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https-kirstenikita · 1 year

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I'm not shit at this.

Writing is something that I’ve always enjoyed, but never felt good at. I remember getting a notepad and pens for Christmas one year as a child and deciding to write a story about fairies, and later on that year our school had a competition which involved “writing a book” so I translated it and submitted it. I never heard anything back.

I loved reading when I was younger, like many Jacqueline Wilson was my queen. I had nearly the entire collection and would read them over and over (and over) again. I had a lot of the original disney books as well, they were read a million times as well as a few others. I just loved reading, I would stay up all night reading and falling asleep with the book in my hand. As I entered secondary school it was the same, and sort of ended when I went into sixth form. I just loved reading, I still do, but after years of heavy academic work it was/is hard to enjoy.

I wrote a LOT in my early teens. Fiction, non-fiction, blogs, mostly fan-fiction. I absolutely loved it, I’d have to stop myself from posting so much. Fan-fiction was my most successful, one of them has 1.6million reads on wattpad which just feels insane because that was just a little 14 year old me? I also have a plethora of diaries, journals etc that I continue to this day. Other than the physical diaries, this all stopped when school got more intense and sixth form started. I found myself either at school, working or doing schoolwork and lost the passion for writing, I also had a massive confidence knock during year 12.

Even though I enjoyed writing, I didn’t feel like I was good at it. I never shared it with anyone apart from one friend, Emilie, who I bonded with a lot over music and writing and it was just something we always shared together even if it was shit. Other than that, my writing was mine, a secret to everyone but myself. When my GCSE exams were marked, it was a year where they had a massive shortage of examiners so they had teachers marking work in subjects they knew nothing about. This resulted on me barely scraping passing my English language GCSE despite having *almost* straight A’s in my coursework. At the beginning of year 12, one of my English teachers decided to bitterly tell me this information in front of the class, resulting in me storming out and screaming bloody murder in the sixth form block . I felt stupid, confused, cheated, like I’d been led on the whole of my GCSE’s. How on earth have I got A’s on nearly all of my coursework but a U (ungradable) on my exam when I did everything I was told to do? What? Honestly, it was one of the most confusing and heartbreaking moments of my educational career. I couldn’t believe it.

I started doing English literature in sixth form, and after that incident it really knocked me. Year 12 was also a really difficult one for me because there was so much going on at home, this definitely added to things. I felt like nothing I did was right, whenever I’d ask for help I got hit with a snarky remark or to “google it” (yes, I will never get over this). I quit the course after 1 year because the drive and confidence was gone. I described myself as someone who’s “shit at English”. I would be that person constantly asking people to proofread, double check things, asking repeatedly if my work made sense and those people would make adjustments.

It wasn’t until my second year of university that I really found my understanding for writing, and could see for myself that I’m good at it. I studied theatre and performance at university which was an accumulation of many things theatre-related but academically driven. We did acting, production and academic research but everything was heavily based on research and a big part of our coursework was how our research made a difference on our work. In my first year I passed with good grades, everyone says the first year of uni is a bit of a doss and it kind of was. Despite this, I wasn’t used to the amount of research and writing which was because I’d done a BTEC during sixth form which is more vocational (practical) so I spent more time on my feet than reading and researching. In the first year, we didn’t get to choose the subjects we did but it was divided up equally into acting, production and academic stuff, then from second year we got to choose what we wanted to focus on. I decided to take a leap and pick mostly academic modules for the entire year. In this, I decided to do 2 independent research modules - not a common choice.

I was hesitant at first but I loved independent research. That is the module that made me realise I’m good at research and writing. Finding something you love and pursuing it really shows your skills, and you don’t know until you’re in it. It absolutely helps that I had an amazing, open-minded tutor who I’d have fantastic 1-1 meetings with, she was brilliant. She was real and honest with me about my work. She taught me how to write, how to structure things but using my topic as the stimulus and when I say that put two and two together, it put two and two together. Suddenly my essay quality went up by miles, for every other subject I was doing I suddenly just knew how to write. This was because I had done it within a subject that was so familiar to me and it just clicked, I had a moment of realisation: I’m not shit at this. Everything came together and it was one of the most impactful moments of my life. My grades shot up as did my confidence.

Since then, I’ve felt far better about my writing skills. I’m still slowly getting back into reading (despite graduating nearly 3 years ago…), but writing is definitely something I want to really make a habit of. I work as a receptionist and spend most of my day typing up emails, communicating and writing generally which secures that more. I even have people coming up to me now asking me to write stuff up for them and it makes me so happy because an 18-year-old would have never seen this coming.

Kirsten x

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otpark · 5 years

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Digital Pronator Grip aka look (Swipe left 👈🏻 for video) at how she is holding the brush with keeping her Pointer finger on the top of the wooden brush and holding brush with three other fingers and thumb. Vertical Art serves this purpose. Crossing the midline - going from right to left and left to right is necessary to develop overall cognitive skills. But here we are discussing about Grasp development. Here are the milestones for Pencil-grasp. . . 12-18months: Palmar Supinator (holds pencil with fist 🤛 grip. ) . 2-3 years: Digital Pronator (shown in this post. Pointer finger ☝️ and fist with rest fingers.) . 3-3 and half years: Static Tripod (holds Pencil ✏️ with Pointer finger, Big finger and thumb but moves the whole hand and forearm@as one unit while writing. ) . . 4 and half to 6: Dynamic Tripod (A perfect three point pencil grip. ✍️ Independent wrist movements possible with wrist extensions and stabilized forearm.) . . Initial pencil grip development is important to enhance kid’s Chief occupation that they are going to acquire during their life’s initial years- that is Writing ✍️. Use less of tapping on Tablets and more of actual activities to develop this skill. Most imp. . . Activity details: I used use-and-dry Chinese wall mountable caligragraphy paper. (DM me to get the link for @Amazon so you can purchase directly) . Sticked on the wall, gave a cup of water and Brush. And you can see the Results!! . . . . #otpark #otparkbox #occupationaltherapy #otmom #occupationaltherapist #occupationaltherapyassistant #otd #ota #momlife #playathomemom #playathomemummy #playathomemommy #toddlermom #toddlerlife #toddleractivities #parentslife #playwhilelearning #learnwhileexploring #handwritinggoals #handwritingday #handwritingmatters #writingdevelopment #pencilgrip #milestones https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz8mVqVArj0/?igshid=1cf3o54n8z3oz

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