To look back now on how I have grown in reading and writing seems crazy, it is crazy to think that as a freshman in high school a 500 word paper was the end of the world to now writing 1000 plus word essays at the college level. I have always been able to get good grades on papers just coasting at the above average grade but that was in high school.  We were so focused on dumping all the facts we know and trying to use perfect grammar, spelling, punctuation, and even throw in those accessional big words to make us seem smarter.  After my first college paper in ERH 101 I came to the harsh realization that I know nothing about writing.  I had to basically start at square one frequently asking questions about how to do this or that and always checking and rereading what I write and ask the question I think my professor will ask when she reads it and making sure I answer all those question thoroughly and give the evidence to back it all up.  Some of the most challenging things for me as a new college student is reading because I read very slowly I can end up spending 3 hours reading and assignment that my fellow peers did in an hour.  This makes balancing the reading and the writing essays at the same time very difficult and usually results in late nights typing.  But through ERH 101 the writing is not nearly as scary and challenging to me as it was at the beginning but the reading is still slow for me.  I am working on trying to read faster because I know it is a big part of most all college courses and I also feel that if I keep reading I eventually will get better at it.  I am very eager to read sometimes because I want to learn from reading I want to be able to read a book and every time learn something new but it gets hard to motivate myself to sit and read for so long when I have the thought of not finishing other assignments in the back of my head.  I have all around noticed major improvements in my reading and writing so far and hope that I continue to get better.