Working on the rational argument

 

    

     

I am trying to finalize my rational argument and I will say that it has been a hard experience. My topic about racism against Asian Americans has given me a new insight into the topic. Lots of data that I have never known about and stories have been brought to light. So this part of the research has been extremely rewarding. Unfortunately due to ROTC, I did lose a couple days to work on it so I am still a little behind on my argument. It's been hard to put my ideas together and I have had to rework a lot on my essay.

    But, I am slowly getting it done and I am reaching the finish. I am doing more research to help me develop a thoughtful conclusion. Hopefully, during the week I have time to sit down and finish my argument as I feel that I have a lot of great information to share. Overall, this has been a challenging yet rewarding assignment and I really feel that I am writing something important.

Fort Knox Experience

 

 

   Over the weekend I was at Fort Knox. I was there to take part in our ROTC spring training. It was a challenging yet fun time and I was able to meet so many people from other schools around Illinois. Schools like Loyola, Eastern Illinois, Western Illinois, Northwestern, and Depaul were all with us at Knox. It did suck having to eat MREs for most days in the field but after eating the first it's pretty easy to eat the rest. I had a great time bonding with a lot of people and being able to take part in the different events that were held.

    I scaled a 500ft rappel tower and completed an obstacle course during one of the days. The other day we searched for landmarks around the area during the day and night as a team and that was a very fun experience. The next day we did tactical movements and planning which was super interesting. The only downside was that one day we had to sleep outside overnight and I picked up a cold. But, overall the training was an incredible experience.

Busy Week

 

    

    This upcoming week will be extremely busy for me as I will be missing a majority of the school week. Starting on Wednesday I will be going to Fort Knox in Kentucky for ROTC training. It will be a very fun but tough training as it will be my first time being there. I am looking forward to experiencing this as I would've never imagined that I would be able to go here. Over the past week, I have been getting all my stuff ready and packed so that I can be ready to go for the weekend. We will be there from Wednesday to Sunday and I will be coming home pretty late. 

    The one thing that I am really not looking forward to is catching up on the work that I am going to miss. I won't be able to use my laptop for the next 5 days so I will be falling behind on some classes. Thankfully, I talked to my professors about extensions, and they will still allow me to get credit on assignments that I will miss. When I come back it'll be straight back to work on assignments.

Finishing this semester

    

 This semester has overall been a grind for me. I started this semester knowing that I wanted to do better than last semester as I kind of got lazy at the end of last semester. My classes were challenging last semester but I got mostly A's and ended with two B's. But, I know those B's could've been A's if I had not gotten lazy. Admittedly, I was able to get my grades up at the end of the semester too but I really got lazy in my accounting class. I stopped studying for tests a lot and got behind on homework because I was complacent with my A at the time. This semester though I am making sure that this won't be repeated.

    My schedule this semester is a lot different than last semester. I have classes on Tuesday and Thursday this time around and my schedule has no big blocks of free time between them. Last semester I had a 3-hour gap between my third class and my fourth class on Wednesdays. While it was nice to have the gap to finish homework it was pretty hard to have to end classes at 5:35pm every Monday and Wednesday. This was especially hard as a commuter having to go home pretty late.

    Now, all my classes are basically back to back so I end at 11:45 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I spend most of my mornings and afternoons in the library now and have been studying almost every day, something I didn't do last semester. Throughout this semester I have seen so much personal improvement and my grades are reflecting that as well. As this semester winds down with 4 weeks remaining I hope that I can keep this consistency and finish out strong and enjoy my summer. I also want to pose a question to you the reader, have you made any personal goals this semester?

Free Writing

    

    

    Free writing is something that I have not done ever since maybe my freshman year English class. It's something that I have been wanting to do but never had the motivation to do it. But in this class, I think that free writing has opened up my thoughts and helped me generate more ideas now. At first, I was pretty indifferent to free writing but now I feel like it's a good outlet for getting my thoughts down.

    At first, it was hard trying to continue to write for five minutes and not stopping. But I found it to get easier as time went on. I would talk mostly about my day or other things going on in my life. I found that if I wrote about stuff I cared about it would make my ideas flow a lot easier. Talking about what was going on in my life was pretty therapeutic and also helped me plan out other things that I wanted to do in the future. Writing these thoughts down allowed me to express ideas that I would've most likely just internalized.

    I'd recommend free writing to other people for sure. I believe that even if you aren't a great writer it's still something that can benefit you. You don't need to be a good writer to free write. All you need is an idea and then it's up to you to express that idea. So there is no format that has to constrain your writing and that's something I really appreciate about free writing. 

Looking Forward

    Hello everyone! For this week's post just wanted to share some of my plans for the near future which is spring break and also my plans for the summer. I am looking forward to getting some relaxation over this break and destressing. Not having to worry about assignments and going to school every day as a commuter will be very fun and will allow me to get ready for the last half of this semester.

    Overall, this semester has been going very well for me but, I will gladly take a week off of school. I have no real concrete plans as of now but I do know that I will go out to see my friends and hang out with them. I haven't really had the chance to do this as much as I wanted to because of my busy schedule. I will also be spending time at home which I do every day but it will be good to just relax at the house without thinking about homework all the time.

    After spring break, I will start working at the bookstore here on campus so I think that will be a good opportunity and it's good to make some extra money. This summer I will finally get to travel abroad. My family is planning to go back to the Philippines this summer so it'll be great to see my family again. It has been almost 4 years since we went back. On top of that, we will be stopping by Japan before heading over to the Philippines so I am really looking forward to this trip.

Catcthing up on work

 Stressed Out

   

 Last week I was super stressed out as every big assignment and test decided to be due during this week. My main stressor was my business law class as our first big presentation was due on Friday and I had to present to the class about my business. Writing my notes and getting all the details ready for this presentation was very stressful. We had the week off from class to prepare and since it was my 8am class I spent every day in the library. Even though I had prepared my notes and my script I still felt unprepared but I gave the presentation regardless. Recently, I got the results of the presentation and found out that I did fairly well so that definitely was a relief.

    For this class, I worked on getting a lot done for my summary and continued to work on it later during the week. During the weekend, I took some time to try and work on my summary for my film as well but I will need more time on Monday to finish it up. My weekend was busy and I had to take some time to rewatch the film to remind myself of the key scenes in the documentary. I think that I made good progress but there is still a lot to be written.

    My main stressor came at the very beginning of the week on Monday. What was it? My music class. As someone who doesn't really study music this class has been going surprisingly well. But now, we had to take a midterm covering almost all that we had learned. It was an open-book test but I won't lie it was still difficult. The hardest part was listening to my professor play the piano and having to identify if the tone was in the major, minor, or chromatic scale. Some were obvious but some sounded exactly the same. But, the rest of the test wasn't too bad so I'm hoping for a good grade.