EIP Reflection

The process of writing the actual essay has been relatively easy. I think because of the other assignments we have completed like the annotated bibliography, the topic proposal, introductions, and the outline, the research part of the process was forced and made us look deeper into our subjects. Its almost like we could have combine all the lesser assignments together to create the essay.

Peer review actually helped me this time too. That would be the first. I'm thankful for having a partner that actually read my paper and gave me constructive criticism and useful suggestions that I used to improve my project.

There's only one more thing to do and that's turn it in.

Anticipation

I can not say much about this quote other than I LOVE IT.


Joey: How do you remember something that never happened?

Wilder: Fondly. You see, Flaubert believed that anticipation was the purest form of pleasure...and the most reliable. And that while the things that actually happen to you would invariably disappoint, the things that never happened to you would never dim. Never fade. They would always be engraved in your heart with a sort of sweet sadness.

Spring Break 2013

This is probably a cliche post because I'm sure everyone else did a similar post on how their week vacation was great, but mine really was.
I didn't believe anything could top last years trip to Miami, but my time spent in Myrtle beach this year was just as fun! I'm grateful that both years, I spent my vacations with good friends!

Saturday Night Adventures

Unlike your typical freshman college student, I chose to stay in and watch movies this past Saturday evening. Among the many choices on Netflix, there are only a few I haven't seen. Going through the list, my roommate suggested that The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas was "really good".  So not wanting to watch Bridesmaids or Mean Girls for the 50th time like my roommate also suggested, we agreed to watch this "really good" movie.

Okay now here is my review. It was not good.
The movie was set during the beginning of the Holocaust and based around a boy, Bruno, whose family, or more partially his father, was a Nazi. Not only was he a soldier, but he seemed to be "promoted" to run a concentration camp in which the family had to move. The eight year old Bruno was very curious, and especially desperate to make friends. He went "exploring", and what he found was much more than just a friend.

To cut to the chase, Bruno made friends with another eight year old, except this boy was bound by an electric fence. Their friendship consisted of Bruno sneaking him food and the boy in "pajamas" telling him about the camp. Bruno never really understood that it wasn't just some summer camp, or that his father was the one running things.

Bruno often mentioned the horrible smells the camp let off, and he knew it was wrong how the Jews were treated as servants in his own home. Still, he was desperate to keep his friendship with Shmul and Bruno decided to sneak into the camp so they could find Shmul's father. Little did he know that once he  climbed under that fence, that he was one of them. A few minutes later, you see Bruno, Shmul, and a pack of other Jews in the camp being lead to a building. Its needless to say what happened.

I was crying like a little baby.
Not only was the two boys' deaths upsetting, but throughout the whole movie, you see how Bruno's father and the other soldiers treated the Jews. I believe they even said that Jews were not human. One soldier says in reference to the smell from the camps "they smell even worse when they burn".

That ignorance literally turned my stomach. I was so disgusted with humanity, that not only at this point in time, but many times in history, there was one group of people that though they were so superior to another that they thought they had the right to treat them like animals, to treat them like they were nothing.

My heart hurts.

What is worse is that it wasn't just a movie, such events actually occurred and discrimination because  people are "different' still exist today.

Purpose

Lately, I have just been feeling purpose-less. I go to school, work, and the gym, and of course the remainders of my day consist of eating and sleeping, but that is it. Nothing I do is really important (or I just haven't realized it's importance). I feel like I am just going through the motions, and as I try to organize my thoughts, reassessing my priorities, I just get caught up in the daily events instead of focusing on the bigger picture.

I was just sitting in class today and every thing that we were suppose to be learning, was going in one ear and out the other. As much as I tried to take something from the lecture, it's relevance dissipated as it lingered on....and on...and on. I won't say what class it was, but I can be sure that none of the content that is presented in that particular class is going to be of any use in my future or career.

I just want everything I do to mean something. I want there to be a purpose.
I do not want to waste my time in a class that only provides me with insignificant information I might not ever need again. Take math for example, my career will have nothing to do with X's and Y's and Pythagorean theorem. I hate math. I can do all the basic math equations in my head, and I can tell time on an analog clock. That says a lot when this up-and-coming generation relies solely on their calculators for all their problems.

I mean, I do my work, I get good grades, and then I forget everything I only memorized for the test.

I'm not even certain of the career path I chose. Who is going to take a 4 foot 10 girl serious in law enforcement?

I just need a job where I can travel the world.

But still, whats the purpose in that? So I get to see beautiful places, but I'm not doing anything to better my life.

GAHHHH

The 90s

Okay, like some of my other posts, this one might not directly relate to our class.

Well, this past weekend, except today, it was particularly rainy.
And no, this is not a post about the weather again, although it was really nice today.
Anyhow, I spent this drag of a weekend watching reruns of the hit show Dawson Creek on netflix.
The show first aired in 1998. I mean that just sounds ancient.
So, the show is based around the lives of four teenagers and all that entails. I just found the show to be so interesting because of how much the world has changed since then.
TV shows today are more focused on sex, alcohol and drugs. If you watch MTV for a day, you'll view episodes of Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, Jersey Shore, and the latest addition to the reality show family, Buckwild.
In Dawson's Creek, cell phones weren't a necessity, and you actually had to talk to people, face to face, if you wanted to see them. And I'm sure social networks were not as prevalent as they are today. Facebook was not even created until 2004.
I don't know if it is just me, but the 90's seemed to be a lot simpler.

Blizzard of Febuary 16

After being a beautiful 63 degrees on Friday, the lovely city of Charlotte proved to be bipolar again when the very next day it dropped to 37 degrees and began snowing.

 The other people in my dorm were more than excited. They started having snowball fights with the little accumulation that there was. I even saw tiny snowmen built all over campus as we drove through after the hour flurry. Personally, I like to be warm and have saw enough snow that will last me a lifetime. "Give me summer!" was my thought!

So then today, it was 50 degrees, sunny, and bit breezy.
I wish this weather would make up its mind!

Mary Kay

 

 
So I recently signed up to start selling Mary Kay. After applying to many places and hearing no response, my friend introduced me to the Mary Kay business, telling me how I can make money by simply showing the products to my friends and friends of friends. 

I think this will be a great opportunity! I'm actually having my first "party" this weekend, where the girls who show up will receive free facials and samples of some of our products.
I'm really excited!!!

Interest Inventory

I just wanted to share my interest inventory with everyone!

I actually enjoyed doing this exercise because of all the things I had came up with. 

I think the most humorous column is the "people", I added the first people I thought of, which include a few smoking hot celebrities.

The other columns consisted of more serious topics, but still, was interesting to have thought of so many things in such a little amount of time.

Reflection

For this post, I would like to reflect on our class discussions. I think we have had many great discussions about various topics. I like to hear everyone's different perspectives on different topics as well. I think its good when you can relate to someone with the same views, but I also believe you should be able to open your mind and be acceptable of others and what they think.


I am a little behind on all the reading. I'll try to catch up tonight before class tomorrow.

And yeah, I still don't know what I am going to pick to do my paper on yet. I am someone who likes a little guidance on what to write, but I think I'll be able to handle the freedom here.

Campus is a little dull today. But, tomorrow is suppose to be nice.

First Post for English 1102: Wordle

This is my "Letter to You" paper put into a wordle. I had to take a picture of it on my phone because I couldn't find an alternative way of saving it, hence why the quality isn't so great. Hope you can still read it!

Final Reflection

Looking back over the course of this semester, this class has been very beneficial to my writing style. I think that it has very much so opened my mind and perspective up to various types of writing and ideas. One thing I was uncomfortable with, at first, was the improv exercises. I've never liked having the attention on me, but I guess once I realized everybody had to do the same thing, it grew on me. After talking to friends, I think we did a lot of different things in our class than others were required to do in their English 1101's, but overall I think that all the writing into the days, improvs, and group projects helped us grow as thinkers, and thus, as writers.

Final Literacy Narrative Reflection

I had a rough time with this literacy narrative. I'm not used to the type of revision we did in this class. Overall though, I am happy with how my final draft turned out. Lacy had said that the papers didn't necessary have to be good but they had to show change. Honestly, I can not be okay with something I did not being good, so hopefully my paper is changed for the the better.

Here is pictures of my revision and the work I did a long side the project.

Other revisions took place in the google docs themselves.

Heres a link to the final : Final Literacy Narrative

Ethnography Reflection

 
    
     In wasn't hard to figure out what I wanted to show through my blog post. Since our topic was relationships, it was fairly easy to relate. Every time I watch a movie or hear a great song, its more than likely one of the main themes will be associated with love. But how songs and movies portray love is very different from the reality of things some times. Not every relationship is gonna go through a terrible tradegy and fall more madly in love because of it.

Most of the work I had for the project was the set up of scenes and then me just commenting on my research or sharing my thoughts on the topic.

     Revising was not so much changing my work, but adding and subtracting things. Like editing the video consisted of many scenes being cut and then adding others where needed.

     Working in the group with Farrah and Kelsey was very productive. We each had our own ideas and what we wanted our overall project to look like. How we organized the project helped give everyone an equal part and I don't think anyone felt like someone did more than the other. We worked well together.

Reflection: Location

This week, I chose to reflect on a "Writing into the Day" we did on location about two weeks ago. 

I really enjoyed the quote, "Location is a collage of geography, memory, and sentiment, welded together and burnished by art and ideology".

It talks about how culture is inversely directed to location.

I relate because I have a lot of experience moving around when I was younger which also made the cultures around me change as well. I am who I am because all of the experiences and memories I had/created in each place. With the holidays coming up, all I've been thinking about is being home. And then I thought where is my "home"? When people ask me where I'm from, I always answer New Jersey…That is where I was born and raised, but I've lived in North Carolina for almost three years now…so should here be considered my home?

Mini Biblography

For a photo I've taken, the citation will look like this:

     Kids Skateboarding in Courtyard, UNCC, 30 Oct. 2012. Personal Photograph by Stefanie Testa


An interview with fellow students will be cited like this:

     Doe, John. Personal Interview. 1 Nov. 2012


Sound recordings are cited using the artist's name and title of the piece.
Since we plan on recording multiple people, we can condense the recorded material and give it a collaborative title.

     People of the Courtyard. "Relationship sounds". 15 Nov 2012
   

Group Project

For the first part of this group project, our group met in the library to discuss our topic further. We narrowed it done to compare the relationships between people on and off campus.

These photos are from the U-Walk apartments and the courtyard shared between Sanford and Moore.

Today was a bad day to observe the courtyard. It must have been far too cold for the usual skateboards. Everyone was just passing through to get to warmth. In the U-Walk, however, we observed a couple holding hands, and Farrah's roommates cuddled on the couch. There was also some people playing volleyball and guy sitting on the porch listening to music.

Interviews are to come.

Mapping

For this mapping assignment, I chose to observe the activities that go on in the Sandford/Moore Courtyard. I live in Holshouser, but I am a regular visitor of the courtyard and during the times I have been there, I have witnessed many things. Those things include people just passing through, others skateboarding, some just sitting waiting for others or a ride, and many people smoke hookah at night. I'd say its a very interesting place. It's kinda of the center where most of  us freshman's socialize.

Even on not-so-nice days, you can always find someone out here.

Lyrics

I was not in class on Wednesday so I don't have much inspiration to reflect on something. Instead, I think I will analyze.

I need to listen to music when I am studying/doing homework. It is a necessity. Sometimes, I admit, I can caught up in what I'm listening to and have to sing along.

I have two different playlist. One for my happy moods, and another for those depressing rainy days.

But okay, this is the literacy part…I keep reading tweets how "when you are a happy, you enjoy the music, but when you're sad, you listen to the lyrics".  I agree.

The music on my happy playlist are all upbeat, fast songs with catchy, yet, vacant choruses. They make you feel good, but the song it self doesn't have any lyrical value. And that is why I love depressing songs…These "depressing" songs, at least the ones I listen to, have depth and meaning. They tell a story and give me something to relate to. So, whenever I'm feeling lonely or sad, I listen to that playlist, not to make me more "depressed", but because I know someone has been there, done that, and maybe I'm not so alone in how I'm feeling.

Does anyone relate?

Here's my playlist, just in case you were wondering :)

Midterm Reflection

     
   

   For our writing groups' "mission", we met at the Atkins Library at 10 am on Tuesday Morning.
The process began by finding a mentor text to use for the project, something that might help us in our literacy narratives. Other groups told us they searched in magazines and short stories, so our group decided on a different route: Newspapers.

    Next, each of us looked through many of the available papers and Kristen found an article about a Bicycling Culture that we thought we could use and relate to our narratives and the culture we use in our own papers.

   But, first we had to photo copy the said article….which was difficult because we didn't know how to work the machine. Eventually someone helped us and we got it to work though…Luckily.

   Our next step was to read and analyze the article. We each took the time to read it individually and write down our thoughts. "Writing besides the text" wasn't has hard as we thought. I think we all had a lot to comment on from the piece and how it related to our own writing. See we always view culture as a place, where a person is from, but this article proved culture is more about what you do.