The Last Week of Classes

This week in English has been especially slow moving which may have something to do with the fact that after next week school is out. It’s almost the end of freshman year, and I feel so overwhelmed. Between this class and the others it’s become taxing on my mind to think of what all I have to do before I can finally relax. For this class alone, I have three papers I have to revise and in one of those three papers I have to correlate what I’m writing to a page. What makes this week even more stressful is that I just don’t have the time to do anything, Thursday after school I have job training as well as Friday and most of Saturday. If screaming would help trust me I would. Not to mention Sunday night at midnight I have to help with the midnight breakfast in my dorm because I’m a floor President. This blog is probably the most I’ve ranted and raved (but don’t take my word for it, because I don’t remember). I will miss this class for how small it is and the fact that I’m already comfortable with the teacher. Anyways back on this week.. Monday the teacher gave us more tools to make our papers the best that they can be; Wednesday (today) we caught up on blogs and worked on our portfolios more. What’s planned for Friday is outlining our timed reflection and next week classes are over. Here’s to hoping for the best, wish me luck. :)

Another Scary Monday ( Last Monday)

So this last past Monday, I found myself at the center of attention as I read my paper aloud to the class. Personally I don’t really have a problem with public speaking, because once I’m in the swing of things I’m ok, but it’s the symptoms I have that are ridiculous. I heat up and cool down rapidly, then I begin shaking and my voice sounds shaky, wonderful right? Well anyways I was really surprised on the feedback I received for my paper. Many people in the class said that they liked my paper, but what I found to be most intriguing was the fact that a lot of people wanted me to expand more on the ideas. It makes me laugh on the inside (with happiness) that people are interested in my paper and even want to know more. On Wednesday I met with Ms. Neubauer to discuss what I was doing for my portfolio. It was really hard for me to decide what papers to put in my portfolio because some of my papers were more developed than the others. The thing was the papers that were more developed I lacked the drive and determination to finish. Ms. Neubauer helped me figure what I had to do for all the possible papers. On Friday there was once again no class for which I was very thankful for because I desperately needed to rest.

All Caught Up

Monday began with me being discussion leader. I didn’t really know what to do except to say except next, in fact now that I think about it I really don’t see the point in having a discussion leader, except to put one person on the spot when the movement of the feedback stops. It was a bit nerve racking personally and I found myself accidently speaking quiet when I should have been loud and vice versa. However it was another week of work shopping each other paper’s. Surprised as I am, I’m not bored with critiquing papers yet, mainly because it is very interesting to see what people wrote about. It’s almost like getting to know each other by our interests, like if you have passion behind what you wrote it shows, and I love when I see that. I only hope next week when it is my turn my passion shows in my paper. Although I’m not sure how much passion you can have behind a visual analysis paper. I mean some papers don’t and sot of can’t have that much passion behind it, but it all depends on the type paper it is. I did feel particularly awkward during this week when reviewing one person’s paper. As much as I’d like to believe that race doesn’t matter and all that jazz, sometimes some of the things people say without thinking it through can be frustrating. One student wrote his paper about how two black athletes made realizing African Americans are equals possible (basically) when to me being a minority I see that yes every step we take makes seeing that we are equals better but it doesn’t mean that everyone sees us equals because of those two athletes. Well anyways I pointed out the flaw and the awkwardness was over, and tat was this week.

Two Blogs Late : |

So this is the week we began work shopping our papers (Which is something we are still doing). The way that work shopping our papers works is we get a copy of someone’s paper then the owner of the paper reads their paper aloud to everyone, as the listeners we are supposed to critique the paper like in peer revision. However on top of doing our regular peer revisions individually, we are assigned a specific sections o the rubric to look at in the paper. Then from there the discussion leader leads the discussion by telling people to take their turn and share with the class what they believed could be worked on in he paper. Personally I really liked this way of reviewing the paper because everyone has their own style of writing and has been taught ever slightly different forms of English. Thus revising papers like this is really helpful because if one person didn’t catch one mistake another person might, also since everyone has their own individual strengths they bring that to the table as well.

Three Blogs Late :/

During this week we presented our group projects, my group was second to go. I was really nervous because we were one of the first few groups and therefore we didn’t have a lot to look to as an example of how to present. Our grouped had agreed to let Dena be the presenter as her part of share of the project. Although that’s what we agreed on we all ended up contributing to the presentation a bit. While being nervous I was also excited because everyone got to see our group’s page and I worked really hard on the page. The facebook page wasn’t finished, but to put it simply, it was my baby, I was very proud of it. After our presentation though, it became apparent that other groups worked very hard as well, if not harder. The group that did the page on Woodworth was very well put together and I thought the information that they put into it was very informative and impressing. Other than that group the only other group that really sticks out in my mind is the group that did the smoking hangout. I thoroughly enjoyed all the effort that put into it, and it was very intriguing to see how many people really got into their page. It was a combination of the people that took interest in the paper as well as the videos that were put up that made their project the most intriguing to me.

This Week Flew By

This week in class we continued to work on our group projects, I managed to make my other two group members administrators. We discussed our plan of attack and what else we needed to get done before the day that we are supposed to present. I also started the beginnings of the group reflection, though later I found out that was optional. Monday we met at the library to learn how to incorporate maps and other things to that effect into our group presentation and on the webpage. I arrived late so I didn’t get all of the information, but what I did learn I thought was very interesting. I think it’s fairly intriguing that they have maps of the campus at different times throughout its history. Honestly I had never given it much thought to the fact that there were so many different places for such specific things like where class was held at. Once Friday came around, I had completely spaced the fact that I was supposed to sign up for a test slot at LC for the timed writing. I was able to set up a time after my last class of the day. While I enjoyed the reading material that went along with the writing, I became increasing worried about how my paper was going. Personally I feel that my writing skills have become rather lazed and not portraying the writing level I was at before I left High School. I in no way think it’s my English class but rather just myself, however I shall leave it up to the teacher to decide where my writing ability is at.

Group project

This week was a short week in class. We had one class day which was Monday, and during that day we got in groups and discussed our group plan as well as when and who was going to the destination of our fan page. My group’s fan page is about the Student Center here on campus. It was my idea to do the Student center, mainly because it houses one of my favorite eateries which is Taco Bell. Other than that, I thought it would be a good place to do a fan page about because of all the things that happen there as well as what the Student Center has to offer. Tuesday was the day that my group members and I were supposed to go individually to the Student Center. I went late at night and went to each and every level taking pictures, and exploring. I found quite a few interesting places that I didn’t know existed and also investigated places I had only heard of and never seen. It was a fun experience, but to be honest any opportunity I get to explore (and I’m not in any real danger) is fun to me. Wednesday during normal class time my group and I were supposed to meet up and eat breakfast and discuss who was going to specific parts of the group project. Unfortunately no one showed up, but I spent the rest of the week e-mailing them when I had something to communicate. Other than that I’m still a bit cloudy on who is doing what for the group project, but since we have a class tomorrow hopefully seeing my group members in person will clear things up.

Mr. Kopell

The information that I read about pertaining to Ted Koppel, had to do with California prison. This was the information under the link named Discovery Channel, and the article was called “Breaking Point”. Upon watching the video I did read the article “The Breaking Point,” which I suppose was kind of like a written out version of the video. In the article I was surprised to find out just how much the prison are overflowing and what they are willing to do in order to solve the problem. According to the article they are willing to just release inmates, which is fairly unnerving. The video that I watched (I’m actually not sure if it was the right one) didn’t go into as much depth about the issues as I was expecting though I did get to Ted Koppel in action for the first time. Even still I felt as though the article did a better job o0f explaining what Mr. Koppel was doing there at the California prison and what he found out. It was interesting to also see the inside of the prison, but the conditions that they live in and what everyone has to go through to keep the prison going doesn’t seem worth it. Though I am unsure what they can do and have no different ideas from what they are already doing. It’s all very concerning and I know that California’s prison isn’t the only place having these problems, but still I have no idea how to fix it.

Interesting on Different Levels

So the title of this blog is interesting on different levels, and the reason being because of my one on one visit with Ms. Neubauer on Tuesday because I was unable to make it to class the preceding Monday. On Tuesday she helped me go through my Project 2 “rough draft” and she gave me some good on ideas on how to better improve and build from what I had. Though I have already started my revision for my paper I feel as though I’m not grasping the concept of visual analysis, she helped me organize the ideas. Ms. Neubauer asked questions and through the questions I began to see the many different avenues I could write about. This session with her caused me to look at my memories in a different way, and seeing things from a different perspective than my child’s perception of what was going on. When trying to incorporate the ideas that Ms. Neubauer and I came up with, I discovered that my writing style tends to lean towards story telling. So just taking a picture and then completely analyzing it was fairly difficult, because I found myself wanting to write a story rather than what I saw.

Conference for Project 1

This week in class we had one day of regular class and the rest of the week was reserved for individual conferences. During the individual conference we were going to be going over our Project 1 paper after it had been revised for the instructor. My paper was on the how my interethnic family and I fit into our community as well as how being an interethnic person is on campus. My conference was scheduled for Friday. Once at the conference, Ms.Neubauer and I went over my paper, basically I was confused as to what she meant when she had said my paper sort of reminded her of the short story “Mother Tongue.” Before I had talked to her I had been struggling to see the correlation between the two, but Ms. Neubauer cleared up my confusion. Overall I felt my conference was very productive, she helped me get a better idea for project 2. She also talked about a creative writing activity which I found to be very interesting; the writing assignment entailed walking into a room then writing about everything that we see but in depth. Personally I like activities like that, it seems the more I write the more I begin to see that I really enjoy it and that I always have. I don’t really want to change my major but I wonder how I can incorporate my desire to write (whether just plain writing or writing poetry) and something I want to do for the rest of my life. That is if I could even get good enough to really write professionally, who knows, only time will tell as the old saying goes.

Finally in the Groove

During this week I feel as though I’m getting back into the groove of things. Even though in class I know I still have a few assignments that I haven’t turned in on time, I’m beginning to get back into the swing of things. During this week, we have been working a lot on gearing up to revise our project 1 papers. We have also been doing these readings, in which we respond to one of two prompts given to us by our fellow classmates. One of the prompts that we did was based off of Rhonda J. Stanton’s “Multicultural Communications: Back to the Basics.” Personally I responded to Andrew’s prompt, I actually thought the question was truly interesting. I thought it was interesting because it was something I had never really thought about, I never think about the fact that if a product isn’t advertised well enough that I may not buy it. It wasn’t just that the question was different, because sitting here and writing this down I realize it wasn’t so different, but it was what it made think of. As I wrote in response to the prompt, I have not bought a product due to poor advertising, but rather the lack of advertising. On another note on Friday in class we read the equivalent of a student handbook for Ball State Students. We did not read the whole thing but only an excerpt, and from that excerpt we answered another prompt. I found it hard to add or take away anything from the guidelines already laid out. Other than that this week feels like the first week I’m back on track, I intend to get caught up in this class and stay that way.

Personality Type

During this week in class we had to start our first project were we tied Multiculturism into the Community. I choose to talk about what its like being in a multicultural family and how we fit in where we live. Another thing that we were asked to do specifically for this week’s blog, was our teacher asked us to take a personality type quiz. The Quiz is called “The Insight Game,” and basically it asks you a long line of different questions pertaining to how you see yourself. The game was played with electronic cards in which you would read both sides of the card and decide from the two options given, what would be the answer to best describe yourself. Personally during the game/quiz I was frustrated with not having the option to choose both or none of the choices given. Making it to where you only have two options is good but there are times were you truly resemble both answers so by forcing you to choose one or the other to me was a false representation of my personality for those questions. Nevertheless my personality type was ENFP which are considered to be open minded and caring. For the most part I felt like this personality type was me in a nut shell, but just not exactly. Then again I don’t think anything can be exact when it comes to people.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Concert

For class we were required to participate in a multicultural activity, all in honor of Unity week. The activity that I chose to participate in was The Martin Luther King Jr. Concert. This concert was held in Sursa hall, which is newly completed music hall on campus. As I sat through the performances, I began to realize how much different cultures were incorporated in the ensemble. There were Asian performers singing in their own language, and even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying I really liked how their music spoke for them. Whether it was sad, happy, or silly, for the most part you could understand. Aside from the Asian performers, there were a couple of instrumental pieces and choir contributions. Also in between the performances there were excerpts from an interview on the retractable screen.
These interviews were mainly with people who lived during the Civil Rights Era in Muncie. It was interesting to see how things have and haven’t changed when it comes to segregation. To go a little more in depth about, a few of the people interviewed spoke of how they had to move to a certain part of town just because of their ethnicity, and also how going to school during that time was. A lady (whose name escapes me) was an honor student who was never recognized for her academic achievements, even though people who were ranked in front of and behind her in class rankings were acknowledged. Even now I still see segregation of sorts even on Ball State campus. Being that I am part African American, I am still counted as a African American. So those interviews were intriguing in the sense that now I know that Muncie (being such a tiny city so to speak) is a bit behind in becoming culturally diverse.
Some of things that shocked me when I was at the concert were how many people of different cultures seemed to be there. Even more shocking was how many people got into the spirit of the evening. People got up and clapped their hands if the performances moved them to and many people bobbed their heads to the music. My favorite performance of the night besides the instrumentals (which I really liked) was the Voices of Triumph Choir, because a few of my friends were performing and I had no idea. It was a nice surprise and they were really good. All the music by the various performers, gave me goose bumps and I normally only get goose bumps when the music is really good and sort of speaks to me. The whole was really great in the sense that there was good music, a good audience and it was all in celebration of a great man.

New Semester

So this was the first week back at school in the new Semester. This is the beginning of a new English class, and it is the next level up which is 102. This week started as if last semester had never ended or at least that’s what it felt like for the most part. We have only a few new classmates and are missing a few of the old; on top of that we began immediately working on something we had done last semester. Even our syllabus is very similar to the old one. We were asked to revise and shorten our student made protocols for class from last semester. When doing so many of my fellow classmates and I discovered we had repeated ourselves quite a few times, so we had to try and say the same things but in less words to try and fit the protocols on one page instead of three. We had a lot of group work and were briefed on what is expected of us in the weeks to come. We were supposed to pick an activity in which to participate in outside of the classroom. The first activity that was coming up was the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day happening the following Monday. Anyways after picking a activity we were asked to post what we picked and be prepared to blog about it during the week our activity took place. I choose to go to the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert, which I will be blogging about next week.