Week 8 Growth Mindset

If this post feels a bit gloomy to you, it may be because I just got a pretty bad grade in one of my classes.  I'm working on bringing it up and talking to the TA and teacher more, but it is still rather disheartening.  I'd hoped that this semester would be slightly easier than my last one, but I am feeling even more stressed and frustrated than last year.  I may have overreached myself, but I don't want to back down from any of my commitments either.  So, even before this post, I've been worrying a lot about where I'm at in terms of time management and classes and how I can handle everything I signed up for.

Thinking through all of the continuums, I am worried that I am faltering in a few of them, especially the ones about time management and attitude.  I want to choose what's hard and challenge myself and try new things and work on improving myself, but it's just so difficult.  That's pretty much a horrible and defeatist thing to say, but I'm so tired and exhausted all the time that I don't really want to.  More and more I just want to slide into the easier path and put off my homework and do fun and relaxing things.  I know that's going to make things worse on myself in the future, but I just want to do something that will make me less stressed out.

I'm not going to give up though.  Things will get better, and starting this week I'm trying to implement more effective time management strategies and get things done earlier.  I'm trying to segregate myself from my friends when doing intensive homework and making sure to get enough sleep so I don't fall asleep in class.  This class is definitely helping me with time management strategies because I can always plan for this class so I'm trying to implement plans for all of my other classes too.  I hope by the end of the semester I can look back and be proud of myself for accomplishing everything and improving myself.

I'm trying at least.  Web Source.

Week 8 Reflections

I used to want to be a writer when I grew up.  Then I switched to wanting to be an editor because I would get to read books all day.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that those passions might be better off as hobbies, and today I'm majoring in biomedical engineering and probably going into a career that will have nothing to do with Indian epics.
This class has really helped me learn to write and read better, and I'm remembering how much fun it was to create characters and read stories and write for myself.  Every week I'm so excited to be reading something new and writing something new.  I love discovering new parts of Indian culture through the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and all of the different versions of the stories are so amazing to me.  I love reading myths and ancient folktales, so all of these new stories are so fascinating.  I especially love reading the graphic novels or watching the Epified shorts so I can better visualize the characters.  All of the reading methods I've chosen helped emphasize different parts of the epics, in my opinion.  Reading the Ramayana through the Public Domain definitely demonstrated how people can rewrite the same story so many different ways, whether through prose or verse.  The graphic novels showed different visualizations of the classic characters.  Narayan's version of the Mahabharata, while heavily condensed, still did a very good job of helping me understand the major story arcs and important characters, while the Epified videos helped fill in some gaps and again helped with character visualization.
Writing stories every week also helped me so much with my writing ability.  I haven't written anything in a very long time, but with this class pushing me to churn out stories every week, I've gotten so much more practice.  I'm working on a lot of my issues with using passive voice rather than active voice, but I hope I'm improving a lot!  I am also very excited to work on my Storybook because I really love the idea I picked and can't wait to develop it!
I also think that I have been improving a lot with giving feedback to people.  I used to be a little afraid of criticizing completely, but I feel more comfortable giving honest critiques to people now.  I also feel more comfortable receiving feedback and using it to help my stories.
This class has really helped me develop my more creative side and I'm really happy with how everything has been going so far!

Reflection.  Web Source.