Writing Concerns (Exercise 5B) and other Somesuch Nonsense

Hey, all:

I meant to post this yesterday during class, then later after the next class, then the next, then soon I was at rehearsal and away from all computers. So here's my Exercise 5B response. Read it or don't. Honestly, I don't care. I don't look at my old (2 day old) work.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The greatest weakness one can have is believing one has none. If one believes oneself perfect, then one has no reason to improve. I'm not saying this is completely true in my case, but I would just like to point this out: complacency breeds error. That's what I've been told. By fortune cookies.

At any rate, I don't see how this can't be true. If somebody isn't constantly being tested, their ability will go dull. Perhaps the real challenge in not having any glaring weakness is learning how to stay in practice, how to keep up the pace so that one never loses his or her edge. In truth, that must be my own glaring weakness; the self-assuredness in my own skill leads me to sloth, quite possibly the greatest sin that a writer can commit.

I imagine much of this comes from the fact that all throughout my academic career, I've honestly never had to “try” to get a good grade. I have always readily retained information easily for homework and exams, and any essay that I've had to write has usually come out well enough for a good grade. I imagine that if I ever was put into an environment where I was surrounded by academic superiors, I would not hold up so well, mentally or otherwise.

One of my greatest weaknesses has indeed been my fear of being upstaged. If I cared enough about a class to try to be the best, anybody better or “more deserving” of the teacher's praise was a potential enemy to be shown up. This was not always the case, but if I felt strongly about the image I had in the minds of both the teachers and my classmates, these feelings would at least come through in my approach and my handling of class-specific situations. This did not always end out well for me, if it ever did at all.

All of this leads up to one greater (and hither-to-unforeseen) disadvantage to being me: pride. Specifically, pride in the face of criticism. And this is not a graceful kind of pride, but rather the kind that made people cringe and turn away when it came to peer reviewing my stuff. Perhaps it was my silent rebukes to any well-intentioned point that they would make; perhaps the opposite, my imperialistic attitude to “liberating” another's paper from the clutches of that very author. Is it any wonder why they sometimes did not take me as seriously as they “should” have? Or am I just over analyzing a very real and helpful technique that clearly served me well in both a demanding academic world and among peers that may not have been skilled as myself? Regardless of however it “went down”, I still do not feel very good about how I acted when it counted.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good enough. It's kind of a downer, though. I give it two stars (** out of 4).

Anyway, this week went excellently. I'll post about it more in detail this weekend, probably, if I'm not too busy with the show and catching up on homework/papers that I've had to neglect (grumble grumble). Seeya!