Commonplace Book Final Reflection

It is very interesting to go back and look at my first impressions of college. I handled it a lot better than I had initially expected. I am very proud of myself for how well I have handled time management, school work, emotions, and stress.

I had a “reality check” during my very first week at Ole Miss. I said “ I have already done more in a week than I did in the first semester of high school.” I almost expected college to be harder than it is, but it is mainly just different. I enjoy the challenges that have been thrown at me. Of course, I did not like them at the time, but they made me much stronger in the long run.

When Mrs. Buckley assigned the first “long” paper, I nearly had an anxiety attack. I was so nervous because I had never written a paper that long before. I realized that I can not half-way do my work and expect a good grade out of it. In highschool, I do not think I wrote a single outline before a paper, but I also had never written a paper longer than a page and a half. I realized when I started to write my first synthesis paper that I would definitely need to plan my paper out in order to have enough to write about.

Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” helped me a lot because it helped me, an extreme perfectionist, realize that writing is a process. Writing is not supposed to be perfect as soon as you begin. It takes a lot of time and patience to write a really good paper.

On one of our daily writes in September, the question was “How have you spent you week?” My answer was, “This week I have spent so much time doing school work and studying. This is how I wanted to spend my week because it makes me feel better in class when I have everything done and studied for.” A few days later I had a mental breakdown. I may have thought this was what I wanted at the time, but really I was overworking myself way too much and really stressing out. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great feeling to have everything done, but there is no need to put this much pressure on yourself. You are a human being. It is okay to take a break and do something for yourself. The human body can only handle so much.  I think that self-care is one of the most important things to manage in college.

I have grown so much as a person throughout my first semester of college. I have learned that it is okay to not be perfect. If a C is the best you can do in a class, you can not let that define you.

College has definitely been a learning experience full of struggles, but I have learned so much along the way that will make me a better person in the future.