My name is Alexander May and I am 26 years old. I have been married to my wife, Tiffany for a little over 3 years and we have a 2 year-old son, Ezra. We also just found out that my wife is expecting our second child some time in December! I started going back to school when I first found out that I was going to be a father. I am currently working towards an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences and I will graduate in May of 2012 from the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from USM, I plan on attending the Dental School at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi.
Truthfully, I have not had too much science-related writing required of me in my recent years of college, but I have done much writing outside of school, preparing both sermons and lessons as a youth minister. I also worked in a retina specialist's clinic for a year. That job forced me to learn how to transcribe and organize the information that the doctor would dictate - and how to do it VERY quickly! I felt like it was a good learning experience (plus - I got to see a lot of cool gross stuff).
If it were up to me, I could write critiques on music and movies all day and never feel stressed in the least. Presenting my opinion in writing is very easy to me and quite enjoyable, but the moment I am asked to write about subjects and information that do not require my input, I find it taxing and often boring. I think research writing is less enjoyable because there is no room for personal input and yet, you aren't allowed to plagiarize! I'm kidding of course, but truthfully I don't like organizing data that is already there. When writing research papers I feel like I am just repeating the same old thing, others' ideas, nothing new, no opinion, etc... that's why I don't especially like them (because someone already wrote it!). All that being said, however, I do find it enjoyable to I read a well-written research paper. Know what I mean?
When I hear the phrase, "writing failing," I think of the internet and texting. What I mean by this is that often times (in this information age) when writing/posting things on the internet or when texting, an underlying goal is getting the message across as fast as possible. A problem often arises - not enough time is spent developing your context and ,because speed is the issue, word choice can be pretty basic to say the least. What does this produce? Constant misunderstandings and misinterpretations. The "speaker's" tone and delivery are often mistaken. This has even lead to an argument between my wife and I! What a relief when I realized that I actually wasn't at fault this time! As I write this another internet-related meaning for the phrase, "writing failing" comes to mind. It is astonishing to me the way internet "lingo" has gone from something funny and cute online, to being real parts of day-to-day language for many people. I understand that the English language, as with all others, will evolve and change with the times, etc.. but when I was in English Composition 2, I was handed a pier's paper and it probably consisted of at least 50% lingo. That is no lie. Granted, I do know that my grammar has seen better days, but I am not about to put IMO in a research paper (for those of you who don't know, IMO stands for "in my opinion"). LOL............... Yes, that was another joke.
When it comes to this class, as with all my classes, I feel a certain obligation to do my best. I am motivated by my family (and the fact that I paid for this class) to give it my best and to learn and perform everything necessary to do well. I guess it sounds a bit militaristic to say it that way, but I find I always pickup a few things here and there when I try hard - even if it's not immediately interesting to me.
So, there you have it. From these small rants you can likely predict the style of my future papers!
Cheers and good luck to all who are enrolled.
God bless,
Alex May
No comments:
Post a Comment