fairly open-ended and I had to write about things that I genuinely cared about. Even worse, there was no right answer. I was free to opine that which I truly believed without fear of the dreaded letter 'F' from a disagreeable TA. Passion about the class topics as well as freedom (note how I am extensively using the word "I") forced me to find the identity I had lost.

In writing about that which I was passionate about, I felt a deep obligation to write well – or at least, better than how I had written in the past. But, decent writing takes serious time and care; soon, this "easy" class and the required blog posts were completely consuming my afternoons, evenings, and energy. I began having trouble getting up in the morning and found myself struggling to stay awake during the day. Despite these negative consequences, this class was worth it; I could write again. Not once did I find myself staring hopelessly at a cold white rectangle with a tiny blinking line that seemed to command the word "write!" with each blink. For the first time in years, the white rectangle was warm, welcoming, and quickly filled with words. The endless revisions no longer seemed so endless (although there were plenty of them). And, the end result was no longer something that caused me shame and embarrassment. Instead, each blog post brought me satisfaction and sometimes a bit of pride.

This difficult course helped me re-gain my ability to write. Although I am pleased with this newly found ability, I do not expect it to completely alter my life. However, there is something truly magical about the phrase "strong writing skills" no longer being a complete lie on my resumé.