“Anyone who doesn’t write doesn’t know how wonderful it is “
I remember this line when I’ve watched “The Reader”... I was fascinated by the way Hanna Schmidt, played by Kate Winslet, taught herself how to write.
I can’t remember who taught me how to write my first letter. Maybe, it was my Mom. But what I can remember is I can’t spell the word beautiful right. I have to syllabicate it every time I have to spell it, until now! I would go BE-A-U-TI-FUL. Same with receive, believe and separate. I also can’t pronounce “ANG, MGA and NANG” in taglog. I would say ey-en-gi (read it in English alphabet). My mom had to buy me ABAKADA in order for me to learn those words. That was the first book I’ve read.
From then on I’ve started reading books. I would read all my textbooks even before the school starts. When we went to my Aunt’s house I saw a copy of “The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank”. But I did not have a chance to finish the book. I just got to the part when she named it Kitty. That’s when I started writing my own diary.
When I began reading Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High pocketbooks I tried to write love stories. I also wrote some poems. Then, when I met a friend in college we decided to write a story about us and our crushes in school. But mostly she did the writing. I just gave her the plot and other details.
I’m not that confident in my writing, I’m afraid that anyone who will read what I wrote will criticize me. I know that my grammars were wrong and my commas were not in the right places. But I don’t want to deprive myself with this privilege.
In the movie, Hanna was not able to defend herself because she was afraid to let everyone know that she was illiterate. She was convicted for life sentence. When she was in prison an old friend send her voice tape. This old friend reads to her different kinds of books. Because of her desire to write to this person, Hanna taught herself to write. She borrowed a book in the prison library, the same book that was read to her in one of the voice tapes. She listened to it while she encircled the words on the book until one day she was able to write a simple note to her friend.
Writing and reading are two of the most important thing that we always take for granted. We did not know that it is power. That if we could both read and write people won’t be able to fool us so easily. We could create things when we write. We could gain knowledge when we read.
That is the reason why I started this blog. I want to continue reading and to write not only what I read but also what I’ve seen and experienced. I would continue doing this for myself just like what Anne did…
“And if I haven’t any talent for writing books or newspapers articles, well, then I can always write for myself.”
- Anne Frank
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