Final Reflection and Welcome; a Beginning as Well as an End

Welcome to this website.

The four units of content found on this site make up the entirety of my experience in this class.
Some of these units of content, namely the first and second ones, absolutely surprised me
because of how deeply they allowed me to look into myself. To be honest, I was not really
expecting much out of this class apart from the usual analysis and essays, but I ended up coming
to some kind of closure about one of my more formative high school experiences. It was really
kind of a treat.
The other units, the remaining ones, the third and fourth ones, were not altogether boring, but not
nearly as enjoyable or full of introspective growth and learning. Frankly, it was a chore and it
was almost stressful, because sadly, there were suddenly rules again as to what I was allowed
and not allowed to write; I HAD to include two interviews and supporting analysis to back up
my main points as to why exactly Swales criteria defined a group of people as a discourse
community, for example. Again, I wont say it was un-enjoyable, but I didnt learn anything
from it at all, except the fear of accidentally missing a works cited page, or not making it clear
what was my own words and what came from the official library website.
In retrospect and comparison, I felt really attached to the class during the first few units simply
because of how amazingly free I felt to express myself during those units. Even the diagnostic
essay (The Tarzan and Jane game) surprised me and kind of took me aback; I didnt expect
something that interesting to be the first assignment of the class, so I went all out and actually
enjoyed myself. When we got in to Unit 1, I started to lose touch with my creative ability
because in mind, I was thinking, okay, here comes the work but when I actually began to
write, I absolutely lost myself in a torrent of my thoughts and my words. I believe this is because
maybe, inside, I had a lot of pent-up sentiments about exactly how amazing it felt to me to learn
that someone like me had a talent, a very beautiful and expressive talent, and that I could actually
do it quite well. It really impacted me mainly because for a major part of my life, I had been a
very reclusive and somewhat weak person; to realize I could sing was such an incredible outlet
for me, it literally defined my being from the moment of conception up until the moment I am
writing these words. Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed Unit 1.
Unit 2 was, again, an experience for me. At first, I was still somewhat reeling from the
introspective experience of Unit 1, so when I was given a new assignment that used Unit 1 as a
basis, I kind of just blew it off thinking, I doubt I can really surpass or build off what Ive
done. But surprisingly, Unit 2 turned out to be just as introspective, if not more; it narrowed my
thoughts to focus on the titular character of my transformations; my director. Overall, Id say it
turned out quite well.
Unit 3 is, Im sorry to say,a kind of where the class took a down-turn for me. It focused on
discourse communities; rules and regulations, the brainchild of academically-minded thinkers
who tried to describe a social phenomenon in pseudo-scientific terms. I mean no disrespect to
them whatsoever, it was really quite interesting in its own right, but it wasnt as fun as the first
few units. Altogether, not too bad, but not great at all.
And finally, Unit 4, was unfortunately my least favorite. I understand the need to have
knowledge of the various Purdue databases and knowledge reservoirs for my future studies, but
there was just way too much emphasis on generally unimportant things, like descriptions of
databases or libraries. To be perfectly honest, I did not see the need to describe a database in my
own words when a perfectly functional, concise, and logical description of the system is already
available. Regardless, I have to thank my teacher for pointing out the mistakes and faux pas I had
made. The only part of Unit 4 I enjoyed was the analysis of the scientific journals in the end;
other than that, I did not care for it at all. No growth, barely any introspection, plenty of stress.
In conclusion, I did change over the semester thanks to this class, but it was only the first few
units that changed me. As a result, for any reader of this website, I would suggest taking a look at
Units 1 and 2. They really gave me closure and confidence.
Enjoy.