It is difficult to describe who I am, and it is even more difficult to know how to start writing on a blog. I like new beginnings. Life is full of fresh starts, and new ideas, opinions, and outlooks, and it is inspiring to think that there can be fresh chances and opportunities to make things better, even in bad situations. Knowing how to start something, especially something I’m writing, is important to me.
So how do you describe who a person is? I could sketch a basic description of who I am; my age, name, birthday, and gender. I could talk about how I appear, my hair color, eye color, height. But I don’t think that that is who a person is, and even if I thought so, I could not write it on a blog which any person could read. That would really be quite unsafe.
Not only that, describing who a person is completely is impossible. Who you are is constantly changing, evolving and growing, as you learn more about yourself and the world around you. It is composed of thousands of factors and life experiences, as diverse as the world we live in. Not only that, who you are shifts slightly in new circumstances, as different people, expectations, and responsibilities bring out different sides of you.
If I was asked to tell you about myself, I would say that I love life. I want to become a cultural anthropologist, and I love learning about ideas, philosophies, worldviews, and people. After highschool, I would like to go to university in Montreal, and take a variety of courses, including course in anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, religious studies, film, and international development. I can be quite left leaning, and very humanitarianistic (is that a word?). I would love to be part of an international development program like Canada World Youth and live and volunteer in another country. I also love to travel, and would like to visit Tibet, Brazil, India, Africa, Europe, and New York City. It would also be pretty great to visit Australia, if only because they have kangaroos. And quite cool accents! I love to read, write, and debate. I also like watching classic movies (Dr. Zhivago, Casablanca, etc) and musicals (I love Rent and Moulin Rouge).
I have two younger brothers, Jack and Will, and though they get on my nerves sometimes, I love them very much. I can be pretty protective of them too. My father’s a professor at Mt. Royal, and my mother works at FFCA, which is a little bit silly because she doesn’t really agree with their philosophy or teaching style. Most of my family lives in Toronto, so I don’t get to see them very often, though my Mom is in Toronto now, visiting relatives for a week.
After school, I am a part of very few extracurricular activities, teams, and groups. I play the flute in the Senior band and am an actor in the Westmount production of the Hobbit. I’m also a part of Summerstock, a theatre group based out of Westmount, that rehearses every Friday night from six until eleven thirty. At the end of July we perform our finalized show (usually a Broadway musical) downtown at Olympic Plaza.
My goals for English 10 definitely include learning how to write an essay, and passing word within the word tests. I can improve my essay writing skills by managing my time better (either by writing a schedule or planning to start my essay at least a week before it is due), learning how to express what I think through information, facts, and research, not just opinions, and reviewing criticism on the essays I have already completed. Word within the word expertise can be achieved by reviewing each new list of words as they come up, using tools like flashcards or websites to study, and working on my memorization skills. Linking the words to ideas or concepts is also a useful way for me to study. I am happy to be taking English this term, and I hope that the course will go well for me.
