EXIT ESSAY: What three-and-a-half months of ENGLCOM can do to you.

One term of ENGLCOM may make one who is not proficient in English bleed his or her brains through his or her nose, at least that's the way I see it. Heck, even those who are Dean's Listers are banging their minds out just to write decent essays for ENGLCOM. They have trouble with their outlines and grammar and ideas and all that. I don't. I almost never had that problem. The thing is, ideas just breeze by like a cool zephyr. It is pretty awesome actually, it speeds things up.

Not much has changed since I wrote my entry essay. I still speed read, organize thoughts in my head, and all that stuff. There are two things though, that have changed drastically, during the course of ENGLCOM: outlines and run-on sentences.

Well, technically speaking, I have used outlines in making essays prior to ENGLCOM. However, these outlines were all abstract; all ideas in my head. They were purely thoughts in a sea of vast knowledge. My "outlines" were unconventional. I rarely wrote them, unless required, such as in major research papers in my high school English class or ENGLCOM essays. If ever I had produced written outlines in the past, they were mostly just scribbles or words and phrases that made no sense to anyone else but me. That all changed though after ENGLCOM. Outlining is now my thing. Call me a geek, but I kinda like it. I have found writing even easier now that I have continued to use it. It was very helpful indeed, just as ma'am GloryDee had said.

Since I could remember, I've been cramming boat loads of words and thoughts and ideas into one sentence. I actually wrote that in my entry essay, I just didn't know it was a run-on. Kind of ironic, isn't it? Ma'am even pointed out dozens of run-ons in my essays. What's the moral of the story? "Seperate ideas and do not cram. Remember K.I.S.S: Keep St Short and Simple." At least that's how it would be ideally. However, if someone gets too persistent in the use of run-ons, use the other K.I.S.S: "Keep It Short, Stupid." My high school teacher told me that before, but I guess a summer break and two terms at La Salle made me forget that. Kudos to ma'am for instiling that thought back into my mind.

Though I didn't write it in my entry essay, I expected a lot of writing; and I mean A LOT. Well, I got more than what I had bargained for. Too much stress writing, especially those blasted definitions and argumentations. I thank God my hand didn't cramp up, since it usually does during intense writing. Well, the writing part was fun, it was the thinking part that kind of screwed me over, especially in the comparison and contrast essay. Overall though, I'm very pleased with all the essays I have come up with. All those times thinking, writing, organizing and presenting my Writing Process Worksheets paid off.

ENGLCOM. Despite people thinking it's just another stress-dealing subject, I've found it to be useful. Despite some people calling ENGLCOM as "ENGLCOMA," which by the way is extremely HILARIOUS, it does have benefits. Let's just reduce the number of meetings per week, okay? Hahaha! Peace out ma'am! :D