Me, Circa 2009

When I was in my first semester at OSU, I took one of my favorite classes: Advanced Composition.  Among our assorted assignments was one where we had to email everyone in the class regularly with a writing sample that was at least 100 words long.  I never deleted any of the emails I sent or received and I spent some time recently going over what I wrote about four years ago and I wanted to discuss the ways in which I'm now a different person.

I complained.  A lot.  I didn't like Stillwater, I didn't like the younger people I was going to school with, I didn't like the cultural differences of Oklahoma, I didn't like how much I worked (now I can't get enough work), etc.  It's really a shame and I hope that I don't come off as that negative now.

I had more frequent spelling errors in my writing.  I'm not perfect and I still make mistakes, but I feel like I catch more of them these days.

I was funnier.  Maybe I was more relaxed, but made a lot more jokes.  Not all of them were funny, but I tried more often than I do now.  That makes me a bit sad.

I must not have been afraid of offending anyone, because I was crass.  I pointed out the racism I had observed since moving to Oklahoma (and most of the kids in the class were native Oklahomans) and I teased people that liked the Twilight books (at least four girls in my class admitted that they enjoyed them).  While those aren't terrible, I was shocked at how brazen I was.

I liked to give unsolicited advice.  Do I still do that?  I hope not, or at least that I don't do it often.  I think I assumed that since I was older that I could help the "poor kids" I was in class with (I was really full of myself).

I wrote a lot about how much I loved Allison.  I know we were newlyweds, but it was still sweet to see the strong affection that I shared multiple times (I even said that one of my favorite moments was our first dance at our wedding, something that hasn't changed).  I still love Allison, but I've rarely written about it since our separation; maybe I should change that.

In one of the emails, I found an early draft of my shoe story and it really did get better by having one of my classmates review it.  It's a reminder that I should write more stories and that I should make revisions to them, too.

All in all, I really don't think I'd like me from four years ago if I met him today.  I've had a lot of "real world experience," as Dad calls it, during that time and it's really had a powerful impact on me in how I see the world and interact with people.  But I've also had some professional writing experience and that seems to have made my creative writing style drier and less witty, which I don't like.  Still, I'll take being a better, more positive person over being funny.