My View on Myself

Reading has been always one of my major hobbies and passions and most of the time I have been trying to read things I am interested in. Span of my reading materials is very wide and it is consisted from different types of literature to daily newspapers that can be found online. My favorite reading materials have been always historical documents and facts like historic encyclopedias, master pieces about important characters and events in history of humanity. Still readings I have been doing in my school career are the biggest source of my “brain library” because many times in my life I had to read books and documents I was not interested in. It is not the same perception of materials person is not interested in than from the ones that tease us to find out more about them through reading. Result of that perception can be perfectly showed in the written form where people put their findings and free opinions about what they have learned.
My reading development can be divided into two phases, the first one where I read on Serbian and the second one where I read on English. Although these two phases seem so different, they have many similarities and the major one is the same material, just written in different languages. Most recent example is Shakespeare pieces because two of them, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet were the mandatory literature in my High School, back in Serbia and Montenegro. Understanding the same text on two languages can lead us in two different directions and it is very hard to read and understand texts that are not written in the same language. Language doesn’t mean just different words and letters, it means more than that; it often represents other culture which classifies same things on different way. These facts bring conclusion that I can feel some doze of disadvantage comparing to my classmates in Shakespeare class. My understanding of Hamlet and other two tragedies analyzed in this class is pretty straight and my response on them would equal to the Text-Self reading stage which is the first stage of reading development. Although my reading development stage in case of Shakespeare is Text-Self stage in many other cases I showed signs of the second stage of reading development, Text-other Texts stage in which people try to leave subjective opinion and try to become more objective about judging reading texts. In my first year in United States I took two English classes, Rhet. and Composition and Literature and Composition. These classes served for developing writing abilities and for entering into the world of Western literature. Interesting thing was comparing my paper about communism with my papers about some western pieces written by Edgar Allan Poe. Paper about communism definitely belongs to second stage of reading development (if not the third) because many theories inside communism were compared and comparing all of them brought some correct conclusions that were highly appreciated by my professor. My paper about Edgar Allan Poe was very poor and the only thing I could show there was my subjective opinion which resulted from bad reading perception of this writer. More than literature I am interested in business which is my major and often I have to say my opinion about something and to put some arguments on it. My interest in business is huge and I try to pick up tips from our textbooks and other reading materials. Still my perception of business is narrow because business is more practice than theory and I didn’t have a chance to put it into practice yet, so my reading development in this area still belong to the first stage that I would call in this case microeconomics stage because I still think more about problem than about its indicators and environment.
When I go over my weekly blogs, it is easy to recognize my reading development stage about Shakespeare pieces. It is pretty obvious that I am on the first stage of reading development. The first sign of that is often using of word I which in most cases indicates subjective opinion of some person. My blogs about our class activities are based most on my own experience about this class. My perception of Shakespeare and our discussion is still weak because my overall knowledge about Shakespeare and his pieces is not on high level. Old English which is used in his play represents the big trouble for me and it is very hard to understand it without asking somebody else. This is major reason why I avoid writing blogs which discuss text in the plays. Instead of this, I am using more assistance of the movies we were watching and my play group activities. My third blog “Emotions in Titus Andronicus” contains the most subjectivity in it. The second paragraph of this blog is the best example. My personal feeling about Titus Andronicus, role of his son Lucious and Marcus shows my narrow view on this movie and play. I didn’t try to compare it with some other aspects; my opinion was too subjective and it was not covered with valid arguments. My blogs about our class topics are definitely subjective, but the good thing is my awareness about this “problem”.
Reading development is not simple idea and it is very hard to get to the third stage. In this moment I belong more to the first stage than to the second one. As person knows more about something, more chances he/she will have to develop its reading ability. Interest for reading is key point, and people shouldn’t read something they are not interested in. Maybe this sounds too subjective because often people read things they have to read but don’t want to read. Taking Shakespeare for my English class was not just because I need credit from this core. I am looking on this class as on adventure because I am very curious to find out why Shakespeare was one of the greatest minds ever. That is my interest in reading his pieces. Everybody should find their own interests before choosing reading materials because that is going to be the first and most important step in developing reading ability.