My life is a love/hate relationship with English ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’ve been in higher education for four years now. I was roughly 18 when I started going to De Anza College in Cupertino. As community colleges go, it wasn’t the worst and it’s considered the second best after Foothill College in Los Altos Hills (at least in my general area). I chose english as a major because I considered it an easy major (boy, was I wrong) and thought I was pretty okay at writing essays.

Writing has always be present in college. I’ve only ever taken english classes that were required for my major but some of them have been very different in terms of what is required of me with my writing. I had a creative writing course that completely threw me. It was awful. We were given an assignment with very little rules or regulations and I would always get my poetry or play or story back with so many red marks on it and comments that pretty much said I did the assignment wrong. In a creative writing class. Where you are suppose to be creative. My outlook with writing became to mold my writing style to whatever was asked of me in my classes from my teacher from then on. I took a Myth and Folklore class and that was a good one because we had to write an essay bout a myth or folklore that we chose and it was simplier becauser it followed the five paraphrase format that was drilled into me during high school. The most surprising use of writing was in my speech and debate class. I was able to use my own voice to express myself without being told that that’s not how you do it or I should’ve done it how the teacher would’ve done it. There was no fancy usage of language or excess amount of words; it was straight to the point which is how I talk. To this day, I still love that class. On the other side of the english class spectrum, I’ve had classes where writing was not even a component. The only time you’d write would be to regurgitate info from books read word for word for the midterm then final. To this day, I have never had an english class like that.

Look at all the times I’ve used writing for different classes and not, I’d have to say the five paragraph essay has stayed with me along with small things like the Oxford comma (I absolutely love it) but the biggest use of writing that has transferred has been molding my writing style to fit the teacher. And I don’t mean this in the casual sense since we all change a bit to fit a class but in the way of not really having a personalized writing style. I don’t write for fun or to challenge myself or because I am even interested in a topic. I follow the rules, write what is asked of me, and turn it in regardless if it reflects me as a person. To be honest, it’s pretty dang depressing when I realize I’m kind of just getting by and I don’t really have an eye for good writing in poetry or plays or even essays especially since I want to become a foreign english teacher but I am also hoping I find that one class that will make up for all the ones that have nothing to do with my future career.

On that really depressing note, the creator of the “This Is Fine” dog comic by KC Green (which is my favorite relatable comic by far) made a new one and I think we should all see it so I’m posting it in case anyone cares.