Ashley Vargas 

Blog post

This essay was good. To be our first one at the beginning of the semester is good. I started this essay by first getting the idea of what I should write about. It should be something I could relate to. My options were “my nail community” or my topic “How did my community impact me”. I started thinking what are things that impact me as the way I am. I did a long sprint. I feel I work better when I write and then edit instead of editing while writing. I did not do any outline. I just said the things that came from my head. And just like that I made my community essay.

Something I liked the most from my essay was how real I was. I cited my own experience. I tried to be honest and get all the good points to get straight to the point. I love how it is something I could relate to and a lot of people may have a community like mine. It’s not like I had to go get cites saying why it impacted me. It is based on my experience. Which is something rare. I have been writing boring stuff since elementary school. So it was a good change. Writing something I know it me not doing something because I was forced to agree to disagree with. 

We didn’t do workshops or feedback for this essay. But I showed it to my boyfriend to see if I had to add or something was missing. He didn’t add anything but he did tell me it was a good topic and a good essay. I felt more secure about turning it in by hearing someone else’s opinion. I also went back to how to write as a college student that helped a lot. 

Something I wish I could improve if I had more time would be maybe trying to cut out unnecessary words. The time was good but I feel like I was scared of not talking enough.  I felt like 700 words isn’t enough to express how I feel about something. I felt like I just needed more to add. I was scared of getting to the 700 word count.

Something I hope to change will be that I want to strengthen my revision process by taking more time to refine my arguments and clarify my ideas. I would like to keep my strong engagement with the text. I would also like to start reading the essays twice, not only one time. 

When I write things I like to be quiet and look at my window and play music in the background. I feel that that helps me alot. For my visual or audio component, I would include a clip from Romeo Santos’ song “ Cancioncitas de amor”  and an image of him performing. This song blends Spanish with Dominican slang and urban expressions, showcasing how language evolves based on culture and experience—similar to Baldwin’s argument about Black English. I am Dominican and I love me some bachata. I could be feeling down but this type of music just gets me up. This music got me up while writing my essay. And right now too.

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