Third Entry

I have never realized how many writerly roles I have. Obviously, I have never thought about it, but I enjoyed this exercise because it allows you to observe the different qualities and traits you feel comfortable sharing with certain people. As a daughter, I talk to my parents mostly on the phone or my e-mail. I am not afraid to be myself or make mistakes; however when I write an e-mail to my dad, I always make sure the letter is to the point and grammatically correct. For example I recently asked my dad about a recreational event on campus that I wanted to participate in and his answer was “yes, please do it”. He is very concise and does not bother with details. He is a very busy man and I always try to write as professionally as I can around him. When I e-mail my mom, the composition of my e-mails is very different. She never worries about grammar or spelling. When I write to her, my sentences are formulated as if I were speaking to her on the phone. There are short sentences and long sentences with commas and breaks all over the place. I generally have my punctuation in the right place but I never stress over a comma. When writing to my parents, my style is very different. However, when I speak to them on the phone, I speak to them both the same way.
As a sister, I have many different ways of communicating. When I speak to my older brother I usually talk with him on facebook. However, when I say talk, the conversation is usually one-sided. He never responds to the letters that I meticulously write, and if he does it is with a one word answer. I asked him how school was, thinking he would tell me about his classes, and when he responded he simply wrote “fine”. I was naïve in thinking that he would actually tell me anything because he is not a very talkative person unless you are face-to-face. My little brother is completely different. I generally text him or e-mail him. I am very relaxed when I write him because we get along great and he doesn’t care if I mess up on spelling. He is however, the only person I will ever write to using the word “dude”.
When I talk to my close friends, I use text messaging, e-mail, and facebook. When I write to them I am very relaxed because they know my personality. I can say just about anything and I know how they will interpret it. One of my best friends spent last semester traveling with her father so I e-mailed her and told her blatantly to “get a facebook”. Depending on the context of the letter, most people might think that someone is demanding, but her response was “I’m trying, but it’s hard when I am traveling the world with my dad”. I could picture her saying that to me because I have known her for a while.
As a student, I am generally a very good note taker. I take as many notes as possible because I get nervous about the material that is fair game for tests. I also write a lot! Besides the daily exercises we write in English, I am in a media writing class which consists of writing small stories and editing pages out of workbooks. In the media class my teacher was recently telling us about correct grammar usage and I wrote down the definition for a noun, which I am pretty sure I know.
As a writer, my content and structure is constantly changing because I write to many different people. I try to incorporate everything I have learned into my writing but I adapt it based on who I am writing to.