Sprint writing.

I have been busy, mentally. I have been in Charlottesville, VA, U.S. for I year and almost 7 months. I really like to live here. But I am thinking of getting a job at some other place from, at latest, next March. When I am thinking of planning application, I do realize, I do not want to move out from here. Anyway, I have to say to myself “do what I can do right now.”

I am practicing writing with a tutor. She is a very good teacher. She has many ideas for practice writing. Last week, we worked on a writing method, something like, “sprint writing”. The method is just 5 minutes’ keeping writing and 5 minutes’ editing, (If possible) and again, and again. This is hard practice but good practice. For example, I wrote about the book which I currently reading.

The book I am reading is called “Looking for Alaska”. In this book, the main character is a college student. And he is kind of a weird guy. He is collecting people’s last words. Do you know Thomas Jefferson’s last words? Jefferson’s last words are “This is the Fourth?” Since the author did not mention what that means, I am so curious about it. I would love to find out before leaving the Univ. of Virginia. I also am reading the “Price of inequality”. This book is written by a famous American economist. He is claiming that inequality is growing in the U.S. Because of it, people lose the right of free choice, which is one of the best virtues of America.  

So, the time is limited. But sometime we need some kind of constrain to be creative. Someone also mentioned “Writing marathon”, his method is just keep writing without editing for 3 hours. I think I should do that sometime after I finish my real marathon. I should spare the time for it. Also, this is a version of 10 minutes’ writing and 5 minutes’ editing, writing about the education system,

One of the most viewed presentations on TED is about education. The presenter, I forgot his name though, presents the story titled “How school kills creativity”. The presenter claims how the standard education system in the world prevents children from being creative. Honestly, I was strongly against him. When I came to the United States, I could see the difference between the American and Japanese education systems. I understood the American focus on people’s talent, but the Japanese focus on perseverance. Of course, both have good points and bad points. In an education system, when we focus on the talent, because I believe the talent is given, it may lead to the state of, what is called, the winner takes all. When we focus on perseverance, we sometimes make talented people do boring training. In my opinion, we should focus on making hard working habits.  Since we actually know little about people’s talent, we should focus on the method….

I could not finish though, still I could force myself to finish which make me efficient. Why don’t you try this method. You had better be with a good teacher though.