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1. My relationship with reading is positive. I personally enjoy reading a lot when it comes to books that catch my attention, but I will admit that assigned readings for school can be a bit tedious. Young Adult fiction books are my go-to when I have time to read. I like reading because it allows me to teleport elsewhere as I get to imagine scenarios as I flip through the pages. While reading I like to highlight quotes or lines that hold significance to me. I also mark lines that foreshadow something of importance in the book.

2.  My relationship with writing is slightly more tilted towards the negative. I’d like to think that I am an okay writer but I highly believe that I need feedback and help from my peers and professor in order to grow and improve my writing abilities. Through this course, I hope to gain new insights as to what is expected as a writer and how to properly receive and give feedback in order to overall improve my relationship with writing. My writing normally consists of free journaling where there is no structure nor right or wrong, which is the complete opposite of what is expected in a university-level writing assignment. When it comes to writing I am "old school", as I would rather write on paper than digitally. I also like to write down any ideas I may have before actually writing a paper in order to avoid having "writer's block", where a person gets stuck. Writing ideas down allows me as a writer to flow through my writing without feeling puzzled or overwhelmed.

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Create an original post (minimum of 250 words typed or recorded) in which you respond to the questions below.

1. What is your relationship with reading right now? (Do you have positive or negative associations?) What kinds of things do you read? What kinds of tools do you use?

2. What is your relationship with writing right now? (Do you have positive or negative associations?) What kinds of things do you write? What kinds of tools do you use?

Feel free to add a picture or gif.

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My relationship with reading is complicated. I enjoy reading a lot but I don’t do it enough. I like romance novels, historical fiction, and sociology books the most but I really can read anything as long as it holds my attention. My overall opinion on reading is positive, however since I don’t read as much as I would like to, it makes me sad to think about my failure to read. In the past few months I had a medical emergency in which my eyes couldn’t stay focused long enough to read a full page. At the time I thought this was permanent so I was devastated about all the books I would have to listen to now instead of scanning the page with my own eyes. Because of this experience I have a newfound appreciation for reading. My favorite books that I have ever read were Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness?: What It Means to Be Black Now written by Touré.

My relationship with writing is also complicated. I love writing but I hate it at the same time. Writing essays gives me physical pain in my stomach but reading the final product gives me butterflies. For many years I wanted to be a writer but the hours it takes to produce little product has made me change that dream. In this case of complication my overall feelings toward writing are negative, only because of the time it takes for me to get my words onto the page in the correct order. I like to write things on paper first then type them into the computer because my writing flows more when I physically write.

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1. I consider my relationship with reading positive, I have always loved to read but always thought I didn’t do it enough. I started reading for my own entertainment about 2 years ago when covid started and I can say I have been reading a lot more since. I say ‘for my own entertainment’ because as a student I was always asked to read books/articles for class, nothing that I personally enjoyed.

Romance novels/fiction books are what I am most interested in, other things seem to not catch my attention as much. I’m also Brazilian and christian so I try to read my bible everyday in Portuguese to make sure I don’t forget my first language.

2. My relationship with writing varies from time to time, I have always loved to read books and other people’s work yet somehow I always struggled with putting my own thoughts into words making writing less enjoyable for me. Writing essays for school was never something I enjoyed nor was it something I thought myself to be good at but recently I have been trying to journal every morning when I wake up to get used to writing on something other than my phone and computer. I journal about what I have to do that day, what I am excited about, things I am grateful for and I am slowly turning it into a habit. I find that writing my daily plans and organizing my schedule on paper keeps me way more organized.

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My relationship with reading is in the middle. I would say it’s not positive but it isn’t negative. I only enjoy reading books when it’s something I’m interested in and if it’s not I find it difficult to read. Especially because when I read I get sleepy. The last book I read was Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. This book was about an African American family that split apart and they went into slavery the reason why this book was very interesting is because there were different short stories which created different points of view. I like to read a lot of stories that have crime, adventure, romance etc. Some tools I use for reading are annotating and highlighting. It helps me keep track of the important parts of the book so later on when I have to summarize it I know the different events that have occurred.

My relationship with writing again I would say it’s in the middle just because I struggle with figuring out what words I want to use or how to organize what I’m saying. Like we discussed in class yesterday we use writing in our daily lives and that is a way I use writing however that writing is informal. The tools that I use to help me write is having a sheet of paper that has words that I can use for my essay, like transition words etc. Some other tools I use for writing are taking notes of the key points so when I re-read my work I make sure that I’m not getting off track and that I’m going straight into the point.

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1. My relationship with reading is very stressful because I struggle to grasp and comprehend the main idea. Personally, I enjoy reading books and explore various genres that interest me such action, sci-fi, and romance. However, when it comes to assigned readings for school it can become a challenge for me as I can never keep the information in my mind for a period of time. It always felt like the information comes in from one side of my mind and out the other. In addition to this, I have a hard time  reading large pieces of texts without getting distracted or rereading a text line over and over again. When I have to summarize parts of the text, I have trouble recalling it which can become frustrating because I everything would be all mumble jumble in my mind. So, to overcome that, I have been trying to take it step by step in my readings such as highlighting some key details and leaving small notes on a post it and leave it in the page I was reading. After I am done reading, I would go back to the pages I left a note on and try my best to recall what I read.

2. Apart from my relationship with reading, I would say that my relationship with writing tilted towards the negative side. I'd like to think that I have decent writing skills, however, things are a bit messy for me when it comes to outlining what I want my essay to be about. As I think a lot about what I have read and what the prompt is about, I am able to gather everything in my head yet I cannot seem to be able to write those thoughts down on a paper. I know what I want to write about but I do not know how to write it. There are moments where I can easily jot down small details and create some sort of outline, but that does not happen so often. That is why I am trying to find ways to improve in that area. Some of the things that I have done so far is jotting anything that comes to mind when I am preparing and try to review my sources to find some key details that I can use or find inspiration from.

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1. My relationship with reading right now is not necessarily positive. I don’t read as much as I used to now compared to when I was younger. I remember reading thick chapter books in elementary school and middle school. But once In high school I didn't read unless it was assigned for class. I tried getting into reading books again but it's difficult for me to find books that I'm interested in. I was pretty hooked on romance related novels and romance is still my favorite genre of books. However, I found that I “didn't” have time to read. Now in college, I want to start reading again to improve my vocabulary. Hopefully reading will become more of a hobby for me rather than feeling like I'm forced to do it.

2. I would like to think that I have a better relationship with writing than reading. I text friends and family every day and I use to write letters to my close friends. I consider those as a form of writing. I enjoy writing about my feelings and about how my day went even though it may not make complete sense as I'm writing it. When I write about my feelings, I am able to write non-stop without having to think about what to put onto paper. It just flows out of my mind like I have been ready to let it all out. When it comes to full essays however, I feel like I am not physically and mentally prepared. I get stuck easily on what to write and I end up spending hours just sitting there trying to figure out the best way to word the sentence. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will have a better relationship with both reading and writing. Only practicing will help achieve that goal.

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1. My current relationship with reading is mixed. I enjoy reading fiction books that have plot twists. For example in high school I read a book called Shattering Glass by Gail Giles. The plot of the book was that a group of jocks decided to give the nerd a makeover, which didn't go well because he ended up becoming super arrogant and in the end they ended up accidentally killing him so it became a bit of a murder mystery. I also enjoy romance novels since one of my close friends is super into them and is always telling me about the new books she's reading. In terms of things I don't enjoy reading are long research article or just in general any book I'm being forced to read that I don't have an interest for.

2. My relationship with writing is definitely more negative than positive. I say this because I have always struggled with getting everything I want to say onto a piece of paper. Writing is especially difficult when it comes to writing an essay that involves more than 2 pages since I have a hard time finding more things to keep writing about when I get writers block. I also always doubt myself when writing because I think my paper isn't going to be as good as everyone else's. The only times I have enjoyed writing was when we would get to write fiction stories in English class or just any time we would have creative liberty to write about whatever we wanted to. Another time I enjoyed writing was in my drawing class when the teacher had us make a short fairy tale and then illustrate it. I found this really enjoyable because I was able to make the story and have my characters come to life when I was drawing them.

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Reading is not something that I despise but not something I would do in my free time.  Normally, I read Webtoons or manga on piracy websites that have the potential to give me a virus.  Manga are Japanese graphic novels which I personally like because you can easily imagine what the characters look like and you can follow along with the storyline better.  Also many mangas are adapted to become anime which are very enjoyable to watch so knowing that I can get a more detailed experience of a show gives you a feeling of superiority.  My favorite genre is “romance” where the main characters take a bit of time to fall in love and then live a happy life at the end.  It sounds cheesy but it brings comfort to know that they could get their “happy ending”.

My relationship with writing is in the middle.  I don't hate it but I can't say that I like it.  Since english has always been a challenge for me when I was a child, I felt that I couldn't properly explain what it was that I wanted to voice. When writing the PIQ’s for the UC application, I felt like it was the first time that I really enjoyed composing an essay.  Teachers give out prompts that do not really motivate students to write but rather to just complete it.  So for the PIQ’s, I had the chance to write about myself and the experiences that I went through which made it enjoyable to the point that I didn't want to stop.  I had trouble deciding where to delete sentences because the word limit had been exceeded.

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1. My relationship with reading is positive sometimes, but most of the time it is negative. I do really enjoy reading when it is a topic that interests me a lot. I get very invested in reading when it is about something I enjoy. But more frequently I have negative associations with reading because I get a boring book to read for class, or I just read something that isn’t interesting to me. Because of this I don’t read as often as I would like, because of that negative association with reading. When I do read something that is interesting, I usually read fantasy romance books, classic romance novels like Pride and prejudice, and some scary books like IT. In order to have a more positive association with reading I try to find good books that interest me. On occasion I listen to audiobooks if I am doing something and just want to listen to my story.

2. My relationship with writing is much more positive than reading. The same with reading, if I have to write about a topic that I find very interesting I will enjoy writing about it. But when I have to write about something that I am not interested in I have negative feelings towards it. The things that I like to write about are about myself and who I am. For example, the PIQs, I really enjoyed writing those essays. I also really like to write about things I’m passionate about, like science, the human body, the weather, or the ocean.  In the past I did use Grammarly to check it out and it was helpful in fixing my small mistakes.

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1. I have a love-hate relationship with reading. I do enjoy reading but I sometimes have a hard time reading through large pieces of text because I have a hard time following along. It‘s rare for a piece of academic writing to pique my interest because most of them I wouldn’t personally read on my own time. Two stories that I enjoyed reading in class were “The Handmaid's Tale” by Margret Atwood and “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare. I mainly use a free app called Webtoons to read comics. My top genres are romance, action and comedy. Whenever reading novels, I always try to find an audiobook for it and read alongside it. I have found that it helps with retaining information. I’ve tried an AI text to speech extension but they aren’t functional for me because it would only work for a limited number of websites.

2. I’m neutral when it comes to writing because I don’t necessarily hate it or love it. I’m right down the middle because I have moments where I like and despise it. I usually spend a lot of time on the outline of an essay so I can structure the essay and I know what to write. This process takes some time so it can be tedious at times but I understand that it's necessary for me in the writing process. My favorite part of writing is when you get into the zone and you know exactly what to say. As I listen to the melody of the keyboards when typing, I get a euphoric feeling as if I’m on cloud nine. In my personal life, writing is more utilitarian since I mainly use it for organization. I would write a lot of lists such as shopping or todo lists. The main tool I use for writing professionally is google docs and in my personal life, I use a workspace named notion. That's where I keep important information organized.

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Currently, my relationship with reading is extremely dry. I've read books for English classes but other than that; it's extremely rare if you see me reading a book. I do read other things though which include news articles, manga, webtoons, etc. I really enjoy reading news articles about things that are currently happening and science-related types of news articles. Every so often you may catch me reading an article released by Nasa or National Geographic. To read these types of articles, I use tools that include google, safari, and apple news. Manga and Webtoons are the only things somewhat related to books that you could catch me reading. I really enjoy reading Webtoons and Manga because of the extremely talented artists you could find. You get to read and watch the plot and storyline develop while looking at the beautiful artwork. Sometimes some Webtoons even have audio/background music which gets you hooked since it makes you feel more part of whatever it is you're reading/the story. Webtoon is its own app. To read manga I have to find different sites online using browsers like google and safari. So far, reading has had positive associations.

My relationship with writing can be confusing. Sometimes I feel like my writing is extremely good while other times I feel like my writing can be compared to that of a middle schooler. It may be because english isn’t my first language or it may be that I just haven’t learned enough techniques and writing styles; which i’m hoping I receive by taking this class. The times I do write are usually for things that are school related. This included essays, projects, and other papers. Other than that, I sometimes journal what I did throughout the day and keep it saved on my phone. The tools I use for writing are Google docs, Microsoft Word, Notes app on iPhone, and notebooks/paper. Overall i’ve only had positive experiences when writing but I do wish to improve it.