From the bottom to the top

Enjoying a piece that I write is not a common thing. Last summer came to change things in my life. I started my classes at FIU and took mostly easy going classes, as SLS and music appreciation, except for one class: ENC1930. As an international student, my first language being Portuguese, and inexperienced with English writing, this class became my nightmare during my summer. My first essays came with very low grades, and I had the feeling that I would fail the course. Along the course my grades started to increase, but not as much as I wished it would. My last work was a research paper that was twenty points toward the final grade.

Since the day that I knew it I couldn’t sleep anymore, I couldn’t think about anything else besides that paper. I had a huge problem along my way. Working on it 24 hours a day wasn’t enough. I had to work with the grammar, structure, and my shyness as much in writing. My communicating abilities was also weak for I had to do surveys and interviews for the paper and to find time to do it since I was working full time in an airline, which consumed most of my time. I tried to get the most help possible, like going to the learning center, help from friends, teachers, and more.

In the last class before the due date, the professor called us one by one to give us a review on how we were progressing in the class. Well, mine wasn’t the best evaluation. In order to get an A on that class I would have to get minimum of 19 points on the paper, something that not even the professor believed that could happen. I remember her words since today; “I believe that you will get a B, but surprise me”, and that is exactly what happened. Days after days I kept looking for my grades on my profile but FIU didn’t post it. I was almost loosing my hope when two weeks before the end of classes the grades were posted and surprisingly I got an A in the English class.

I was at work by the time that I saw my grade. I couldn’t control myself and as soon as I saw it I got so shocked that I screamed all of a sudden and started to jump in the office. My co-workers looked at me terrified trying to figure out what was happening with me. Excited as I was, I hugged one by one and explained them the occurrence. All of them congratulated me and got very happy because they knew how hard it had been for me, and how much that meant. I realized that I’m capable to do things that I can’t even imagine.

Writing under strict rules and closed format is easier in the beginning because it makes a basis of how you have to conduct things along the essay, explicit thesis statement and having logical support. That was probably the reason why I could get such a high grade. In the future I believe the open format will be easier to write on, but at the moment I prefer the closed type. That is what I have used on the research paper and got the excellent feedback, and that is the one that I feel the most comfortable when I write.