November 27th, 2023 to December 3rd, 2023
And just like that, we have made it to the end of the semester. It’s been a ride! To finish it off, we had our presentations this week, and next week, we’ll be looking at illustrated letters and wrapping up the class.
For presentations, I felt a lot better going into this one. I didn’t go until Thursday, which was slightly to my advantage, as I had time to prepare after watching everybody else’s. That’s what’s nice about going later. You have time to observe everyone else, and fix what you would have done differently while presenting. With that extra time, I didn’t adjust my slides, but I did write down speaking notes and some important things I wanted to touch upon. I didn’t really end up using them during my presentation, but I think the notes helped me memorize my talking points since I wrote them down on paper. And I made it under/at time limit! That was one of my goals. On my own personal timer I set before going, I had three seconds to spare. I think everybody liked my presentation; I did get a few laughs out of the audience! If I had more time, I would have gone more in depth, just like in my essay… if I had more words, I could continue on forever. I’ve always been a wordy writer, so I’m looking forward to seeing if I can cut down on some words to maybe fit in a few other things. I wasn’t able to discuss the husbands of each lover in the paper since I didn’t have space, but maybe I will. At least they got a little bit of time during the presentation! I’m only a few over the word count right now, so I don’t think that’s too bad. It’s nothing compared to last time!
I really liked Melina and Marc’s presentations. Their topics were really interesting and I thought how they explored them made for a great presentation. I found it fun how Melina actually wrote to one of the prison penpal companies, even if she didn’t get a response! Something to maybe think about in the future for myself is directly interacting with my area of study if possible. Everyone who did that for their final projects I found to be very exciting. Just something to tuck away into my brain for later.
Before signing off for today, I’d like to share how much I actually enjoyed these weekly writings. I found it helpful to reflect on what we did in class, and that, sometimes, it helped me keep track of what we’ve done in the past and what I can do in the future. Fun fact: I used my Letter of Note from Emily Dickinson in my paper and presentation! It really helped to kickstart and inspire what I would do for my final project. Honestly, I could have done my entire final project on just that one letter. I’d like to continue blogging in the future, perhaps carrying this weekly writing format onto my Tumblr blog, which I won’t tell you what my URL is. If you want it, go looking for it yourself! Also, this class in general got me very interested in the epistolary format and writing letters, so maybe those are some things I’ll work on over break for fun. The holidays are just around the corner, and I do have a friend in England! I have short story ideas brewing in my head as well… A girl needs her hobbies!
Thank you for joining me on this writing journey. I was wary of the weekly writings at first, but now that it’s a laundry day tradition, I might come to miss it in a few weeks. Writing will always be helpful, and I hope to carry on with it in the future, no matter in what way. Have an amazing winter break, and I’ll see you all around!
Sincerely, Riley
