Wednesday, July 6, 2011

THE BEGINNING!

“It is the first step that is troublesome.” “Everything is difficult at the start.”

These are two translations of one Chinese proverb (“万事开头难”). I choose this proverb as the start of my first blog because not only this is my first blog, but also it symbolizes THE BEGINNING of the writing class, English 125, which is a challenge for me I suppose.

Honestly, I HATE writing, more specific, writing for writing class, especially, in English. My mother tongue is Chinese and I hate writing class in Chinese as well. Not for the same reason though. For Chinese, I’m good at the basic of this language and hence what I want to express and how I express it are the main issues I’m dealing with. The reason I do not like Chinese writing class is that sometimes or even half the time we have to handle some topics that nobody really cares or do not know what to write. Moreover, somebody always grades your work and these writings take a long time to finish. To make our teachers happy or to get a high mark I pretend to be enthusiastic on that topic and make my words full of passion and hopeful no matter how down I really am. It’s like cheating to me but it seems that people have already got used to that. Once we were asked to write a composition with an assigned topic: “Those Flowers”. I forgot what I wrote but I still remember that those who write literally about the flowers were laughed and criticized by our teacher. Those model essays are about the flower of life, the flower of hope, the flower of diligence and so on. I don’t think my classmates who chose to write flowers were like what our teacher said, naive and lazy; they just saw things in another way. “The flower of diligence” sounds lame and weird to me to boot.

But I like writing some blogs in Chinese. I used them to release my negative emotions, record special stories and exchange my idea on some critical events with my friends. First of all, nobody judges my stuff and there is only “like” and no “dislike” on the screen (kidding). Secondly, all the topics are chosen by me. In addition, I don’t need to follow any rules to organize my language. I can use fashion and not-approved-by-adults words. I can even use some four-letter words which I have never spoken out to convey my anger. Above all, those people who read my blogs are my friends who care about me. I like reading their comments and reply them. I’m alone in America and sometimes this kind of interaction makes me feel like being with my friends in China. Sometimes I read my own blogs and I can touch me at some specific times to taste my growth.

The reason I don’t like writing in English is simple, I’m not good at this language and I’m afraid of making mistakes. The English topics I have to handle now are somehow easier than Chinese ones, they have clearer requirements like giving a summary of this paper or providing some reasons why you support it instead of “those flowers”. However, they are much harder to me because of the gap between my limited writing skill in English and my thinking. I know what to write but I don’t know how. What words should I use, what kind of sentence should I compose, are these sentences grammatical correct, is this the best way to illustrate my idea…these problems bother me a lot. In addition, my improvement on this issue is blocked by my fear of making mistakes. Thus, this class is really a good opportunity for me to conquer my fear and improve my writing and thinking in English as well.

I hate writing but I love reading, which is one of my limited hobbies and enriches my life. I have difficulties in appreciating poetry on describing the beauty of the nature or affections of people though I admit they are elegant. The problem is that they are too delicate to me. I prefer more tough things, like science or facts. Besides, I love those hard-to-understand philosophical pieces, most of which are vague and I can crystallize these views based on my own personal experience and nobody would judge them. And I hate reading economical or political works, the excuse of which is that I am too stupid to figure them out…

I like exchanging opinions with my friends, but illustrating them promptly and adequately in English is a challenge for me. I should overcome this because only in this way can I have more opportunities communicating with more people from different areas, therefore, completing and enriching myself and my friends.

Attending this class is the beginning to achieve my goal of preparing myself to be a qualified "college-level writer, reader and thinker". This blog would be a very useful tool. I look forward to people reading my blogs and I believe I can learn a lot from your comments!


PS: My blog's name is Ordos Dream,here is a photo of Ordos, my hometown. And I'm going to talk more about me and my fantastic hometown.



1 comment:

  1. Great start! I can see from your first blog post that you actually can write quite well in English! Be confident and keep up the good work! :)

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