When I was writing my final self-evaluation for this class, I was trying to write what I thought about my attention to blog posts. After writing about how my quality of work has changed and grown since the beginning of the semester for a sentence or two, I then went on to talk about my pacing and said, “I tried stay on top of my blog posts at the beginning of the semester, but life got in the way,” and for some reason this really stuck out to me after I wrote it down. Continue reading ““life got in the way””
English Class Trust
When I talked to my mom about college classes the number one thing that I would bring up is that I really like English classes. When she would ask me why I would say something like, “well, in most classes I would usually only know the people that sit next to me, but in my English classes I know every person’s name. I really like the group comradery in it. It feels a lot like I’m back in high school”. This has become probably one of the main reasons that I continue to take English classes and why I made it my second major, almost like it feels like a breath of fresh air compared to some of my other classes where we all stare at a PowerPoint and try to jot down the notes as fast as possible before the professors changes the slides. Continue reading “English Class Trust”
Technological Determinism in English Class
As a Teaching Assistant for the communication course at Geneseo titled “Mass Media and Society”, it is my job to take the work that we are doing that week in class and apply it my life and the lives of the students in the class, and particularly our lives as millennials and what matters to us and create a fifteen-minute discussion section each Thursday. Last week, our focus on class was on technological determinism. This is the idea that technology plays a big role on us and the way that we live, learn, and grow. It shapes our society and the way that we come to conclusions. For this week’s discussion section, I wanted to focus on the question: what goes away when our technology goes away? Continue reading “Technological Determinism in English Class”
The Barbie Savior
I find this class really funny. It isn’t because the course material is something to laugh about or even that we crake jokes in class. It is however the fact that you don’t realize the stuff we are talking about in class is a problem until you are told about it. It is like all of a sudden the world is a different place; you suddenly see the problem everywhere you look. And the place that is shocked me the most: medical volunteerism. Professor McCoy talks about it and shows us an article about it and then all of a sudden, I can’t not find ways to connect it. Continue reading “The Barbie Savior”
A New York City Infection
For all intents and purposes, I am a New York City girl. Although I grew up in Westchester, I have been going in and out of the city about twice a week since the time I was sixteen. I was fourteen when my parents let me go on the train by myself, I was sixteen when I got my heavily used metro card and I was eighteen when I got my first summer internship in the city; going through the hustle and bustle of the NYC five days a week from 8:30 AM to 6:30 PM. So for some odd reason, I feel some sort of comfort as we are reading Zone One like I have the upper hand advantage on this one.
It is true that I have never been infected by a disease that turned me into a zombie, but I very well could be. The line that altered me to this fate the most was, “Just another day at the office when she gets bit by some New York whacko while loading up on spring mix at the corner deli’s Salad Lounge. Full of plague but unaware” (p.18) . This line made me giggle as we were reading aloud in class because it was a scene that was almost all too familiar in the scariest sense possible.
When you are in the city something chances, it is almost like the rules change; your expectations change. The ways that you interact with someone in the suburbs is totally different from the way you interact with that same person in the city. If someone were to bite you in the suburbs, you would have stopped what you are doing, told the manager, called the police, probably told the town paper and altered everyone that you know about this problem. In the city however it goes like this; someone bites you, you stop, you roll your eyes, maybe curse at them, and then continue on with your day. I cannot even fault the woman who was infected because it is the way that I, as well as almost every other New Yorker, would have handled this situation. This book works so well because it is so true to its setting. It is the way that New Yorkers would have interacted and while it might shock some who don’t know NYC, it is a complete and total representation of life in the city.
Clay’s Ark or Vampire Movies?
As a communication major with a specialization in media, I often think about what something might like in a movie or television show when reading books in class. This idea has always been something I think about because the way that a scene is written in a book is so different from the way that it is written in a script that it can often change the way that we feel about the setting, the characters, and the scene in general. This really came to mind when we were discussing Clay’s Ark. Continue reading “Clay’s Ark or Vampire Movies?”
Another Year of Zulus
When I found out that we were going to be reading Zulus in this class, I couldn’t tell if I was excited or annoyed. Maybe it was because I had read it before that I thought this was going to be a breeze or maybe it was the fact that I had read it before that I knew it was going to be a difficult book to get through, for a second time. But holding the same book in my hand that I did last year, reading the same words that I had done just a year ago, I feel as though I am reading a completely different book. Continue reading “Another Year of Zulus”
Our “Good” Deeds
When we were in class talking about medical “voluntourism” it was easy for my classmates and I who were clustered up to talk about how absurd this idea might be. Even reading it, it seems crazy, that a retired police officer was performing circumcisions and delivering babies in these countries that “need it”. Now if you keep reading you learn that it is not really about going to a place that was in dire need of this assistance, but more about the volunteers coming in for their own needs, their need for something good on a resume. Continue reading “Our “Good” Deeds”
My Geneseo “English Class” Rule
When I first decided to double major and add the English major to my course schedule here at Geneseo, I was told by a friend who was an English student to take your English classes slowly. When I asked her why she stated, “English classes are all different, the professors are different they ask for different things, you expect different things from each class”. So that is precisely what I have been doing, since my freshman year I have been taking one English class a semester, slowly getting through the English major and very quickly getting through my Communication major. Continue reading “My Geneseo “English Class” Rule”
A Medical First Week at Geneseo
When I decided to take this class, I knew that I wanted to gain something from this course, but I did not know how immediately the ideas brought up in class would start to connect with me. When I woke up on Monday morning, just one days into my junior year of college, I had immediate tooth pain. It was the kind of pain that keeps you up for hours at night as you switch from applying hot water for fifteen minutes to applying ice for fifteen minutes just to keep yourself busy so you don’t lose your mind or your patience. After two days of this I knew it was time to drive myself to one of the four dentists in Geneseo and found out it was a root canal Continue reading “A Medical First Week at Geneseo”