journal entry #1
After so much wondering and worrying about college, here we are finishing off our first week of college. Starting a new point of my life through a screen wasn’t in my plans. Online learning has been difficult, trying to concentrate at home with all the noise and chatter. The work load isn’t too much to handle but learning in school and getting the experience of college is what I desired most. I really would have liked to meet my teachers, have conversations one on one and receiving advice from professors is what any college student experienced except us, class of 2020. I miss meeting students and working on hw or school work and projects but now we meet our classmates through a screen. I hope all this ends soon and we go back to normal… well, almost normal.
Although not everything is negative, my classes are going smoothly and teachers are super understanding. I do have more time to get my work done and find time for myself. Although it can be tough to concentrate on lectures i manage to find a quiet place in my house to really focus on my work. I love writing, i hope this class helps me improve in my writing because i feel like there’s still a lot to learn. I researched a little bit more about psychopathology and its a very interesting topic. Even with the first article analysis, i felt like i learned so much. Im planning on majoring in psychology so reading that article showed me that i really do want to pursue in my profession. I hope to build more knowledge on psychopathology and improve in my writing skills.
Although i met all my classmates through a screen and through discussions, they seem to be nice supportive people. the discussions in this class really showed me the kindness of most students. They seem to be dedicated into their work. I think we can inspire each other to work harder and give each other feedback or ideas. I’m excited to learn more about my peers and how we can help each other through this course.
journal entry #2
The articles for this week have been really interesting ! The articles I’ve liked most were Shirley Jackson’s short story “the Daemon Lover” and the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”by Charlotte Perkins. I think these articles pinpoint a very important topic. These stories show us how women used to live years back, we can see how they were treated and how they acted. In the short story we see the characters being silenced for being women. In the story “The Yellow Paper”, we see how hurt the main character feels after being controlled by all the male figures in her life. I love how my peers feel the same way about feminism. I can recall one of my peers, Diego, talking about feminism in the story. I think it’s important for more men to support feminism and understand it as well. The story “the Daemon Lover” in my opinion also touches on feminism because we can see how this young lady stressed so much to look her best for everyone around her including her husband. She tries to find her fiancé by asking people and they all laugh at her as if she was a crazy lady.
journal entry #3
This week has been a new experience for me. Before intrigued hit our country and when we all went to school, i always peer reviewed my classmates paper but with a hard copy in fornt of us. I think it was a new experience doing it online. however, It was still very effective, i thought the feedback of both Violet and Diego were very helpful. I was happy to see that they enjoyed my writing. Violet had mentioned that she strongly believed in what i supported which made me realize how were all in this fight together. Diego’s narrative was based on somewhat the same idea. i love how men can stick on our side and unity to bring change in the world.
journal entry #4
We have just finished our very first personal narrative! For me its hard to write personal papers. I’ve always struggled to talk about experiences in my life as it makes me uncomfortable. I love writing because its something that comes easily to me like a math teacher with math. However, with personal writings I never know when its to much or if it even relates to the text. I think this was a very challenging task for me but I tried my best and gave it my all. Overall, I think I did a pretty good job in connecting the story to my own experiences rather than other peoples experience. What helped me the most was the feedback my peers gave me and professor Otte’s feedback. This assignment really helped me step out of my comfort zone and I look forward to better my personal writings in upcoming events.
journal entry #5
For our class discussion this week we discussed a new topic of magical realism. I found this topic to be interesting considering that the story is all made up but still has some true meaning behind it. I like reading these type of stories because although we are told there are no such thing as beasts or mystical creatures, imagining that we can live among these creatures is fascinating. I think writing stories like these would be interesting. I remember writing fantasy stories in elementary school but maybe writing these stories would be fun during these times of worry. It would be a challenge to write a story with magical realism because it would trigger your creativity and creativity isn’t my best skill. This gave me an idea to write with friends or family. Creating stories together would bring us together as one and can be investing to see what we come up with.
journal entry #6
Today I found that I got a good score on my personal narrative. I feel like my writing really improved with the feedback of my peers. I wasn’t very confident with my writing at first, I felt like it wasn’t my best piece of writing. However after the editing I did with the feedback that was given by both my professor, I felt confident with my writing. We are starting a new task today. I hope I feel confident with my first draft, and get an even higher score in this assignment.
journal entry #7
This week has been a bit stressful with all the homework and studying, I barely had to time to do some of my personal activities. But its a new week with new experiences. On October 15 we were assigned to add the research articles we would use for our writing. I went through some of the articles my peers shared and all them had great choices. I even used on the articles to help me write my paper. All of us have a strong claim and I honestly think we all did a good job with our writings. It would have been nice if we all had a conversion of what we plan to do with the research part of the paper that way it would be easier to write it conserving all the new ideas that my peers would have given.
journal entry #8
On October 22 we were assigned to read “The Disembodied Lady” by Oliver Sacks. This story was fascinating to me, it was one of my favorite readings in all the course. To keep it short, the story was about a girl who from one day to the other wakes up unable to move her whole entire body. she has a dream of something like this happening to her. In my opinion the author wrote this story to show tha audience how powerful the brain can be. in my psychology class we learn how the brain works and how important every system is. this story reminded me of what Professor Bob Malera said about the brain being on the complex’s system in our body. To the point where the brain has not been discovered completely. another reason as to why i think Sacks wrote this story was to show the audience to love and care for your body. the main character of the story suddenly looses all her movement in her body, but before this incident i dont think she appreciated her body until something so tragic happened to her.
journal entry #9
on October 27 we read the story of David Malera’ “Now We Are Five” and to me this story was a bit confusing. to recap the story, Tiffany commits suicide and her family is grieving. However, her brother makes some harsh remarks about her. Me and my peers think it his way of coping with his sisters death. when my uncle died I never acted the way tiffanies brother did. but then again he might be mad about how his sister handled the situations in school. In the stories we can also see how the mom, dad, and brother all made jokes about her death. Im a person who makes jokes about the events in my life but never of a loved one dying.
journal entry #10
halloween is my favorite “holiday” of the year. I love that you can be anyone you want for the night. you can be a princess, a hero, a monster anything you want and act it out. but what I especially love is the free candy ! I was never a fan of scary movies but always a fan of scary stories. I would go to the library and pick out mostly scary stories. I think I’ve read all the scary stories in my local library lol. As I grew older I fell in love with scary movies. however, the movies I like seeing are the ones with a good plot like the conjuring or Annabelle with some sort of reality. I hate gruesome movies like the human centipede or saw. to me there isn’t a point of making these types of movies. on October 29 we were assigned to read one of Stephen Kings stories. I love his stories they always have a good plot and always have you at the edge of your seat.
journal entry #11
On December 1 we were assigned to read “Elliot Spencer,” by George Saunders. In our discussion professor Otte told us to talk about the language of the story. I feel like this story relates to a lot of people. for example the language of this story was to use grammatical errors. I feel like at one point of our lives we write just to write. for example when i use to write a journal on my own, i wrote however i wanted because it was mine. but in a way it was how i represent myself. i am not perfect and nor is writing. my poor grammer shows others the real me, the girl with flaws. this type of language used in the book also helps us to learn with the character. i can relate this with a journal, in some way we are also learning from our journals. i feel like our journals is like a person waiting to see what happens next. just like us waiting to see what happens next to Elliot.
journal entry #12
I can’t believe this our last journal entry. in one way or another this has helped me get back with my old habits of writing in my journal. with everything going on and life getting crazier by the minute, i forget to jot down everything i am feeling and bottle everything in. throughout this course i met some amazing people, although we couldn’t meet in person, i met there creativity and their ideas. Professor Otte was a great professor the curriculum was amazing. my favorite part of this course was the journal entries it gave me an opportunity to dig deeper into the assignments without fearing someone might judge me or think im wrong. i also like that we explored many mental illness through literature. ive learned a lot throughout this course and i am hoping to use the skills ive learned to be the best in my next classes. i hope to get more classes like this in future where i am intrigued to learn in every class.
