My name is Nadia Taylor and the first few weeks have been kind of hard to adjust to because Geneseo is sizable compared to the private school I attended. What I meant to say is that there are a lot more people in my graduating class than there were in high school. It’s also hard to make friends because everybody has their own cliques and aren’t willing to be open towards people outside of their friend group. I’m also shy when talking to people since I’m afraid they will bully or talk back to me. I tried doing small talk with a few people, but I haven’t really had anything significant to talk about since I’m shy and nervous. In high school, I encountered a few mean girls who were really hard to deal with. There was this one girl I encountered at the parade I went to with my school marching band, and she said something that hurt my feelings. When the band was going on a cruise, I decided not to go since I knew it would be stressful for me. The same girl asked if I wanted to go on the cruise and I said no, and she said she was sad. I feel like the girl is ignorant and isn’t aware of the struggles.
I’m struggling with my courses and trying to adjust to each professor’s teaching style, approach to assignments, and assigning textbook work. Geology is the hardest since I’m not a science person and I don’t like the subject. Still I took it because it will fulfill SUNY Geneseo’s General Education requirements and because it does fit my schedule. We have to learn in that class about how the Earth has different layers of itself, including the crust, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core. Music History is more rigorous than I expected because we have to obtain a lot of information from the class. I took it because I’m a music major and it fulfills my requirement to stay in it. In that class, we learned how the Roman Catholic Church influenced music through Gregorian Chants. It can be overwhelming since I have to balance out the workload in that class with a few other classes that I’m taking.
My expectations for this Writing Seminar Class, Theatre: A Therapy for Veterans, is a lot of writing. I also expect to do a lot of reading in this class since a couple of books will be used. I also expected to do a lot of note-taking since I’m reading from the books we have in class. I also expected to write an argument since the book They Say, I Say mentions writing about how you do it. In the book The Theater of War, the narrator talks about how his girlfriend died due to cytosis fibrosis, which is an issue in the lungs. He talks about how beautiful her death is since she was brave to get through her condition. I can connect to the narrator’s girlfriend’s struggle since she was willing to be brave in what she had to go through. I myself struggle with getting through college by being alone, but I’m trying to be brave and survive college by doing my best during classes. I also like in the They Say, I Say book how you can use everyday language, but at the same time, you must use the expected academic standards when you make an argument. I want to write my essays in college format, but at the same time, use the language that I use every day.
