Week 14: "Famous Last Words"

A Different World

As the semester is starting to come to an end, I can’t help but to feel bittersweet. Graduation is upon me (in exactly 14 days to be exact). I never would have thought that the day would come when I could say that I am an alumni of The University of Oklahoma. I think one of my biggest fears now is “the land of the unknown”. What will be the next chapter of my life? What does the world hold for me? Am I ready to take on the responsibilities of being a grown women?

With that being said, this has been one of the toughest and at the same time easiest semesters that I have had in college. I think these last three weeks will be the toughest of this semester because of the quantity of work that I have left. I know that Wednesday after 4:30 I will be able to breathe with ease, as it will signal the end of the semester.  This semester has taught me a lot about myself and I have also learned a bit more of what my strengths and weaknesses are. This class has shown me how much I enjoyed writing when I was younger and made me fall back in love with writing. I have also learned that at times writing can be an outlet me. Which brings me to say that I really enjoyed the creative aspect of this class.

So, first things first I would like to say thank you to Professor Gibbs, for the creative aspect of this class. Second I would like to thank my peers for going on this Indian Epic journey with me this semester. Lastly, I would like to thank myself for pushing through even when I wanted to quit.

Signing off,

Jordan Pennon

Week 10: Famous Last Words

This week was kind of a hard week for me. I went to the emergency room last Sunday night and the doctor put me on bed rest for a muscle spasm on my back. Of course I did not listen and I attended class and work which added more stress to my back. In turn that made me go back to the emergency room.   

In other words this week some of my classes seemed to intertwine with each other. I had several readings for some of my classes this week. In my capstone class we had to read a book called Development as Freedom and my professor mentioned Malthus, which I thought was interesting because we talked about Malthus in my Environment and Sustainability class. For anyone that doesn’t know who Malthus is. He was a English polymath who believed that the earth would soon outgrow its resources such as food, water, and land. I thought that it was interesting because just the other day I was wondering what exactly I needed the ES class for and it then in my capstone class it made sense to me.  All of my classes intertwine with each other and feed off of each other.  

Must Read!

My best writing for this week would have to be for my Native American class. We got to write about the Oklahoma Fancy Dancers that came and performed for us on campus. I loved the event because I got to experience something out of the norm. We got to write about our experience at the event and what we learned from the event.  My favorite part of the event was when we got to participate in the Friendship dance with the Fancy Dancers. It was something that was completely out of my norm that was also a learning experience for myself. 

Famous Last Words: Week 7

This week has been an interesting week by far. First, I was overwhelmed with graduation gear-up, that now it has started to sink in that I will be graduating in 8 weeks. Second, I had a few special tours that I had to do at work this week and each one of them was for students that were in middle school. Third, I went down to Texas for the Red River Rivalry and ended up getting heat exhaustion and having to get put on bed rest. And lastly, This will be one of the biggest weeks for me because I have midterms and papers due this week.  

Graduation is near!

All in all I feel that so far In the semester it has been interesting to see how all of my classes in a way have intertwined with each other. In my capstone class, one of the books that we were reading about two weeks ago made a reference to the book Mahabharata which I thought was fascinating because the book talked about war and armed conflict. 

I think for this week's storytelling, it was one of my best stories. I really got to channel my inner kid and it shows in the story. Plus I think that the story that I wrote about in a sense deals with image and the way that people perceive your image. The story talked about a girl who grew up as a boy and had to deal with that identity crisis. I think that the story plays a role in what society deems as the perfect image or the perfect body, just by media. I find it interesting that so many little girls are dealing with body issues because they look at the television and don’t see anyone that looks like them. I think that the middle school age is when a lot of kids start to doubt whether or not they are beautiful because that is the time when they are impressionable. I think that everyone is beautiful in their own way and beauty is only skin deep.   

Self-Image

Famous Last Words (week 4)

Man has this been a week!!! 

First let me say that I made it through the week on 5 hours of sleep. I feel like this was the week, for my mid midterms. 

I had a quiz over Africa for Public Health in Africa class. I had my first exam for the semester in my Native American music class. I had two papers due this week, one of them was 3 page movie analysis for my senior capstone class, and the other paper had to be 500 word mini essay for my Public Health in Africa class. And I also had a quiz in my GEOG class. 

So it was a very overwhelming and stressful week. Let me not forget to mention the meetings that I had to go to this week. I had two meetings for my job, one meeting for CAC Spark team, and one meeting for UPB. 

I literally spent every waking hour I could in the library, and also at Starbucks, to make it through my day. I guess that is the price I have to pay for having all of my classes on Tuesday and Thursday. There are pro’s and con’s to having all of your classes on Tuesday and Thursday. Pros: You get Monday, Wednesday, Friday and the weekend all to yourself (although I work all day Monday and Wednesday and Friday morning). Cons: If you happen to have an exam or a paper due, it will more than likely be on Tuesday or Thursday, which will cause you to stress out until the week is over.

But now that we are approaching a new week, I can take a break for about two weeks and then the stress will begin all over again. But until then I will relax and enjoy these weeks stress-free. 

Stress spelled backwards is DESSERTS