Blake Atkinson

University Writing 1101

A Life Worth Remembering

Like a bird taking its first flight, I was as literate as that baby bird in high school and still
am quite native in forms of literacy. Throughout my life my writing style, how I compute
information, and even what type of music I listen to have all been guided in way that my own
opinion about the genres were not created until my late years of high school and treated as if I
had jumped the nest only yesterday. My inexperience to write different forms of literacy would
come from that fact that I didnt really hang out with many diverse groups of people, not
speaking race but more social diversity, or not socialize with other people either. I went to both
an engineering middle and high school where I hung out with a small group of friends. The
topics of conversation came from those people who all had a similar way of thinking about the
world. I actually never really talked much at lunch, but played card games in both middle and
high school. Yet, over those long years my knowledge in literacy has grown because of my
teachers, my friends, and my family. Credit for the amount of knowledge about music should be
given to my friends. They are the people who sparked my curiosity for listening to the type
music and sounds I listen to today. And from that my own opinion arose from the influence my
friends had on me; even if I was sometimes forced to listen to their music on the ride home from
tennis. Because of them not only have I experienced other types of music, such as hard rock, I
have been introduced to different types of video games, such as League of Legends, that I would
have never played without meeting them. I believe that the influence my friends had on me in
high was beneficial to my growth as a person and growth to my natural character.

I have considered writing as my weak point in my education, that and spelling. I think its the
fact that I have to process my thoughts to create a argument while getting it out on paper, while
making the writing still make sense is quite hard. My mom would have to sit down with me with
almost every single paper I have ever written when I was young and help me just braindump my
thoughts down on paper even whenever I thought the essay was bad, or stayed up with me late at
night to help me write a legible paper. I am quite thankful that my mom was able to stay up till
12am multiple night, and caring enough to turn my repetitive writing and grammar less essay
into an acceptable paper. This did help me a lot, and yet I dont want say that it hurt me more
than it help me, which it didnt, but it did hold my writing back in many different ways. Being
spoon fed paragraphs of text or rewriting sentences which I then copied down what my mom
wrote next to my unreadable sentences did not help me format text in my own words, instead it
has contributed to my slow thought process when writing. It did help me when I needed
someone to look over my rough drafts and be there to edit, even boosting my grade maybe a
letter grade in middle and throughout high school. I can say for a fact that I would have not
taken AP English three or four if my mom did not help with my writing impairments from my
early childhood.
The person who has influenced my writing style the most would of course be my sophomore and
junior year English teacher, Ms. Geiss. She was my teacher for English 2, and moved up to
teaching juniors, and taught AP English 3 as well, and she was one of the best English teachers.
It was not only that fact that she taught the curriculum well and made the subject fun, but she set
the Laws of English in how to write multiple genres in a way that was clear and precise. She
always helped people like me that did not always understand a type of writing style by staying
after school to teach me. Almost every Thursday, I would stay after school and she would make

me write different types of reading analysis, and help me see the layers upon layers of hidden
messages and writing styles used in the work. She made the class memorable, making jokes
every so often, and often made references to our current generation. References like what the
famous celebrities were doing that time and relating the events to English. It was also the
teaching style she had that made the topics rememberable, there was no real one style she used,
but many. My teacher would jump back and forth from writing information on the board and us
taking notes; to explaining topics and listening to stories that made me think about what the
author was trying to communicate to the reader. She was straightforward too, and did not give
any slack for people she liked or hated in grading, if the essay was terrible she would tell you
why its wrong and why.
My literacy in music would come from my friends as well as when I used to play the
piano. During elementary school, my parents of course grew up during the rock and disco age,
and I listened to it every time I rode in the car. During that time, from elementary school
through early high school I played the piano, thus, the source of where my love for classical
piano or peaceful piano music comes from. In middle and early high school my music consisted
of techno, piano, classical, and dubstep, after I left high school my music consisted of all of the
previous with the added addition of rock and heavy rock simply because of a close friend name
John. After tennis, almost every day John would take me home since he lives near by, and every
time he would play Queen of the Stone Age, a new rock band, and I became accustomed to the
music that I have learned to love it. The ridged electric guitar, the backup drums, energetic lyrics
and soothing bass. I love the music so much that I can not get enough of the sound. At one time,
before I fully learned of the entirety of the genre of rock I asked aloud in my friends car, is The
Beatles's even considered rock?, which was stupid and ignorant. At the time I questioned this

because The Beatles was like the beginning of the rock age, and is somewhat different from the
rock I have gotten accustomed to of this era. They all give me a hard time about it and whenever
someone says anything stupid and I give them a hard time they just reply, Is the Beatles's even
considered rock?, and I just laugh at my own ignorance. Now, I constantly listen to the genre of
rock and roll, Queen of the Stone Age, The Black Keys, and Arctic Monkeys Im even listen to
rock while writing this. I guess I have to thank John for forcing me to listen to them everyday
after school.
When it comes to video games I am a console guy, the Xbox 360, one of the greatest
consoles, released back in 2005 and still played today. That was until I met my high school
friends and learned of the games they played. Throughout middle school and early high school, I
would always play my Xbox after school, and look forward to playing the Xbox almost every
day in those good old days. However, once my friends in high school convinced me to play their
games, I put down my controller and went for the mouse and keyboard. Because of them, I
migrated from the console first person shooters with constant action and reward, over to the PC
so that I could play a game called League of Legends, a third person game that takes at 30
minutes to finish, with my friends. This game being similar to a tower defense game which I
would have never played had I not become friends with them in high school. I would have never
experienced what makes this games so attractively fun or would have never been introduced to
one of the largest community if not the largest, over 30 million people playing, if it wasnt for
my friends. Because of them, I have meet learned about the many fascinations of music and the
wonders of computer games when playing online with them.