Writer's Reflection The topic "How to Carry On with Style" seems too trite, too insipid, and more

importantly, too forceful. Writing about "how to do [blank]" is essentially imposing one's style on another. Life is a broad topic. During my writing the "How to" piece, I was in a depressive mood, in which I felt the future was nothing but bleakness. Looking back, I think it is a not so appropriate piece for editing, although I don't regret writing it; on the other hand, I am proud of every single phrase in it. However, I find it hard to evoke, let alone to elaborate, a sentiment in the past. The feeling at that time cannot resonate with what I have now, which is peaceful, but with a tint of worry. As a result, I changed my selected piece to hand in. When I first considered this piece, I felt I had no more space to elaborate; yet the piece felt incomplete. I finally decided to incorporate some significant themes of my previous writings, those about deeper subjects like judgement and existence, into a seemingly insignificant object. How to make it mesmerizing, at the same time, quite effortless to comprehend becomes my biggest challenge. My issue in writing is that I myself am often tangled in this abstract knot of thoughts. Trying to extricate from it, and eventually translate it to written art has been a quite tiresome, but intriguing, task for me. Since I have made this decision of changing the piece after the peer workshop period, I will invite my friend, Jennica, who currently attends the IB program at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary, to give feedback on my "Pencil Sharpener" piece. The feedbacks I hope to receive are, of course, constructive. But moreover, I want to know whether it is confusing to understand or not; and what elements can I add to make it more profound. However, my only fear is that the shorter it is, the easier it is to leave a remarkable impression, and by adding more length to meet the requirement, I may lose the essence of my draft.

Writer's Reflection Frequently in our encounter with object, we impose our blind, reckless preconceived opinions on it. We, as a result, limit ourselves to truly recognizing the object in depth, and confine ourselves to our own expectation. Through describing an unnoticeable object in our daily life, I hope to bring the readers to a certain point of realization that we must free judgement from an object in order to thoroughly appreciate its goodness. In my writing, I have decided to use the obscure pronoun "it" to describe the pencil sharpener. I don't want to simply address it by its man-made name on the surface, but I want to introduce its deeper essence to the readers without triggering any remarkable amount of prejudice against its name. The word "pencil sharpener" is too hackneyed, as it may induce many personal, perhaps even unpleasant, experiences in the reader. I want the reader to re-recognize it as if it is a new item, which the reader knows nothing about. Although the reader is supposedly the person narrating, I want to gradually steer the direction of thinking in the way I desire, which is driving from the our common perception of a pencil sharpener, to another point of view, then slowly to our conscious selves and our ways of imposing a judgment on it. As a person who prefers unpredictability and freedom in writing, I have decided to make it even more challenging by changing it into a semi-second person narration. To be honest, this style is, in most cases, quite awkward to write in and to read. I have never used this style previously. Therefore, by using it in this case, I hope I added a tint of unconventionality to it, which identifies me from the trite method of writing. Furthermore, through adding more details to this piece, I also hope that I havent lost any essence in describing it.