Mid-session Check In Blog

Ashley Estrada
2.6.2010
Eng 102/ Mid-session Check In Blog




We are all busy college students with a lot on our plates. I know I am not the only one with a lot of other things going on outside this class. I have five other classes this summer so that I can get ahead. I also work a full time job, on graveyards. The biggest challenge I have faced in this class so far is keeping up with when and where to turn things in for this class. All of my classes are different, but for the most part we turn all week's assignments in on the same day at the end of the week. This class is slightly different, but not in a bad way. This class keeps me working throughout the entire week, and makes me keep track of it constantly. This is forcing me to be more responsible and to keep school on my mind.


My biggest success I would say is being able to keep up. I made a few mistake before I realized how things were expected to be turned in, but I am now getting the hang of it. I enjoy turning things in on blogger.com now, when before it was just more confusing than anything. I have kept up my grades in the five classes that I am taking, and I think that is a success for me. This is not something that comes easy to me, and it never has. I do not want a "B" in the class rather than an "A", but I would still consider that grade a success if that is what I end up with. An "A" would show me that I have taken all I can out of the class. Right now, I just feel like I am barely slipping by and cheating myself because of how much more time I could be putting into this class.


The readings in the class have been great. The stories we have been reading have really made a lot of sense and held my attention. Like I said, I don't normally have time for anything, but this reading is easy to make time for. This type of reading and writing is different than others I have done mostly because it is not just summarizing. In the past when I wrote papers, I summarized most of it. By not doing this, and going more into the analysis I would say that I have learned a lot more, and am able to get more in depth. Getting more in depth and having to think more is what makes me learn. This is the whole point in analyzing the author's work is to see where they are coming from and why. It is about reading between the lines, not summarizing what we read. Anyone can summarize what they read.


My goals for the second half of the semester is to definitely get my "B" in the class up to an "A". I know I can do it, I just have to push myself a lot more to get this work done and not be doing it at the last minute. Another thing I could work on with getting my work done more soon is sending it to our instructor so that she can proof read it and let me know what I need to get done. My goals in the class just consist of working harder, and putting more time into the papers that I write in here. I would like to do a little more research on the things we write about and the authors that write the work we are reading. I think with a little more background knowledge of our authors I would be able to analyze what they are writing about a little bit better. This all requires putting more time into this class that I have been.