Hi! My name is Arpita Govil and my pronouns are she/her. I am a senior majoring in Biology on a pre-med track and doing research on the treatment of pain associated with endometriosis which I am super passionate about! I also love animals; I have two dogs at home and work with rats and mice in my research lab that I absolutely adore!
I enjoy reading fantasy/sci-fi novels a lot and love talking about them as well. In Spring 2021, I took an ENG 389W Special Topics class called Non-Binary Characters in Graphic Novels and it was the best class I had ever taken! We read a lot of super interesting graphic novels and discussed them in-depth in class. My favorite novel was Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe and I have been recommending it to people ever since I finished reading it the first time! So seeing how fascinating that class was, I am really excited about being in this one and reading more queer novels and other writings and can’t wait to get into insightful discussions about them.
As much as I love reading, however, I also feel anxious when it comes to writing. I always feel like I have all these ideas rushing through my brain but then I struggle to put these ideas into words. So, I am hoping to strengthen my writing skills so that I can communicate my ideas better and effectively analyze and evaluate these amazing works of art. I have also always struggled with being concise so I am also hoping that I can work on that area as well through this course and learn to be a better writer!
Hey Arpita! Thank you for your post. I’m so excited to hear your insights in this class, as “pain” and trauma will be huge discussion topics throughout the course. I am firm believer that reading and writing are two sides of the same coin, and something that has helped me is reframing writing as “reading what’s already out there.” It takes the pressure off of feeling compelled to create something entirely new or original or groundbreaking, and instead lets you focus on simply getting words onto the page. Another strategy that I’ve found incredibly helpful is being intentional about separating “writing” from “editing.” Often, as we write, we censor ourselves, or painstakingly sit with a sentence until we figure out the “perfect word” for the occasion, or just generally don’t know where we’ll end up, and that thought can be overwhelming! Writing, as I will say probably too many times in this class, is a process of discovery. Sometimes you don’t know where you’re going until you get there, and then when it’s time to edit your paper, you can read back through and figure out what needs to be said and what was you trying to work ideas out through writing parts that can be cut out. Concision is certainly a skill that we can all use, but it helps to start thinking in terms of separating writing from editing to help with momentum or getting started. Looking forward to having you in class!