Tag: Learning

If I Could Bottle It Up, I’d Bottle It Up

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As I pack up my dorm room and take finals in all my classes, I start to choke up thinking of all of my expectations coming into this year and how they were met, how they were not and how my freshmen year was so much more than I could’ve ever imagined. I think of the person I was when I moved here in August and I’m blown away by how much I’ve grown as a student and person and how much one year could mean to me.

I expected my life as a student in college to be the same as it was in high school which was absolute trash but it turned out to be quite the opposite. Coming to Ole Miss and away from the toxic environment that was my high school has changed me as a student for the better. In this year as a student I’ve realized that caring about doing my best will produce better results than caring about being perfect ever will. If you would’ve told me in high school that I would have a 109% in Business Calculus in college I would’ve laughed in your face because I almost failed math in high school but because I’m focusing on truly learning and doing my best I’ve become better in subjects I never thought I could be good in. I’ve also realized that reading one essay that may have seemed insignificant to the rest of my classmates was the first time in my life my feelings about the elite education system and my past in it were validated. I knew from one week of college my identity as a student and person had shifted for the better but it wasn’t until that essay that my feelings were validated. That one essay picked by Mrs. B for my Writing 102 class was “Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League” by William Deresiewicz and that one essay manifested an entire semester’s worth of assignments and research. I became a better student because of this essay and this research because I learned that being a good student isn’t how high my grades are but being a good student means doing the best I can and taking full advantage of education as a way to grow in every aspect of myself.

An actual screenshot of my math grade that I would’ve never expected to happen!!!

As for me as a person in college I expected to grow in the usual ways everyone talks about like dealing with being away from home for the first time, handling being on my own to take care of myself, etc. and obviously those growth spurts happened but I grew in other ways that seem far bigger than those. I came here in August so excited to live with my roommate and for the year that we would live in our little shoebox of a dorm room we would make a home and a countless memories together but that didn’t happen in the slightest. My roommate hates being at Ole Miss and has wanted nothing more than to leave Oxford from the minute she got here and that affected us living together because she barely left the room all year and claimed it as hers alone even though we live together. Going to college away from home was hard and not having somewhere where I could truly call home was even harder. I feel like I’ve lived in limbo but what kept me centered was that I had a new life here and I loved it so much that not having one physical place to go to didn’t matter because I was creating a home for myself in everything and everyone around me in Oxford.

I created a home in the law school Einstein’s for it brought me bagels and a study spot for the entire year. I created a home in the connections I’ve made with my teachers especially my EDHE teacher who has become my mentor that I couldn’t have survived this year without. I created a home in 3 am drives to the Lamar Park neighborhood with one of my best friends that always seem to fix whatever’s wrong in our lives. I created a home in Kappa where I’ve met so many lifelong friends and been given so many incredible opportunities like representing my chapter at Leadership Academy. I’ve made a home in every person and every thing that has made me love Ole Miss and my life here.

I think that for every event that’s happened in my life there’s a song that goes with it for one reason or another. Other than the fact that as freshmen as a whole I think all of us will think of Closer by the Chainsmokers when we think of our freshmen year. The song of freshmen year for me is Bottle It Up by Sam Hunt because there a few other things I think of when I think of wanting to bottle up a time and keep it forever. In this one year alone, I’ve learned that other people have experienced the same thing I did when I was in high school, that I’m a better student when I just focus on doing the best I can, that even though I wanted a roommate who would create a home with me I can survive without it and that sometimes home is where you let your heart rest instead of your head.

(Every freshmen ever when we hear Closer)

I read this quote the other day and I think it sums up how I feel about my freshmen year ending.

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”
I’m going to miss my friends I met this year that I now can’t picture my life without. I’m going to miss the teachers who’ve guided me along the way to make it through this year. I’m going to miss my favorite study spots, restaurants, and hangouts because some of my best memories this year were made in them. And I’m going to miss who I’ve become this year the most because who I’ve become this year is the best me I’ve ever been to date and for who I am at this moment I will never have so much to look forward to again in my life. So I will miss who I am right now because as of right now I’m still a freshmen and the best is yet to come.

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Unit Reflection 11/4

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Writing this paper showed me that I could overcome extreme writers block. I struggled so hard with making my writing into an argumentative piece in the beginning so I just to keep reworking it until it worked out the way it needed to. I didn’t conference with Mrs. B but I conferenced with the writing center and that was the most helpful thing I did when writing this paper. I was so stuck and couldn’t figure out what was wrong and what was right in my writing and I really couldn’t get out of my head and onto the page but the person I met with at the writing center helped the most because she got me to go from the big picture into the details that I needed to focus on so that was so much help. This paper was extremely hard for me just because I couldn’t really get what I wanted out of my head and onto the page so I really struggled with where I wanted the paper to go and how I wanted to say what I needed to say.

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Weekly Write 10/28

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This class has made me better in my other classes and has improved my study skills and ability to look at the truth of someone’s argument. Through this class I’ve become better at studying because I now am better at arguing because instead of immediately responding to someone’s argument I actually listen to what they have to say then I form my response to what they said. I no longer am just arguing why my side is better I can now argue why their side is wrong by listening to what they say and looking for what could be wrong on their side but I can also understand what is right about their side because I’ve actually listened to what they said.

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Unit 1 Reflection

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This paper differed from essays that I’ve written previously in the fact that MLA updated and I had to readjust to that set up and all of my previous teachers wanted me to start my page numbers on the second page. It was more organizationally different than it was content different. I’d written synthesis essays before so I knew what I was doing and how I should be doing it, it was just a matter of how my old teacher wanted my work compared to how Mrs. B wanted it. For me writing the kernel essays were most helpful in so that when it came time to write the bigger synthesis paper I was adjusted and back in the swing of writing and writing bigger papers the way they were meant to be written. Having a partner helped me because I get really nervous when people read things that I’ve written so having a partner and having my partner be Josh who I’m friends with helped me shake some of those nerves for people reading my work. I still wouldn’t be totally comfortable with having a stranger read anything I’ve written but having someone I know helped with just getting a little bit more used to it. At my old school we never did peer review so I never had to worry about anyone besides my teacher reading what I wrote but now that I’m here I have to get over so this first partner reading was a baby step to getting comfortable with others reading what I write. I grew as an academic in this unit because I really utilized my time well so nothing was rushed or crammed. I gave myself the time I needed to make sure that I could give every aspect of the writing process the time it needed in order for it to grow and become better. I could improve for next unit by working on writing about myself. I struggle with writing about me but I could go on for days about anything or anything else. I struggle with putting things about myself into words so when writing about myself in a big essay like this one I felt like it would never become the essay I wanted because of the part about myself in it. If I had one takeaway from the last four weeks it would be that the writing center is one of the best tools available to us. What I struggle with the most in my writing is that I have so many ideas and so much information that I want to put onto the paper but no idea how to get them out and the people at the writing center understood that and helped me the most in getting where I needed to be in my writing.

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Weekly Write 9/16

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I’m definitely making the most of my time here and spending it how I need to be. I spent the time I needed to on school work and studying. I went out with friends and took time for myself. I called home and maintained the relationships I have that aren’t physically here with me. And definitely my favorite part was experiencing my first home game as an ole miss student. I don’t think I need to adjust anything, I just need to continue on the path I’m on so I maintain a good experience here.

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Kernel Essay “Search Engine” and “What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church” 9/7

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In Sherman Alexie’s “Search Engine” and “What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church” Alexie juxtaposes two people in order to teach one other lessons about themselves and their lives. However, each short story has very different ways of bringing these two people together and different lessons learned from one another about their identity and their family. “Search Engine” brings out what it means to be “Indian” and what it means to be family through Corliss and Harlan while “What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church” brings out the what it means to accept yourself and to be okay with the events of life with the characters of Frank and Preacher. Though both stories use the same method of bringing two people together to teach one another a lesson about themselves, Alexie takes his readers on different paths to find their identity and how they view themselves. “Search Engine” is more on the deep and darker road to a self-realization that isn’t as bright and happy while “What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church” is laced with humor and satire of the heavy to get to the finality of being okay.

Sherman Alexie’s “Search Engine” takes readers on through a blip in the life of Corliss who a female Spokane Indian who struggles with who she is, what she’s worth and really what she is doing with her life. She doesn’t know where she belongs and knows that “she wasn’t supposed to be in college and she wasn’t supposed to be as smart as she was” (Alexie 41) all the while not receiving the support she needed from her parents and her tribe. That questioning and persistent personality of hers leads her to Harlan Atwater’s books and evidentially to Harlan Atwater himself. He makes her question herself and how she sees her tribe and her family. He’s a “lost bird” (Alexie 48) but seems to fit in and know what being “Indian” is more than her who’s been a part of the tribe her whole life. She learns more about herself and that she searches for that acceptance she will never get but really she teaches Harlan more about himself than she learns from him. He realizes that the longing to be Indian and to expected lead him to feeling “fake” (Alexie 46) he was being and that the only people who ever made him feel like he was loved and that he belonged were his two white parents.

“What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church” is a short story plagued by Frank’s need to “reconnect” with his dead parents. Frank Snake Church gave up “something valuable” to honor his mother after she died and brought it back from the dead when his father died. He played basketball in their memory and in vain to be with them again in some way. Through the story Frank deals with the challenges of losing and gaining people, weight and most importantly himself. He goes through stages of grief and mental trauma that eventually leads him to Preacher, a man who would impact his journey in self-realization the most. Preacher looks inside of Frank to show him how foolish he’s being in the way he’s trying to cope and honor his parents but then pretends to that he didn’t look inside and then reveals to Frank that he really isn’t a preacher and that fakeness makes Frank snap. (Alexie 229) Frank Snake Church plays his entire life with humor in order to cope and get to where he needed to be. No matter the situation he used quick humor and a sort of self-deprecation to mask how he was and how he was coping. Through it all he battled a mental illness that’s not named that really he plays less mind to but what it really takes for him to get to the point of self-acceptance is a physical injury while playing basketball. He wrecks his knee and the physical pain that comes with it brings him to accepting that he may never play basketball again and that with life there is always a change that has to come with time and this change would mean he would accept that he would be okay not only with his injury but with his life and himself as a whole.

Both short stories bring readers to the same conclusion of self-acceptance and identity. Through bringing other people into the protagonist’s lives to teach them a lesson, Alexie gives readers to the heart and soul of each character’s journey. He combats his dark and dim in “Search Engine” to “What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church’s” wit and satire but brings both stories to hard leading end of being okay with their situations and the events that happened in their lives. Corliss and Frank lead very different lives but through the help of Harlan and Preacher learn that life happens how it happens and that being okay with it is the only way to move on okay with life.

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Weekly Write 9/2

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I think Ole Miss gets the rep of party because yes here people do like to party and we have all the resources to do it but I think Ole Miss is so much more than that. I was supposed to go to Duke University for diving. That didn’t happen because of injury and I had to restart everything when it came to college. So I started thinking of colleges and I mainly only focussed on colleges that had good sports and good marketing programs because I want to be a sports agent. But I had so many other things that came with choosing a university: good football (sports agent sorry about it), art history (my minor that I won’t give up even though everyone tells me too), beautiful campus, not too cold, good area, good people, sharks (shark conservationist #FLProbs). When I chose to go to Ole Miss the amount of backlash I got was horrible. I got told I would become dumber or redneck or a drunk and so many other horrible things. My teachers were bad, my friends were bad and some of my family were even bad. I felt horrible about all the backlash and everything but once I stepped back in rationalized everything I realized most of the hate and negativity sprouted out of ignorance. I realized that that ignorance came from the fact they have had this Ivy League crap shoved down their throat and Ivy League or Die just programed into their head so they have no idea any different. They have this stigma of anything other than what they know as bad and they fear anything that’s different and I think that’s a fault for them. I go to a school where I’m offered everything I could ever want or need where as they’re going to a school they don’t even like or their major isn’t even offered there but they’re just going there because of the Ivy League tag line. I’ve never been so happy or felt so academically free and I thank God all the time for leading me to Ole Miss because I see the unhappiness in my friends from home and think about my life and I couldn’t be more grateful.

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Daily Write 8/31

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My most recent quest was on my first day of classes and it was to literally find all of my classes that day. I had 2 classes that day one at nine am and one at one pm, both in two very different places. Me being me, I had already walked all my classes with my roommate the day before but as I walked out of my dorm at eight thirty Monday morning I still knew I had a long way to go to make sure I made it to both classes on time. As I started my walk to Hume Hall, my first obstacle of the day arose: I had completely blanked on what Hume Hall was let alone where it was. So I literally had to go in, pull up the map, find it and then continue on my journey to making it to my first ever class in college. The second obstacle came up as soon as I got there when I realized I somehow left my laptop back at my dorm but for that obstacle all I could do was hope and pray my teacher didn’t need me to use it on the first day. Thankfully she didn’t and I made it through that class unscathed. I went back to my dorm ate lunch with my roommate and thought to myself that I totally deserve a nap for all the effort and stress it took me to get through that one class so I took nap but me being me again didn’t hear my alarm go off that would make me wake up in order to get to my second and final class of the day. I woke up with a start and literally sprinted out of my room. I’m the type of person who gets literal anxiety about being late so I was freaking out plain and simple. I somehow remembered where Lamar was and made it with 10 minutes to spare. Thank gosh. I got there I had everything and somehow made it through unscathed. Again. My quest was conquered and I made it through. I defeated my dragons of anxiety, blankness, forgetfulness and nap time and made it through to see the next quest: the second day of college.

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