After a long semester unlike any we have experienced before, the end is in sight. However, week fourteen proved to be perhaps the most difficult thus far for many students. This week was sandwiched between the anxiety regarding the presidential election last week and finals beginning next week. The reactions to the election results have been maddening as Trump continues to refuse to concede. With finals right around the corner, I have had to juggle many different final projects as well as trying to make time to study. Motivation has been sparse for students like me, but we must push through to the end of and hopefully have a successful semester. The deadline for students to declare pass/fail for their classes is tomorrow, November 17th, which has added to my stress because I do not know what my grade is for some of my classes.
We began Tuesday’s class with the class check-in, as always. Despite the stress of finals, spirits among students seemed high as various media outlets declared the results of the election. I watched loads of videos from my friends celebrating in Chapel Hill on Franklin Street over the weekend. For many students, the weekend was a much-needed sigh of relief in the strangest year of our lives. In class, we discussed creative and business writing. Mr. Blom set aside time for us to ask questions, which was super helpful to me because many of my questions regarding internships and resumes were answered. We followed this by looking at how we can start writing a story and we emphasized having a good theme, an engaging hook, a fully developed character, and a scenario populated with characters. We concluded the class by coming up with our own predicament statements which allowed our class to be creative and have a welcome laugh. This activity gave me insight on how I can begin the creative writing process of writing a story.
For the past month, we have been working on our Unit 3 project where we have been closely analyzing a short story of our choice. After writing our essays and receiving feedback from our peers and Mr. Blom, this week we were tasked with translating our essay into a video essay. We were supposed to submit a rough cut of our videos on Wednesday night, but YouTube was having issues so Mr. Blom graciously gave us an extra twelve hours to submit, which I took advantage of and submitted at 2 AM. In class on Thursday, we went into breakout rooms for the last time for the semester, paired up, and watched each other’s rough cut. Breakout rooms have been extremely beneficial for gaining new ideas for my own work from direct feedback as well as through looking at the work of my peers. We have the weekend to work on finalizing our project, which will be our last grade for the semester as we thankfully don’t have a final exam.
During the first week of class, Mr. Blom shared two truths and a lie, where one of the truths happened to be when he was held at gunpoint at a wedding. At the time, he did not want to share this story, but our class has been peppering him with comments about it throughout the year. Because of this, he said that he has been thinking of how to tell the story in a creative and appropriate way. His teasing of this story will finally come to an end next week when he tells the story on the last day of class.
As we head into finals week, I wish all my peers the best of luck. I am grateful for the amazing English 105 class that made my transition to college smooth and has helped improve my writing skills.
Featured Image Source:
“Light at End of Tunnel.” Shale Directories, www.shaledirectories.com/blog/light-at-end-of-tunnel-for-constitution-northern-access-pipelines/.