Man, reflecting back on this course brings up a lot of stuff. The very first day Marlen tried to scare the shit out of everyone and succeeded in making some people drop the course on the very first day. After the first class it was clear that the first day was just Marlen messing with people, and that he was actually a cool guy (if you do the work). The second time I got freaked out was when I scheduled my first meeting and then didn’t show up, he called me out in class and I about shit my pants, yet this was just another example of Marlen messing with people and he was totally cool with it. I was most anxious when I was going through the topic picking process; what to write about!!! I had a assload of ideas that I wanted to write about, and I originally wanted to do the 40 page novella. After a long talk with Marlen I completely changed my topic and my project turned into the 15 page research paper. Once I picked my topic I was never really worried because I know a lot about it, and it’s a topic that can be as broad or as narrow as I want. It was weird because before this class I never really did work early, I’m a pretty bad procrastinator. Alas, I found myself doing stuff before it was due because Marlen prettymuch said he’d beat the shit out of us if stuff wasn’t done on time, and that the stuff due would take a long time. This turned into my main strength because I thought to myself “shit dude, this is gonna suck balls, but I gotta do it and just get it over with.” Of course the previous statement refers to the blogs and not the actual writing, because I didn’t mind writing the paper at all. It was just the tedious process of paraphrasing a shit ton of blogs, finding sources and paraphrasing again, and citing that got to be a repetitive, brain numbing experience. I don’t really know what my goal is as a future researcher, because I still don’t know where my life is going. However, I feel ready to take on whatever research I need to after this course, because it really did seem like graduate work that actually matters, unlike most english classes. My proudest moment in the course was probably when Marlen said he respected me, quite frankly because I like hearing teachers tell me that I’m doing well. Also, this shows that Marlen actually cares about his students. What will stick with me most after this course is just the perfectionist attitude about writing a paper. I’ll always just think to myself, “check this! check that! Is this write? What will people think about this?” and so on.
Blog 17 – Shichyeah!
