Reflection

Writing has always been of interest to me. I write best when I’m writing about absorbing topics. Also writing under pressure sort of brings out good writing from me. When I write I try to be as truthful as possible and make the preferable audience understand those truths. In my opinion, writing the truth down on paper or typing it up can be a relief. Of course writing fictional stories doesn’t count but in those stories what happens appears to be the truth. I’m also more of a writer than a reader. I don’t really enjoy reading because I get bored easily. Writing isn’t also always enjoyable especially when you’re writing about something that’s totally pointless to you but has to be done. That’s the thing about English classes in school. We’re expected to be able to write about things that we have no interest in and read boring books that we’ll forget about when we leave the class. But in this specific class it was different. We had four units that didn’t require too much reading and only pushed students to enhance their writing skills. If only more English classes would be based off writing for the public about engaging worth knowing topics than essays on boring books.

In this class, I had my strengths and weaknesses when it came to writing. When the class first started, I was a little nervous because I didn’t know what to expect and if I’ll be able to express my best writing. The first assignment was the toughest one for me. We were instructed to write about our educational experiences in the past and I had a hard time doing that. My experiences with education back then weren’t good and I’m in the process of moving on and forgetting about them. That’s why what I completed wasn’t my best. My writing was all over the place and even though I thought I was getting my point across I wasn’t being specific enough. I wasn’t really happy with the grade I received so I revised the assignment and tried to fill in the missing gaps to the ability of which I knew. I don’t like accepting less than what I know I’m capable of. For example, in my education essay I wrote, “I was determined and dedicated to prove to myself that I have what it takes to excel in my studies.” As mentioned before, my experiences with education in the past weren’t good and it took a while for me to realize that I was only setting myself up for failure and that I was better than what I was demonstrating. I was in twelfth grade and I was close to not graduating but I turned things around with the help of supportive people and my own effort. This is where truthful writing shows itself. I was being honest with myself and the audience. There’s just something about being honest in your writing that makes it more realistic.

My best work in this class was unit two’s assignment. We were required to write a pop culture analysis. This assignment was enjoyable for me because I learned more about the correlation of how society was back then to how it still is today. There was growth between the first assignment and this one. This growth was due to the fact that I found unit two more engaging. While I was doing the assignment I acquired more knowledge than what I previously knew about the song I chose. This made me realize that there’s always a deeper or better understanding to things the more you look into them. The remaining units were also opportunities for me to learn more about something I go through often and steps that could be taken to solve the problem. Also learn how to revise old writing into a new version with a different genre and audience. This class taught me that there’s always space for improvement especially in your own personal writing. When those improvements are made and you approve of your writing you’ll become more confident with your writing being shared to the public. This also brings the opportunity of getting to know people through their writing which is destined when taking this class.

Waleed Qureshi – Project 4(Revision 3)

Waleed Qureshi 

ENG 1121 

Prof. Carrie Hall 

05/16/2019 

 

Homelessness

Homelessness is a problem everyone is aware of. We have seen it in train stations, trains, outside of subways, sidewalks, etc. Nowadays we see homelessness so much that it has become regular to us. So much regular that when we see a homeless person we think nothing and just walk away, ignoring them.

Homelessness is like a negative that comes with a positive. For example some addictive drugs like cigarettes are actually used for treatment but if drugs like these are used regularly, you get addicted to them. This is similar to homelessness as when cities get developed, more people move in to the city. The technology is improved and people end up getting more resources but, the more resources a city or state gets, the taxes has to be increased and that is what happens. Along with the taxes the rent for housing also increases and we all know how expensive it is to get a house in New York.

This problem began by the time of 1980’s. Before that the people in New York were able to get housing easily and never had to worry about rent. Whenever someone came into crisis, they just moved to a housing that was more cheaper or something that suited them more, something that they were comfortable with but after 1980, housing started getting more expensive at a fast pace forcing people to go homeless. Since the housing never stopped getting more expensive and hence the amount of people going homeless has also increased.

Some causes of this problems are low wage and unemployment. Today about 8 million of extremely low waged households pay half of their monthly income towards their housing. This means that the person probably has anything to spare for their saving due to other expenses for example groceries and other bills that one has to pay to survive the conditions of this world of technology that we live in. If not for that, if something bad happens for example an accident or something, you need to use your savings to handle that crisis but what if you don’t have any money to take care of that crisis, that is where a person goes homeless.

The other problem is the unemployment. This relates almost completely to the low waged problem. When people are not able to pay for their expenses or rent with low wage, how are they going to survive if they are not even able get money to feed themselves because they don’t even have a job. They don’t have a source of income. If people have some savings, they will survive but what if they run out of it eventually causing them to go homeless.

Now as students we all have something supporting us, but someday we have to be independent so we will might face similar problems to these and we will have to get through them but for now think about how you would feel if you were in their shoes so all I ask of all my fellow students is to help them in any way you can.

 

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