Essays

One of the weird parts about being both introspective and extroverted is that I'm just as happy being alone with something intriguing as I am being around a large group of people. Today was one of those days when I was surrounded by intriguing things more than around people.

I analyzed an essay during class today so I could understand rhetoric better, but I immediately noticed punctuation problems more than anything else, and realized I'd grown up learning to analyze when people are writing "correctly", but never learning to analyze when people are writing well. It made me look forward to learning to write well during this class, but also made me wonder why we as educators spend so much time teaching children to write correctly instead of teaching them how to write well. It seems like we spend most of a child's writing time rapping their hand for doing things wrong instead of helping children develop, critically analyze, and express ideas. I've found that children will develop their own ideas just fine as long as you don't impede their process, but I'd love to see them getting help to develop ideas better and express and critically analyze ideas.

I brainstormed with an old friend about his own essay: the merits of Good Eats, a cooking show with Alton Brown. What intrigued me was Alton's style and personality - not just that he's spunky, but what he thinks about and cares about. Alton loves good food. You can tell that he's passionate about good food, but he doesn't think of "good" food as "fancy" food. He thinks of "good" food as "food that's really well-made", so he'll teach people the best way to make a corn dog, or how to make the best mashed potatoes. He's also really detail-oriented: He can point out what other people don't notice about what makes really good mashed potatoes (the dimensions of the cut of the potato), and he can explain the exact molecular structure of peanut brittle.

And that isn't including the video essays I listened to about film editing, the essay I turned in about "Just the Girl" by The Click Five, or the "essay" I wrote in my head about what Mormons need to do to make good movies and the consequences of Mormons not making good movies.
So while I got to be with people (in class, with that old friend, etc.), I spent a lot of time thinking and analyzing, especially about essays. That's exactly what I want to talk about in this blog: How I integrate introspective thought with extroverted socialization. In the process, I'm hoping the people learn to be more OK with being inside their own thoughts when they need to be and learn to associate with people better, whether it's through my successes or my failures, I hope your life becomes better by reading this blog. See you tomorrow.