Finals Weekend!

What's Happening bloggers, this weekend began the stress of finals and I couldn't be more happy about it! Not. We all knew this was coming all week, but it didn't truly hit until this weekend. I probably should have been more focused and nervous this weekend but I am not, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. I'm not that stressed like normal which is good, but that makes me more relaxed and wanting to just chill instead of work this weekend. I am happy because I don't have a final until Tuesday which gives me a bit of time, but then again that means I am going to procrastinate really bad! Hopefully I will get down to business soon and just knock out these tests. This may potentially be the longest week of my life. Wish me luck!

Last Class

Hello Bloggers, I am writing to you a bit bittersweetly today while thinking about our last English 1050 class. Even though it is late at night and almost two hours long, I have truly grown to enjoy this class mostly because of all the people in it.  We've all grown to like each other, or at least I like them and I hope they like me, and that isn't something I was really expecting to be honest.  I didn't think I could get close to people in a class but it turns out I was wrong.  We had some donuts and apple juice and chatted a little and then we learned some things about footnotes.  I was actually really happy she explained that because I had no idea how to do footnotes until then.  We all asked our questions and then answered a few questions from her, and we were on our way.  I am happy to be done with another class, but I wish I wasn't done with the people! Hopefully I will still talk to some of them or see them around campus.

Project 4

Hello Bloggers, I am writing to you a bit confused still about our final project. I know I should not still be confused about it but I am.  I think the topic we picked doesn't help us that much either but then again, they're all difficult topics if they're older history ones. I understand the annotated bibliography, that is pretty straightforward. However the narrative I have to write is seeming a bit impossible at the moment. Hopefully once I look into all the information and research some more an idea will come to me about the narrative. Until then I am going to continue to be confused. Wish me luck!

Scrapbooks scrapbooks scrapbooks

What's up fellow bloggers. As I said before my unfamiliar genre was scrapbooks.  I chose this genre because I don't know too much about it and I thought it would be more fun than short stories or poems or something. It was fun and I liked doing it, but it turned out to be more time consuming than I thought. I will be honest and say I did a bit of procrastination, however I got it done at a reasonable time on Wednesday night which I am happy about. I had to look at 20-25 examples of scrapbooks and write down the parameters for them, make a scrapbook and write a how-to paper. Finding the examples wasn't hard, but writing all the observation things was very tedious. It helped me figure out the genre a lot better, but it was time consuming. Making the scrapbook was very fun, but putting 500 words in a scrapbook is harder than it looks! The how-to paper was probably the easiest out of all of it. In the end I finished my project and feel confident about it, and am very proud of it because of all the time I put into it!

Thanksgiving Break

Hola Bloggers, I don't think that I have ever been so ready for a break than I was for this Thanksgiving break, however now that I am back I am SO SO ready for Christmas break.  I loved going home and sleeping in my bed for four whole nights! I figured out I can sleep in past 9, as long as I am in my own bed. My bed was definitely a top reason for being excited for break.  I was also really excited to see my family, and really really excited to see my dogs! I know it sounds weird but I missed them a lot. I was mostly excited to see all my friends that I haven't seen in awhile. I did end up seeing a lot of people, and I got to see my best friends which was all I really wanted.  It was a much needed break but it was a huge tease. Now I can't wait for Christmas break!  

Overwhelmed.

Hello all, I hope you had a good relaxing weekend.  I did for the most part, but it was too short like usual.  With thanksgiving break this week I am getting very ansy to just be done until next Monday.  I am incredibly jealous of the many people who are already home for break or are going home Monday or Tuesday. I am ready to be home, sleep in my bed, be with my family and dogs and see my friends! This is the first time that hopefully all my friends will be together again. There has been some drama since summer but I am hoping we all get past it and are able to have fun together like we used to, I really need it! Although I have made great friends here, I miss my best friends that I have known forever. Thankfully I don't have exams in every class or papers or lots of work to do but I still have to go to them which blows. English was my only class cancelled which actually was very nice because then I can be done for the night on Tuesday and just relax-hopefully.  I hope you all have a happy thanksgiving!

Genre: Scrapbooks!

Hello Bloggies, hope you all had a good week. This week's classes were extremely helpful for me in project 3. Tuesday we discussed The Vampire Diaries and Twilight and the things those things both needed to be considered in the vampire movie/tv drama.  Then we looked at many comics and did the same things with those. This was helpful because this was exactly what we would be doing for our genres. Then on Thursday we did two of our journal entries for our specific genre which really helped out a lot.  Until this week I really wasn't sure on the specifics of this project.  Now that we have done examples of it and actually done it with our genre I know what we need and am not as nervous for it.

Life of a Waldo Library Employee

Hello all, I hope you had a good weekend or at least a better one than mine. I always write my Sunday/Monday blog while at work at the library, so I thought why not talk about my job here? I have only been working since the beginning of the school year, so I am still a rookie but I do know a lot already.  I work Monday and Tuesday, and work Sunday nights from 6 to midnight.  I work in the mornings on Tuesday and the afternoon on Monday and I definitely prefer my Sunday and Monday shifts more than my Tuesday's. I am in no way a morning person.  I also like my Sunday night shift because I get a lot of homework done, and don't have to do any of it over the weekend until I get to to work.  I also really like the night guy I work with Greg. He is very funny and always makes the shifts exciting. I also like the other people that work here. All of the librarians are very nice and extremely helpful. I work in central reference and a lot of people come asking us questions from research to how to print. Since I am new it is hard for me to answer some of these questions, but the librarians and other veteran student workers help me out a lot.  I am happy I decided to work here!

Unfamiliar Genres

Good Afternoon bloggers, it's finally Friday! We had a pretty good class yesterday. We went over our fairytales which I actually enjoyed writing.  I thought it would be really difficult but it was fun. We also went over some more unfamiliar genres. I liked watching the vampire movies because who doesn't like watching movies and I, unlike some people, actually like Twilight and I found I may like The Vampire Diaries. I was nervous for our unfamiliar dramas assignment until I saw the list of genres there was. I didn't know a lot of them, but I chose scrapbooking because that is one I don't know a lot about that I know I will like to do. Although I am not very crafty, I can still do well and have fun with it.  The time I have to do it is making me a bit nervous, but once I get my criteria for it I will start it and hopefully it won't take long.

Weekend Fun

Hola bloggers! I am very happy and very upset because I had a great weekend, and it's already over! I was able to go to Olivet College to see my best friend who I haven't seen for at least a month. I know everyone has been away from their friends and family for a long time but it seriously has felt like forever since I've seen her! Olivet is about 20 minutes past Battle Creek so it really isn't that far. I went up there around 6 on Friday night and stayed til 3 on Sunday, so it was a nice long weekend! It was really nice to get away and just hang out with her all weekend. I'm just mad it's already over! But that always seems to be how it works, the things you want to last longer always end quickly! Oh well, back to the daily life of a college student. Hopefully I'll get to see her again soon!

Peer Reviews

Hello bloggers, Thursday in class we all had to have our papers ready for peer review.  We spent the whole class in groups reading and peer reviewing each others papers.  I actually really like peer review, because it really helps to improve my paper. It is good for me to hear my paper out loud being read by someone else, and to hear other people's papers to see what they did well on and not so well on. This really helps my paper too to see if I did some of the same things. I also do value my other classmates opinion and it helps to make my paper much better. This analysis however is going to be rough, once again I feel like I can do it but the required length of the paper is what makes me nervous. Hopefully I'll get in the mood to write and just grind it out, we'll see!

A little too dramatic.

On Monday I went to see the play "up, down, strange, charmed, beauty, and truth" for extra credit for class and I have one word for it: Dramatic. In their defense, the main purpose and point for the play was very deep; with the mother abusing and almost killing one daughter for being a lesbian and their uncle making the sisters leave each other, it was a very intense play. With that being said, the actors took it to a whole other level. They made it very intense and even at times a little uncomfortable. I am not very into the acting world and don't know anything about it, so maybe I just don't understand. Either way, I don't believe I would choose to see this play again.

Cancelled-With a catch.

The next two classes are cancelled, which normally is something to be very excited about, but this time is a little different. I am very excited to have a couple free hours on Thursday and Tuesday I wouldn't normally have if I was in class, that's obvious. However, this annotated bibliography and outline we have to do are very daunting, in my opinion. I already have four sources for my annotated bibliography I did in class, but if I am being honest I haven't looked at it since I was in class so I have to get back into it. This entire project is a little intimidating for me. I struggled finding a thesis and how to write my analysis without sounding to much like I am summarizing. I am worried that I am going to summarize it all and completely miss the mark on the whole point. I am very happy were meeting with Mickey to discuss our progress because I have a feeling I am going to need some help!

Oh, College.

Up until these past couple weeks, college has not been too to bad for me, but once midterms hit it became extremely challenging. Thankfully I only have midterms in a couple classes, but then again they are my two hardest and most important classes. Spanish was first and it proved to be the worst by far. I am slowly realizing I may have been in over my head with the level 2000 spanish, if only I had realized this sooner. I have not gotten that grade back yet and I don't mind, I never wish to know. I also had a midterm in my Comm 1000 class and this class is extremely important because I want to minor in some field of communication and need this class to continue with that goal. It was an online open-note/open-book exam but I only had 60 mins. I was extremely worried and spent the whole night before studying and preparing, but it turns out It wasn't that bad. I finished in 40 minutes and was able to check almost ever answer in my book. I also got the results back today and got a 46 out of 50! I am extremely happy with that.

Analysis Thesis

Easy A is a movie that perfectly explains how society believes girls who "sleep around" are trashy and dirty, and how it is an even bigger crime when an innocent girl with a perfect record is the one doing it.

Interesting Week

This week we had a very interesting homework. We had to see a play on Monday called Sleep Deprivation Chamber. Being the naive non-theatre person I was I thought this play would be mostly about sleep deprivation or something along the lines of it; turns out it was, it just wasn't as obvious as I was expecting. The play in my opinion was very chopped up and confusing. It seemed to be missing a lot of things and didn't flow well. The play was extremely repetitive talking about the same things over and over. For example the explanation of the police officer's encounter with the main character was said over and over.  I wanted to just say "we get it, move on!". Also some of the characters were very intersting, like what was the point of the woman lawyer being a slut? and the grunting and heavy breathing dark figures? Once we got to class and discussed it it made a bit more sense, however it was not something I would see again.

My Weekend

Hi bloggers, I had a sort of eventful weekend. I work at Lawson Ice Arena as a skate guard and I have to work some of the hockey games. This Friday's game was my first time working and it was a training game. My sister has worked at Lawson for three years now, so I know a little bit of how it works and am not completely lost, that being said I still have never actually done it before. It was actually not as bad as I thought. Of course my biggest fear was falling on the ice but I dodged that bullet, this time. I also love watching hockey so it was a great time. After that I went home and watched movies with my friend. Saturday was pretty boring during the day but at night my friend and I traveled to the hockey game. We walked in the rain which kind of sucked but it wasn't too bad. The game was good and we won! Which is always a plus. After the game my best friend came into town and we went and hung out at her friends apartment. It was so so good to see her because I haven't seen her in about two months. My Sunday was also boring, and now we're back to the end of the weekend once again. Here's to hoping this week flies by!

Movie Analysis

This week we talked about the movie Carrie that we watched in class. Let me say once again that this was the most bizarre movie I've ever seen. We answered questions from our homework and then broke into groups to talk about certain people in the movie we thought were bullies. Once we all got together and presented, Mickey questioned us about how and where we got our information. These questions made me realize that we really need to thoroughly research our topics and have backups for our backups, if that makes sense. This information is good to know for our analysis project. I think I am going to do a movie but I'm not sure. I was thinking about doing a movie because it has one main point, unlike a TV show, I could get a lot of information on it, and I would be interested in it. I think I need to get more information on the topic before I definitely pick.

A Little About Me.

Hola Bloggers, I hope you all had a safe and exciting weekend, and didn't freeze to death! I swear Michigan weather is so bipolar! But, I love it. I thought I'd take the time today to tell you more about myself today. As you may know from my first blog, my name is Ashley Peruchietti and I was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan and I absolutely love it. Before I came to Western, I bounced around between a few different schools. I started out at Comstock North Elementary School. This was a good school, from what I remember of it I enjoyed it. However, I only went there until 2nd grade. Thinking about our future my parents decided they wanted us to go to a private, catholic school. I was young, so it didn't matter too much to me, or so I thought. I started my first day of 3rd grade at St. Mary's School. This was extremely different to my public school with 3 different classrooms for each grade. My time at St. Mary's was even more short lived. After my 4th grade year St. Mary's School closed due to the lack of people, we had 84 students for K-8th grade. So I started out my fifth grade year at St. Augustine Cathedral School. I stayed there until my graduation in 8th grade. After that, I went on to the only catholic high school in Kalamazoo, Hackett Catholic Central.  I spent all four years of my high school there and I absolutely loved it. I love the small school feel and knowing everyone you see. Western is a bit different then that, but I'm adjusting well.  So there's a little more about me, until next time bloggers.

Crazy Crazy Movie

Hello Bloggers, I hope you had a great week. The weekend is finally here! Yesterday in class we watched a movie called Carrie. This movie was an older film and was very strange.  At times I felt very bad for Carrie because she clearly had a bad home life and was extremely misunderstood. However, her telekinesis did not help her case. Also, the filming was very dramatic and made the movie seem very slow. For example the scene where she got the pig's blood spilled on her was extremely long and unnecesarily drawn out. All in all, I did not enjoy the movie partially because I do not like horror movies, but also because she was an extremely misunderstood girl who was hard to stick up for at times.

Weekend Festivities.

Good Evening bloggers, It was a pretty boring weekend for me here in Kalamazoo. My friends that live down the hall from me have been gone now two weekends in a row so I feel like I have nothing to do! I may just be lazy though. My grandparents came on Friday night for my mom's birthday and we went to dinner for her. On Saturday I enjoyed the typical football activities. I went to my families tailgate for a little bit before with my friend, then we ventured down to the student lot 105, but only for a bit. Then we made our way to the game. I had fun with the thunder sticks they handed out and cheering along with the cheers to my friends, but once halftime hit I was pretty much over it. I waited for the bus to head home and was surprisingly extremely tired. I got home and ordered a pizza with my friend in another dorm and hung out with her for awhile, then I decided to head on back to my dorm. I watched some netflix and went to bed. Although it was a semi uneventful weekend I enjoyed the down time. It was a nice way to recoup after a seemingly stressful week.

Class Tension?

Class today had a lot of discussion in it, and I think it got a couple people a little heated.  The question of "Was the selling of Henrietta's cells ethical?" was a very intense one. Personally, I could see the argument of both sides, but I may lean more towards one. I see the argument that it was just a few cells and it isn't that big a deal seeing as it didn't harm Henrietta. On the other hand, I believe it is morally right to just ask her, seeing as it is her body and her cells. Also, HeLa became so successful and helped so many people, and her family had no idea. They had no idea that Henrietta was helping discover so many things and help so many people. If my mother died I would like to know if she still lived on and contributed to so many discoveries. They were also being selfish because they didn't want to share their profit with anyone. So I guess in the end, I believe it was morally right to tell them, and they should've.

Reminiscing

This weekend was one that was full of reunions and reminiscing. I went to my old high school, Hackett's, homecoming, and was able to see so many people I haven't for awhile. Firstly two of my best friends came home for it. One of them, Andrea, was last years homecoming queen, so she and the homecoming kind had to come back and crown the new homecoming king and queen.  My other friend, Molly, just came to be with us. I am from Kalamazoo, and my high school is in Kalamazoo, so it wasn't far for me. Once we got there it was a mess of hugs and love from everyone I haven't seen in awhile. Homecoming is a time when a lot of alum's come home, so I saw a lot of my old classmates. I also am close with some of the people still going to Hackett.  I have to say one person I was most excited to see was Mrs. Rider, the secretary who is loved by every single person at Hackett. I do not know one person who doesn't like her or has anything bad to say about her. Her and I got extremely close when I was at Hackett, and I always made sure I got down to see her and give her a hug during the day. Seeing her definitely made my whole night. Later, my two friends came to stay with me; we spent the night catching up and being together. It was a great weekend, and definitely much needed.

Media Language.

Hello again, I hope you have all had a successful week! Today in class, we talked about media like movies and tv shows that influence how we talk and interact with each other.  This reminded me so much of my best friend Holly and her sister Emily.  They watch so many movies and can remember every single line.  I was over there all the time during the summer, and they would just have conversations completely in movie quotes.  One of them would just say a quote, the other would get it, and they would go on sometimes for whole conversations.  I felt very left out at first, and was very confused when I first realized what they were doing.  I could never remember all those quotes that well from movies.  Eventually, though, I would realize when they said a quote, or if they were talking in quotes, and would just sit and let it blow over. That was the perfect example of feeling left out in a certain social situation because of media and different conversations.

Here is a picture of the three of us, Emily on the left and Holly on the right.

Blog Numero Uno

 Hi bloggers, here begins my first official blog post. I am actually really nervous about writing in a blog. I want it to be interesting, obviously, but I am having the worst writers block. I figured for my first blog I would talk about my first few weeks at Western. I keep thinking this is all a trial-run, I keep thinking eventually someone will say okay time to go back to Hackett (my old school). Then I tell myself nope,get used to this. So far it has gone very well; my classes have not been too bad, so far, and I am meeting SO many new people. Although my transition to college has gone smooth so far, it is definitely an adjustment. It has been different not seeing the same people that I have gone to school with since I was in middle school, and not having 7 periods everyday. Even though it is completely opposite of high school, I am excited about the change and can't wait to see what the rest of my freshman year has in store.

Introduction

Hello fellow readers, my name is Ashley and I am a freshman at WMU, grabbing the reins. This is the first time I've ever written a blog so bear with me. I am very excited to begin my college career but also very nervous. I was born and raised a bronco, my dad is an alum and my mom has worked here almost 20 years. I am also from Kalamazoo, so I know my way around a little. That being said, I am still very anxious. So far my classes are going good and I haven't gotten lost, so I consider that a plus.