I remember in primary school spending a week on each form of writing. There was creative narrative, non-fiction, recount, personal reflective, report writing and poetry. My favourite was creative writing.

In the past few months, I’ve had assessment at uni, which has called on our personal reflective writing skills. We had to assess the way we managed our major research project and also reflect on our impact on environmental decisions in the community. Without blinking, I whipped out about 750 words for each task in half an hour.

Kate read my essay on my environmental decisions and was impressed that I was so honestly self-critical. I didn’t understand what she meant. All I had done was point out my good contributions to the environment, then the many things that I should do better.

Yet, Kate says, many people would gloss over their faults and hypocrisy. She herself had to force herself to analyse her actions. She cringed to see her choices, right and wrong, laid out in plain English so permanantly on white paper. She didn’t want anyone to read it because it revealed the black (haha, like you could be evil, Kate) parts of her character. Kate assures me that people often try to paint themselves in a positive light.

“But what would be the point, Kate? You would know yourself that you haven’t been honest.”

“People try to convince others that they are good.”

It was a bit of a shock for me to hear this. It could be true.

I find personal reflective writing very easy. I already think about my life, my actions, my character, my relationships with people every day. I write it down in my blog, in my diary, in e-mails to friends. Nothing pleases me more than writing it down for school assessment — hooray, no research required! I like writing my resume and job applications. I like being interviewed for jobs because I have permission to talk about myself without fear of being thought egotistical.

I am conscious of my interest in self-review to the point that in social conversations, I will avoid talking about myself. In normal company, I am uncomfortable speaking on the topic of Joan because I suspect people will be bored. They’re only asking out of politeness, surely? They don’t really want to know. Be careful, Joan. Don’t be rude. Quick, ask a question about them!

I do like asking questions, especially to people who give thoughtful replies. It extends me, gives me insights into situations I have never been in.

I have no compunctions about going on about myself on my blog because hey, you readers asked for it when you clicked on this blog 🙂 Thank you all.