One of the biggest struggles I have had throughout my educational career has been writing. I have had a bad relationship with writing since a very young age for one reason, its challenging. Like most people I enjoy challenging myself, however, writing is a challenge I haven’t figured out how to overcome. I have taken countless writing and literacy classes, talked to classmates, and teachers but for some reason I was still struggling. I would watch other students sit down and write pages on pages without flinching. Meanwhile I’m stuck on the first sentence trying to put all my ideas together so I can continue writing. My teachers always told me “just write down all of your ideas”, “make a flow chart”, or some other ‘method’ that was supposed to make the process easier. All this ever did was frustrate me more and added another step to the already lengthy process.
I don’t dislike writing; I just don’t particularly enjoy it. To me it feels like manual labor minus the satisfaction of actually accomplishing something. Every paper I write whether it’s a 10-page research paper or a 600-word story seems to take longer than it needs to. I’m not the most patient person when it comes to schoolwork and I usually get flustered -even angry- at the mention of having to write a paper because I know I will be stuck on it for hours. I have spent entire days trying to gather my thoughts in an attempt to make a coherent paper. Usually my mind turns into the equivalent of a carnival cash booth; where you have to grab as many tickets as you can while their being blown around you. The lack of progress leads to procrastination which leads to rushed ideas, ending with a less then satisfactory product.
I have only been able to turn in one writing assignment and feel like I accomplished everything I wanted to with it. During my junior year of high school, my Honors English teacher assigned us to write an ode about any object we wanted. After spending roughly three hours writing terrible odes at home, I picked a random one and accepted my fate. It was absolutely terrible and the more I thought about it, the more I hated it. So, since I was going to do bad on the assignment, I decided to write another one making fun of my failing grade. I handed it in feeling oddly excited, like I had accomplished something with my writing. Not to brag but it turned out to be my teacher’s favorite ode of the year. This ode assignment gave me hope that I could overcome my struggles with writing. I went on the take two more writing classes my senior year, despised both of them. However, I felt more confident in my writing abilities going into college because of them. Then in college I took English 101 and its equally aggravating twin, English 102, at Washington County. After spending countless hours writing papers for those classes that I wasn’t proud of, I had enough. I said to myself, “If you aren’t required to take anymore English classes, you’re not going to”
A month later when I found myself voluntarily signing up for English 290: Digital Story Telling. I wasn’t thinking about the class to be writing intensive. However, looking back I realize how dumb that was, it is an English class After all. The first assignment in the class was enjoyable because I got the take a trip down memory lane (that was a pun), making it easy to write about. However, this second one wasn’t so easy. We have to write a story about conflict and growth that we have faced here on campus. As usual I had no clue what to write about and quickly decided I would worry about it on Friday when it was due. I never stopped thinking about what I would write about. I contemplated just making a story up, until Thursday night in my superheroes in mythology class. My professor, Dr. Peterson, was teaching us about how every myth is a metaphor that can be applied to our lives.
“Myths are just a bunch of lies” he said, “They construct narratives that are meant to put you in a relationship with your own life.”
I thought this was just a bunch of crap until he started to elaborate. He used Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, as an example. He showed us a picture of her standing with a large metal helmet on her head, an owl on her shoulder, and holding a shield with Medusa’s head on it. The helmet representing war, the owl representing death, and the shield representing protection, in literal terms.
“You can look at this story in two ways” Dr Peterson said, “You can either be an idiot and take it literally, or you can look at it for what it is, a metaphor.”
He went on to explain that Athena with all her armor is a representation of any task you face in life. If you try and fight her head on, Medusa’s head will turn you to stone, freeze any progress you’ve made, and you will lose. But if you take a step back and reflect on what you are trying to accomplish, Much like Perseus using the reflection of the mirror to defeat medusa for Athena, you will have a much easier time completing what you need to. This really resonated with me. I Felt stupid for not realizing this was the obvious reason I struggled with writing assignments, I was always taking them head on. I was trying to force my way to the end, when I should stop and reflect on what I want and need to accomplish. Now I’m looking forward to future writing assignments to see how well I can apply this story to my own life.
The CGS Catalyst 
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