Brianna Wilson's English 101

My high school teachers were some of the best people that have ever come into my life. My sophomore, junior and senior year I had a coach that was a huge role model in my life. He knew me and he knew what I needed to keep me going in my darkest times in high school. High school was a very rough and I felt like life was just falling apart. Another amazing teacher I had was my science teacher my senior year. She was a relative of my best friend and she just understood me and helped me in every way she could, and it just meant so much to me. She took the time out of her day to go out of her way to help me with different problems and help me be a better student. Finally, my math teacher my senior year. She always so perky in class and she just was always so lively.

The second paper was quite a bit harder writing than the first one for several different reasons. Our diagnostic paper was primarily based on our personal experiences and stuff we have been through. The second paper was we had to use other people’s experiences and sources. So, it became a little harder. Needing to know how to cite certain things and learning how to word things without sounding like it is someone else’s words. That is the biggest thing I struggle with is trying to find things online to put into my paper. Citing different websites is difficult because I cannot figure out what I need and what I do not need. So, I would say that by far the second paper has been harder to write and put together and make as perfect as I could than the first one was. 

Everything that you find in a website and you decide to put it in your paper you need to cite it. It does not matter if it is only a couple of words you have to cite it. If you do not then it could come back as plagiarizing and you could fail the class and sometimes even be dismissed from the whole school. Citing is a very big deal in college and people do not realize that when they are writing papers, even if it is for a different class besides English or something related to English. 

I think I understand MLA format very well it just becomes hard when you get to cited certain things. I just struggle most with knowing what to put in there and what not to and where to find the certain things. MLA is probably the easiest format I have used so far. Maybe when you’re first learning it can be hard but after you write a couple papers with it you get the hang of it. The only thing I would need help on would be the works cited and how to word them and but everything in the correct order.

If I had to describe my friends in three different ways I would probably have to associate the words with their personalities. What I mean by that is, none of my friends have near the same personality. One of my friends is outgoing and crazy and always has so much energy. My other friend is to herself and more rude than others, but always wants to have a good time. Finally, the third friend is stubborn, wild, and very impatient. One thing all my friends have in common is they don’t listen and that has to do with the kind of person they are and they way their mind works. It is always good to have the perfect balance of them all through life so life never gets boring. Best friends play a big role in your life so you never want to settle for less than what you deserve. 

I both agree and disagree with the fact that college students struggle to balance their schoolwork and the tasks of everyday life. I know that for me when I first started college, I struggled big time. It was a really big adjustment for me because I was just used to waking up every day and going to work 8-5 and going home and not having to worry about schoolwork. Once I started college that wasn’t my daily schedule anymore. My schedule became very choppy, I was working a full-time job in part-time hours all while still being a full-time student. I struggled to find time for family and friends but once you find your own groove it gets a lot easier to manage. You know when you can and can’t do certain things like hanging out with friends and family. But it all works out in the end and you learn to love the crazy unstable life you have.

Social media is not always detrimental to our face-to-face interactions with strangers. I think social media can give us an insight to people before we meet them so maybe we can judge whether they are worth our time or not. Now the downside to that is that people can always hide behind a screen and not be who they say they are on social media. So, we have to be careful with that, but social media can be a good thing. Some people do go a little overboard with it and will argue and fight through social media when they would never say or do the same things if they were face-to-face with that person. Social media is not all bad though in this day and time. There are positives and negatives to it just like there is with everything else.

My idea of a best friend would be kind of too much but it’s the standards that I have set for someone and my best friends meet them with no problem. So, if they can anyone can. A best friend is someone who is there for you in your lowest of lows. Someone who is there for the good but especially there for the bad when you need them most. I have always been told that if someone cannot be there for you in the valley’s then they do not deserve to be with you on the mountain top. If you think about it that’s pretty logical thinking. If they don’t go through the hurt with you then they don’t get to go through the happy times.

The biggest act of kindness I’ve seen from a stranger would have to be one time when I was sick. I was pulled over on the side of the road and this lady that I had never met before stopped and held my hair and was nurturing me like I was her child. In my head I look at it this way, she could’ve been just like every other car that passed right by me not caring. But something told her that she needed to stop and help me, which showed me that there are still people that care about others whether they know them or not. There is hatred in the world but that’s not all there is. There are still caring and loving people that are willing to take time out of their day to stop on the side of the road and help a sick individual who is all alone.  

Peer revision has never really been a big help to me because I don’t have a lot of hope in other students that they know what they’re doing when editing my paper. I fear that they will mark things wrong that might be wrong or not mark things wrong and leave them wrong. I just fear that they might miss something important that I would need to fix before turning a paper in. I know sometimes teachers miss stuff but students aren’t the ones grading my paper my teacher is and so if the teacher misses something well then that doesn’t affect my grade. I would just much rather go to a teacher for help so I know what I am doing is wrong or right. 

The thing that most frustrates me about writing would have to be that I struggle to find what to write about and also how to explain it in all the right ways. I struggle a lot with grammar and punctuation. I could type a whole paragraph and it would be one big sentence with no commas and an abundance of run on sentences. I also struggle a lot with I can have it all in my head but I don’t know how to put it into words. Writing and English in general has always been a very big struggle for me and having to take one English class twice in college has taught me that I have very bad anger problems when it comes to writing papers.

A person that I hold near and dear to my heart that shares the same beliefs as me would be my mawmaw. She lived her whole life showing nothing but God’s grace and how to live not a perfect life but one that was darn sure close in my eyes. She showed me what the true definition of loving your neighbors were, what loving unconditionally is, and that no matter what you think you’re going through there is always someone going through worse. She was the most selfless, humble, loving, caring, person you could meet. If there is anything that I learned from her it was that you will live a miserable life you don’t learn how to forgive others. That even if they hurt you in the worst way possible it was better for your own mental health to forgive them no matter how hard it was.