This part of the essay I changed a lot with my revisions. This particular paragraph was me explaining how motivated I was for success. I was willing to sacrifice good times in high school to pursue other things that would take me farther in life. I made a point to speak candidly about how I really felt playing band, and the reason why I put up with it anyway. I did this in an effort to be transparent about how I feel in my writing, and to not fake the truth anywhere. Additionally, I feel like it is a part where I improved my skill of analysis. At the beginning of the semester, I wrote a lot of stimulus, but not a lot of explanation and how/why. This is instance where I properly analyzed the way playing band actually made me feel. It is a major area where I have seen growth throughout the semester.

I used the word "envy" in my final draft because I truly felt that way about Sophia. In the moment, I wished that I could identify a passion like she could. I think including this word was important for me though because it shows that my mindset is confused. When I am envious of someone or something, usually it confuses my mindset. I begin to wonder how I can apply this to my own life. In this particular case, it made me wonder how passions relate to my own life. I like these two sentences because I feel like it gave good context for the second half of my essay. It added to the structure, and gave good indication of how I truly felt.

To further emphasize the point that I should write from my own experiences, I wanted to conclude the essay showing my uncertainty. I wanted to show how I am content right now, and I will just see if my journey through life provides me a passion along the way. In my initial conclusion, I wrote about how my mindset has truly changed from my time with my conversation partners. I tried to explain how I had a revelation between the relationship between money and happiness. However, I am more proud of this conclusion, where I showed my vulnerabilities and uncertainness.

I completely changed my pivotal moment from my first draft to my final draft. In my first draft, I struggled with finding my pivotal moment. I wanted it to be some big deal, and furthermore a moment that my conversation partners and I all acknowledged in the moment. This led me to exaggerate the truth about my pivotal moment. I wrote about how my mindset on the relationship between money and happiness changed. The problem is, my mindset didn't really change. I wrote about that because it was a cliche topic that could easily mapped throughout an essay. After my grading conference, I realized how bad it was and that it needed change. When I eventually went to change it, I wasn't sure what to do. I was looking for some big moment that just wasn't there. I eventually remembered the lesson that had been taught to us all year, and that is to write like yourself. Don't stretch the truth for the sake of the essay. That is when I decided to make my pivotal moment about how I was confused if I needed a passion in my life. The truth is, I am confused about that, so it made the rest of my essay easy to write. Since it was the truth coming from my own experience, it ended up being a good essay in my opinion.

I wrote this first paragraph to try and give context for the rest of my essay. I wanted to explain where my simple desire for wealth came from. I didn't really change this part much from my first draft to my final draft because I felt that what I was trying to say was already state simply and clearly. I wanted to explain how it was this desire for wealth that motivated me in life. Looking at it now, I feel like the paragraph is relatively weak in the fact that it doesn't add a lot the essay, however I kept it in at the time just so I could give context to the reader.

Since I originally wrote this piece in an attempt to navigate my interests, I wanted to conclude my revisions by coming full circle and explain why I believe it is so special. I want the reader to be able to visualize what this game means to me. I did this by adding descriptive language and explaining the exact way I feel in certain scenarios.

One thing I wanted to highlight in this piece in my revisions is the complexity of the game. In my opinion, many people don't understand the challenges associated with playing golf. For many, it looks like an easy game for unathletic people. I wanted to express how the golf swing itself is challenging, but also the mental aspect of the game is equally as hard. This aspect is often overlooked. Your attitude entering a round is greatly indicative of how you will play. I have learned that from playing countless rounds myself, and caddying for people on countless more.

In my free write, I wrote vaguely about the reasons it interested me. That was because I ran out of time to write though. For this final product, I decided to go a little more in depth about each aspect of the game that I love. One major part I changed from my free write is when I said, "Admittedly, after playing the same course a multitude of times, the effect it has on me diminishes". This was a big change for me because to me it shows growth in my writing. I used to write towards what I thought my reader would want to hear. I would write something very cliche like, "The more I play the course the more I love it". However, over the semester I have learned to state how things actually make me feel. If I don't enjoy something, I need to express that. If something confused my thinking, I can just say that. I know that is a small example, but it is indicative of a substantial change I have made in my writing.

This piece of writing originally came from a free write. It was a free write leading up to our inquiry essay research paper, and in my writing I was trying to think of a research topic. To do this, I started to write about what my interests are. I ended up just going off on a tangent about my love for golf though. I was thinking of all of the ways the game is meaningful to me, and I tried to prove why it is a valid interest of mine.