Ah, thanksgiving break. A full week of just hanging out, relaxing and eating food. It was a much needed break from school work, professors, dorm life, especially school work. Professors really make you work! So of course after working hard for three straight months, a break was definitely needed and it felt so nice to be able to go home and see my family and my boyfriend. It almost didn’t seem long enough! But that’s because it flew by. It’s tough coming back from being home for a week. You get so used to waking up and not having to worry about going to class and doing homework. Plus, I loved being able to be with my family. It feels good to be back at jmu though. I love being at jmu. It’s a great home away from home. Yeah, I miss my family, but getting back into the old routine of going to class, eating, doing homework, sleeping and hanging out, it feels like I never even left! Just have to get through the next two weeks of classes, get through finals and I’ll be back home for three weeks!
Dating in College
As a start to our conference papers, we read three articles in class as an example to help us with how our own articles could relate in our own paper. The three articles were taking about relationships in college as the general idea: one about dating someone from high school in college, one about meeting someone in college and dating, and the last about regretting not dating someone in college. It was particularly interesting reading them and getting these different viewpoints especially the article about dating someone from your home because I have a boyfriend that I started dating in high school and in the article, the relationship didn’t work out. It seems like the typical thing when going into college is to go in single, which is understandable because you want to meet new people.That’s how I felt when I was leaving for college, but being here, I realized that having a significant other in your life when you make a huge transition like going into college isn’t the worst thing, it’s actually nice. It’s really nice to have that one connection from your home and not be completely left alone in a whole new environment. So don’t be scared to date in college! Having someone can be a nice getaway from friends and they will always be around for you to talk to.
Rhetorical Analysis Article
This past week in class, we started Rhetorical Analysis. For practice, we had to find an article and write a summary and an evaluation on it. The article I chose was about how the Disney Princesses of “The Princess and the Frog,” “Tangled,” and “Brave” are portrayed as a stronger women character than the original Disney Princesses like “Cinderella,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid,” and many others. It was an interesting read because the writer made the newer princesses sound less fairy-tale and more real, like they are actual real women in the world. What makes Tiana, Rapunzel and Merida sound stronger is that they have hopes and dreams and are independent of themselves. They aren’t forced to find love or marry and they don’t give up, they work hard towards their goals and that makes them have a stronger woman character than the original princesses. That’s a great hidden meaning to have in the newer Disney Princess movies because that sets a better example for little girls watching. It tells them to believe in themselves and follow their dreams and achieve goals which I think is great.
Game Day
ESPN College Game Day was an experience that I will never forget. It was so exciting and so surreal. You’re used to seeing other colleges on TV with their students in the background cheering and holding up posters, and this time it was our school! My first experience of game day was the 2o’clock show on Friday. My roommate and I decided to eat lunch on the quad and once we got there, we realized we had to be apart of it. We got as close to the show as we could and ended up at the fence. We were probably 15 feet from where they were sitting. It was so cool! We contemplated missing our 2:30 just so we could stay until the end, but we went anyways. Later that night, we hung out on the quad where some of the guys on our floor were sleeping the night on the quad. What an experience to see everyone showing school spirit just to get as close as they could to the stage the next morning. The best part was that at the end of every hour, every got hype and counted down from 20 seconds into the next hour. Then Saturday morning, my friends and I got up at 6am to get down to the quad for the Game Day show. We brought our signs and cheered and watched the show. The quad got so packed! The whole experience was so cool. Seeing everyone be spirited and hype and to see the quad on TV, so great. Being able to be apart of it was so exciting and fun and now getting to brag to people that my school was on college game day, so cool.
Different Kinds of Superheroes
Superheroes and superhero movies have never really been an interest to me. I thought when we started this unit I would be in trouble because I didn’t know and haven’t seen any superhero movies. When I scanned the list, I saw Sky High. I can’t believe I didn’t even think about Sky High as being a superhero movie! When you think superheroes you think like Spider-man and Batman, and Superman, not really movies like Sky High or The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, or even Underdog. The fact that Wikipedia lists those movies as superhero movies is so awesome because you don’t have to be as well known as Spider-man and Batman to be considered a superhero. The term superhero seems almost like it’s too broad. Yes, a superhero saves the world, but defeating villains and enemies isn’t the only way to be classified as a superhero. There are all kinds of heroes around us in all different shapes and sizes and of different ages doing different things to help better the world. Those people should get a movie too!
Finding Yourself
After analyzing The Incredibles all week in class last week, I noticed that the general theme was about finding yourself. The whole family has to overcome their obstacle of being different but trying to fit in and be as if they are a normal family. After going on their adventure to save Bob, aka Mr. Incredible, they learn how to properly use their powers and it helps each of them identify who they truly are. They realize that it is okay to be different and they are who they are because of their powers. In a sense, I can almost relate. Growing up, I was the middle child and I was always in the shadows of my sisters. In high school, teachers that had my older sister would relate me to her all the time and explain how we were so different and then once my younger sister started high school, the principal knew me because he knew my younger sister and my friends would always compare us, so I was almost never really my own person in high school. Now that I’m at JMU, I’m getting to be my own person and find myself outside of my sisters. I get to be me and only me!
Superheroes
This past week in class we started our superheroes film analysis unit. To start, we watched this cute trailer for a documentary called “Look to the Sky.” It is about ordinary kids doing extraordinary things to help the world and their community.The trailer showed interviews of people explaining what they think a superhero really is and what they think a superhero really does. These kids are the heroes and the movie tells about their stories on how they make a difference. It’s incredible to see that so many young kids these days are wanting to change the world and help others. So great. Next, we started watching ‘The Incredibles’. Very exciting moment in class. I haven’t seen the movie in years, so it was cool to be get to watch it now in class, but to also see why things are the way that they are. By analyzing the movie, it gave me a different perspective of the movie and I could see what the creators were actually trying to do. It helped a lot to be able to break down the movie in class as practice for when we have to do our own film analysis. I’m still nervous though. I understand it when we talk about the different things in class, but having to analyze the characters and setting and why it’s like that by myself for a different movie is going to be difficult. I’ll get through it though, I’m sure. It was a very cool and fun and interesting class we had this past week.
Peer Editing
Ah, peer editing, my least favorite thing when it comes to writing. The thought of someone reading my awful essay less than a foot away from me makes me cringe. All I can think about is how bad my paper is and that my reader thinks so too. I’ve always been on the weaker side when it came to writing essays and papers, so I get a bit nervous when it’s peer editing day in class. I appreciate the feedback, but I don’t want them to tell me it’s bad, even though I already know it! It’s a love hate relationship for me. I love it because my peer usually has something nice to say about my writing, which makes me better about my paper, but I hate it because it just makes me so nervous that they’re not going to have anything good to say and it’s all critique! It’s a scary time, but the feedback is good to have. When peer editing, your peer is usually nice though: positive feedback, compliments your writing, but still does what they should and provide a little critique. That takes the pressure off a little bit knowing that your peers intentions aren’t to completely tell you that your paper sucked. It’s a nice idea. It’s good to have that extra set of feedback from a fellow student writer before shipping it off to your teacher for a grade. I also like that it gives you a chance to read someone else’s paper and get a feel for how they chose to write it and provides an example for you if you get stuck on a paragraph when writing your own. I guess peer editing isn’t completely bad. It has it’s ups and downs. I should work on not worrying so much about what they think of my paper and just let them read it and give me feedback on how to make it better because that is the main reason for peer editing. Maybe next time it won’t be so bad!
Movie Trailers
Today we watched movie trailers for the movie Coraline. Both trailers recognized scenes from the movie, but in a different way. Each was portrayed differently. You have one trailer that was created by an actual film company and another by an unknown online creator. Just by the way the scenes were arranged or the background music chosen could really make a difference in what you think that movie is actually about.The film company trailer made it seem like a not so scary kids movie, with a happy ending where everything works out, whereas the online creator trailer made the movie seem like a scary mystery, not for kids with an unknown ending. Both trailers were for the same movie, yet were portrayed in different ways. It’s interesting to see that your perspective about the same movie could be different. I would not see Coraline based off of the online creators trailer, just because it’s supposed to be a kids movie and it seems scarier than it should be, but I would see the movie based off of the film companies trailer. It’s weird to think that I would choose to see and not to see the same movie just because of the way it was portrayed in the trailer. Crazy!
jennagilmorewriting 