Past the Point of No Return

Well, it's done. I've pressed the 'save and submit' button and there is no going back.

As much as I am grateful that I am finally done with my final portfolio I almost wish I could have had another week. Writing the cover letter for my portfolio made me realize all the unique skills I have learned throughout this course. I also feel more confident about working within academic inquiry and that makes me want to write both of my papers all over again.

When I entered this English class I thought of myself as an okay writer. I could put together well-done papers that were intelligent, but I realize now that my writing lacked a life. It had a voice, but the voice of only a fraction of what it could be. In redefining the essay I feel I was able to truly bring my writing to life, and the prospect of getting to do that for the rest of my life is so exciting.

To my classmates, take some time to breathe this weekend as you hit the books to study for you remaining finals. We've done some incredible work this semester, and its time to realize that this is only the beginning of the much greater work we have ahead of us.

Good luck to you all and I hope to continue to see you all around campus!

The End

Well this is it. The semester is over and so is this class too; It has been quite an experience. This following week we will all be stressing out about the other hundred finals that we have to take, but we also have everything plan up as to how to study, what to study, where to study, dont we? Anyways, I hope you guys all have an amazing break and enjoy your time back home! It was one of the most interesting class that I had this semester, with a lot of interesting people. It was great to get to know all of you, and hopefully we will see each other again in some other classes. Again, thank you Dr. Ballenger for your effort and great feedback on every single paper that we did this semester. It is truly appreciated. Have a nice break!

Last Blog Post

Well here we are. El fin. I write this sitting in the last few minutes of my last class for the semester. It's been a rough one that's for sure. Between the internships, speech and debate, two jobs, and an 18 credit course load, it's fair to say I overcommitted. I did want to spend this time/ space complaining about the fact that I'm going to get heavily docked for not blogging more often, but that would be a fruitless endeavor, so instead, I'll do what I'm supposed to and talk about the final portfolio.

The revision process has been helpful. It was nice to have all of Ballenger's comments to work with and it gave me enough to heavily revise my papers without having to take it through much more revision process. 20 pages sounded long for a portfolio but Ballenger did an effective job of getting us prepared for it ahead of time. Because I've been keeping up with most of the revision suggestions throughout the semester, this actual portfolio hasn't been too stressful, which is a beacon of light during dead week where there were about a million other things I could barely handle.
I wish there was more of an emphasis on the connections. I feel like the most important thing we can do is connect the concepts of our papers not only to the course (which we do briefly in the cover sheet) but also to outside the classroom. Understanding how the ideas we discuss apply outside of the course is the most important thing we could possibly do as students. The deeper connections to the world are what we ought to seek in our college classes.

I hope this class in the future is as structured on that as much as possible. Ballenger does as better job than most professors of tapping into our interconnectivity to world issues / the big ideas.

One Last Post

So I just hit submit on my final portfolio. Yeah, that was a little nerve racking. But I guess I am done with this class now. And I just wanted to say thanks to Dr. Ballenger for everything. You accomplished a hard task, to actually get me to enjoy my English class. But I honestly think that everything that I have learned in this class, will help me in my writing in my future classes and beyond that. I also want to thank everyone else. For listening to me while I read twelve pages on gluten or giving me good feedback on my brochure, it was all helpful and I really do appreciate it. But it's not really a goodbye. I will see everyone around campus, especially since we're all in Honors. Good luck to everyone on your portfolio and on the rest of your finals! Just remember that Christmas Day is only fifteen short days away :)

Take Time to Smell The Cheese

I've known what I've had to do for finals for the past two weeks. I've made a plan and had a handle on it. For no reason at all, all of that went flying out the window today.

Suddenly everything became overwhelming. Something was pushed over the edge and went from a lot of stuff to do and accomplish to This is too much... I am so stressed... I am so TIRED...I just...I just....CAN'T!

So, naturally, I call my mom.

After she proceeds to tell me exactly what I expected from her, "This is totally normal and ok to be feeling this way" I barely feel any better. My mother even says, "You're flying back in a week! We can't wait to see you!" and I reply, "Nope. Not *sniff* helping Mom. *sob* I just miss you more."

Her response?

These: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngz1hNBEDx0 (Good Morning)
           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijkg48_OYlQ (Take Time to Smell the Cheese) <-------

When I was younger, Bear in the Big Blue House was a favorite of mine, and to make my current stress level decrease, she sent me Bear.

It didn't help much, but it certainly brightened my day.

So if you're feeling particularly stressed, just remember to take time to smell the cheese. :)

The Final Stretch

I can't believe my first semester of college is practically over. Two more finals to get through and I am done! It truly flew by. I am going to miss Dr. Ballenger's class because it was totally different from all of my other classes. It was great to get away from math and science for awhile and enjoy English. I had fun writing different types of essays and learning more about myself. I need to finish revising my personal and my research essay but I would have to say I am almost done with those. I have written my cover letter (of course it needs a little revising) but that was the last writing assignment I had to do for this class. Now I need to be brave and submit my work onto my portfolio :)  I have learned a lot from my peers this semester in this class. I think everyone's constructive criticism and advice helped me become a better writer. I have had a great semester but I am definitely looking forward to Christmas break! So, the countdown begins.

The "hash and re-mash"

I would like to share my wonderful experience with what I would lovingly like to call the "hash and re-mash" of my research essay. As you may have read before, I was stuck. The amount of times I had deleted and rewritten my research paper had become disgusting and I was losing patience and motivation...fast. So I printed out what I had, grabbed my scissors and set up camp in the Driscoll lobby. See, I had done a different dance of the "hash and re-mash" before when I was working on my senior project but this was new. I literally chopped and labeled, wrote and pasted, and my work space expanded wider and wider until I was starting to see an essay, a conversation. I took a break then went back to work later, adding pages of handwritten information. Then I typed up the paper. Without a conclusion, without all the information I still wanted to add, without citations, I had hit the 9 page mark and I was ecstatic. I had learned the importance behind seeing your project as one piece rather than a long thought. I finally have gotten somewhere and learned what I feel was jumping out at me this whole class. I learned I need to always do this with my writing. This is the epiphany I was waiting for in this class and I am now viewing writing in a vastly different way.