Welcome to Air Conditioning Journalism
This website will be the basis of my MBMS Journalism portfolio. Browse the site and enjoy!
Author's Autobiography
I was born on September 30, 1998, and for a month, I lived in a nice cozy house in Hermosa Beach, California. However, all my memories began when I moved to Manhattan Beach a month later. I don't remember much, but I do remember my interest in leadership and the world around us. When I was five, I started playing sports; my biggest two being soccer and baseball. From this point on, sports became a big part of my life. I played many more sports, including basketball, badminton, golf, surfing, swimming, and running, though none have had a bigger influence over me than baseball and running. I also started taking interest in the strange concept of symbols used to describe the world and communicate by forming words into sentences, then into paragraphs, or the English Language. However, my journey to becoming a writer did not start all to normal.
When I was in Pre-Kindergarten, I eventually learned to read my first book, The Adventures of Dick and Jane. It was a simple book, but it kindled the fire for me as a reader. I became a bibliophile for the next five years. I read as much as I could, because books and other writings were amazing for me. Non-fictional books and reference books answered all my questions about the world. Creative and fictional stories left me wondering for hours possible endings and continuations for the text I had just read. I was able to escape life and enter into a new one through books. While kids were getting grounded from their gaming consoles and time outside, I was getting grounded from reading. However, I never saw the importance of writing things myself, since I preferred reading other peoples' thoughts then writing down my own.
Though I had been writing for some time, my first real revelation of my writing skills was in 2nd grade. My teacher told us we would have an entire hour and a half dedicated to writing two days a week, known as Writer's Workshop. Before we could write a fun creative story, however, we had to write about a memorable time in our life. I was devastated that we couldn't start with a creative story, but I decided to write about my family's trip to Huntington Lake. That's when I realized I was terrible at writing stuff that wasn't created or fictional. I also realized I was a very detailed writer and wrote way to much. When Open House came at my Elementary School, my parents were disappointed to see I was the only one without a story, as the one I started at the beginning of the year was four pages long and only halfway done. I redeemed myself when our teacher said we were going to write a fantasy tale. After some issues, I was able to cut out unneeded parts and finished my story right on time. My teacher liked my story so much she gave me an A + and told me I could come in next year and share it with the new class to give them an example of a fantasy story. It was my first work I was proud of. My writing slowly improved through the rest of grammar school, but I still wrote very long essays and stories and barely improved on my time to write them. It seemed like the more I wrote, the more my teachers liked my paper and the higher I scored.
This changed drastically in 6th grade, the beginning of middle school. I remember turning in confidently an essay on The Cay to my Humanities teacher Mr. Winser. It was an in-class essay and I wrote almost seven pages of combined evidence and analysis. I was shocked to see a B at the the top of paper when it was handed back to me the next week. On the paper were multiple marks saying "don't need" and a one really big mark on the front saying "too much!". I realized then I wasn't in elementary school anymore where teachers praised kids who wrote more than less, but in middle school, where teachers chastised kids for writing to little and too much. I took Mr. Winser's advice, and this, I believe, has been the basis of why I am the writer I am today. My writing became shorter and more clear. My penmanship became neater and my essays became more advanced due to techniques I learned in English and through reading.
In 7th grade, I saw my writing become more structured and more grammatically correct through Ms. Palmer's class. It was more precise and I was able to finish writing things more quickly.
However, I would not be the writer I am now without Journalism. Even though it might seem I enjoyed writing through my previous academic years, I actually hated it. I preferred Science, Math, and History over English because English was my worst subject. Essays became very annoying. They were my most hated type of writing because they required no thought, only correct wording and logical explanations. Most were to support deeper meaning in a book I thought needed no deeper explanation. I began to struggle with writing again and I slowly stopped reading due to my big commitment to sports. When I found out my 7th grade elective, STEM, would pretty much repeat in 8th grade, I decided to join Journalism instead. I enjoyed reading the paper and a few of the staff said their writing skills had drastically improved due to the class. When I joined, I thought Journalism would be like writing a column for a newspaper with personal input and opinions. I was mistaken. Journalism is strictly reporting, unless you are writing an opinion piece, where you can state which side you take on the issue without using the words "I" or "you". As you can tell from the previous paragraphs, I hate writing factual or non-creative works, like essays and reports. Instead, I enjoy writing fictitious and creative stories because no one can tell you that you wrote it wrong or you weren't clear enough on proving something. It was easy to think of story plots due to the books I read.They are also much more interesting then writing straight facts about news. I also discovered something else in Journalism. There was no "continue to page G3" text in our paper, and since our class was fairly large, that meant even shorter writing than to what I was used. As you can see on my articles page, I had to cut a lot out of my first articles. However, the need to write less was the final push to becoming a good writer and I began to write much shorter than I ever had. I started to get my point across in less words, and this wasn't only in writing. I'd often say so much stuff before getting my point across to someone they'd lose interest and leave. My research skills drastically improved and for the first time ever I felt in touch with the world with world news. My English papers improved in quality from my old ones, which I think is due to direct correlation with Journalism. For the first time ever, I enjoyed writing.
As you can see, one can learn how to improve their writing through everything. Even while I was typing this entire autobiography, I realized how ironic I sound talking about how I've learned to say a lot with a little, yet I've written over 1,250 words. I also learned from writing this piece that I haven't been reading as much as I was 5 years ago, which makes me wonder if this is the reason why I've slowly disliked writing more and more. My goal is to continue writing and work on seeing a meaning of a book more clearly and quickly, almost as if I see an essay in my mind. I enjoyed Journalism and wouldn't mind being a columnist for a newspaper one day.
When I was in Pre-Kindergarten, I eventually learned to read my first book, The Adventures of Dick and Jane. It was a simple book, but it kindled the fire for me as a reader. I became a bibliophile for the next five years. I read as much as I could, because books and other writings were amazing for me. Non-fictional books and reference books answered all my questions about the world. Creative and fictional stories left me wondering for hours possible endings and continuations for the text I had just read. I was able to escape life and enter into a new one through books. While kids were getting grounded from their gaming consoles and time outside, I was getting grounded from reading. However, I never saw the importance of writing things myself, since I preferred reading other peoples' thoughts then writing down my own.
Though I had been writing for some time, my first real revelation of my writing skills was in 2nd grade. My teacher told us we would have an entire hour and a half dedicated to writing two days a week, known as Writer's Workshop. Before we could write a fun creative story, however, we had to write about a memorable time in our life. I was devastated that we couldn't start with a creative story, but I decided to write about my family's trip to Huntington Lake. That's when I realized I was terrible at writing stuff that wasn't created or fictional. I also realized I was a very detailed writer and wrote way to much. When Open House came at my Elementary School, my parents were disappointed to see I was the only one without a story, as the one I started at the beginning of the year was four pages long and only halfway done. I redeemed myself when our teacher said we were going to write a fantasy tale. After some issues, I was able to cut out unneeded parts and finished my story right on time. My teacher liked my story so much she gave me an A + and told me I could come in next year and share it with the new class to give them an example of a fantasy story. It was my first work I was proud of. My writing slowly improved through the rest of grammar school, but I still wrote very long essays and stories and barely improved on my time to write them. It seemed like the more I wrote, the more my teachers liked my paper and the higher I scored.
This changed drastically in 6th grade, the beginning of middle school. I remember turning in confidently an essay on The Cay to my Humanities teacher Mr. Winser. It was an in-class essay and I wrote almost seven pages of combined evidence and analysis. I was shocked to see a B at the the top of paper when it was handed back to me the next week. On the paper were multiple marks saying "don't need" and a one really big mark on the front saying "too much!". I realized then I wasn't in elementary school anymore where teachers praised kids who wrote more than less, but in middle school, where teachers chastised kids for writing to little and too much. I took Mr. Winser's advice, and this, I believe, has been the basis of why I am the writer I am today. My writing became shorter and more clear. My penmanship became neater and my essays became more advanced due to techniques I learned in English and through reading.
In 7th grade, I saw my writing become more structured and more grammatically correct through Ms. Palmer's class. It was more precise and I was able to finish writing things more quickly.
However, I would not be the writer I am now without Journalism. Even though it might seem I enjoyed writing through my previous academic years, I actually hated it. I preferred Science, Math, and History over English because English was my worst subject. Essays became very annoying. They were my most hated type of writing because they required no thought, only correct wording and logical explanations. Most were to support deeper meaning in a book I thought needed no deeper explanation. I began to struggle with writing again and I slowly stopped reading due to my big commitment to sports. When I found out my 7th grade elective, STEM, would pretty much repeat in 8th grade, I decided to join Journalism instead. I enjoyed reading the paper and a few of the staff said their writing skills had drastically improved due to the class. When I joined, I thought Journalism would be like writing a column for a newspaper with personal input and opinions. I was mistaken. Journalism is strictly reporting, unless you are writing an opinion piece, where you can state which side you take on the issue without using the words "I" or "you". As you can tell from the previous paragraphs, I hate writing factual or non-creative works, like essays and reports. Instead, I enjoy writing fictitious and creative stories because no one can tell you that you wrote it wrong or you weren't clear enough on proving something. It was easy to think of story plots due to the books I read.They are also much more interesting then writing straight facts about news. I also discovered something else in Journalism. There was no "continue to page G3" text in our paper, and since our class was fairly large, that meant even shorter writing than to what I was used. As you can see on my articles page, I had to cut a lot out of my first articles. However, the need to write less was the final push to becoming a good writer and I began to write much shorter than I ever had. I started to get my point across in less words, and this wasn't only in writing. I'd often say so much stuff before getting my point across to someone they'd lose interest and leave. My research skills drastically improved and for the first time ever I felt in touch with the world with world news. My English papers improved in quality from my old ones, which I think is due to direct correlation with Journalism. For the first time ever, I enjoyed writing.
As you can see, one can learn how to improve their writing through everything. Even while I was typing this entire autobiography, I realized how ironic I sound talking about how I've learned to say a lot with a little, yet I've written over 1,250 words. I also learned from writing this piece that I haven't been reading as much as I was 5 years ago, which makes me wonder if this is the reason why I've slowly disliked writing more and more. My goal is to continue writing and work on seeing a meaning of a book more clearly and quickly, almost as if I see an essay in my mind. I enjoyed Journalism and wouldn't mind being a columnist for a newspaper one day.