Closing Thoughts
The most meaningful writing assignment overall, at least for me, was most definitely the researched essay. I think one of the biggest reasons why is that it helped me get better at not only writing those specific essays, but also better at citing and finding evidence in general. Initially, especially last semester, I dreaded doing them as they were quite lengthy and additionally required me to find multiple good sources of evidence to use. Finding evidence isn’t normally very hard for me, but it was a different case this time. The evidence also had to be varied, which forced me out of my comfort zone of primarily using online news articles as a source. Additionally, I once again had to get better at MLA citing, which is a useful skill I’ll need for the rest of my academic career. I believe it was also the most meaningful for me because I was able to speak about a topic I was very passionate about. As an avid Smash Bros. fan and player since I was very young, I first watched videos on YouTube about Super Smash Bros, Brawl, wishing I could play it myself. It came from the heart, which definitely made the essay more memorable and important to me. In fact, a lot of the sources were things I had remembered from previously looking into Nintendo’s history and bizarre relationship towards Smash, especially its community. I was quite surprised to find how unhelpful Nintendo has been throughout the years, so I wanted to talk about it in some way, ultimately culminating in my researched essay.
One important thing I took away from Tiny Gray-Garcia’s offerings is that it truly helped me understand the extent of how serious the problems of poverty are, especially in relation to minorities and indigenous people. As a Jamaican-American myself, I’ve always known that a large majority of those in poverty were often people of color, but I truthfully wasn’t aware of the deep extent of it. The most meaningful part of the video and podcast I watched were definitely when one of the speakers spoke about how they had to help the community, as he and many others there had learned “what it’s like to be on the streets,” in his own words. A personal belief I had is that being motivated to change things so no one has to suffer as you have is one of the most noble and respectable things a person could ever do, and it really resonated with me.
My writing goals for the future are something I’m still thinking about. I’d very much like to produce my own written story one day, which would be the ultimate culmination of my writing and artistic skill. Non-creatively, as you could tell I’m quite interested in Smash. Maybe someday I could write articles or post news in my own style of writing. Perhaps, with inspiration from our guest speaker’s materials, I could utilize some of their ideals to help change the community for the better. While I personally don’t believe the Smash community can truly be killed, at least, not for long, I still think it needs the support of its community to thrive.
