Reflecting On My Journey

      Hello world, my name is Eugene, I am 19 years young, and I am just another college student. As I first registered for this class, I thought it is going to be piece of cake since it's an online class. My initial response was: "sweet, I don't have to go to college, I can just sit in front of my computer and pretend like I am doing something, and get English 101 college credit." Second week into it, I realized I'm in a whole different situation and I won't be able to slip right through these ten weeks with my feet kicked up in the air, like I always did in my previous English classes. I recall the instructors letting us know in announcement postings that in this course there will be a whole lot of reading. I did not take it seriously and thought that I can just do the minimum and get away without reading everything. Later I realized that everything that is posted online in this course is all very important, and is something a student cannot do without if he or she is planning on passing this class.
      I can honestly say and be 100 percent sure, that this is the hardest class I have ever taken in college yet. I defiantly under-estimated this when I first signed up for it. Even though this class was a great challenge for me, I think it is for the best. I have learned and understood what it means to be dedicated to college. When I first started going to Everett Community College I heard people and teachers saying that for every hour of class in college, there is two to three hours that need to be spend outside of school for homework and studying. I did not buy this at all. I have always done the minimum just to look like I am trying, and to pass a class with an A or a B. This course defined that statement of spending at least twice the school time, at home for homework. Every day there is something to be read and to be posted or submitted in this course of English 101D. One of the biggest and most challenging things I have noticed about this course compared to other English classes, is that 101D is all about learning and exploring other cultures, religions, and getting to know basic understanding how other people live in other countries. This was challenging for me because each of the major themes that we focused on such as identity, community, and tradition, go much more deeper than just this single word. They are all very similar while very different at the same time. This is what made it much more difficult to write papers and do discussion assignments on. Instructions having us pick our own thesis within a general idea of identity, community, and tradition, made it harder, because I would rather have someone give me a very exact and specific thesis to do my paper on.
      I am glad that I've survived through these nine and a half weeks so far. When I found out about the e-portfolio assignment, I panicked a bit inside. It seemed like there is a whole lot of work to be done and would be almost impossible to accomplish. I waited until it was a couple of days before the due date, and I jumped both feet into it. As I started doing one introduction after another, I realized that it is not that hard as I thought it would be. It is simple and straight to the point unlike the essays we had to break our heads for till we get the right thesis going.
     The four pieces I chose to be a part of my e-portfolio are; the timed writing we did for a movie we watched, "What's In My Wallet" blog assignment which I revised, Foods in Cultures blog assignment, and last but not least the discussion board first post for tradition unit. I did well and showed some critical thinking for the movie essay we had to do, considering it was timed and we only had sixty minutes to write it. Being new to online courses, and having the "What's In My Wallet" assignment be in first or second week of class, I missed out on the instructions, so I wanted a redemption, and take another stab at it by revising it. Foods In Culture blog assignment is my voice paper, in which I have directly spoke to and at the audience, something I have not done before. For the fourth piece, I picked my first discussion board posting for tradition unit. I picked it because when I was writing that assignment, I felt right and it felt good expressing what was on my thoughts, relating to the main idea of what was in the instructions.