Lessons

In which I learn I have improved in my chosen profession:

So last night I was trying to dejunk a lot of my stuff again and I came across a binder of editing assignments during my editing class in 2003. That was six years ago, and I was working on my editing minor at the time. (Actually the minor was approved during my last semester so I got a minor instead of a mere emphasis with my English major, which was nice.) Anyway, I kept them because I thought they would be helpful later in life, like if I ended up being an English teacher or something. But the assignments were pitiful. They were marked up with red pen, showing the edits that I forgot to highlight. And there were a lot. Apparently in 2004 I didn't know how to use commas, and I completely butchered a misplaced modifier quiz.

And my favorite embarassment of all is now one of my strong points. Dashes. Not one assignment shows that I knew the difference between dashes, let alone the en dash. And now when people do not use an en dash correctly, I cringe in pain. Okay not really, but I'm glad the lessons about hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes have achieved their purpose.

It's good to see that school taught me something. And that I have made a career out of it.

Interestingly enough, I also found a bunch of essays I wrote where my teacher wrote an endless list of questions to my thesis statements and topic sentences relating to A Tale of Two Cities, Hard Times, and Joseph Andrews.

Deep rhetorical thinking. And thus we see why I didn't pursue a career in literature.