My favorite animal

Writing essays was one of my favorite activities back in grade school and even until college. Our teacher would ask us to write a 100-word essay about our best friend or favorite animal and then we would have to read our work in front of the class one by one. I liked that part because everybody got the chance to speak up and to be heard. I liked it because I was sort of “forced” to participate in class discussions and recitations.

Things were a bit different in college. Our professor would choose a few students to read their essays by lottery. The rest of the students who weren’t called would listen and then afterwards they are free to criticize grammatical errors, incorrect sentence structures, poor writing style, etc. The professor said it’s a great way for us to learn to speak and write English better. However, nobody wanted to be corrected in front of the whole class. So, everyone’s praying not to be chosen. Except me Not that I wanted to be humiliated, I just thought it’s an opportunity to improve myself.

One time, I was called but somebody else was asked to read my paper. I was criticized for using the phrase “the smell of coffee,” they said it should be “the aroma of coffee.” They also hated me for using the words “I love my kid sister.” They said that is American slang so they changed it to “I love my little sister.” On the other hand, the girl who read my essay was criticized for pronouncing the word “behind” as “bi-hayn,” they said the correct pronunciation is “ba-haynd.” Whatever. She was also corrected for reading “Missouri” as “Miswari.”

If you have noticed, this post is really not about my favorite animal. But in case you are interested to know, giraffe is my favorite. Photo by F.R. Munich, Germany.