Even though the semester wasn’t how I imagined it to be, being online and not being surrounded by new faces, I did end up enjoying it. Only downsides was being stuck inside for most of the day and by the time my classes end and my homework is done I’m too lazy to go out or do anything. The days I did have time I would go work and that would take up the rest of my day. When work wasn’t an option, and my homework was all done, I would find myself watching YouTube, anime, Netflix series, or catching up with friends. I did go out a few times during quarantine with my friends and we all social distanced and kept our masks on. Other than that think we can all agree that the first semester was definitely not how we expected it to be with these zooms and blackboard conferences, with half the class either asleep during lectures or being too shy to talk. Besides all that, it wasn’t as bad as some people might say especially since I can literally wake up 2 minutes before my class and login and listen to the lecture. For English class, I learned a lot more about my interests and hobbies throughout this writing course because of the freedom I had in writing about things that actually mattered to me.

Starting English class early in the semester, I hated it. Ive always never enjoyed English class because we were always reading or writing about things that I had no interest in. The work I was doing early in the semester is 1/4th the type of work I’m putting out now. The reason I say this is because I was still learning how to create better, more quality pieces of work. I was getting taught to think deeper and write more, not just writing more words but actually writing more. Adding more information and detail especially since I already use words in my day to day life. “I use words to describe my feelings, to tell people about how much they mean to me, and to spread positivity to everyone around me, (Hamood, How to read like a writer).”  I already can use my words to add very descriptive detail in other parts of my life so I learned to channel it in my writing now as well. To go that extra step, and go beyond. This ultimately would elevate my writing from a solid 6 to a super solid 8.

As we changed genres, I found myself to enjoy the unit 2/3 more than unit 1. And the reason I found those two units to be enjoyable is because we were all focusing on something that really bothered or defined us as individuals. We were in control of picking what to write about. I enjoyed this very much because I chose Video games and decided to highlight on the positives to gaming which is very rarely mentioned, even though the crowd for playing video games is growing dramatically larger day by day with more people playing and using video games as a way to coupe with anxiety, depression, and also help them with improving several cognitive functions. Also while being able to write what I liked my thinking was far more diverse and expressive. I found myself writing way better and easier and making sense with the point I was trying to get across. This ultimately made me a happier writer and a better writer. “Growing up video games have always been a big part of who I am. when I was in elementary school I had a PSP and I used to play ratchet and clank, burnout, ape escape, metal gear solid, etc. “These games were all super fun to me and I enjoyed them because all my my friends around me also enjoyed them and played them, (Hamood, Unit 2 Final Assignment).”

The few things that were challenging for me while writing my assignments and essays were firstly the word minimum. I had a had time meeting the word minimum because I felt as if I completed the assignment with the amount of words I already had which was usually a little less than the required amount. This caused my grade to suffer partially. I also didn’t wanna just add anything else or more because I felt like I’d be repeating myself over and over and the reader wouldn’t enjoy reading what I had to say. Another thing I had trouble with was finding the right thing to say and wording it correctly to entertain the reader and make him want to read more and enjoy what exactly he’s reading. This was an issue because I would often overthink what I wanna say or the point I’m trying to get across. This would often lead me to be simple and lead my analysis to not be as detailed and thorough as it should be. One example of this is, “Gaming has been proven to positivity effect the users mood and help with depression, anxiety, and provide relaxation from the stressful life that the user has and can be easy and quick to access, (Hamood, Unit 2 essay). This analysis wasn’t very thorough and didn’t really analyze what the quote was saying. This caused the paragraph to not be as great as it should’ve been. This is something I find myself still struggling with but attempting to get better at day by day. Lastly I struggled with timing and spacing out the work correctly. Often times id find myself trying to complete the assignment the day of and that causes my work to not come out as great as it could’ve been if I were to give myself more time on the assignments and not choose to do it the day it was due. What caused me to leave them last minute wasn’t even procrastination but the fact I had many other assignments to do, work, and plenty of other things on my plate to take care of at once.