Month: September 2021

In the past, I have been affected by anxiety when it comes to my writing, at least I am pretty sure. When it came to writing assignments, and I would accidentally leave them for the last minute, I would get anxious. However, this would cause me to completely hone in on my writing, and I would be able to complete the paper before the deadline, thankfully. I do not do this anymore because the feeling of being that anxious about completing an assignment on time sucks. I don’t think I have been affected by aversion really because sometimes the writing can be fun to do if it is interesting. I think a method that Eickmeyer recommends that I would use is to cap a time frame in which I want to write my paper so that way I am under less stress to finish the paper in one night.

I think that two worlds I exist between stem from my ethnicity(ies). I am mixed with European and Venezuelan blood, and throughout my life, I do feel sort of stuck. Like Ku, I was always the only one of this sort of mixture when it came to my student environments, even when my middle school was predominately hispanic, (the kids were all Mexican). Also I feel sort of stuck at home, due to the fact that I cannot speak Spanish anymore because I forgot the language many years ago. It has been hard to figure out who I really am and what I identify as (I mainly just say Latino because I technically am) and I am not the only one like this. A few friends I have had shared the same issue with me and we were able to somewhat connect that way.

1. Anxiety has definitely had an impact on my writing in the past. At first I feel like I have so much time to complete an assignment. Yet, the reality is the assignment was given so far in advance because it was a lot of work. Aversion takes place in this scenario as well because sometimes if I don’t have an interest in it, I won’t do it. Then I get anxiety the day or two before it’s due and I start freaking out. One way I plan to adopt Eickmeyer’s skills and strategies in writing my literacy narrative is breaking down the assignment. If I break one large task into smaller ones, it becomes more manageable. Brainstorming and pre-writing your piece will also make the writing less hard.

1. Two worlds I exist between is my ability to be hardworking but also my ability to procrastinate. Majority of the time, I am on top of all my work. Yet, I also tend to procrastinate and then when I have one day left to finish my homework, I instantly regret it and then try to perfect my work as best as I can. These worlds often collide as I stride to be a perfectionist with my work, but also have the flaw of procrastination. It is hard to separate these worlds because I often experience both periods of hard work and periods of laziness.

Procrastination and distractions have been barriers to my writing in the past. I usually tend to push assignments to the side because I think I have more than enough time to get it done. However, this later affects me because then I’m rushing to get my work done on the last couple of days. This gives me anxiety to turn in a well written paper which would’ve been more thought out if I started to work on it earlier. The times that I don’t procrastinate I get very distracted by my phone or by my environment leading me right back to procrastination. With this assignment I will break down my thinking process and brainstorm all the possible topics I can write about. In addition, I will maintain my focus on the assignment and all the requirements to guide me through my narrative.

The two worlds I would say I live in would be success but laziness. This is something that constantly clashes making it difficult for me to know what is it that I really want to do. I have invested a lot of time in my makeup business and there’s always more room for me to grow. But, at times my laziness gets in the way and what I could’ve done to benefit my business and my clients continues being held back. However, I do believe that all good things take time and that rushing my process is not going to make my business blow up any faster.

1. Procrastination has never really been an issue of mine, well, at least not until remote learning hit. Without the pressure of the teachers staring at me in class and constantly reminding us about the assignment that’s due before midnight, I tend to push it off and rush it right before it’s due. Nowadays, I tap into the email notification that pops up on my phone about the homework that’s due and automatically start to get anxious. I skim over the assignment and see how much there is to do and keep thinking to myself that there’s no way I’ll be able to finish that by the deadline and just keep putting it off and end up giving it in late. However, that will not be the case for this upcoming assignment, I can adopt Eickmeyer’s skills and strategies into writing my literacy narrative is by planning out my assignments and separating them into doing them in smaller increments instead of rushing them the night it’s due. 
2. Two worlds that I live in include the image of a perfect kid that I try to portray myself as and the real imperfect self that I am. Growing up in a strict Asian household, I’ve always been the straight-A kid that listened to their parents and did everything they could to please them. However, with strict parents also comes sneaky kids. After years of playing the perfect kid, I eventually got tired of trying to meet their impossible standards. It was not only exhausting but mentally draining as well. One of the times I remember distinctively is when I lied to my parents during middle school, telling them that I was at the library when in reality I just wanted to go to the park with my friends after school. I always envied those who got to hang out after school because my parents always expected me to go straight home. I got in trouble later on when they found out I wasn’t at the library afterward, and I got my phone taken away for a week. Thinking about it now, it’s so stupid. Thank god my parents stopped controlling me in high school, but thinking about those times still gives me shivers.

It it currently 3AM right now, I should be asleep, but no, I am doing my English homework that I procrastinated of course. While reading this paper I felt like Eickmeyer was specifically writing about me and my tendencies, he described me to a T. I read Eickmeyer’s description of anxiety and aversion and i can personally relate to them, as this is how i feel towards the upcoming literacy narrative. One of the statements that stuck with me was, “uncertainty about what the assignment requires or how to fulfill it”. This has always been a problem for me when it came to open ended assignments, when you can write about whatever you want and there are little to no guidelines. For me, i just feel like i genuinely don’t know what to write about in my literacy narrative, and thats okay, because i know i’m not the only one. In my upcoming assignments including the narrative, i will be trying my best to focus on the content of the assignment. If i sit down and think hard about what to write about, something will eventually pop up.

I do not personally relate to Ku’s example of being Asian-American, because I am just American. Well, not just American, I am Italian and Polish, but my family and I only speak English, therefore i can not relate to being sought out as a foreigner amongst others. I feel like two worlds that I exist between are, this may sound silly but, being skinny and chubby. I was skinny when i was younger but around middle school was when i began to gain a little bit of weight, and i haven’t been able to shed it since. The thing is, It has never been enough weight for me to sit down and think, “wow, I need to make a change”. I am in that in between area, where i can definitely loose a couple of pounds, but i still look good. I still look sort of skinny when in public, but in my eyes I am not perfect, nobody is, but i still need to work on it.

1. How have anxiety and aversion been barriers to your writing in the past, and what is one way you plan to adopt Eickmeyer’s skills and strategies in writing your literacy narrative?

Anxiety and aversion have both been barriers to my writing in the past through procrastination, as mentioned in the text. The funny thing is I was just procrastinating on an assignment as I was reading Eickmeyer’s writing and I really needed his words of motivation. I definitely plan on adopting Eickmeyer’s skills and strategies in my literacy narrative. Many of the faults and habits he mentions in the article, I have done in the past and his writing honestly felt like a much needed call-out. However, I plan to implement his advice on breaking my writing down and taking notes when the intrustor explains the assignment. We talk about literacy narrative topics often in class and whenever a key detail or idea is mentioned, I will keep in mind to jot it down for helpful future references.

1. Thinking of Ku’s example literacy narrative (written while a freshman at Baruch), what are two worlds you exist between? Describe a moment where those worlds met, collided, or pulled you in different directions.

Similarily, as an Asian I have also existed in two worlds just as Ku has, except I am Bengali-American. I grew up in central Florida from elementary school up until freshman year of high school. I was the only Bengali kid in my school for about the first 7 years of schooling. Schools in central Florida consists of a majority Hispanic/Latino population. Many kids did not know where or what Bangladesh was and would automatically assume I was Indian due to similar South Asian features we share. However, within my community and family friends, I also had a big separate group of Bengali friends outside of school that were also the only Bengali kids at their school. In a way, I felt as if I had gotten the best of both worlds. Stereotypes are obviously present at all schools and kids normally feel more comfortable approaching other kids that look like them. However, being the only Bengali kid got me out of my comfort zone and more open to learning about new cultures. Once, I arranged for my in-school friends and Bengali friends to both hang out, it felt different and weird at first but it ended being a great collab and we all got along just the same. There does not have to be any evident racial divide between people just because of their cultures. Instead, it allows for individuals to learn more about their surrounding communities.

1. Anzaldua believes that there is always someone in the world who speaks the same type of language as you. When you think that you’re alone and can’t fit into either group who speaks perfect English or perfect Spanish, and feel entitled to speak one or the other, think again because there is always a group of people who is in between, just like you are. As she states on page 74, “There is no one Chicano language just as there is no one Chicano experience. A monolingual Chicana whose first language is English or Spanish is just as much a Chicana as one who speaks several variants of Spanish.” Everyone is unique and it’s fine to be unique because there is always someone who is in the same universe as you are.
2. In Anzaldua’s literacy narrative, her style of writing included both English and Spanish. Not only that, she mentioned all the different variants she spoke. To name a few, some variants she spoke include but are not limited to Standard English, Standard Spanish, Chicano Spanish, Slang English/Spanish, etc. Anzaldua was successful in making her narrative personal by including her personal experiences which help her audience relate to a closer level. She mentions how she often switches between English and Spanish in the middle of a sentence, and I can definitely relate to that when I speak Chinglish with my Asian American friends. 
3. Just like Liao, Sedaris both mention their struggles trying to fit in and the struggles nonnative speakers experience in the process of learning. For example, as Sedaris described, on the first day of class, both Annas “ were limited in terms of vocabulary, and this made them appear less than sophisticated.” However on their journey from “confusion to fluency,” they both realize that they don’t need to be fluent in the language to be able to understand. Their type of language has just as much meaning, broken or not. A convention in Liao’s piece that seems less important to Sedaris is that he didn’t really explain the change, or the process of learning like Liao did, in the end, he only mentions that he now “understands” the language.
4. By the end of Manson’s essay, I feel like she was able to open up, or at least she attempted to get her point across to her friends and family. For example on page 87, Manson reveals, “I invited them into my world of unspoken feelings while continuously working to verbalize my thoughts.” Even though she is still speaking in small increments with simple vocabulary, she showed progress because instead of bottling up her feelings like she used to, she decided to share them. To me, that seems like a huge improvement.

1. I don’t think anxiety and aversion has ever been a major barrier in writing for me. If anything, only anxiety has ever stressed me out a bit, however it was never anything major to the point where it caused barriers in my writing. I have never taken a disliking or disinclination to writing because writing is something I have always enjoyed since I was in elementary school. The only time anxiety has ever caused me problems is when I make myself believe that it’s more work than it actually is, which often leads me to put off my work for another day. If I feel like its a lot of work to do for a certain assignment I tend to avoid it as much as I can until I literally cannot push it back anymore, which is the day right before the due date and then I stress more on the thought “what if i can’t get it done on time?” One of Eickmeyer’s strategies I plan to adopt for my literacy narrative is breaking it down into different sections and spacing it out. A 1,000+ word essay can most definitely get extremely overwhelming, so therefore I feel like breaking it down into small steps and completing them along the way will take away the anxiety that comes from feeling the need to take on this major assignment as a whole.
2. Two worlds that I exist between is being the “perfect” south asian daughter and inevitably adapting to the modern ever changing world. A moment when these worlds collided is when I rejected the misogynistic views of how girls in south asian households are supposed to be raised. The standards for girls are that they’re supposed to stay in the house and never go out to have fun and just cook, clean, help out and look after their family. I made it perfectly clear that they should never expect me to live up to these standards. I felt guilty about rejecting this aspect of my culture, however, I realized that I was never obligated to live up to expectations that were placed on me even before I was born. People just felt entitled to hold rigid expectations and decided not to adjust them to me as a teenager that lives in New York City in the 21st century. Living in a western country in the modern age means a lot of forthcoming changes to those standards and expectations due to the ever-evolving changes of society. I also realized that people grow in any and all directions, so it’s not my fault if others aren’t prepared to grow with me.