I’ve always been the person who counted down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the last bell rang to start summer. I never was a fan of school. In high school, I can not very proudly say I skipped at least one class a week for the majority of my years. (This is comical if you know me because I am now in college studying with ambitions of becoming a teacher.)
I love summer. I always have. The weather, swimming, the freedom to stay up late, and best of all, not doing menial homework. My excitement this year is not the same though. My first year of college is coming to an end in a few short weeks and my typical countdown lists are not in action like they always have been. There’s something about wrapping my head around being a fourth of the way done with college that makes me want every day to not end and every summer to not start. I will still enjoy my summer adventures and make the most of it, but a little part of me wishes I could sleep in my dorm at night, see my friends every day, and eat top ramen and complain about it. Growing up suddenly doesn’t seem as fun.
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I will never own a Kindle. I honestly have no valid reason for such a permanent claim, but I refuse. As an English major people assume my strong refusal to own a Kindle lies on the basis of “feeling” or even “smelling” the physical book. And that is not it (that’s a little strange to me). I can’t pinpoint the moment when I decided I wouldn’t read on my technology, I can’t even find a reason for it. I think it may be based on my need for accomplishment.
As a highly competitive person, when reading a physical book you get to turn each page and get closer to the back cover, finally getting to close the book and have the best sense of accomplishment. It’s just not the same when you are reading along and suddenly the screen reads “The End.” In sports terms, there was no “scoreboard” counting down to the buzzer beater shot. My professional goals, contrary to many of my English major counterparts, don’t include ever publishing a book, novel, memoir, or any sort of work. I want to teach. A hot topic in the realm of authors is the competition between traditional book publishing versus the electronic industry. For me, I don’t care much. As for me, I will continue to read physical book copies and I will likely teach physical book copies when I become a teacher. I think Kindles are wonderful. My previously harsh opinions have nothing to do with anything being wrong with Kindles. Like I said, I don’t have a valid reason for my claim. People will read or not read. They will read electronically or not. Authors will write or not. In the end, they are the same words, it’s all preference. If you were to walk by dorm room 323 in Gulley Hall at George Fox you would hear something. I’m not sure what you would notice first; maybe laughter, maybe coughing (there’s a lot of germs in college), maybe the soccer ball bouncing. Whatever you hear though, there will always be a background sound of music. Nothing specific. No specific song, artist, or even genre. But my small bluetooth speaker is always streaming something.
Music is a big part of my life. I don’t know why. No one in my family can sing, or play an instrument past the recorder they give out in 4th grade. I am always listening to music though. Every type of music. My friends often laugh at my somewhat obscure playlists that combine nearly every genre and time period that exists. Over spring break I took a trip up to Seattle and explored the Museum of Pop Culture. I spent over an hour looking at all of the famous guitars displayed and reading the artists bios. I am not the person who will ever make a living out of music, but I am the person who is obsessed with Michael Jackson, but will still explore new country artists or the big hit rap song of the time. Me and my friends often jokingly call our dance parties before soccer games our warm-ups because if we get into it enough we will break a sweat and warm up better than our pregame regimen will. Some of my best memories are based around music, whether it was a concert, a light hearted dance party, or even singing in the car. I want to be a teacher. A high school English teacher more specifically. I frequently question if I am a good enough writer to teach other people how to write. I know I am a decent writer, I know I can write a decent essay or blog post that people will enjoy, but I am pretty sure that is because I am creative and sometimes funny. I most definitely don’t feel like I know enough about grammar or punctuation, the things I would be expected to teach. Of what I remember my high school teachers could tell me where a comma went and where it did not, they could explain what passive and active tense is, they knew the sentence structures, all of which I still Google when I am writing.
I wish I would have been taught all these things. Of course I was, but I wish I would have remembered them, took the lecture more seriously, because come to find out everyone assumes you know these things once you’re in college (especially as an English major). One thing I would change about the English department would be to focus less on content. Your writing voice will come as you develop, it is nothing that needs to be taught. Grammar and the basics of writing seem a lot more necessary to me. I didn’t learn until my senior year of high school that the period goes before the quotation marks. I didn’t learn until freshman year of college that all essays aren’t five paragraphs long with an intro and a conclusion with three body paragraphs. Little things that should be taught a lot sooner. Although I am slightly biased, I think writing is one of the most important things we can learn how to do. Grammar and English can be applied to every aspect and every career, even if it is just writing an email that doesn’t end in “sent from my iPhone.” Most people have heard the advice “Don’t let people change who you are” or something along those lines; staying true to yourself, not letting an environment change yourself. While this sounds great and I do see truth in this, I am actually going to argue the opposite in this post. I think it is a very good thing to let new places and people change you and alter your view on the world. In past blogs I have mentioned that I work at everyone’s favorite retail store Target. I was hired at Target about 6 months ago and was a seasonal employee, meaning I was only supposed to work through the New Year. Only a few shifts in I met two coworkers who are now very important people in my life. They said something that stuck with me though: “Target changes everyone.” One of them mentioned that he started working there as a med student and now doesn’t know what he wants to do any longer, but his unstoppable drive to be a doctor was gone. The other mentioned how she now only had friends who worked at Target and was no longer dating the guy she was when she started and had dropped out of school. I blew their comments off, thinking I wasn’t going to let a minimum wage cashiering job change who I was.
Six months later, I have been proven wrong. I’m not attributing all of it to Target, but I am saying these past six months have been the biggest changes of my life. Plans I thought I had are no longer there, people I thought I’d never lose have drifted, my closest friends are my colleagues and it all happened so seamlessly. My outlook on life has changed. I used to be so high strung, intent on following the plan I had: graduate high school, go to college, graduate, get a job. These past six months have brought clarity, it’s a long life, there is time to enjoy where we are and even take a pause from the “plan.” I wish I knew why “Target changes everyone,” but I don’t. There’s no stand out moment in my mind where my outlook changed. But I do think we should be more willing to let new experiences change us. Nike recently released this commercial empowering women in sports. The premise of the video being that women are often overlooked in sports, being called emotional or crazy. The video ends saying that if they are going to call us crazy, let’s “show them what crazy can do.”
As a female who plays collegiate soccer, being a “strong woman” is a large part of my identity. I have to justify myself as an athlete in ways men would never have to. Recently, a teammate and I were training on our own at the field. It was early on the weekend and we were the only ones on the pitch. A woman around 45 years old began walking around the field, likely for a little exercise. She made casual conversation asking if we went to George Fox and what year we were. Soon enough however the conversation took a questionable turn. She asked if we were allowed to be out on the field. Confused we answered “Yes, this is George Fox’s soccer complex, we have access whenever we would like.” Her response shocked both me and my teammate. She responded “Well, it’s interesting they let the other gender practice.” It’s not the first time or the last time me or my teammate have had to justify our athleticism, but coming from another woman in 2019 was surprising. We brushed it off and continued to train, but the moment stuck with me. I find identity in many things. One of them as an athlete. Another as a female. Also a daughter, friend, sister, and even a writer. All of these things shape me. Being a female who has always wanted to push the boundaries of normal has inspired many of my writing pieces. I find a release in being able to write, to make a world and characters that push the same boundaries and inspire those around them. Writing gives me a sense of helping to change the stigmas and stereotypes around women, especially in sports. “Be fearless enough to love yourself.”
I recently came across this quote and immediately resonated with it. As I looked at it closer, however, I questioned why one must extract an element of fear in order to love themselves. I, myself, have been working on this exact thing and didn’t realize how much fear there was as a barrier between loving myself. This quote came as an inspiration and a realization for me. It inspired me to remove the fear from this part of my life. Loving yourself is such a vital part of your relationship with others and with Christ. God created us all in His image and understanding that leads to a love for the person He created when making you. It also came as a realization to what society is telling us about ourselves. If we must surpass a barrier of fear in order to love ourselves, that speaks to what society is influencing us to think. Social media culture constantly shows us “perfect” people living “perfect” lives. What we often forget is that this is only their highlight real. Go scroll through your own page sometime and imagine what it would look like to someone else who only saw that part of you. We are all our “best selves” on Instagram. Empowering people to love themselves and not view themselves as any less than exactly who God made them to be is what we should be focused on. Until we get the entire world behind this idea, though, (this might take a minute) we must support people in taking heart and being fearless enough to love themselves. As I stared across the cafeteria from my weekly writing perch scanning people’s cards so they can eat on Saturday’s between 7am and 2pm, I couldn’t think of anything to write about. One blog post down, and one to go. I have had a rough week. I didn’t really feel like writing my normal happy, inspiring blog. But as I looked down at my MacBook, iPhone, and new clothes I became almost embarrassed to be complaining. Sure we all struggle, but I am so grateful for who I am and where I am sitting.
Perspective is something I have been reflecting on lately. It started as one girl exhaustedly handed me her card to swipe and said “bright and early” and she drudged forward. Based on this description, you would think it was 5, 6 AM? Well, it was actually 8:06 AM. I sort of laughed and she made her way past me, but I questioned how, if I had already been at work for an hour and didn’t even think I had been up that early, she thought 8 o’clock was basically the crack of dawn. Just like me and that girl having such a different idea of early, people living in the United States will have a different idea of a “bad week” than someone living in Kenya. While I have soccer practice that starts at 5:45 AM twice a week and often wake up to work out before my 8 and 9 AM classes, the girl I interacted with likely wakes up a lot later than me daily. Similarly, someone, like me, who is used to putting on Nike sweatshirts, choosing from WAY too many pairs of shoes, and playing on my new phone all day has a way different perspective than someone who only has one pair of shoes that don’t fit and have holes. Trust me, I complain, too. But thanks to one girl who thought her track meet started too early, I was blessed with a new perspective. As an overachiever and perfectionist in every aspect of my life school is something that has come fairly natural to me. While I did work hard for them, my grades always excelled with minimal effort compared to my classmates. In turn, a ‘B’ was basically the end of the world and a ‘C’ was something I had just never encountered. My senior year I was in advanced classes. The two that have stuck with me as difficult was Writing 121—a college level English class—and IB Chemistry—a real life comparison to hell. These two classes taught me how to fail.
I was recently posed the question “Who is one person that has influenced your writing?” The response could have been a positive or negative influence on your writing, and while it seems somewhat backwards, my teacher who taught me how to fail had a very positive influence on my writing. Writing was something I was always good at. It was something I enjoyed and something I was frequently complimented on. I remember turning in my first essay of the year in my Writing 121 class being fairly proud. Anticipating my normal ‘A’ range grade upon return I was shocked (to say the least) to look down at my barely passing score. The rest of the year was grueling. The rigorous class and harsh grading taught me how to write, however. By the end of the year I looked back on that first essay that I was so proud of and it was terrible. Tough love and a little ruthless editing changed my writing forever. I also failed my first (and second and third) exam that year in IB Chemistry, recieving my first and only ‘B’ report card grade. As upset as I was at the time, I am very glad I learned how to fail before going to college. Thank you, Mr O’Donnell, for failing me. I don’t like to share. Of all the work I have published I’d compare it to the visible part of an iceberg. The large ice mass underneath the water is the hundreds of journal entries and short stories locked away where people will likely never see. I write when I’m upset so I’d prefer people not read my emotional word vomit. I write when I’m proud of myself, and as an person who would rather run (and I don’t run) than talk about myself, I would also not like anyone to read that.
The moral here being, college is teaching me that if you’re going to write you’re going to have to share. I find sharing my writing both productive and unproductive, varying by who I’m sharing with and for what reason. For example, being forced to publish two blog posts a week this semester has been very beneficial. I created this blog in high school, but simply lacked motivation to publish my work. Having an outlet and a purpose to write has benefited me as a writer greatly. On the other hand however, being involved in peer editing groups through a classroom setting has proven unhelpful for me. I struggle to share my work with strangers and often get defensive. While I know this is a growing point and something to work on, I can’t seem to let others help me. Sharing will always be my downfall. My best writing is hidden under the surface of the water, and my iceberg will never be fully viable. College has stretched me in bigger ways than simply education and I know it will further my ability to be vulnerable and share more. |