Mistakes and Learning

Mistakes have played a big part in my learning, both academically and musically. In writing, mistakes and revision are what make for great writing. The more mistakes you find and fix, the better your writing will become. This has been very true of my learning to write. I remember a few particular papers in high school that I wrote, thinking I had done a great job. I turned them in to my mom, and when I got them back, they were marked up with corrections. Only when they were pointed out to me was I able to see how terrrible some of the wording sounded, all of the grammar issues, spelling errors, "messiness" in my ideas, and bad structure. Learning to fix these mistakes has made and continues to make me a better writer. So I  guess you could say that it isn't the mistakes that teach you, but rather learning to fix them. This went over to math too. My mom was a good teacher in that she made me work, and work hard for my grade to ensure that I reall knew my stuff. In math, if I wasn' getting it, she wouldn't just stamp on a bad grade and move on. She would make me do the same or similar exercises over and over again until I got it and it clicked. This frustrated me for a while, but it ultimately led to mastery of the materials. Realizing the mistakes helped reveal my weaknesses so we could pinpoint and refine them until I had it all down. The same went for my music. My teacher would help me pinpoint my weak spots and we would work on them over and over until they were fixed. We wouldn't stop until all of the tranitions were smooth, the duds were gone, and the tone was perfect. As you can see, realizing your mistakes and learning to fix them is very important. Though they may sting for a little while at first, they bring beauty to the finished product and confidence in your own mastery.



Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Update on my Transition into College

Yesterday, I was walking across campus thinking about how well and how smoothly  my transition has gone from high school to college. For me coming to college hasn't felt like a huge deal. This is thanks to my older sister, who we call "the family guineapig." Since she is the oldest, she always has to experience the huge life milestones before anyone else in the family. She was the first to homeschool through high school and graduate, first to get her driver's license, and then first to go to college. With all these things, I have always had the chance to get used to the idea of things before having to experience them for myself. The same was true for college. She had already started here at TLU last fall, before my senior year, so I kind of knew what to expect. Now, here I am.

 

Thinking about where I probably was at this exact moment last year. I woul probably be sitting in my bed, in my pajamas (don't say "lucky homeschoolers" just yet!), reading my physics chapter trying to make heads or tails of it alone, or writing one of the two 3 page essays I had due every week, plus written homework responses and all of the reading I had to do. Just the usual routine I have had over the past 12 years of my education. Now, here I am going from class to class like it's no big deal.

 

The routine has become fused in my mind already, and like I said earlier, I don't find it wierd anymore. My study habits are improving and declining at the same time. My procrastination levels are still about the same, but I am more focused since I have bigger goals now that I have my mind set on college. My junior year, I loathed the idea of college. I thought, "what is the use of spending tons of money for classes I don't even care about. I want to teach music!" Now, I see it as improving myself to help me improve my future students and the extra classes help make me a well-rounded person academically (TLU has me sold over the "liberal arts education" idea). The better I become, the better I can help them become. This "bigger picture" focus, helps to keep me set to my work.

 

However, now I don't have my mom here to make sure I'm working on my essays instead of on facebook. Responsibility is about the same, although in different ways. In high school, I was responsible for both teaching myself the material, and making sure that I learned it well. This is a HUGE load for any person of any age, and has really matured me. Now, in college, I just have to take notes, and make sure I'm learning enough to pass the tests and (in the case of music classes) make sure I am prepared for my career. In this way, responsibility has even decreased a little. In other life areas, however, I have had more responsibility placed on me. I don't have my mom to make sure I'm where I need to be on time, I am responsible for managing my own money, and as I mentioned earlier am solely responsible for getting my work done.

Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

The Goals Make the Game!

Goals are a very important thing in the world of sports. If a team goes out onto the playing field without any plan of action and just decides to "wing it", the odds are that they will most likely lose. I don't watch sports very often, so just bear with me if I say something wrong. The purpose in their playing will become muddled as they go for the win and by the end of the game, the whole team will just be one big wreck. The players will scatter across the playing field and run around hoping for the best. In  a hopeless game of "hot potato", the ball will be passed from player to player and finally end up into the wrong hands. Or, the ball won't be passed to the right person, and that person will get tackled because his teammates didn't know what was going on and weren't there to watch his back. Because of this, the team will lose badly. Basically, the lack of an aim or purpose in their game led to a big loss in the end. 

This idea of having goals set in mind also applies to writing. Before writing, a writer- whether published author or college student - needs to sit down and set his or her goals for writing into place. They need to decide what they will be writing, how they will do it, and who they will be writing for. Without these few goal marks set in place, this their writing purpose would be unclear, their thoughts scattered, their writing unorganized, and their paper hard to read overall. With the goals put into place before writing, your paper will clearly state its purpose, it will be very well written, and clearly understood by the audience it is intended for. Just like in a football game, where the coach has the perfect game plan. The players will be in the right place at the right time, the ball will be passed to the right people, and it will all end in a touchdown! Clearly, purpose and goals make the difference. 

Lately, I have been trying to apply this idea of setting goals into my own life. I have set goals in the past, but over time, they have become muddled and needed some "resetting." Where do I want to be a year from now? 5 years? 10 or 20? In the next few years, I am hoping to be a Certified Suzuki guitar teacher, with a well-established studio. These are all things I am beginning to work out as I set out in this new chapter of life in college. I know that setting these now as I am looking ahead at my next four years in college, will help make the bumpy road ahead of me at least a little bit smoother. Or, at least give me something to hold onto while i'm out there. In the end, I'm hoping to reach that finish line, look back, and be able to say that I did my very best and made it through well.






Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Write to Win- How Attitude Makes the Difference

Have you ever noticed how much of a difference attitude makes in sports? Great football teams don't come to the game with a loser's attitude. The come to play hard and win. They have an attitude aimed for success. If even one member of the team isn't feeling it and just has that loser's attitude, it wrecks the entire game. It makes that much of a difference.

This is very true academically as well. Your attitude in school makes all of the difference - whether optimistic or pessimistic. Do you see a challenge and think "I can do this" or do you  pull back and say "I can't do this, so I'm not even going to try." In order to succeed, you have be able to look at that book that's thicker than it is wide and say "I can do this!" You need that winner's attitude. Similarly, when you write you must write like you know, not how you "think." You need to write with authority. Now, is this easy? No, most of the time it isn't, but just like any sport, it will take practice.

Any athlete or performer will tell you that next to practice, the most important thing is warming up. If you just go out on that field and play hard, you will most definitely pull a muscle, or worse. You need preparation. The best way to prepare for any tough thing is to do it lightly at first. For a sprinter, this means doing a little jogging; for a musician, playing a slow and simple piece helps; for a writer, taking notes or skim reading the book can help you get an idea of what it's about. Just start slowly.

Next, you need to keep your game up, you need stamina; and what better way than by feeding yourself good stuff. Sure a football player can cram in the junk food every now and then, he needs the carbohydrates, but in order to keep himself going, he needs something better that his body can actually use. He needs that protein to help keep his muscles going. For a writer those yummy carbohydrates are fun books, but what a good writer needs to keep them going is some tough stuff. They need the meatier books, the books with more useful information that can be applied to their writing. You need to have ideas backing you up when the going gets tough.

Another important thing is that you have to be willing to work for it. Do you think those NFL football players got where they are by sitting on the couch eating potato chips all day? No! they trained hard. They had to be willing to get battered and bruised to become the best. One of the most important things in any type of performance situation is your work ethic. Are you barely stepping up to the minimum, or are you reaching for that high bar? To get to the top of that ladder, you'll need to do some reaching. It's like that one famous saying, "it is better to aim at the sky and hit an eagle, than to aim at the eagle and hit a rock." You can't just go for the minimum word count and write for a "C." You need to get out there, write, and write well. Don't wait until that last minute and get a crudely put together, mess of a paper. Start ahead of time so you can put your all into it. I know, it is very easy to become overwhelmed with all of this work, but just trust me it will be well worth it in the end. Don't see it as a huge obstacle needing to be overcome, see it as just a small detail  in your ultimate goal of success.

Now, you don't have to be an athlete to understand this. It can apply to almost any performance situation, whether you job or, as we have already seen, academically. I am a musician, a classical guitarist, and this applies so much to my performance. If I want a performance that moves a crowd, I need to be willing to go beyond my comfort zone. I need to be willing to get softer and put some feeling into that sweet part and rumble those strings on that emotional swell. I need to be willing to get loud and put some attitude into my music as well. I need to focus, or my music will just sound disconnected. You need to give your all. If you're not feeling it and you don't have that winner's attitude, it just won't work.

Thus, attitude can become the winning or losing decision in any game. The way you see these obstacles ahead of you will determine whether you make it in the end or not. It is your own choice from the very beginning whether you will succeed. Now, get out there and write to win!

Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.