The End of English Class/Christmas Break

Tonight was our last night of English 1050! I can't believe how fast it has gone by, along with all of my other classes.  I enjoyed this class and I was glad to meet everyone in the class.  It was enjoyable.

I am looking forward to Christmas break so much!  I cannot wait to be able to go home for a few days and take a break from things and enjoy time relaxing with friends and family.  It will be weird being here for basketball practice when the campus is dead because everyone else is at home for a month.  I can honestly say it's weird to have to be away from home all the time and miss the things that I've grown up my whole life doing.  Missing Thanksgiving was really tough for me so I know that missing things that I want to do over Christmas break will be even harder.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Project 4

For our final project, the group that I am in has decided to do the holocaust for our subject of history.  I think that it will be very interesting to research and write a narrative in the perspective of the people who tried to survive.  At first we had a semi-difficult time trying to come up with something that we all thought that we could write about, but then after we got more clarification on what exactly the instructions were for the project it made it a lot easier to come up with a topic.

It is so weird that the semester is almost over and only a couple classes left.  JJ and I will be traveling for a game on Tuesday so we won't be able to come to class.  That means that her and I only have one class left which will be Thursday.  It's crazy to think about.  This year has gone by pretty fast so far.

December

I can't believe that December is already almost here and pretty soon we will be having final exams, heading home for winter break, and changing classes for the second semester.  I feel that this year has gone by pretty fast so far and it's hard for me to believe that December is already here.  There's a lot to do in the next couple of weeks including projects for different classes and final exams.  It can get pretty stressful, especially with basketball and traveling, but I am going to do my best to stay ahead of schedule so I don't get more stressed out than I need to be.  Thankfully we get a few days off during break to head home and be with family, but we have a couple games over break so we will be here for most of the break practicing and traveling for our games.  I'm excited to be able to go home for a few days and spend time with my family, especially after being gone in Arizona for Thanksgiving.

Project 3 is stressing me out a little bit because of the fact that we were gone in Arizona for all of Thanksgiving break and I haven't had much time at all to work on it.  We are also traveling tomorrow night and have a game Wednesday night, so I will have to work on it on the bus on the way to and from Detroit, as well as Wednesday morning during our study time.

Going back to a high school basketball game

Saturday I had to go home to get my haircut because I am too nervous to get it cut anywhere else than where I have been getting it cut for my entire life.  Thankfully my home is only about an hour and ten minutes from here so going home for any doctors appointments or other appointments like a haircut or dentist appointment are pretty convenient for me when it fits in my schedule.  Anyways, after my haircut on Saturday I decided to stay the night at home and go to my former high school's basketball game. My sister is on the team now and I was so excited that I was able to watch her play!  It was so weird going back and watching my former teammates and close friends play and to not be out there but just watching in the stands.  I couldn't believe how different it would be actually watching and not being able to put on a uniform.  They beat our high school rival that night and it was really exciting to see!

I also got to see my only senior teammate from last year, who I have played basketball with since 7th grade.  It was so weird but so exciting because we haven't seen each other in such a long time and she was one of my closer friends as well.  It was so weird to be there with her and watch the team we played for together for the previous four years and not be able to put on a uniform.

It was so nice to see everyone and I'm hoping that I can go back for more of their games this season, especially to be able to support my sister!

Traveling

Tuesday night was our first night of traveling for basketball this season.  It was a whole new experience for me going from traveling the night of a game in high school to traveling a day before a game in college.  We traveled Tuesday night to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to play University of Wisconsin Milwaukee on Wednesday night.  We arrived at the hotel in downtown Milwaukee late Tuesday night and spent the night there.  Waking up on Wednesday morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then an hour of study time.  Following that we had a shoot around and we were able to come back to the hotel after to shower and have our pregame meal before leaving for the game.  It is definitely different to travel the night before and to miss classes on game day.  It really makes you have to plan ahead to meet with teachers and establish what you are going to miss and what will need to be done the day that you return to class.  So far it's been fun, but it can be overwhelming with the amount of homework that's given in my classes and the time that is put into basketball as well.  I guess time management is the key!

Mystery

I am planning on doing my third project on mystery short stories.  I think that this will be interesting because mystery stories always seem to hold anyone's attention because of the suspense and the elements that are used throughout the story.  I think that it is necessary for any mystery story to have surprise, suspense, unexpected events, and tension building throughout the story.  A couple of mystery short stories that I have read have been pretty interesting and both seem to have all of those elements that are necessary for a short story.  I am looking forward to this project and I think that it will be interesting to read more mystery short stories.  I might have a little bit of a hard time writing my own, but I think that it will be interesting and after some thought I'm sure that I will be able to come up with an idea.

Thanksgiving

I think it's crazy how Thanksgiving is two weeks away! And after that, Christmas is right around the corner. Our basketball team is going to be in Arizona for a tournament over Thanksgiving break, which will be a lot of fun and hopefully the weather will be nice!  Personally, I think it stinks that I won't get to go home for our traditional family Thanksgiving dinner with my cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandmas and grandpas.  It's a bummer and I know that I'm going to really miss it a lot.

My mom decided that since I won't be home over Thanksgiving break this year that I can go home this weekend after our game on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday we are going to have a Thanksgiving meal. I'm so excited and thankful!

Meme

http://qkme.me/3ro2tw

Busy Busy Busy

Our basketball season has officially started!  This means that things are going to get very very busy for the next few months.  I'm just getting used to this whole college thing, being away from home and having a strict schedule of things day by day.  Practice, working out, eating, study table minutes, class, homework, sleeping, all of it!  It seems crazy busy.  Now that our season has officially started and we have started games it's only going to get even more busy with all of the traveling and team requirements. I'll definitely be prepared to take all of my studying on the bus for our away games.

I know that I am going to miss home a lot because I won't be able to go back as much as I want too.  I think that that is going to be one of the hardest parts for me.

Thursday's Class/Peer Editing

On Thursday's class we strictly peer edited our rough drafts of our analysis papers.  Personally, I like peer editing because it gives you at least two different opinions and outlooks from your classmates and one from Prof. Mickey on your paper before it is turned in for your final grade.  I think that it really helps me get my thoughts together and be able to think more about my paper after reading a couple of my classmate's papers as well. Personally, I am not a big fan of reading them out loud only because I like to read it on paper more so that I can refer back to something if I don't quite understand what the writer was trying to say and if it didn't make sense to me.

I was also happy that once we were done editing two people's papers we were allowed to leave.  I was a little disappointed about having to miss the men's basketball exhibition game, which started at 7pm on Thursday night, but because we were allowed to leave once we were done editing I was able to make it to the majority of the game, just a little bit late.

College

People can easily get the wrong idea of college.  While it is nice to have the freedom to choose what and when your classes are, something that people never really put into perspective is the amount of work that college can be.  Maybe it's just being a student athlete and being busy all the time, but I feel like there is also an assignment for me to do, a paper for me to write, or a quiz or test for me to study for.  In no way am I complaining because I know that this is college and I don't have a problem with it, but I am only simply pointing out the fact that people completely underestimate the work in college.  I keep hearing people say, "When is college going to be here?" and "Can I just be in college already?" and now that I am in college I always wonder if they really think college is going to be easier studying wise and easier to blow off, or if they really just want to be in college because of the "freedom" they will have away from home.

Class

It is weird not having class this past Thursday and on Tuesday because I am so used to going to that class in the evening.  I am thankful that we have the opportunity to have the one on one meetings and some extra time to be able to work on the things that are due soon, especially all of the things with our analysis paper.  I think that the one on one meetings give us a good chance to catch up and to make sure that we are on the right track with everything. Also, I feel that the extra time off from these classes being cancelled gives us the opportunity to not only get the outline and the bibliography done, but it also gives us the opportunity to catch up on anything that hasn't been completely done yet that is due soon.

It has been difficult for me to find eight different sources for the bibliography.  When I search for something the results are a lot of lyric websites and websites that are not reliable for this paper.  It has taken me quite a long time to find eight sources so I am very frustrated with that.

I Changed My Mind

After some thought and talking to JJ, I have decided to change my mind and analyze a song for my analysis paper.  I realized that with the movie Law Abiding Citizen I might end up with a lot of summary of the movie, and that's not what the paper is supposed to be about, obviously.

The song I have chosen to analyze is Payphone by Maroon 5. (The edited version, of course)  I think that this song has quite a few things that I will be able to analyze, and I won't have the fear of summarizing throughout my entire paper.

After putting some thought into what my thesis could be for this paper, I was finally able to come up with something that might work:

The song Payphone symbolizes the idea of love that has failed, and two people who don't feel the same about the ending.

Hopefully this will work for the thesis of my paper!

Law Abiding Citizen

I have been thinking a lot about what exactly I want to write my analysis paper on.  At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to do the paper on a song or a movie.  I thought about doing a TV Show but felt that it would be way to much to think about and analyze overall with all the different episodes and stories.  So when I narrowed it down between a song and a movie, I thought about what I might be able to write more about.  I wasn't sure if I could get the required amount of writing out of one song so I finally chose to do my analysis paper on a movie.

The movie that I picked is Law Abiding Citizen. I feel that it has a great plot to it and that I will be able to analyze the movie in depth.  I am still working on my thesis statement for my paper.  It has been a little bit difficult for me to come up with a good thesis with the choice of this movie but hopefully after some more thought I can come up with something that works better than what I originally came up with.

My weekend at home

Like I mentioned in last Monday's blog post, I was able to go home this past weekend for the first time in a few weeks.  I was so happy to be able to go home and be able to have a home cooked meal and relax and sleep in my own bed.  I guess it's safe to say, when you are away from home, you never truly realize how much you miss it until you get to go home and then you have to leave again.  The weekend went by way to fast and before I knew it, I was on my way back to school again.  On Friday, I was able to just relax and spend time with my family.  On Saturday, I got to go to the Notre Dame vs. Stanford football game. College Game Day was at Notre Dame so that was exciting. It was pouring rain and we got soaked but it was so much fun. Thank goodness it wasn't too cold or else everyone would have been frozen by the time we left.  Sunday was my boyfriend's birthday so I was so happy to be able to celebrate that with him!  Overal, it was a very good weekend and I get to go home again this upcoming weekend for my dad's birthday so I am looking forward to that.

On another note,  Friday night I was so happy that the Yankees won their tight series against the Orioles and moved on to play a seven game series with the Tigers.  Unfortunately, the Yankees are down 0-2 in the series but hopefully they will be able to bounce back and win the series as a whole.

Who is the monster?

I thought that the activity that we did in class yesterday was a good way to talk about the movie Carrie.  It helped everyone think about the ways that different characters in the movie had the potential of being the monster and it also helped us practice our ways of persuading people to believe that we are right.  I thought that we had a good debate in class between the three different groups of Carrie's classmates being the monster, Carrie's mother being the monster, and Carrie herself being the monster.  I thought that each group had many different good reasons to support that their person or group of people in the movie was actually the monster and I also thought that each group did a good job of defending their position as to why their person or group of people was the monster of the movie.  Overall, I thought that this activity was a good way to interact and have a discussion about the movie and I was glad that we did this activity in class.

Going Home

I am excited for this weekend because I get to go home.  I haven't been home for about a month now and to some people that might seem like a very short amount of time being away from home but for me it feels like so long.  I miss everything about my home.  I have always been really close to my family so it gets pretty tough for me being away from home.  Some of my good friends that go to different colleges will be home for their fall break so I might get to see them which is also exciting.  The things I am looking forward to the most are spending time with my family, relaxing, spending time with my boyfriend, having home cooked food, and sleeping in the comfort of my own bed. This week is really busy leading up to this weekend because I have a big test and a quiz and a lot of homework to do so I know it will be nice to hopefully relax some this weekend, especially after a long week of basketball practices.  Needless to say, I can't wait to go home.

The Movie

I have mixed feelings about the movie Carrie. I thought that it always kept your mind thinking, especially at the end.  It was suspenseful in a way because you were never sure what was going to happen with Carrie or the people who didn't like her.  The most suspenseful parts were toward the end where the group of people who didn't like Carrie were going to drop the pig blood on her and also when Carrie arrived at home after her Prom night and the house was lit with candles and the mother was no where to be found.  I thought that this movie was pretty weird with everything that happened.  There were several times throughout the movie where I was thinking to myself that the movie was so weird, but also times where I knew the movie was making me think about what was happening and not just giving it away.  I thought that the very beginning of the movie was a weird way to start off a movie and I couldn't help but feel bad for Carrie throughout the rest of the movie.  Overall,  I'm glad that we got to watch a movie in class and I'm glad that this movie got me thinking about what was going on and what might happen next.

Grilled Cheese

I thought that I would dedicate this blog to grilled cheese. The grilled cheese in the cafe is by far my favorite food there.  I enjoy the meals that they make but sometimes if they don't have something that I like for lunch or dinner, I just get grilled cheese, or two of them.  I know that I can always look forward to having a grilled cheese if the food that they have for the meal isn't something that I like. Today was not my typical experience at the cafe.  I am very disappointed because today the grilled cheese was not the normal grilled cheese! >:/  When I was waiting for my grilled cheese to be cooked the lady told me that today they only had three cheese grilled cheese.  I was like, "What? What is that?!" I got nervous because I wasn't sure if it would be good?!  I ended up deciding to trying it anyway but I was so disappointed! It looked so good but it was misleading because it didn't taste as good to me! It was not the normal grilled cheese that I always get, and it wasn't better either.  It was worse :(

So hopefully tomorrow the normal grilled cheese will be back at the cafe! I love grilled cheese!

Literacy Narrative

Going into class yesterday I didn't have too much of an idea of what I wanted to do my literacy narrative on. I had put a little thought into it but I couldn't think of something that would be a good topic to write about.

After putting some more thought into my literacy narrative topic, I have chosen to write about my experience with learning Spanish during three years of high school.  It is pretty much considered how I came to dislike learning Spanish.  There were ups and downs with learning this language throughout three years of high school.  I liked and disliked it at times, I was motivated and unmotivated at times, and I was good and not so good at it at times.  I thought that this would be a good topic to write about because of the ups and downs.

On another note,  I thought that the first part of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was pretty interesting.  I enjoyed reading about some of the author's journey of how she got the interviews and the struggles she went through to get the information that she has.  I haven't read the entire book yet but I am curious to read and find out more.

Hawaii Five-0 Season Premiere

Tonight was the season premiere of Hawaii Five-0, the new season that I have been waiting for since months ago!  I'm not sure that anyone would know what I'm talking about but it's pretty intense and sad at the same time.  The prisoner that they were transporting to the main land escaped and is now on the loose with someone that could be more dangerous than the prisoner himself.  At the same time, Chin's loved one has passed away.  The last episode before tonight's season premiere left it hanging so that no one would know who lived and who died. This episode reveals the answers to all of the suspenseful events in the last episode.

For the people who have no idea what Hawaii Five-0 is, it is comparable to the show NCIS. They actually had some episodes in the past where NCIS and Hawaii Five-0 were teamed up and worked together.  It's full of action and suspenseful so I would recommend it to anyone who likes those elements in movies or TV series!

 

Thoughts About Class

As I have continued reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks I have gotten more interested in it.  The first chapter of the book drew my attention pretty quickly but like we talked about in class, the second chapter drug on a little bit too long and didn't hold my attention as well as the first chapter did.  Now that I have continued reading past that point I have started to get into the book and I am enjoying now more than I did before.

On another note,  I have enjoyed the writing that we have been doing in class.  I think that it helped me personally to begin by writing a poem about where I am from and then branching off of that to write a narrative about an experience in my life.  The next challenge will obviously be the paper that we will be writing about reading but overall I think that the poem helped me gather my ideas and thoughts before I wrote my narrative.

Home

When I think of my hometown I always think of my home in general, where I have grown up my entire life. I am from Granger, Indiana, which is such a small city that when people ask me where I'm from I just say I live about 20 minutes away from Notre Dame University.  When I think of my home I think of all of the great things that I have been truly blessed with throughout my life and I'm not talking about possessions.  When I think of my home I think of being loved by my family and being happy while I am with my family.  When I think of my home I think of being safe with my family and knowing that they will always love me. I think of the comfort of my home and my family comforting me in any situation.  I think of the homemade meals that my mom prepares for my family and how grateful my family is to have that.  When I think of my home I think of laughter and relaxation, getting to choose where to spend the time I have to relax. When I think of my home I think of my friends and all of the memories made together. I think of how far each one of us has come and where we are in our lives now.  When I think of my home where I have grown up my entire life, I think of how fortunate and blessed I am to have had all of those things growing up and to know that they will always be there.

Introduction

Hey, I'm Alex.  I am a very kind person. Five interesting things about me include...

1. My favorite color is dark purple, not purply purple but dark purple.

2. My favorite season is fall.

3. I play basketball here at WMU!

4. I am a New York Yankees fan! They are my favorite professional baseball team.

5. I have a few favorite TV shows like FRIENDS but I am currently excited for the new seasons of The Voice and Hawaii Five-0!