Normally in everyday life, I don’t usually read books, but sometimes there are times when I do. This usually happens when I see something that catches my attention or if the teachers ask me to pass the class. In fact, the interest in reading these books that I am talking about comes from other platforms such as YouTube. I usually watch videos of explanations, curious things, and things that you did not realize about series or movies that have been created thanks to their corresponding books. There is where the desire to know more about those stories through their books is born in me. I also like to read comics and manga. But as I mentioned before, I don’t resort to reading that much. There was a time when I read a lot something that was like a comic and manga at the same time. I got so hooked back then reading those stories because I felt trapped by their protagonists and the experiences they lived. But there was something that made me regret it. To be exact, I regret choosing to read one of those stories with a genre that I don’t remember what it was called, but what I do remember is that I came to hate that genre of reading a lot. It was about deceit, injustice, impudence, and other things that I would not like to write about here; all this was taken to the maximum. Reading that made me feel sick that I had to stop reading that kind of genre. To this day I don’t understand how those stories were so like that but at the same time so engaging. Leaving that aside, I would like to say that I used to write a fantasy story that was going to be made into a game. We thought about this idea with a friend, but in the end, we didn’t do much. The basis of the story is done, but there is still much more to write in my opinion. If you were wondering what my friend was going to do in this project, well, he was going to be in charge of making the game itself. Although I also wanted to put my hands in there because I was also interested in game programming. To be honest, right now my mind is blank when I think about what I learned in my English classes in my country. I don’t know if this is because many years have passed since then or if I just didn’t pay attention to those classes back then. If so, I would say it was because back then maybe my old self thought “hmm I don’t think this is so necessary to learn” (although I accept it, it’s an excuse). To further support this idea, I would say that normally you didn’t see anyone speak English or you didn’t see that it was so necessary at work in my country. Everything I’m saying from the perspective of my old self who was like 12 or 13 years old. The truth is that I don’t remember the real reason why my mind went blank when I thought about this. I do remember through my memories seeing the books I read or the tests I took. For you to understand what I mean, I only remember that material, object, and letters. I don’t remember if I learned it, the reflections I had or how I was improving my English. Lastly, I would like to say that I feel prepared for this English class, I like the atmosphere and the teacher. Although sometimes there is a lot of noise, I understand, because that’s how I would be if I were with my friends in class.

Though it doesn’t have to be books, I would say that the things I enjoy most to read are indeed good books. Preferably suspenseful, action-packed books that keep you at the edge of your seat but also self help books and political novels. I also enjoy reading news articles and who could forget about Instagram posts and Snapchat captions. I enjoy reading these sorts of things simply because I find them interesting and am usually engaged while reading (this applies more so to the books). Now as for things I don’t enjoy reading. I don’t enjoy slow-paced novels or textbooks.  I just cannot get into reading such things and it more so feels like a chore rather than something I enjoy doing. I honestly don’t like reading poems too much either unless they rhyme as I usually find them rather boring (that being said, there are many good poems I have encountered before). 

In terms of experiences, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Harry Potter. I had to read the first book for high school one time and I fell in love with the series. I’ve since read all the other books and I am actually currently reading the series again. This is the kind of book I enjoy, always interesting, fast-paced, and it feels like you just can’t put it down.

As for writing, I cannot say I enjoy writing but I also cannot say I dislike it. I have always gotten good grades in English and I have sometimes enjoyed the writing I’ve done but usually it just felt like a chore. Now, perhaps this is because it usually was a chore, as it was in the form of assignments, but even then, I do not really go out of my way to write on my own time (i.e. stories and poems and the like), it is just not really a go-to hobby of mine. Even then, I still like the way that there are not really any set rules for writing and you can somewhat write however you like. In terms of the writing I have done, I’ve written essays, speeches, reports, poems, and even some short plays. As mentioned earlier, relatively all of the writing that I have done has been for school.

I have done research for a research paper that I needed to write in my senior year of high school. The paper was about deforestation and its relation to pandemics. I have written another research paper outside of school where I was able to choose the topics, in which I discussed the benefits of paper bags vs biodegradable plastic bags. I honestly didn’t find the  research process very confusing. The only thing is that it is sometimes hard to find the exact articles you want to support your points, so you may end up needing to slightly restructure your paper.

My past English classes were okay, though they have varied throughout the years. My senior and junior year classes in high school were great but my freshman and sophomore years were not as nice. This came down to the variability between the teachers and their writing styles. What is a good piece of writing to one teacher is not the same as what is good for another teacher and this is one aspect I dislike about English. I feel pretty good starting this class, though I can’t say precisely what makes me feel this way. The atmosphere is just nice and I think I will be able to do well. I hope to learn more about persuasive writing and improve my use of counterarguments.

The pandemic did not really change my writing and reading habits.

Before I took Psychology 101 as a senior for an elective in High School I hated writing. Throughout my junior year, I had an AP U.S. History teacher that would make me write 4-page essays off the top of my head based on a topic we learned in our previous class and I only had 20 minutes. Though I do love history, the idea of being under-pressure and being forced to express myself within such little time would scare me. It made me dread the class and made me hate writing. I would write every day at the beginning of class and then for the weekend I had a 5-page essay that had to be submitted before Sunday morning. This was truly one of the worst experiences of my life with writing because I felt limited in expressing my mind. This class made me state facts rather than opinions and as a very verbal person, it would frustrate me. Shockingly I ended up passing the class with a 90 after getting some 70s and 80s on my essays and staying late at night crying.  After my junior year when entering my senior year, I was given a 20-page paper due at the end of the school year. It was a research paper based on any sociology topic that I wanted. This was my best experience with writing because I wrote about colorism within Hispanic communities, something I experience in my everyday life. The more connected I feel to a topic the more I want to write and this became one of the best classes. I had to do my research and had to create an action plan as well. My action plan consisted of the ways I would educate many Hispanics on the issue of colorism and explain how it is adding more discrimination to our community. Instead of harming our community with more discrimination, I wrote that we should overlook our skin tones and stop identifying each Hispanic based on their features because it does not make us any better than the people who already discriminate against us. Within this research, I did polls online that were meant for Hispanics only to answer. One of the questions was  “Do your parents or family members call you something based on one of your features?”. For example, I get called morenita which means brown girl by many family members because to them my physical attributes are what defines me and what they criticize me by. For years after being colonized many Hispanic communities have adapted to this mindset that “white means right”, meaning if you do not have your colonizer’s features you are not elegant or beautiful or even worth anything. Throughout my research, I discovered that many Hispanics and especially first-generation students still suffer from colorism within their families and Hispanic community because it has been one of our new norms. After creating an action plan I made a brochure that stated we should educate older generations about the ways colorism and old norms affect and harm our newer generation. The brochure consisted of words we should not be using, different Hispanics of color united, and a list of ways colorism hurts our community not only our people but the way others view us. By the end of my paper, I gathered enough information that demonstrated older generations are the reason colorism is still around and this is because it is still a habit for many Hispanics to point out all of our features. And as they continue pointing out our features they show newer generations that we should identify each person by their skin tone. This is not only adding colorism to our Hispanic society but discrimination and racism in our society as a whole because the way we act with one another, makes others think it is fine as well to treat us the same. Overall, this research paper made me feel more connected to my community than ever before. Reading articles, and gathering data and information taught me where the root of colorism grew and how to this day it affects my community. And as a Gen- Z, I want to see change for my future generation. Hopefully within this freshman composition class I am able to express myself more with every paper I write. 

I’m not a regular reader but most of the time I prefer to read non-fiction books. I love to read about society and culture because for example; how and why people face discrimination, implicit bias, privilege, etc. I done research in the past year about women’s education, water pollution, Implicit bias, homo phobia,etc. I’m so excited about this class and I hope I’ll also learn about different topics including our society and human rights. During this pandemic all had to stay home so people got time to spend with their family so in school I would read at least 5 pages in a day but on pandemic I could not read a page.