I was thinking today about the improvements I have made from the beginning of this course until now. I think that I have opened up a bit more in my work and gained a little bit more confidence in my writing skills now that I have spent the last few months constantly writing something. I’m hoping that I can take the skills that I have learned and apply them in my life moving forward. I only say this because I was thinking about my old job in Germany and I feel like I didn’t take much from what I learned away with me.
I was a video trainer. I created online videos for Microsoft Office 2013 and Windows 8 so that schools and companies could use our product in the same screen of the Microsoft application that is being used. This job was hard for me. I am a very quiet person, I like to keep to myself and don’t really want to be noticed. Being the center of attention and teaching something made me extremely nervous. During this time, I learned how to work in front of a camera, read off a teleprompter and do voice over work. It took me a long time to find a way to be comfortable in this situation and by the end I still wasn’t confident in what I was doing. I think the fear of maybe not teaching something in a way that made sense to everyone made me nervous and would give us negative reviews. Today was the first day that I have ever bothered to look up the reviews for the courses that I have done. To my surprise there wasn’t a negative one out there. I was sure that my courses were not good and a big disappointment to myself. But seeing what people said about how they learned things and liked my style, I am starting to think now that maybe this whole time I was extremely hard on myself. I think I need to take a step back in the things I do and go with my first instinct because that is when I do best. Instead of doubting myself I should realize I have the potential. I’m hoping now I can start to move forward, because this sense of failure I had held me back in some things that I do. Now that I am done with my tangent, I guess what I am trying to say is that this course has helped me gain a bit more confidence in my writing which is big because I was not looking forward to this at the beginning. I am happy that this course ended up in my curriculum.
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![]() Over the Holiday I started watching the new series Planet Earth II. I have always been a fan of the series since the beginning and am thrilled it is out again. For me it is a way to escape. You get to see and think about things that you never knew existed. Then the thought that there is just so much to see and experience out there crosses my mind. Watching these kinds of things reminds me that nature works its self out, animals have learned how to adapt in their habitats which in turn leads to a point that I don’t like to think about. As humans, we really took advantage of the world and our minds. What I mean is expanding what the norm for living is, with homes, cars, technology, etc. There is really no need for all these things when we lived without them before. There are still tribes out there that live the way their ancestors did and I applaud them. I personally feel that they are living the way nature intended. While I am watching this series, or the others by the same creators, it always reminds me that I personally feel I take things for granted and this is a good way to remember that life is important and we need to be more aware of the things that are harmful to the environment around us. Over the past two weeks, I have been working on the second draft for the Hiraeth Assignment. After the conversation we had the other week, I have been thinking a lot about how exactly I can get what I am trying to say using one experience. That is my biggest problem and I think that is why on the first time around I focused more on the place than the experiences I had there. But, because of this problem I feel a bit stuck and that is why I haven’t posted anything yet. There was one thing that happened while I was there that made a big impact on me but I don’t know how to consolidate it enough, since this thing that meant so much to me was part of my life for a few years. I think another issue that I am having is what is going on in my life right now. This thing that I want to write about was one of the things that lead me into what I want to do with my life but at the same time I have been conflicted with what exactly I want do. This just leaves me second guessing myself.
I have been trying different things to help me get my ideas flowing, writing multiple openings, looking at the pictures and thinking of the day it all started, and I have also started trying to use a method I learned in middle school, Bing, Bang, Bongo to help me get my main points clearly on paper. But there is just a lot to say and I am working on narrowing things down a little more so my paper is more clear. For the future, the next thing that I am thinking of trying is maybe say my thoughts out loud while recording them. I think maybe that will help me get a more natural flow going? Not sure, but I am curious to see if it helps. As of right now I do not have any questions for you since I am still figuring out the route I am going to take on this assignment. But if it is okay with you, could I post questions here when I am ready? I would definitely appreciate feedback from you. I am quite shocked that we are already at this point of the semester already. During these past few weeks, I personally have felt some changes in the way I have thought about this course when I first went into it. On the first day, I’ll admit it, I wasn’t really looking forward to class. Then we are told that all of our work is going to be posted online. Normally I am a very closed person and I don’t like my thoughts or ideas to be out there so that was something that I needed time to adjust to. I am a little more open to it now, but with limits. I am okay with classmates or other students reading my work but when it comes to family and friends I am still not comfortable with them reading it.
Now that time has passed and I have spent hours brainstorming, writing and editing the work that has been assigned, I am starting to see a little change in myself in the way I process, write and handle the work load. Before, I would say due to lack of confidence, finding a topic to write about was hard and once decided, starting the process was even harder. But right now I can say that I am able to gather my thoughts and organize them in a way that makes the writing process easier. I was thinking about it the other day, I have started to go out on more walks because of the dogs I am watching and I think having the time outside helps my thought process. I say this because I have found that once I get back, I am able to spend a lot more time writing than just staring at the paper or watching my cursor blink. I still won’t say that this is my calling in life, or that I really do enjoy it but these assignments have turned into less of a chore into more of a way to get my going. For the Film-Based Assignment, which was based off of the movie John Q., I did not collaborate with anyone else while writing my paper. This approach will be the primary route I take since I like having the time to write down my thoughts before they can be changed by someone else’s input. The hardest thing for me while composing this paper was trying to figure out the ‘route’ I was going to take on this assignment. Once I figured out what I wanted to write about, I struggled trying to find the best way to express my feelings on the specific topic I chose. The thing that helped me the most to get me over this hump was making a pros and cons list of my opinions based off of John Q’s actions.
I started working on this paper during class on Monday and kept working on it at a client’s house until today (Wednesday). This approach worked well because I got started in class, so my basic thoughts were written down. Then on Tuesday I was able to change up some things after I had the night to sleep on it. Having the chance to be out of my own environment to write this paper, both in the classroom and the house I am at was beneficial because I was able to easily avoid many distractions I have at home. The reason I chose to write about how I supported John’s actions was because of my twin sister. She has a disease that requires her to get IV fluids every 3-4 weeks, doctor appointments every 4 weeks and sometimes surgery is in between those appointments. If my sister didn’t have the benefit of having great health insurance since my father is in the Navy, she would have to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars every year (and this has been going on since we have been 16). If we didn’t have this insurance I don’t know what I would have done to get the help that my sister would need. I am happy with my current steps that I have for my writing process. The only thing that I would like to add is that recently my boyfriend has been trying to get me to talk about my assignments more. When I end up speaking about them, I am able to get more ideas out there and I am starting to find this a little useful. For my academic mindset project, I did not have anyone work with me on it. Honestly, I think this was a good approach because this is more of a personal paper since it is based off of my opinions and thoughts on these different readings and videos. The most difficult part of writing this assignment would be condensing my thoughts because I had a lot to say I guess. I had to spend a lot of time editing this paper, a lot of time…
I started working on this Monday after class since it got my mind moving. This was good for me since I had a few days to really take my time on my work. I ended up writing the paper at a client’s house that I pet sit for and this worked out quite well since it is a different environment. I wrote about the topic I chose for two reasons: one that was part of the assignment and two I wanted to add some personal things to it. Like how I felt during SAT prep. I do feel like my writing process is improving but hopefully I will continue to grow throughout this course and maybe I will develop new ideas/thoughts to add to the Academic Mindset Writing. While composing my Hiraeth I did not have any help. I found that asking for help, even if I needed it, would not get me very far. I feel this way because I am the one with the experiences and memories and no one can help me describe my feelings about the place I choose to write about. Maybe I could have asked someone if they had any pointers, but at this stage I just really wanted to get my main points down.
This assignment had some difficulties for me. I would say that the first piece of this writing was the hardest for me, which was deciding what to write about. This was a struggle for me because I have a few places that have affected me in some way which in turn they now have a special place in my heart. Luckily, as soon as this assignment was mentioned I started thinking what to write about right away. To make choosing my topic easier, after coming up with my top three or four, I wrote out a list of each place with pros and cons so I can see which one had the most influence on my life. I started working on this project (first draft) last Sunday and worked on it every day until the due date. This approach worked well for me because I was able to edit my work enough to the point where I felt like my message was clear. Where I wrote my first draft was probably a slight problem. I was in my basement which can be a distraction having a couch and TV down here. For my next assignment I will have to choose another location that is much quieter, maybe the office. At the end of the day, I chose this topic because France taught me a lot about myself and how I want to live my life. Being there allowed me to see things in a different perspective because I was away from the materialistic life and was forced to open my eyes and actually take a look at my surroundings. Just for that experience in itself, I will always be forever grateful. So now that my first draft is written, I can take a look at my process and see if I need to change things that I do. Walking around helped, I will definitely keep doing that. I need to find a new location to write in, the basement is not working out so well. I really liked how I took my time to write, instead of getting it done in one sitting. Doing that allowed me to catch more mistakes and come up with other ways to clearly explain things. I mentioned in a previous blog that I can take a deep breath if I am feeling overwhelmed and start over and I am going to keep this in mind for the future because it was very helpful. It took me three tries to fully compose my first draft. Also, reading everything out loud was a great trick, I caught many errors doing this. Finally, the last step I added was to look at pictures from France that I had and then closed my eyes to remember what it was like to be there which in the end, helped me tell my story. |