Hi! My name is 'Harsh'

Beside the sea, away from me...

Week 1 Blog Entry: Intro to me.

Hi! My name is Harsh Chandra Yadav, yes 'Harsh' and no it does not mean rude but actually the exact opposite; happiness.

Let's start over:

Hi! my name is Harsh Chandra Yadav, I am a U/U student at the University of California, Irvine, hoping to get into Computer Science. In my spare time I like to read books or to play games. My favorite color is red, my favorite sport is basketball, and my favorite past time is computer games.

Writing had never been a keen interest of mine, I simply didn't find writing to be worth the effort. But lately I have realized that Writing is one of the most essential and mandatory skills for a student. Still, even after this realization, my writing skills are not the best and I hope WR39C will give me an opportunity to improve upon them. Before this class I took Writing 39B and God knows it was a disaster, especially the first few weeks. Until I took Writing courses at UCI, writing for me was only writing essays and articles but here at UCI I was challenged to rhetorically analyse articles and essays. I used to be baffled about how would I write something keeping in mind that I am analyzing not my own views but the views of the author, but eventually I got comfortable with the class and learned to think from the other persons point of view. This skill not only helps me in my writing classes but only in my real life.

As a writer and a communicator, I have just started my journey and hence I am still learning every day, increasing my vocabulary and adjusting to the different genres of writing. I believe that I need to improve further in explaining what I have in mind and presenting it in such fashion that the audience finds it interesting and relatable. I believe that a writer or communicator must be able to make his/her audience empathize with his/her work, and so I try to embody this skill in my writing.

I have some experience in research as I was working on a science project of my own and I believe that experience shall help me in my research for WR39C. I also happen to have some experience with the UCI Libraries and the very helpful Librarians, and so I hope researching would not be such a huge problem for me in this course.

In the TIME articles I read, I was particularly intrigued by the idea of how animals from different species bond and help each other. Before this I never thought animals were capable of caring for someone other than their family or their herd, but seeing the example of Owen and Mzee, I was convinced that animals are far more smart than we give them credit for.

Another interesting topic was Kanzi, the bonobo, who could communicate using images and words. The most shocking part was how he could use a limited set of words and come up with words for various things; like slow lettuce for kale, or big water for flood. To add to this, animals like crows are intelligent enough to use stones to raise the water level for drinking; this is something I had only heard in stories, and to know that it is true was a joyful and intriguing experience.