Elena Belova ENGL 1101-54 Dr.

Jan Rieman September 25, 2013

Literacy Memoir (draft)

From the beginning.

I was born in Russia in the end of 20th century. Hard times after disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republic passed away and people started to keep to renewed pace of life, copying it from the West. I remember that we got our first computer when I was very young, even before the school starts. Im not even talking about television because during that period of time it was in every house. I was a very curious child: always asked a million of questions and didnt wait to answers. I lived in a constant vanity, discovered new information every day, from all the sources that were within reach. I loved to read about travels and journeys. One of my favorite books was The adventures of Baron Munchausen, I read all the stories so many times Even now I remember my perception of of them. It is somewhere very deep inside my soul and will never go away. Probably this book

have influenced my decision to study abroad because I was always looking for ascension, studied with diligence and passion.

However my early originating love to books evaporated in a couple of months after I was taught how to use a computer. As for every child it was a new toy for me. I could spend hours playing different thrilling games: riding on horses, choosing clothes for Barbie, killing aliens Now I regret that I was so concentrated on that virtual world and didnt develop myself. TV affected me badly too. From one point of view we enlarge our range of vision, find out a plenty of information about different countries and cultures, but from another side we stop developing of ability to analyze. We just gather all the information. For adults it can be a good way to study as they already know how to write and read, but for a child who just started building his way it caused only deterioration. Some time later I learned how to use Internet and immediately registered in the most popular networks. It was so exiting to write to other people that you dont know in real life, get messages from them. Analyzing it now I start to understand that computer technologies played ambiguous role in my life: they stopped me at first, but later pushed me forward. Flashlight in the night.

Writing had never attracted me. It seemed to be the most boring thing ever. Until High School. My Literature teacher was a strict women in her early 40s, however when I saw her at the first time I was determined that she is 55 or 60. Svetlana Ivanovna turned out to be a qualified professional in this field. Her main purpose was to prepare us for final tests and to tell the truth she managed it perfectly. But I cant recall any lesson related to our trainings. When I think about literature classes I remember our teacher telling stories about poets and writers lives, their tragedies, worries, inspirations, unexpected actions, madness. She also spoke about the process of creation writing masterpiece. After first lecture I came home and started to work on assignment. I dont remember what it was about, but I wrote with passion. I put all my feelings into this work. At the first time of my life I really wanted to write, because I knew that I can share my thoughts with others observing that topic. But my dream about free writing fell apart when I came to class. I showed my paper to the friend and she said that we had to write very formally and dont go into details. She was wondering why I wrote so much when it wasnt required. I got a good grade for my work. But others who wrote dry and compressed got As too. I was disappointed at first, but then just started to do what was required and no more. For who will I write if I dont even get any feedback from my teacher? Even though I enjoyed her lectures. The teacher was a sponsor of my literacy: she recommended books to read, I found them and enlarged word reserve. But my writings became poor. Something happened and I couldnt compose anymore. Every time I got a lower grade then previous. Finally I received a message from Svetlana Ivanovna with warning about my regress. Nothing about writing, only grammar and punctuation mistakes. Two years later I found out about a competition between writers by accident. Conditions were simple: You get a 5-10 page story and write a reflection. This competition took place after classes, but I had to go to the Art School. To my surprise, during the last lesson my classmate, who attended art classes too, brought good news: Our professor is out of town and wont be able to give a lesson. I took it as a fate sign. When the bell rung, I rushed to the competition.

Inspiration.

It was a rainy day. I sat near the window. Assistant gave out assignment sheets. The text was written by famous Russian author A.P. Chekhov and its name is Doctors visit [A Case History]. He has a lot of many short stories and one of his quotes Brevity is the soul of wit is known very well.

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/chekhov/anton/lady-with-thedog/chapter2.html (here you can read this story, above is the picture of the writer) I was deeply touched by this text and suddenly my sleeping writer woke up again and created a gorgeous thoughtful essay. We had three hours to finish this work. I wrote 3 double sized copybook pages (by hand) and went home, thinking and analyzing my work. The next day I completely forgot about it and when my teacher announced the list of winners I was shocked that it included my name. I received bad grades during classes but won this competition. My teacher was shocked too. The next step was a regional competition to which I prepared by myself, because Svetlana Ivanovna wasnt interested in this process. But I should thank her for some material she gave me a day before the competition because theory is always helpful. This time we had to go to another school. I remember how happy I felt that I can rest from my other lessons! But I couldnt relax. I was preparing mentally for writing. Unfortunately Im unable to describe the atmosphere, I can just say that a new text was much longer and included more problems, but we had the same amount of time, so I didnt write the conclusion properly, it was very obscure and murky.

A week later we got the results. Im not a winner, but a prizeman. Wow. I didnt expect that at all because I wrote in order to express opinion, I didnt even think about prize. But it was a pleasure. Traditionally all winners and prizemen receive free bags full of sweets in the New Year Eve, and it was my time. I had never thought that I can write, because I was interested in mathematics and science. Nevertheless I unlocked a door to the new world. English literacy.

After coming up to decision about studying abroad I realized that Im not ready because I have a tremendous trouble with writing (by this time my writer fell asleep again and I couldnt wake him up by any means) in different language. My mother helped me to find a tutor and I started my intense preparation. I got enough essays and exercises but I felt that Im moving too slow and it is better to take action into my own hands. I started to write every day. 500 words essay. It was extremely difficult, I wringed out all my power. The goal was to become familiar with basic essay topics that I can get on TOEFL test. These 5 latters were my nightmare for half of the last year. However after each writing I felt myself exhausted but a bit stronger, I started to make sentences unconsciously and operate with vocabulary better. When you learn second language, the most important point is to be able to use all the words you know, but in my case it was very hard. I was struggling against the lack of variety in my works. In December critical moment came. The test started at 8 am, but I lived in the suburbs of the city, so I and my grandmother (she is always supportive to me) caught the first bus at 6 am. I was nervous about the first obstacle on the way to my dream. It was snowy day, in the early morning we were shivering with cold. All the way to the city I was repeating structures of essays, this part of the exam was my fear. When I finally saw the task I relieved because I wrote the sample and I had only to recall the idea and start to develop it. The next challenge was SAT. I didnt have any time to prepare for it, I wasnt even sure if I can try to pass it as I registered too late and was in a

wait list. By fortune there were some available places and I took the exam. The type of essay was different from TOEFL, because SAT isnt for international students. Its form and organization reminded me Russian Final Exam, but I couldnt concentrate on topic. My thoughts were wandering and I was unable to collect them. Inside writer woke up too late, I had only 10 minutes left. Despite this my essay got not a bad grade (I wanted to include screenshots of my writing but cant find them) Thank you, my sleeping writer, you are always with me in critical moments in my life. Only because of you I got good points in writing section. Your sponsors were English books, articles, textbooks, magazines, videos, movies, my family, school teachers and tutor, Internet Frankly speaking, this writer to which I talked is really something mystic. I cant control it, but I can enrich it with knowledge gained from any sources and sponsors.

New aim- new straight-forward movement. It is a joy to challenge yourself. That is why Ive chosen architectural literacy as my next target. It involves so many aspects that it is difficult to explain or make a list. Now Im writing more than ever: assignments for English class, Journals and sketchbooks for architecture (include detailed descriptions of

development of ideas, relationships between spaces, figures, hierarchy in the overall composition, explanations of my intentions and changes, summaries of lectures and class discussions and many other material related to this course). It is not easy, but Im feel intrigued and willing to do all this job because it gives me valuable experience that I will definitely use in future.