정유선Yousun Jung/First post/Tues 9-11am

My earliest memory related to writing is diaries with drawings that I had started to write in kindergarten days. It was only two or three sentences and rather focused on drawing, and it was not a 'diary' in the true sense of the word. Still, it was a great pleasure for me because teachers and my parents used to give me lots of compliments. As a child who loved reading, I soon got to love writing, too.

From that moment, I had loved writing almost every time of my life. In my schooldays, for example, I used to write persuasive essays about reunification of Korea or the importance of rice. I got 10kg of rice or gift cards with my writings. Those experiences made me feel satisfied. Also, I loved to write letters. I wrote lots of letters or answered back to friends of mine. There was a big basket under my desk to keep all letters from them.

Among all my writing, however, the most pleasant writing was writing some literary essays for three years when I lived in India working as a NGO worker. I kept a diary in a daily basis, and later made it as literary essays and sent to many friends who were curious about my life in India. When I found a website named 'Brunch', which is for writers, I uploaded it there. I got quite a lot of feedback, and it was my first experience to write an amount of work and to get feedback from many people. It made me love writing more.

However, I am not used to writing in English. As I was born and raised in Korea, I am not sure whether expressions I use are awkward or not. It makes me less confident in English writing. I try to write sentences in the right grammar as much as I can and to figure out which expression fits what I want to write, but writing in English makes me feel small.

I feel in totally different way when writing in my first language (Korean) and writing in English, but there is something common: I really want to improve my writing in both, and I will keep struggling for better writing.

 

정유선 Yousun Jung