Math Person

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher excited me by telling me that she thought I could be a writer and my mom was impressed by the intricate letters I would write to people. Boy, were they wrong.  I turned out to be more interested in finding the tangent line of a function or the angle of a triangle.  It has generally been a negative experience for me.  I’m not a very creative person so I don’t do well in creative writing, but I haven’t had to do many of those types of papers.  I am good at arguing and making points, I just struggle articulating them (which I also do when I’m speaking) so generally my papers are pretty short because I just get to the point right away.  That’s why I think I love reading so much, because I get to admire the way other people can put together ideas in a creative, beautiful way, an ability I lack.  I have had to do a research paper that was 5 pages long (I don’t recall what it was about) but I didn’t struggle as much with that paper I think because I was taking information and ideas that already existed and I didn’t have to embellish; it was just cold, hard facts. 

When I have to write a paper, I definitely procrastinate.  Probably because I have the idea about what I’m going to write about and how I’m going to do it clearly in my head and I think it won’t take me long but it always does due to the struggles I mentioned above.  So when I finally sit down at my computer, the only sound is the cars passing on the street or my roommate on her computer.  I can’t have the TV on or music playing (I am currently sitting in silence typing this) because I will easily get distracted by it and lose my concentration and flow.  I usually take many “breaks” while I’m trying to write a paper, but when I’m actually typing I’m not really doing anything else.