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Personal Blog 5-New Beginnings

In my pervious blog post 4, I wrote about my first year at OU and all of the amazing people I met and things I was able to experience. Ohio University has molded my throughout my first year here but, the opportunities I would have elsewhere are just too hard to turn down. I am a nursing major and I was recently offered a job at a hospital in Cincinnati to work in the NICU, which is my dream job after I obtain my degree. In taking this job I am also transferring to The University of Cincinnati so that I can work in the hospital throughout the school year as well. This is an amazing experience for me and I am super excited to see where this journey takes me. I have no hard feelings for Athens and the people here. I will miss it, but I have to plan for my future and this job is a huge leap in the right direction for me. I think this move for me is very smart because there are so many opportunities in Cincinnati that I just wouldn't have here in Athens. I am super stoked to be closer to home as well. I live 3 hours away from Ohio U and the drive is tough and I have always been a homebody. I am excited to start this new chapter in my life. U of Cincy has a really good nursing program and I will be working in Cincy so I will already have a foot in the door at one of the possible hospitals. This move is going to be difficult given I just got use to how things work here in Athens, but I will figure it out and hopefully succeed. Farewell Athens, Ohio. 

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Personal blog 4

This year has taught me so much. I have become a better person. My first year at OU was nothing short of exciting. Beginning with fall semester I met my best friend Karly. We had learning community together meaning we had most classes together. The girls in my learning community became very close. We all sat by each other in class and hung out outside of class too. I would suggest enrolling in a learning community to every first year student for their first semester of college. It is just another way to meet new people. Karly then introduced mr to her roommate and a couple of the girls that live in her dorm. We all would hang out all the time. Meeting them helped with this transition for me because being 3 hours away I got very homesick at first. I actually went home a lot this year. The GoBus drops off at The University of Cincinnati, and I only live about 30 minutes from there. Being a Cincinnatian, one of my biggest struggles this school year was going months without Skyline!!! I was the only person from my high school to come to OU this year so it was cool meeting all new people and getting away from the same crowd I ran around with in high school. My best friend attends Ohio State so I got to go up there and visit her one weekend this semester and that was a lot of fun. We walked around campus which is huge by the way. I would feel so tiny and so excluded from everything I don't know how she does it. First semester was a struggle just getting use to college and how things work. It was a difficult transition for me but by second semester I had the hang of things and did much better balancing my life. College is so much fun and I am so excited for the next four years. 

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Blod post 10

First semester I struggled balancing my school work and It took me until the end of the semester to really get the groove of things and do well while balancing my life. This semester I have done so much better. I have learned how to prepare for exams and how to properly execute my assignments. I took an online class this semester, so that was something new and challenging. This class was probably my favorite class I took this semester, given I have always loved English, the assignments we did and the class size helped me enjoy the curriculum and coming to class. I excelled in all of my classes but this one in particular. I found it so easy and interesting. I enjoyed the reading responses and the blog posts. This class was structured much different than my other classes which also made it fun and exciting. Throughout the entire semester I am most proud of the work I did in English. I felt that this class was my best and one of my highest grades of the semester. I am proud of how well I did writing and structuring papers. Going into this semester this class intimidated me because I didn't know how tough the assignments would be and I didn't know how well I would do. One thing I could have improved on is not procrastinating. As I sit in my dorm at 11:19am writing this blog that is due at noon, I wish I wasn't such a procrastinator, but I feel as if my best work comes out when I do it last minute. Next semester I am taking 21 credit hours which is a large work load, on top of working and managing my social life. With my work load being so heavy I should really work ahead as much as possible and not procrastinate as much as I did this year. This class has kept me on my toes. I definitely had the most assignments in this class and staying on top of them were a challenge but I managed to pull through and finish with a high grade that I am very proud of. This class helped me get back in the groove of writing papers and writing in general, expressing my feelings on paper. I hope that is something I continue to do throughout college and not just in English classes. 

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April is my favorite month. Do you want to know why? I was born on April 19th which is TODAY! I am so excited to spend my birthday with my family, especially my dad! For the past six months, my dad has been in Pittsburgh for a job that he is doing. It’s a very high paying job and they specifically requested him to do it, so he couldn’t turn it down. On the other hand, that has made life very difficult for my mom at home, she works night shift in the ER and is taking care of my two little sisters and our two puppies!

Tonight is the opening of my dads job in Pittsburgh so we are driving there to see him, and after the ceremony he gets to come home for good! Words cannot express how excited I am to be able to spend my birthday weekend with my family! I have a very large family spreading all throughout Cincinnati and NKY. On Saturday, we are all meeting up and celebrating my birthday! I have always been a huge family person. I love being around my family and spending time with them, so I am very much looking forward to this weekend with all of them!

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Blog Post #9

I have always enjoyed writing. I write mainly to relieve stress. There is just something about it that I so soothing to me. Sometimes I write and I don't even completely make sense. Putting words together and pen to paper eases my mind. Writing and reading can be so interesting. The writer could write a story about something and it could mean so much to them but the reader could interpret that much differently. Writing can be private or out for the public. A lot of my wiring is public, I love twitter, instagram, snapchat. Not to mention I’m always texting someone. However, I love writing just for me. I don’t necessarily write long journal entries but simple things like Bible verse on the margins of my  notes or writing little chunks of my thoughts on my planner. I’m typically always writing. What Orwell means when he talks about the ending of a paper being mysterious is simply relating to what I said earlier in this post about never truly knowing the meaning or the main idea of the text you are reading. The author may have presented it in a certain way but there is simply no telling how the audience will interpret his thoughts. Everyone is going through something we don’t know about, people are fighting battles secretly all the time. Chances are no one is going to think the same and interpret everything exactly the same. They may hit similar key points but every mind is unique in its own. 

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This time of year use to be my absolute favorite. I had played softball for 10 years competitively, and I was a four year varsity starter for my high school softball team who won the league two years in a row and made a run in the state tournament three years in a row. My junior and senior year I received the golden glove, defense of the year award! I was so passionate about softball. For the majority of my career I wanted to play at the next level, but I eventually got burnt out and decided against that. School softball was my favorite. My junior and senior year we traveled to Destin to play southern teams in a tournament for spring break! We always looked forward to that trip because we see the same teams in Cincinnati every year, we wanted new competition. We achieved so many things as a team all four years of my career, but we were our strongest my senior year. There were 6 seniors on the team and every single one of us were in the starting lineup. Needless to say, the team isn’t doing too great this year with a whopping 0-7 record to start off the season. They are a very young team and I am very excited to see them play when I go home for the summer!

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Blog Post 8

I believe I can be both a procrastinator and a planner; I even plan out how long I can watch Netflix or online shop before I need to sit down and do my homework. I typically find myself like the instant gratification monkey because though I start my assignments for big papers, I often get distracted and find myself 10 minutes before the deadline, finishing my assignment. Procrastination can be bad but I find it helpful for me. I have trouble focusing a lot of the time, especially when I know in the back of my head “oh I have eight days before this Is due, I can watch more Grey’s Anatomy”. I tend to struggle staying focused and that makes my work sloppy and poor. However, when I give myself a day to do an assignment, I typically stay focused throughout the entire thing and even have some time to review it before submission. 

I have caught myself in the dark playground before. I cant stop watching Grey’s Anatomy, and I watched the whole series 8 times! Because I spend so much time in the dark playground, I find myself acting a bit like the panic monster and wait up until the very last moment I can procrastinate until I absolutely have to finish my work. Like I said in the paragraph before, my process for getting stuff done may not be proper but it works for me. I work better and stay focused when the time is crunched. I work on my project here and there throughout the time it is assigned but I don't ever sit down and punch it out until close to the end of my time before the deadline. 

I use to be worse with procrastination, waiting until the day of to do my assignment. Since coming to college knowing this is my life and my future I’m working on Ive been more careful and focusing on my work and getting stuff done. I still procrastinate, there is no question about that, but I make sure my work is well done, and not sloppy. I don’t think ill ever completely stop procrastinating just because I work best when I have a time limit. I don’t get distracted or slack off. I push through, so procrastination helps me. 

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Blog Post 7

I have always enjoyed reading. I am a busy person so finding time to read has been a struggle the past few years. Whenever I have a day off or I get done early I always relax and settle down reading a good book. I find it very easy for me to engage in books, but i typically pick books I am interested in or authors i particularly love. When it comes to reading for my classes I see myself having a big of an advantage because I have trained my mind to engage in the text and really search for the meaning. That being said, when a text is just down right boring, I can’t read it. Some of my professors have given me articles about medicine to read, given I am a nursing major/ psych minor, and because I am so interested in the topics and the information, I find it easier to dive into the academic text with data and numbers and sometimes things I don’t even know. I am a first year student so I am taking a lot of pre-req’s right now and a lot of my professors assign readings that I have no interest in at all, even though I have that advantage of being able to engage in a book because I read frequently, I find myself struggling to comprehend what I just read. I find that highlighting words I don’t know and outlining and marking all over the text has been easier for me to comprehend what I’m reading so that I can succeed in the assignment or be ready for any follow up questions.

Joining a conversation to me essentially means giving feedback and going all into the reading. It’s hard to really engage when you are reading the text but can’t pick out the theme or the message behind it. Feedback and hearing others feedback is important because perspectives vary among different backgrounds of people and the message you retrieve from the reading may be completely different from the person next to you.

I think for anyone who struggles reading longer passages or academic readings, outlining and highlighting throughout to help you stay on track is essential to your success and understanding of the reading. If the reading is chunky reading a few paragraphs and paraphrasing them or writing notes and key words to pull from you memory about what you read always helps me a lot when I am at the end of the paper and forget what I read on page 2.

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This summer I had the opportunity to visit New York City! I am from a small farm town just north of Cincinnati. I had never been to a big city. Cincinnati was the biggest city I had even seen. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I agreed to this trip. My boyfriends aunt and uncle live in Lynbrook, New York which is just outside of New York City. We rode the Long Island railroad 45 minutes to the city. We got to see so many things. Ive never really enjoyed the city, it overwhelms me, well it did until this trip. We got to see so many things and I still feel like I didn't even cover half of NYC. Above are some photos of my favorite spots. The first photo was one of my favorite places to see. I am standing on the Brooklyn Bridge looking into Manhattan. That view was like no other. We were there when it got dark (obviously) which made the city prettier than it was during the day, if thats possible. The second photo is of Times Square, 100% overrated. Its a place you have to see if you're in New York. You think of New York City and you picture big buildings and Times Square. There isn’t much to it. You basically see all of it in my picture. Big lit up screens. ALSO THE NEW YEARS EVE BALL IS THE SIZE OF MY PINKY. The second day we caught a Yankees game which was super cool. The new stadium is really nice, but I still love my Reds. Then we went back into the city and went inside the Empire State building, it looks JUST like it does on Elf! The next picture was at Jones Beach. I did not expect to be at the beach during my trip to New York City but Jones Beach is about 30 minutes from Lynbrook where we stayed and we got to enjoy the beach for two days as well. The final photo is my favorite photo from the whole trip. The new One World Trade Center and one of the memorials from the previous standing Twin Towers. The beautiful light they display and the sound of the waterfalls were breathtaking. This summer I hope to go back and walk through the memorial. New York City is an amazing place. You have to go there, if you haven’t already! 

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Blog Post 6

Being prepared about your topic is the biggest thing when it comes to presenting. A lot of people may be nervous or get stage fright, I use to so there are no judgements being made! I have found that the best way to become a good presenter is to be educated in your topic, this way when you become stumped or lose your train of thought its easier to get back on track because you know the information. When it comes to slides on a power point, you want to keep the sentences short and choppy so that when you're in front of a crowd all you have to do is use that sentence to grab some knowledge from your brain in order to communicate what you want to say. Counteracting that theory with what makes a presentation bad with the slides if you have paragraphs on paragraphs of information on your slide it will be very difficult to find certain topics, also you shouldn't ever read off the slide. Not only is that hurting your skills but also it may be difficult for the class to hear you or understand you when you aren't talking directly to them, but at the board. 

Like most people I do get anxious when I have to present. As I mentioned above, my best strategy for presenting is just becoming so imbedded in my research and in my topic that if I do freeze up I’ll be able to start feeding the crowd more information because I know what to say. I also like to practice my speech and record myself (lol) so that I can see if I make too many hand gestures or if I stutter. It has helped me because I know to look out for those things and work on those things to make myself a better presenter. 

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Blog Post #5

Memes can be powerful tools. Whether you see one just scrolling through social media or through advertisement, you’re going to remember it. People use memes for all sorts of things. They can be a good source for lightening up the mood and making people laugh. Although, some people may take offense to them. Using memes to lighten the mood may offend some people. People may think that they are inappropriate for the situation or that they offend them because the situation they’re going through i️s tough and the memes are in a way mocking them. Memes can be interpreted in many different ways so we just have to be careful how we use them.

Memes definitely benefit the way we communicate. Whether it’s being used informally through a text or used as an advertisement. Chances are if you came across that meme, you’ll remember it and it will stick in your head. Memes will catch people’s attention while scrolling through social media or any place you may see it and the meme will then spread through social media and through the mouths of others. They benefit communication greatly.

Memes are definitely powerful in the sense that they do spread so quickly and people notice them and pass them on to others. It is a great way to informally or formally spread the word. Memes can be as simple as making someone laugh or adding it to your text. It helps add context and variety by giving an actual representation that people can see.

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Blog Post #4

Media Literacy can mean all sorts of things. Personally I think media literacy means being able to take what you read, hear or see on social media or a news station and be able to tell if its “fake news”. Social Media can get out of hands nowadays. People post things to make other people angry. People post things about the President, about the country, about laws and even something as stupid as photos. Social media is a blessing and a curse. Media travels fast through the social aspect of things. I personally think I’m literate in the social media world because to me, all of the “fake news” so to speak is so obvious that i️t isn’t factual.

The term “fact checkers” is an interesting one. I like to think of that as a critical thinker. In psychology we just learned how critical thinkers cannot bring their biased opinion into a case or their conclusion would be false of their patient. Fact checkers are the same way, which is why we should think like fact checkers when reading through social media. It certainly helps get rid of many arising problems.

Like I said before fake news is an upcoming issue is the social media world. Something tragic happens, for instance, and someone makes a mocking photo or a mocking post about that event. It may piss people off. Fake news can be very disrespectful. Giving people false information can hurt the facts and hurt other people’s cases. Fake news is easy to spot. Just think twice before you believe something you read on the internet.

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Blog Prompt #4

After reading Kamenetz’ “Learning to Spot Fake News,” consider the following questions: 

What is media literacy? Do you consider yourself literate in the “media” or “internet”?

Why is it important to think like “fact checkers” as students? 

What is the problem with “fake news”? Why is it important to consider our emotions when determining if something is real or fake? 

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This post is due to your blog by class time on 2/15/18. Your post should be at least 250+ words (or the multimodal equivalent).

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Blog Post #3

Pulling from my first blog post about my experience with English, writing has always been something I enjoy and something I consider myself pretty decent at. I am a planner. Not just in writing, but in life as well. Having a to-do list motivates me because I love to cross things off. I don’t procrastinate. As soon as I get a project jump at it and start planning. I enjoy doing an outline. This was I can assure myself that I am hitting all of the points, not repeating myself and meeting the length criteria. I never really stress or have anxieties about writing. I plan in advance so I know what to talk about and I don’t struggle coming up with things to say. Not procrastinating helps me a lot because if I have time to write I don’t get stressed out. Plus, nobody will write well if they are rushing to finish it and just typing words that have no meaning.

Like i said before, having an outline is such an important pre-writing strategy for me. I like to format it by paragraph. I’ll write a subtitle, something like “paragraph one-introduction” and then have many bullet points on subjects I need to cover throughout that paragraph. I also like to print that outline out so that I can physically write on it and be able to cross things off (like I do with my to-do lists). Something I’ve always struggled with is vocabulary so during this course my goal is to broaden my vocabulary and use bigger words to get my point across. Having a wide vocabulary will benefit me in this class and in life.

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Blog Post #2

Not everyone learns the same way. We sometimes get frustrated on how an assignment or a class is structured because we don’t learn that way, but what if we didn’t have the choice. That was the case for Malcolm X. He was locked up, he didn’t have schooling, he was illiterate. He was envious of the way Bimbi handled his conversations. He wanted to become more literate. He wanted to understand the writing that was in books. He wanted to be able to form sentences and hold a conversation. He wanted to be able to comprehend. How was he going to do that being locked up? He found the best way for him to learn the English language and learn how to read and write, was to become familiar with the dictionary. Not only did he become familiar with it, he memorized it. Malcolm X learned the meaning of words by copying the dictionary word for word, all the way down to the punctuation. He then would read his own handwriting aloud to himself, over and over until he memorized the words. He found himself waking up the next day and remembering some of the words he had written and then he would go o ver the ones he could not remember. In this way he would become literate. 

Malcolm X is trying to prove in this piece that anyone can become literate and learn to read and write no matter what their situation is. He taught himself from a dictionary. Just by knowing the definition of words he was able to comprehend what the words meant that he was reading from these books. The intended audience I think are people who say they cannot become better and they cannot better themselves based on their situation. Alexie and Malcolm X show similar characteristics in the way that they both were eager to learn how to read and write and they didn’t take no for answer. Alexie would go to book stores to read . Malcolm would learn to be literate from a dictionary in a prison. They were both so driven towards their goal. I think both pieces have the same purpose in a sense that they are trying to motivate others and to prove that if you set your mind to something and work hard for it, you can achieve your goals. 

Overall I enjoyed both of these texts and learning how each man taught themselves how to read and write. Both texts kept my attention throughout and I never caught myself dozing off or getting sidetracked. This was an interesting piece and also it was very easy to read and comprehend myself. 

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Blog Post #1

Hey everyone! My name is Cloey Westerfield and I am from the Cincinnati area. I actually live about 10 minutes from Miami University (gross). I attended Edgewood High School in Trenton,OH.  My high school graduation was actually at Miami. I played competitive softball for ten years and played all four years of high school, but decided not to continue that through college because I am a nursing major and I didn’t think I’d be able to manage sports and classes. I grew up in a small town so coming to Athens was not much of a change for me. I can juggle but that is about my only talent. I have 2 younger sisters who are my best friends and 2 dogs who never get along. Other than that, there isn’t much to me.

English has always been one of my stronger subjects. I love to put pen to paper as cliche as that sounds. I was in accelerated English classes all through school and I also took a couple creative writing classes. I really enjoyed the writing aspect of the class. I was never much of a reader because i cannot sit still for that long and really focus on what I’m reading. Punctuation is my weakness in English. I feel like my teachers in high school never really focused on grammar because we were always stuck reading stupid books that no one had interests in. Overall I really enjoyed English and I am super excited to see what this semester has in store for all of us.