WHO AM I?

My father and I at a family gathering

Hello world!

My name is Michael and I'm going into my third year at UCI. I am a car guy and I drive a 1990 Mazda Miata. I've driven this car on a small racetrack and I have a lot of fun. I'm also a gamer, a former high school shot put record holder, and a pisces (if that means anything to you lol).

I've taken Writing 39B and it was a very interesting class because I was allowed to be creative with some guidelines to help me through. I was able to write some pieces of work that I was proud of but I was a perfectionist and it was incredibly difficult to submit work that I didn't think was ready. One of my fears when in a writing class is that I spend an enormous amount of time on an essay and the final product is way below my standards and expectations. I hope that this class can teach me to overcome this fear while allowing me to exercise some creativity.

I am a perfectionist to a fault and I want my writing to be perfect. I am the type of writer to finish an essay and start over because I didn't like the way it ended up. I believe this does make some of my writing interesting and this helps me avoid being cliché; however, the result is a lot of writer's block and procrastination at some tasks. As a communicator I strive to use as little words as possible and have the biggest impact on readers and listeners. Sometimes it works great! Other times it leads to a lot of confusion and I am making progress but I do understand that there is no ceiling and that is frightening. Some areas I do excel in is emotional writing and garnering sympathy and tugging on heart strings.

I have done research before about foreign policy for another writing class and I found that extremely difficult. It was a topic I didn't have too much passion for and with the infinite leads and paths I could do research on, I found myself in a research rabbit hole that never ended and I never felt ready to begin writing.

In the time articles we've been reading, I found very interesting the conversation around animal awareness and which animals have it. Specifically animals awareness of their own mortality and the permanence of death. I found that interesting because I imagine a wild animal is often in possibly fatal situations every day and the fact that they are aware makes me stressed for them. The most interesting thing that I've read was actually an animals capability to learn. I for one find enjoyment in learning and more specifically watching others learn about the world from their perspective. The zoologist, Christopher Bird, did some interesting research about corvids (birds like crows and jays). He made an observation that they were allowed to raise the water level by adding rocks into water. The fact that they know about displacement of water is mind-blowing to me.

This is Michael and I can't wait until next time!