In my Language and Linguistics class we have started talking about grammar. (This is where most people tell me I'm crazy for being and English major. Who likes grammar?) Well, we've been discussing the difference between writing and usage. Most of the time, when someone says, "They have really bad writing skills," they mean the usage, not the writing itself. Someone can be an excellent writer--usually characterized by complete and original thoughts and ideas--but then their usage can be sour--comma use is poor, spelling is bad, sentence structure is lacking, ect.
Now, I've always regarded myself as a decent writer. (Can you see a bit of that confidence coming into play? Really, if you're writing and you think it's worth reading, you have a least a little bit of an ego.) In the middle of class though, I started to have a mental break-down. Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? Do my usage skills suck? Should I switch my major? Do all of my colleagues cringed when they read my papers? Did I proof-read that paper for Dr. Ashby very well? What about the one for Dr. Gernant? What would I do if I didn't write? That's the basic idea of what this internal melt-down looked like.
Then I had to go to Poetry Writing. Now, I love that class, it is one of my favorites. I'm normally fairly vocal about my opinions in that class...but yesterday I just couldn't do it. Those feelings of self-doubt, that Ling and Lang instilled in me, were leaking over into my poetry. Now, I did speak a little, but not nearly as much as I normally do...at least it felt like less.
After that I had to work. While I was working I needed to finish a paper for Dr. Thurber, before our meeting. The entire time I was stressing out about how I wasn't using perfect MLA formatting... (I hate formatting, by the way.)
Once I got into his office though, a deep calm seem to rush over me. There's just something about that man that soothes the frayed nerves. We had an excellent conversation about my independent study. He would read to me little bits of what I had written in previous papers and then he would tell me how well I articulated it and would ask me to expound upon what I had said. These are papers I had written at least a month ago, so it was kind of hard to recall exactly I had meant when typing them.
The meeting lasted a half an hour. And when it was all done, Dr. Thurber told me he was very glad to see where I was going with this research into Tolkien's Middle Earth. Deep sigh of relief. I am where I am supposed to be. This is at least part of what I was meant to do. Praise God for gentle reminders.
"If you're a ship and you're lost in the ocean, I'll be the wind in your sails, give you motion. I will guide you home. If you're too far out that you can't see the shore line, I'll be the lighthouse shining in the night time. I will guide you home. I will guide you home. When the night is long, when the storm is strong, I will guide you, I will guide you home." [Remedy Drive]
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