Throughout my childhood and to this date, I have immensely enjoyed reading and writing. However, my experience has gone both ways, making it both positive and negative. In one half of my mind, my personal creativity runs rampant which allows me to excel in understanding and developing more complex literature. In the other half, my mind is also quite clouded and bombarded with random intrusive thoughts making it difficult for me to concentrate while doing these tasks. In order for my mind to be properly supported, something that helps me do better in reading and writing is listening to music while doing so. This may sound conflicting, because if I have trouble concentrating, then why am I adding more noise and sounds in my head? The reasoning is that if I have a steady source of noise running, then my brain will try to produce less thoughts making it easier to concentrate on the main task which in this case is reading and writing. 

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Some additional barriers I have also involve mind blocks or conflicts in my thought process while reading and writing. There have been numerous times where I have started a book and do not want to finish it after only a few pages because I wasn’t able to make a connection with the story, or as strange as it may seem, dislike the aesthetic and aura the story gives off. No matter how highly rated a story is, I have never been able to finish or want to finish non-fiction or thriller type stories. This has always made school reading assignments hard. While writing, I also feel the need to make everything so perfect that I end up going off topic in many different routes unintentionally due to overthinking.

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Despite tough barriers which cloud my mind, there have been many times where I felt like an insider in the world of reading and writing. For example, as a kid in elementary school, I was always the student who was known to be able to finish and completely analyze 500 page books in the span of one to two days. I do enjoy being able to envision what an author's inner thoughts truly are. Being able to picture the inside of someone else’s mind and being able to realize what emotions they were truly feeling at the time of writing their story is very intriguing. While writing, I tend to create oddly specific and detailed situations which I am able to proficiently place on paper. I have always tried writing science fiction or fiction based stories. An example of this can trace back to my time in AP Art, where I wrote short stories based on the characters I created for my series of artworks. For the artworks, I personified the solar system, so each of them got their own backstory and relationships to the others. I also feel like an insider while writing because I have an above average typing speed so I can get my thoughts down quickly before I forget them.

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I have also felt like an outsider while reading and writing many times in the past. Since I drifted from my ability to fully concentrate while doing these tasks as my mind has aged, I began taking more and more time to finish reading or writing stories. Compared to the amount I could tackle in the past, it takes me quite a while to even complete basic assignments. Also realizing that those around me had almost equal skill in this most of the time was a big drawback to my motivation. When I was young, I used to go to the library once a week to rent stacks of books to read in my free time. I would also try to write stories about either my drawings at the time or events that happened during that day. These times have since passed, and I no longer keep up with it. However, through dedication and wanting to rekindle my lost passion for reading and writing, maybe someday I will be able to get my brain out of its blur. After reading Sheila Tobias’ “Insiders and Outsiders,”  I realized that there will always be downfalls due to discouragement from those around you whether it be other students or a teacher who wasn’t able to understand you. In the 5th page of Tobais’ article it mentioned, “They are so nervous, in fact, that they will repress new and often original ideas and refuse to take the kinds of risks in analysis, problem solving, or in doing assignments that would improve their final products.” In my case, although I have done well, thinking otherwise has blocked my creative ability in reading and writing just as it blocked the students in the article from realizing that they could do well in math if they pushed through and tried. I may be able to regain motivation while reading and writing if I am able to break the wall in my mind telling me otherwise.

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Attached below is one of my pieces from AP Art. In short, the story behind this piece was that Jupiter and Saturn, who are brothers, went to go watch a horror movie. Although Saturn looks intimidating with his piercings and style, he ended up being the only one who was scared.