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Writer's Block: Least favorite subject
Oct. 1st, 2009 01:13 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]
I was never a huge fan of math. I could be decent at it if I worked hard at it, but I think that was kind of the problem :-P It required more effort, more attention to detail, and more objectivity. I preferred English and Social Studies, in which I had a natural interest and the *answers* didn`t matter so much as being able to frame them and argue them well.
My favorite subject was English, particularly Writing when/if the teacher considered it a specific category. 4th grade we learned about the Writing Process, writing a new short story every week; Tuesday was the best, as it was the day we actually WROTE. (Monday was brainstorming, the rest of the week was peer reviewing, editing, and turning in a finally draft). I also loved morning journaling time during the 2nd and 3rd grades. I wrote long stories in serial in my journaling notebook, adding new episodes and illustrating them during those brief sessions every day.
My dislike of math only got worse as I went through school. I was okay with high school geometry and physics (which was technically a science class, but very math-heavy) because they were concrete; I could visualize what answers were practical and so it was easier to check my work, which still remained full of errors because of my continuing lack of attention to details like decimal points and negative signs. I hated algebra and Pre-Calculus (trigonometry and more with parabolas and hyperbolas and other shit related to polynominals, the introduction to which I was absent for due to a burst appendix in 8th grade and never learned properly to begin with). I didnt even bother with Calculus, which meant that since I was accelerated a year in math along with all the other Honors kids, I had my senior year math-free. It was a wonderful moment when math classes ended for me in February (the end of the second trimester) of junior year. I never needed Calculus in college (I took only one vaguely mathish course for my Quantitative Analysis requirement: Psych Statistics, which any math person will tell you is bullshit, but I still failed one of the tests) and I doubt I will ever need it in my life. Best decision ever.
As for English, my love ebbed and flowed depending on the teachers and the material. 9th grade English wasn`t so fun; I felt totally insecure about my writing ability, stopped using commas altogether in protest, and ended up hating several of the books we read simply because I failed tests related to them. However, in most of my subsequent classes I enjoyed the more mature reading material and the deeper discussions concerning it. That said, most of the writing was expository and academic and I missed getting to write stories. I would have like a mini-orgasm when we were given creative assignments. However, my love for subjects in the Social Studies department became much stronger once we moved on from memorizing definitions of geographical terms, state capitals, and important dates and got into the heart of the subjects. (Anything that involves arguing. This I like, apparently).
In elementary school I also enjoyed Chinese class, which we had for an hour once a week and of which I remember very little. I guess that would be the only indication of my later love of Japanese class, since we didnt have Japanese in elementary school. Then again, when it comes to Japanese classes, the overaching rule seems to be that Ive always loved the subject-- but frequently disliked the actual classes. There was usually something off about them, like moving too slowly (middle school exploratory Japanese), being too anal about doing things One Particular Way (high school, college, and KCJS), or focusing too much on accuracy rather than communication (college and KCJS). Lol, I only attended for four weeks one summer, but Mori no Ike wins as far as Japanese courses go-- and Ive been in a lot of them.
I was never a huge fan of math. I could be decent at it if I worked hard at it, but I think that was kind of the problem :-P It required more effort, more attention to detail, and more objectivity. I preferred English and Social Studies, in which I had a natural interest and the *answers* didn`t matter so much as being able to frame them and argue them well.
My favorite subject was English, particularly Writing when/if the teacher considered it a specific category. 4th grade we learned about the Writing Process, writing a new short story every week; Tuesday was the best, as it was the day we actually WROTE. (Monday was brainstorming, the rest of the week was peer reviewing, editing, and turning in a finally draft). I also loved morning journaling time during the 2nd and 3rd grades. I wrote long stories in serial in my journaling notebook, adding new episodes and illustrating them during those brief sessions every day.
My dislike of math only got worse as I went through school. I was okay with high school geometry and physics (which was technically a science class, but very math-heavy) because they were concrete; I could visualize what answers were practical and so it was easier to check my work, which still remained full of errors because of my continuing lack of attention to details like decimal points and negative signs. I hated algebra and Pre-Calculus (trigonometry and more with parabolas and hyperbolas and other shit related to polynominals, the introduction to which I was absent for due to a burst appendix in 8th grade and never learned properly to begin with). I didnt even bother with Calculus, which meant that since I was accelerated a year in math along with all the other Honors kids, I had my senior year math-free. It was a wonderful moment when math classes ended for me in February (the end of the second trimester) of junior year. I never needed Calculus in college (I took only one vaguely mathish course for my Quantitative Analysis requirement: Psych Statistics, which any math person will tell you is bullshit, but I still failed one of the tests) and I doubt I will ever need it in my life. Best decision ever.
As for English, my love ebbed and flowed depending on the teachers and the material. 9th grade English wasn`t so fun; I felt totally insecure about my writing ability, stopped using commas altogether in protest, and ended up hating several of the books we read simply because I failed tests related to them. However, in most of my subsequent classes I enjoyed the more mature reading material and the deeper discussions concerning it. That said, most of the writing was expository and academic and I missed getting to write stories. I would have like a mini-orgasm when we were given creative assignments. However, my love for subjects in the Social Studies department became much stronger once we moved on from memorizing definitions of geographical terms, state capitals, and important dates and got into the heart of the subjects. (Anything that involves arguing. This I like, apparently).
In elementary school I also enjoyed Chinese class, which we had for an hour once a week and of which I remember very little. I guess that would be the only indication of my later love of Japanese class, since we didnt have Japanese in elementary school. Then again, when it comes to Japanese classes, the overaching rule seems to be that Ive always loved the subject-- but frequently disliked the actual classes. There was usually something off about them, like moving too slowly (middle school exploratory Japanese), being too anal about doing things One Particular Way (high school, college, and KCJS), or focusing too much on accuracy rather than communication (college and KCJS). Lol, I only attended for four weeks one summer, but Mori no Ike wins as far as Japanese courses go-- and Ive been in a lot of them.
