Over the past 5 months, being introduced to this assignment of uploading a blog post every two weeks initiated some problems within me. I think I can relate to many people here when I say that I am not a very creative person. Many may think that because I am somewhat interested in art and social media aesthetics I have some sort of creative superpower that I hide from the rest of my peers, only to use in secret. Although I can 
assure you, I do not. I don’t know if it was my ignorance that came with being a third grader, but in elementary school, I thought I was one of, if not, the best artist you would ever meet. Art class was my favorite. I spent a lot of time at home filling up notebooks with the most *beautiful* art you would ever see in your life. Although, since the beginning of high school, my levels of creativity have been on a steady decline. Being in a very restricted environment while being forced to do schoolwork that was not as much fun as coloring on a worksheet or reading a well-loved book killed the creative flow within me. I began losing interest in spending time on my interests and began to get into this constant grind of school, soccer, and homework. Even over the summer when I was without the task of school, I always had something else to do. Whether it was work, studying for the ACT or SAT, preparing my college essays, or hanging out with friends, I would avoid spending time alone as much as possible.
So, when I was faced with the task of writing about anything and everything I wanted to do every two weeks, I would come up with nothing. Thinking of blog posts was something that was on my mind pretty frequently. Usually, directly after posting, I would have my next 
blog post’s document already up and running so I can start generating ideas. As for external inspiration, I would take to the Blended AP Lit Dashboard and skim through everyone’s ideas and what they came up with. May I just say that I think some of you are in the same boat as me here with my lack of creativity? Nonetheless, reading these posts was almost like being able to see the thought process behind them.
While the individuality and the wide variety of ideas did generate much inspiration for my post, it also led to many comparisons between myself and others’ creative flow. I think that it was mostly due to the pressure of this being a grade, even if it was small and did not affect the final grade as strongly as timed writing would.
Although, as time went on, and I continued to miraculously find new ideas for my blog posts, I began to find that when the time came to think of an idea, I started to write about things in my life that were relevant to when and where I was writing them. Beginning to think of an idea for one blog post while wearing my noise-canceling headphones led me to come up with my appreciation post about them. Spending countless hours in my room doing homework, fresh out of the summer with some of its good weather still lingering led me to think about all the time I was missing being outside with the sound of the trees and the natural lighting keeping me awake. So, I thought of my hack to a stress-free working environment, keeping a window open.
Both of these ideas were mainly influenced by what my life was like at the time of writing them. But, is that not what creativity is? Is it not your expression of your thoughts and feelings about whatever is going on in your life around you? These blog posts have led me to question what creativity is for others and what it is for me. But it is through the duration of this year that I have come to find that others’ creativity does not affect my own. Creativity is whatever I make it to be. As I transition into the next big stage in my life, I hope that I can continue to find time to devote to being with myself and expressing my creativity, no matter the form it takes.
Alison, I also share your difficulties with finding creative ideas. I agree that the blogs challenged myself to find ideas that could be written about for 750 words. Adding the comments, a lot of creativity was needed to complete this assignment. The way that I countered this challenge was to find something that I thought I knew a lot about and talk about that. That topic was buying shoes as I felt that it was a niche that I could ramble about for thousands of words. In the future if I ever encounter an assignment like the blogs again, I will try your method of making an idea document. This will help my ideas become less stale and overused, which was a large problem for me with this assignment. Your ideas that you found in simple things is something I might steal as it seems to be a good way to generate ideas. I also agree with your statements answering the question of what creativity is, an expression of thoughts and other things around you. Creativity is an open word and can be anything you want it to be and one way to find something that you want to be creativity is the method you listed above.
Hello Alison good drawing. Actually, you just told me it wasn’t your drawing but still, it’s good! 😀 I agree with you that being creative is a little tricky and I find it really interesting how you chose to write about what we were all thinking because when you have a blog post due at the end of the week and your brain is literally blank, it kind of freaks you out. I also like your point that while some things may seem kind of boring to us, related to our blog posts, in reality, it’s still creative. My favorite blog post I wrote was the one about country music. This was an idea I thought of on the Wednesday before the post was due. Sometimes, I also found the comments a little difficult to write, especially to an assigned person. It’s kind of hard to relate to people on really niche topics that we chose to write about. It’s kind of fun that way though because you have to think extra hard to find a pathway to connect with others. I think out of everyone, I read your blog the most so it was interesting to see how while they didn’t have a set theme, you can see how they all are important in your life.