Week 13, Famous Last Words: Heading Home!

This week I finished up the final revisions for my storybook project. There were a few things I was able to polish to make sure the entire piece flowed nicely. For example, when I first wrote the introduction I didn’t know exactly how each characters story would turn out. I had a general idea, but was still unsure about some of the details of each story. Thus, there were a few lines in the introduction that didn’t quite make sense with the stories that followed. It was good to have the opportunity to read the entire storybook altogether so I could identify and eliminate these discrepancies in the plot.
Outside of this class, it was a slightly stressful week. For one of my courses called Data Driven Decision Making II, students are assigned to groups and expected to execute an experiment and develop a research paper by the end of the semester. My group is conducting research that will measure the self-efficacy (or confidence) of engineering underclassman, and (hopefully) identify some outside factors that my influence that measure. I won’t go into too much detail on the design of the experiment, but we conducted it this week and collected all of the data we need. I am anxious to see if we get any significant results!
Outside of school, I am so ready to be home with my family for Thanksgiving. This break has come at a much needed time! After I turn in this post, I will probably pack up a few things and head home. I was lucky enough to have all of my classes canceled today and tomorrow, so I’m really getting a nice week-long break! For Thanksgiving I usually do most of the cooking for my family. I really enjoy spending all day in the kitchen chatting with my family, drinking wine, and snacking throughout the day. Hope everyone has a nice break!

(Image Information: personal photo of my siblings and I last Thanksgiving;

photo from November 2014.)

Famous Last Words Week 12- Almost Done!

With the way my points are adding up, it’s looking like I will be able to meet my learning goals and finish up this class within the next couple of weeks. This semester has truly flown by! I am very pleasantly surprised by the wealth of knowledge I have gained about Indian culture through epic literature in this course. This week I think my best writing was in my storybook project; I had the opportunity to tell Amba’s story from a completely new perspective, and had a lot of fun with it! It has been great to get such detailed feedback from Professor Gibbs as I’ve continued working on this project. She definitely knows how to polish writing, and keeps her students on exactly the right track!

One of my classmate’s projects I read this week had one of the coolest webpage layouts I’ve seen… it really added a lot to his overall project! I think this is one area I could improve on. My blog for the course and my website for the project are both very simple and plain. Perhaps I might work on giving my blog site a “face-lift” for one of the extra credit tech-tip assignments!

In my other classes, my professors appear to be cramming in the last round of tests before Thanksgiving break! I know that after Thanksgiving break the semester will fly by, and finals will be over before I know it! Hopefully I can keep my head above water until then.

Outside of school, my family has been busy with exciting wedding plans! My sister will get married on New Year’s Eve, and we’ve had lots of fun planning and celebrating her at showers and parties these past few weeks. I cannot wait for the wedding day; I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off 2016!

(Image Information: personal photo of my siblings and I headed to a shower;

photo from November 2015.)

Week 10: Famous Last Words

This past week was slightly busy with two tests in other classes. Luckily the tests were on Thursday. I prefer to have tests towards the end of the week. I would rather work hard on the weekdays than stress about tests over the weekend.

I was very pleased with the reading assignment I chose for this week. I found it easy to read, and looked forward to the time in the week I set aside for this reading assignment. I also enjoyed the illustrations included in my reading, they are beautiful and contribute a lot to the stories. I will continue reading this book for the next few reading assignments.

I think my best writing was my storytelling assignment for this week. I know a couple of families who have five or more kids, and I often hear people joke with them saying, “What, are you trying to create your own basketball team?” This silly joke inspired me to convert the Pandava brothers into a team of college basketball players. The story was fun, light-hearted, and easy to write! I think I could improve my reading diary writing by including some more details. I will try to take better notes this week!

Unfortunately I missed this week’s presidential debate. I was so busy studying for my tests and wasn’t able to carve out time to watch. Usually they play a replay, so hopefully I’ll be able to catch that this week! Also, this past week, I enjoyed celebrating Halloween. Even though Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday, I had fun spending time in silly costumes with my friends and family and passing out candy to trick-or-treaters. My roommate went all out with the decorations at our house. We had pumpkins, pine cones, witches, cobwebs, and caution tape all over our house. It was a lot of fun!

(Image Information: personal photo of my friends and I;

photo from October 2015.)

Week 8 Famous Last Words

I really enjoyed this week of class. It was nice to take a break from the reading assignments, look back at what I’ve accomplished so far, and plan ahead to see what the rest of the semester will (hopefully) look like. I am excited about the reading assignments I have planned out for myself, and look forward to getting started.

I’m having a lot of fun with the storybook assignment. I especially enjoy the creativity it allows. However, I think I have a lot of room to improve in the mechanical aspects of my writing. I think the storybook assignment will help me with that because I am not only telling stories, but also revising them.  

This week was a weird (but wonderful) week for me in my other classes. I didn’t have any tests and there were only a few small homework assignments to do. It was kind of nice to have a relatively light week of school work so I could spend some more time investing in my extracurricular activities, spending time with friends, and keeping up with current events.

I saw the musical Ragtime on Thursday evening here on campus at the newly dedicated Elsie C. Brackett Theater. It was a phenomenal performance, and if there’s still an opportunity for you to go I highly recommend it! The costumes, special effects, acting, and singing were all topnotch.

Ragtime Dance Joplin Cover

Author: Scott Joplin, Date: 1906, Source: Wikimedia

Unfortunately, I was only able to see highlights from the democratic presidential debate. I am trying to be better about keeping up with all of the candidates on both sides for this election. Hopefully I will be able to find it online and will watch it sometime this weekend.

Next week will be a bit busier in my other classes, so I hope to spend some time tomorrow getting a head start on this class. 

Famous Last Words Week 6

This week I finished one of my other classes called circuits! Industrial engineers only have to take one part of circuits, so it’s kind of a mini-semester two month class. I took my final on Monday, so it feels so nice to have one less class to worry about! I am hoping this will give me more time to work on this class, and spend some more time fine-tuning my writing skills.

(Image Information: personal photo of a portion of my circuits project;

photo from September 2015.)

I think my best writing from this week was the introduction I wrote/revised for my storybook project. I am really excited about where that project will go. I have a general idea for what I want each of my stories to look like, but I feel like they will really start to come to life once I do some more in-depth brainstorming and writing. I’m glad we have the opportunity to alter famous stories and make them our own. This allows for so much creativity!

I am consistently amazed by my classmate’s writing skills. Reading some of the other storytelling assignments has allowed me to see where my writing has some room for improvement. Specifically, I think that I can improve my word choice and imagery. This is something I’ve noticed my classmates do really well. That attention to detail can take a story from good to great, it just takes a little more time.

I missed a reading diary this week, but hope to be all caught up on the reading by the end of next week. Hopefully some better time management strategies this week will help me to stay on top of all of my courses.

Also, next week, I want to start writing out more detailed notes as I read/watch the movie. I think this will make writing my reading diary blog post so much easier.

Famous Last Words Week 2- Ready for the Long Weekend

I’m currently sitting in Will Rogers World Airport as I write this week’s Famous Last Words. I am headed to Georgia for the weekend to visit my boyfriend! One of the many reasons I love this class- I was able to get ahead on my assignments for the week so I can enjoy the long weekend! I look forward to meeting his friends there, and eating lots and lots of good food.

Map of United States with Georgia highlighted,

Author not listed, source:Wikipedia

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the reading this week. I was worried when I skimmed the first couple pages, full of unfamiliar names and places I can’t pronounce. However, once I got into the plot of the story, I couldn’t put the book down! I’m Rama and Sita’s biggest fan! I thought the book would be dense and boring, but it honestly feels like I’m reading for pleasure.

I thought my storytelling skills were pretty good until I started reading some of my classmate’s blogs. We have some really talented writers in the class, and I look forward to taking notes on their styles and techniques and implementing them in my own assignments. I have already implemented some of them, this week I made a more modern version of a story told in The Ramayana. I think it will make my writing more relate-able to the reader.

My other classes are starting to really get rolling. The first week and a half was mainly introductions and broad overviews. I think next week will be the first week that I really feel like I have a full schedule. I’m going to attempt to finish the reading assignment for this class that is due next week on my plane rides to and from Georgia. About to board my plane now! I look forward to seeing what writing challenges lie ahead next week!

Famous Last Words Week 1

I have only been enrolled in this course for a few days and have already learned so much about opportunities in online education! I have refined my blogging and curating skills which will no doubt continue to be developed throughout the semester. I have also gained a general understanding of how this course is structured, and a broad overview of the material that will be covered. I have to admit, I feel like I have a much better understanding of how this course will go than most of the courses I’m taking in the physical class room. I had such a lovely summer and got to spend lots of time with my friends and family, as you can see in the picture below.

(Image Information: personal photo with friends;
photo from August 2012.)

However, I was ready to come back to school. I love the routine and self-scheduling associated with the academic year. I hope to stay ahead of schedule on most of my coursework at the beginning so that I can keep my head above water for the whole semester! I was very thankful to learn that this class will be very flexible and self-paced. If I have a crazy week coming up with lots of tests in other classes, I will be able to either get ahead beforehand or make up for any missed assignments with extra-credit. This will allow me to relax a little and really focus on the most important content in this course. I am most looking forward to the storytelling aspects of Indian Epics. The storytelling assignment we completed this week with a nursery rhyme was so much fun for me, and a great chance for me to get creative (or at least try). I am also looking forward to getting into the reading assignments. It looks like it’s going to be a lot, but it also looks very interesting! Can’t wait to dive into the readings next week!