Writing Workshop

It was very, very strange for me to have to criticize the workshop leader's piece. It's one thing when you're at school dissecting other students' work or a core book. With students my age, I don't expect them to write at an award-winning level, so correcting their grammar or spelling or formatting is simple. Even with John freaking Steinbeck, you are able to either commend or criticize him, because, well, he's dead. It's not like he can defend himself. But when you are sitting in a room with a person and you have no choice but to tell him things that he did wrong, it is kind of nerve-wracking. I mean, if I were in the position of the workshop leader, I would want to get that advice, but as I am the type of person who hates hurting people's feelings, it hurt me to do so. Especially since he was 25 and I am only 14. It felt like I was in no position to judge him. I understand that criticism helps you and makes you stronger, but too many people get offended when people are only trying to help them with their work. Even though Alex told us to rip him apart, it was still uncomfortable because I'm not used to helping people by giving my own negative opinions.
I was not very proud of the writing I did for the workshop. Towards the end, I sort of just winged (wang?) it because I was sleepy and partly delusional. I quoted this guy named Alan Watts, really just because I found a quote from him while I was procrastinating. It didn't really have anything to do with what I was writing, but I tied it in anyway. Throughout most of it, all I was writing were my past experiences at trying to make friends. I hated how self-pitying I sounded. I think I tend to do that a lot, make people feel sorry for me because I didn't have many friends growing up. At first, I only told three stories from my early childhood, but I didn't have enough pages so I wrote one for every year of elementary school. I sort of ripped apart this girl named Lee Ella, but to be fair she was awful to me, and now she lives in Israel so it's not like she'll ever know, anyway. One thing that I think I did well, if I must say so is that I made my horribly embarrassing experiences sound humorous. I think that people like to do that when they feel bad for themselves. They feel like making a joke out of it will make them feel better, and like I said in my writing, embarrassing moments make for great stories in the future. Immediately after something happens, you think that you'll never tell anybody because it was too awful, but in a while, it's just a funny story.