Writing - Or The Lack Of It

Talent can only carry you so far. Flair can only do so much. It's important to keep on working at it - that will take you the furthest.

I haven't written long pieces in such a long time. I remembered how I used to have to write papers for GP (General Paper), expository and argumentative style, and how I would breeze through it making case after case, argument after argument. I guess it was a matter of the training, a matter of being able to think quickly, to synthesize seemingly disconnected pieces of material together in a short period of time and presenting a final logical case that worked. It seems I've lost it altogether.

Rather, my life has been consumed by Science, a field I absolutely love. Having finished Science One with a good grades and a scholarship to top it off, I then move on to take Organic Chemistry and Microbiology (totally bombing-out of an organic chem lab while at it). The amount of argumentative and expository writing that I've done this whole year is limited to the two ENGL112 expository and argumentative essays that I was given, plus 4 ENGL110 literary essays (which hardly count as the socio-political-historical argumentative essays that I used to do for GP). It seems something went missing.

Yet, with amount of schoolwork that I have, with the number of Staples hours I work a week, plus my need for downtime, I leave little room for myself to write. Writing becomes relegated to the wee hours of the night, just like what I'm doing right now, having already wasted 3 hours from 11pm till 2am reading soccer news, talking to friends over MSN, and watching YouTube videos. I seriously need a life.

I think I will have to come back to this blog a little bit more than I used to during the school year. It's nice to be able to write down things of a specific topic, and expound on them through a paragraph or two. Just like the rambling that I'm doing right now. It needn't be anything too structured or formal; just needs to be a free-flow of thoughts.

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Ethan wants to buy a MacBook Pro, and I had a long discussion with him over whether or not he should buy it. His goal is to use it for gaming, and I'm against that... but he seemed so intent on it. I will pray about it, wondering whether I'm doing the right thing or not. If not, I will tell him that I cannot do it, that it is not the right thing to do, and hope that he understands. He may be 1 year younger than me, but I have a feeling that he thinks as if he is 3 or maybe even 4 years younger.

But then again, I noticed how Asians in general get so hyped up about discounts (except if they've been in N. America long enough). Ethan tried in vain to wrap his head around my store's discount policy, which is pretty complicated - we don't have a one-discount-fits-all policy. And even after I revealed as much as he should know, he was still questioning the wrong things. *sigh*

I had these thoughts after that: A discount is a discount, and in N. America, just be grateful for getting a discount, because a discount is something done as a favor, not a right that one can haggle and argue for. Staples gives staff a discount because it's a method of employee reward, but when we choose to risk our own position to help friends by things, especially if it's big things, then those friends should be more understanding and not try to chase us for further discounts. I'm only glad that Ethan didn't press me further on it after I told him that I would calculate everything properly for him.