Acad Blog 7 Final Acad Blog

Throughout this course I have learned a lot of things that I thought I already knew. This course has taught me a lot about myself in regard to writing. I learned that my strength is writing with feeling and from the heart. I also learned my weaknesses, which are commas and semicolons. This course has given me knowledge that I use in my other courses and in my everyday writings. I find myself catching grammatical errors all over the place, even when I'm writing a quick text to a close friend.

I feel that I have improved greatly since my writing sample, which was what determined that I needed to take this class. I did not proofread my writing sample at all; this course has shown me the importance and advantages of proofreading your work. Although commas and semicolons are still my weakness, I have gotten much better at them. I am still not perfect and quite unsure at times but I'm progressing and that's what matters most to me. I am a tad bit more confident in my writing ability now that this course is coming to an end, but I am also sure that I will be contacting Prof. Aggen for help in the future. Unfortunately, time management is still a major struggle for me and I cannot say that I have improved much in that area; I will continue to work on managing my time wisely though. 

Acad Blog 6

I originally struggled with deciding what to research for my paper because I had no idea what I wanted to read or write about. I had to really dig deep to decide what I felt passionate enough about to write about. I'm also taking Basic Research Skills and wanted to be careful not to overwhelm myself with too much research between the two classes. I finally decided to do something similar to the research that I am doing for that class and that I am very passionate about. I decided to do my research paper on, how integrating multicultural counseling practices into counseling services offered to African Americans will positively affect their perception and attitudes towards counseling.

I feel very passionate about this topic because I now live in a community that is predominantly Black and I see the overwhelming need for mental health and counseling services. I see the stigma and attitudes that African Americans have towards seeking help in the counseling field. I am also a witness of the overwhelming lack of counseling services available in my community. The very few services that are available are not relatable to the people they aim to assist; because of this disconnect African Americans are not inclined to seek out the mental health care that they are in need of. I really hope to change that in some type of way one day soon. I am in school now to learn and grow so that I can be part of the change that I want to see in my community and others like it in regards to counseling and mental health issues. I would also like to help remove the stigma and negative attitudes towards help-seeking and counseling and I feel that implementing multicultural counseling practices will greatly help close the gap between African Americans and the mental health services they need.

Acad week 5 blog

I have learned a lot of very valuable lessons in this class that I hope will help me throughout my time at Trinity. My main goal is to retain the information that I have learned and put it to correct usage. I have also learned to not overthink writing too much; when I overthink I make more errors than when I just write and proofread my work. There are a lot of rules to learn in the English language and it can get very overwhelming at times to grasp all the concepts.


I am not confident in my writing ability at this point. I am not confident in my ability to write because of my fear of punctuation. Punctuation has not been my strong point and it has kept me from having error free blogs and papers. There are days when my writing is stronger than others but, overall I still feel like I could do so much better. My main concerns with punctuation are commas and semicolons; it seems like I can understand them in class but in my own writing I get mixed up. I am still hopeful that by the end of this class I will be great at punctuation. Until then, I will just keep trying and taking in all the corrections that I'm given by Sandy.

Week 4- Reading For Fun

I am a firm believer that reading is fundamental and that it can also just be fun. I enjoy reading for fun in my spare time;  although I do not have much spare time in my life right now I still love to read whenever I can. From a young age I have always loved to read and hear the adventures of the characters in books, short stories, and the people in magazines. Reading allows me to escape the reality of life for a little while and drift off into a ton of different journeys. I love going on the imaginary journeys that reading takes me on; I find it very relaxing and exhilarating at the same time. I think that books and stories open up my mind to new ideas and thoughts that I may have not had if I had not read the story. To me it is amazing to learn about all the things that the brain of others can come up with and how wonderfully they can share those amazing thoughts with the world.

I also enjoy reading because I think that it is something that you can share and pass on with others. When I read to my children I can see the excitement and curiosity in their eyes as the stories go on. I love to share the joy of reading with my family; even if they do not adapt my same love for reading they can enjoy it with me. Learning is another reason that I love to read for fun. I have learned and continue to learn so many things from reading; things that I would not have expected to learn have enlightened me while reading my "fun" books. I believe that life is all about learning wherever you are and whatever you are doing, activities that you enjoy are no exception to the rule. I hope that more people that I am in close relationships with would enjoy reading as much as I do because I would really like to share those experiences with others around me. I think everyone should give reading for fun a try and allow themselves to be swept away by the fantasy of the stories.

Week 3 acad blog

Hello fellow bloggers, today is my third attempt at an error free blog and I don't know if I'm feeling all that confident about it. I for one reason or another, feel that I get really stressed when trying to write these blogs and essays. Trying to remember where all the different punctuation actually goes kind of gets me overwhelmed because I'm always feeling like commas are my weak point. I can understand them and their placement in the text and even in the classroom exercises, but when I write independently I'm always questioning myself; putting commas and semicolons in the wrong place seems to be my knack. Maybe I'm psyching myself out and that's causing me to error, but I am motivated enough to keep trying and get it right. Hopefully, by the end of this class I will have mastered the art of punctuation.

As I stated before, I'm motivated to get to a point where I am correctly punctuating everything that I write. Chapter three in "On Course" spoke a lot to me and my life as a college student at the age of 33. I see that I put way more value on getting my education and ultimately my degree than I did when I was 19. At 19 I felt like I had a lifetime ahead of me to accomplish getting a degree; now I know that time is of the essence and I expect more from myself than I ever did before. I also feel like I have different motivations now, sure I still want the things mentioned in the reading: more money, better work conditions, better healthcare, higher savings, increased personal and professional mobility but, the thing I want the most is a better quality of life for my children and even their children to follow. Just like I'm motivated to learn correct punctuation, I'm also motivated to obtain my degree with more determination than ever before. I can imagine the end result and it doesn't seem too hard or too far fetched for me.

Acad blog week 2

To begin, I feel like the blog for week two is supposed to be a little more text related than personal. This makes writing a blog a little harder for me because there is no certain topic to write about and not questions to be answered. In school I am used to being given distinct direction on what my topic of discussion should be. Even though it would seem that free writing would be much easier it has proven to be difficult for me to develop content and expand on it. I also believe that one of the goals of this class is to enhance student writing in all areas and that this is a form of accomplishing this goal. During this blogging I have found free writing a lot more challenging than I would expect, I really enjoy the guidance of professors in my writing.


Even though I find it challenging to find my own topics to write about in this blog I did find the text interesting and blog worthy. I really enjoyed reading what was to be said about self-responsibility, victim mindset and creator mindset. These concepts and the way Downing explained them resonated with me on a personal level in my life currently with some issues and choices that I am facing. The chapter helped me come to some conclusions on how to move forward with certain things and people. I can relate to this chapter because I am a person who is also encouraging others and myself to take responsibility for the choices you make, the things you do, and the words that you speak. I believe you have full control over these things and you determine the course of your life. This is not to say that God is not at work in our lives but to say that he has given us a free will and we can do what we like with it. I would like to know how do you help someone who you personally know has a Victim mindset to begin to change that thought process?

blog week 1

I chose to write my first blog this week about returning to school as an adult learner. I got the idea from prof. Aggen and I think it is a great one, so here I am writing about being back in college as an adult. Although I thought that coming back to school as a mother and a wife would be extremely hard I have come to find out that it has proven to be much less stressful than I anticipated. I think the support system that I have around me plays a major part in how school is going  for me. When I was fresh out of high school and attending college it was very hard for me because I didn't know how to navigate through life as an independent adult quite as well as I do now. When I originally began my college career I was a young, single parent who was for the first time living on my own and trying to balance motherhood, job, school and a social life. Needless to say the ball was dropped on school quite a few times which lead me to stop going and focus on providing for my kids and being the best mom I could be.


After years of contemplating and going back and forth with the idea of going to school or not going back to school I finally decided after my sixth child was born that it was time for me to pursue my education again and it has been the best decision for me at this time. I'm very glad that I found Trinity because it works well with my schedule and they offer exactly the program I was looking for. I feel that God sent me to Trinity and it has been a blessing to me. The work does get hard and it is a lot of work at times but it is worth it and I feel like it's teaching me more discipline. School at this age and stage in life is also forcing me to be better with my time management. This biggest and best thing about coming back to school to do something that I'm passionate about is that I'm showing my children that it can be done no matter the circumstance and I believe that I'm pushing them to want to go to college and get a degree in something even if they don't know what it is yet.

All in all, coming back to school has been a great, tough, challenging experience but I feel more ready now than ever to accomplish the goal that I have set for myself.

Ruined

The play Ruined really hit me hard with its straight forward language and approach to the topics of prostitution, war, poverty and all the other distasteful things that took place in the modern day Congo. What struck me about this topic is the raw way that the playwright portrayed the events that took place in mama's "lounge" also the mere fact that these things are taking place. I have never been exposed to the things going on in the Congo of Africa and the wars that happen. I can admit that I am very naïve to things that go on outside of "my" world and this story really took me by surprise and shocked me. I was met with a range of different emotions while reading this play and taking in all that was being exposed to me. I would love to say that reading this play makes me want to go out into the world and fight against injustice and try to find or make peace for all people but in all honesty it makes me want to seclude into my own world and be disconnected from all the true evil and dismay that is in the world because I whole heartedly know that myself alone will not be able to change or fix everything and that things like this will for ever go on and break my heart over and over again. Essentially reading this play made me feel helpless and powerless in more ways than one.  The play was very hard for me to read and truly pulled at my heart strings all the way to the end of the plat

As a part of this blog I was to find an article that coincided with the themes or topics of this play. I don't know if it was my lack of time and access to the internet for the past few days or if it's my lack of knowledge of the Trinity's online library and periodicals but I was unable to find anything that remotely resembled or supported anything that was displayed in the ruined play. I searched hot topics and the titles of the suggested periodicals and came up with nothing. with that being said the questions that were to be answered can not be correctly approached or explained from my point of view since I'm lacking the necessary utensils needed to do so.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

I want to start my blog on this play by saying that Cat On A Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams is thus far my favorite play that we have studied throughout this class time. The entertainment value of the play was remarkable and I imagine this play being produced over and over again around the world. I think Tennessee's writing style really added a flair to the play that I have not seen up until this point in any of the other plays that I have read for this class.

I really enjoyed the small bits of comic relief throughout this very dramatic play. I was very intrigued by the way the playwright tackled social issues with a real sense of reality and rawness. I think this play dug very deep to show how families, especially in the south really handle things and how things are swept under the rug just to save face and not "embarrass" your family. Personally the competition that Gooper and Mae had going on in their own mind with Brick and Maggie reminded me of some of my in-laws and how they act towards my husband and I. That part of the play really hit home for me and drew me in even closer to the play and made me have a connection with this play that I have not had with the others. It was more personal and more relatable to me because it was an experience that I've had before in my life and I was able to see myself in Maggie's shoes.

I think that the southern setting really brought a great feeling to the play, it's something about a southern accent and a big southern home that the entire family lives in that makes me have some sort of feeling of nostalgia. It maybe the fact that my family is primarily based out southern Arkansas and Texas and I have a quiet longing to be back there in the quiet, sweet, hot breeze of those summer nights brewing in me deep down. This play made me feel comfortable and cozy if that makes any sense. I really got lost in their world and was truly enthralled in the play and all that was going on from word to word. It felt so familiar to me and that made it an easy read and a pleasure.

I often found myself smiling first at the mention of the names Big Mama and Big Daddy, mainly because my grandmother on my dad's side is called Big Mama by all her grandchildren and my late grandfather on my mother's side was called Big George. I think it's a southern thing to do and shows a sign of respect for the elders in the family which is something that a lot of today's society is missing. I feel like this play had a ton of hidden messages in it, one being unconditional love. No matter how bad Brick seemed his wife and his parents loved him and were not afraid to let him or anybody else know that they did. I believe that type of love is what helps people out of whatever bad situation they may find themselves in, that's exactly how God loves us and how we are to love one another. That was a great example of God's love for his  children no matter what they have done or what they are doing, he loves us and he wants us as his own just like Maggie wanted Brick and like his parents wanted him. They never gave up on him like God never gives up on us. Another lesson that I gathered from this play was that of knowing who you are and being confident in that and not letting people tell you what and who you are. For example, when Brick spoke of his friendship with Skipper he said it was pure and clean but that Maggie had put the thought in Skipper's head that it was something else between them and once that happened their friendship fell apart and then Skipper died and Brick became an alcoholic. I have found that people will try to make you what they perceive you to be to please their own thoughts and notions but once you know who you are and what God has made you for you are to be strong in your faith in you and your purpose so that your thoughts wont be tainted and you won't lose sight of what God has for you because of other people. Be strong in your conviction and don't let the thoughts, words or actions of others move you.

I could go on and on about this play because I really enjoyed and connected with it but I will just say that it was a very well written play and it leaves the mind wandering a little at the end which is to me a great thing. When you encounter art that has you thinking about it when it's over and even making up additionally parts to it, I think it means it touched your spirit and the artist did their job portraying their message in a way that was relatable and enjoyable. A job well done.

Doll House

I would first like to start my blog about this play saying that it was more interesting and captivating then I imagined it would be. I really didn't know what to expect going into reading the play but I'm honestly always a bit skeptical about reading plays because they're so long and often uninteresting unless you have genuine love for plays and play writing and I personally have neither. With every play that I've read I go into it with a thought of what I think the play may turn out to be about and how the story line will go. The thought I had originally for this play is not what it turned out to be to my surprise. I would have never predicted the plot of this play to be what it was.

When beginning this play I immediately was put in the time frame of the 1800s when the relationship and responsibilities of men and women were so rigid and cut and dry. The men had the power and the "brains" and the women were mere accessories to the men they were married to and nothing more. Often times being talked down to and mocked by their husbands and made to believe that's the way it was supposed to be and that it was all out of love and playfulness. I don't agree with this way of thinking and I'm personally glad that time has passed, presently some situations have reminded us of time but nothing has come close to the rudimentary way of thinking that the people in this era thought.

I feel like the author was a feminist and displayed his thought on the view of women and the truth that women are capable of the things that men are capable of very well with this story and how Nora saved her husband's life without him knowing and handled the responsibility that she put on herself without any of his help. It really showed the strength of the woman and the ability that she has to think for herself and her family. I think her husband's attitude towards her was very selfish and in my opinion not that of a husband but that of a owner or ruler. he had no concern for her well being once he learned of her "wrong doing" only of himself and he tossed her away when he thought she would bring him any misfortune, that in no way is how a husband and wife is to be. 

I was completely shocked by the ending of this play to think in the era of the 1800s that a woman would be so bold to talk to her husband in such a manner and then to leave her home and her security for a world unknown. I think that further showed the courage of the woman and truly displayed the feminist theme of the play. I think that this play was well written and could be re-produced time after time because there are still people who think in the way that they people in this play and there's a message that could be told to people of all time periods. Women have rights and shouldn't be treated as second class citizens or inferior to men in any way shape or form and should be given the opportunity to think, work and thrive just like a man can.

I was really entertained by this play and delighted to see the plots rise and fall and the ending. Even though I enjoyed the play and being intertwined in the story line, I'm still not that big of a fan of reading plays versus viewing the play in live action. I think it's mainly because of the length of the plays and the lack of interactivity. 

A Mid Summer Night's Dream

I would like to begin by saying that this was by far the most difficult play for me to read and keep up with. I truly believe you have to be an expert thespian to understand what's going on in this play from scene to scene. With the difficult terminology and similar naming of the characters it was hard for me to get a complete understanding of the meaning of this play. It was also very lengthy and lacked intrigue for me.

I honestly felt like this play was lacking excitement. It was supposed to be a love story but it did not put me in the mindset of a love story and I wasn't taken to any particular place in my mind as I was reading it. To me Shakespeare's language is confusing and therefore takes away the real meaning of the words and the understanding of the play. Maybe it's only like that for me as a modern day reader of this play, I'm sure that in the time that it was written that the audience understood just fine.

This play lacked the drama of a true drama. The relationships between the characters were very predictable and the play was not suspenseful at all as I thought it might be. I was honestly down by the absence of romance in the play, I thought it was going to be a suspenseful, over exaggerated love story with loving poems and scenes of fairies dancing and singing abundantly. I was really disappointed at the end of this play and I still don't know the point of the play inside the play, that further confused me.

All in all this play left me wondering a lot of things and questioning why were certain things even put in the play? Like, Titania falling in love with an ass and then not being in love with the ass but still not giving up the boy. I did not leave off reading this as a fan of Shakespeare, if anything I became less of a fan than I was before. Also a lot more confused than ever. I really don't have much to say about this play or much to critique , it did not give me any insight or open my mind to new things in any way.

"Everyman"

To start off I would like to discuss the setting and feel of the play. I feel like the tone of the play was very somber and dark. Not dark in the sense of cynical but dark as in sad and dreary. As I read the play the setting that my mind was placed in was a small, tight, very dimly lit stage. I imagined everything just being black and not much color on the characters or the stage. I feel like even the naming of the characters helped to set that scene of dark and loneliness. Sense death was a major part of the production, I feel like the playwright did a great job portraying that with the use of language and characterization.

By reading the list of characters before even reading the play I was able to grasp somewhat of a concept of what the play was going to be about and what the tone could possibly be. I think that the characters of the play are a lot of the things that everyman in the world puts before God at some point in their lives and is a very cunning way of getting the audience to see themselves in the play. The play and its' characters serve as a reminder to help keep your mind on what's truly important in life and that's God. Spending time with him, loving him, doing good to his people and making him the king of your life because at the end of it all the other things in life that we hold so sacred will all fade away and we can not take them with us when we die.

This play had a lot of great points and advice for believers of Christ and non-believers as well. It also had a great underlying message of salvation and repentance and what that means. I believe the playwright was letting people know that until you're actually dead you always have a chance to humble yourself, ask God for forgiveness and turn from your evil ways and seek God just as 2 Chronicles 7:14 says to do. I was also reminded of a lot of scripture as I read this play, it was packed with scriptural references for instance, when goods said that he had brought many to hell it brought to mind two Bible verses. First it brought to mind 1 Timothy 6:10 where the Bible states that the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Then it brought to mind Hebrews 13.5 which says let your life be free from the love of money and be content with what you have. Some many people have forgotten this command that God has given the world and chase aimlessly after financial gain and forget all about God.

From this play we should leave off with the understanding that death comes quickly and the only person or thing that can control it is God. He is the master of life and death, he is the only one who will never leave you or forsake you no matter what as stated multiple times throughout the Bible. We have all one time or another put our desires, wants, people and material possessions in our lives before God and his will for us. This play serves as a self-check moment that should lead all to question, if I knew I was dying today how would I feel about it? Would I ask for more time to make things right or would I be able to rest comfortably knowing I'd be headed to heaven with the father? I think if you can say you're life has been pleasing to God and what his word says then that wonderful because all to often people wait until the very end of their lives to do good and seek God and sometimes it's too late because as I said before death comes quickly. So if anybody receives anything form this play or this blog I hope it's that we need to stop and take  time out of our "busy" lives to make sure we're pleasing God and not ourselves, God says seek him and his righteousness and all of these things will be added to you. That lets me know that there's no limit to what God will do for you if you just seek him first.

lysistrata: blog reflection

I have never been that much into theatre before this class but as I read the plays, watch the videos and converse with fellow students I am now beginning to realize the connection between myself and theatre. As I began reading this play l could immediately see that the tone was completely different from the first play we read and reviewed, I found this play to be serious and comical at the same time. Although it discussed very serious issues and comforted real life situations it tackled the subject in a way that would draw you in without even noticing that you have been drawn into The tone of this play was very upbeat and inviting, on an issue that is very hard hitting and heavy. I felt like the way the comedy was used in this play made the subject matter very easy to digest, at times I forgot what the bases of the play was. I feel like the play began very abruptly which was a ploy to immediately grab the audience’s attention and captivate them. I do think that the that entrance into the play worked because it had me questioning, what’s going on here?  This play intrigued me because it was very theatrical and moved along very quickly,

At times I do however, feel that the comedy used to portray the story overshadowed the topic at hand. The comedic lines many times made me lose my focus and I’m not quite sure if this was a good thing or not. With all the comedy and difficult language to follow I found myself going back to re-read several passages and scenes. Since I’m not at all used to reading Greek theatre the use of the chorus and Koryphaios really threw me for a loop, because they are not actual characters but have lines and deliver a lot of important parts of the play to the audience. I don’t quite understand the need for the chorus but it seems to be a very common part of Greek theatre and maybe used as way to also lighten the mood of the play.

Reading this play gave me lots of visuals as I followed through. It was very easy to imagine what was going on and how the scene could be setup. I feel like the playwright used the language and tempo of the play to give visuals and allow the reader to enter the world of the stage without actually being there. The feeling of this play is very open, it didn’t seem cramped in the meaning of space and staging. As I read I imagined the lighting being bright but not too bright. I often read the play in a humming/ singing beat because that’s the way I feel that the lines were being delivered. I was very close to a musical and lead me to question is this where the idea of musicals originated?

 At the end of the play I finished reading with a sense of understanding of why the play was written and displayed as it was even though it was an easy and hard read simultaneously. It really gave me a sense of how things were in the Greek era with relation to the relationship between men and women and the roles they played in the home and in society. Although much has changed since that time a lot of things are still the same with respect to how some men feel that women are to be represented or what positions they are to hold. For instance, the scene in which the commissioner states that he would not take orders from a woman, that can relate to the glass ceiling for woman today in the workforce where men feel like a woman can only go so high mainly because they do not feel that they should or could take orders from women. Although not all the men feel this way many them did and this translates well to today’s world. It also showed how much power women actually hold if they decide to recognize that they do possess power and are at liberty to use it. I think the balance between women and men was displayed greatly.

Doubt

I would like to start by saying that this assignment proved to be a hard one, never have written and blog or read a play in its entirety is a very hefty task. in my opinion after reading and trying to truly comprehend the play and its meaning I think that it was very long winded and kind of boring play. The play itself had many parts that could have simply been left out of the script altogether because they did not add to the effect or point of the play. Which made the play truly hard to read and stay with for me.

I think that in writing this play Shanley lack the element of climax. I was neither excited or intrigued by the monotone monologs given by the characters nor the way that the conversations between characters flowed. With that being said I do believe that the play brought to light a very serious issue that should be addressed with as much gusto as sister Aloysius attacked it with. I do believe that Shanley captured the essence of the attitudes of sisters and priest in parishes. Even though I do claim to be all knowing or even half knowing in this arena from experience and news this I what I understand the characteristics to be like.

As I read this play I really didn't know what type of journey I was being taken on and I kind of felt all over the place with the style of writing the playwright choose to use. It lead me to question why did he write in such and monotone way? Did he feel that his message what be more well perceived in this tone? Did he not want to overshadow the true meaning or purpose of the play with over the top actions and exaggerated emotions? Was this play to draw the audience to question more and feel less and to acting upon the things that you question? I also wandered was this a quite call to action on a topic that is taboo?

I do not feel like at the end of the play that I received an answer to all my questions but I do feel like it placed questions that have never occurred to be at the forefront of my brain. In the expression less, emotionless voice of Sister Aloysius I began to feel like I need to be more observant and aware of my surroundings. But, not only aware and observant but also act on what I believe to be an injustice going on in my presence. This play also made me to ask the question do you really have to step away from God in the pursuit of wrongdoings? I truly don't believe you do, I think that you can stand next to God and get to the truth quicker.