Self Evaluation and Reflection

Self-Evaluation and Reflection

E-Sem was one of my most enjoyable classes this semester. I liked the small size of the class because I felt like everyone was allowed a voice to speak and it provided a more comfortable environment where we actually got to know our classmates pretty well. This helped when trying to express our thoughts, as we didn’t have to be worried about messing up in front of strangers. I also liked how, at the end of the semester especially, we got comfortable enough with each other that we could disagree. I thought that confronting and questioning each other’s ideas really helped push our conversation to the next level, as we were forced to justify our beliefs and think more deeply about whatever it was that we were talking about.

Self-Evaluation and Reflection

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” – Patanjali

Final reflection

I chose this class because I was attracted by the words “identity” and “story”. When I was in a train station full of people in Japan, I often thought about how each person goes through their lives and has happy times, sad times, exciting times, and difficult times. Those experiences are always tied to someone else, so people are entangled with each other. That is a really interesting aspect of human beings.

Remember:

Re – go back

Member – limbs of the body

When I remember, the limbs of my body are put back in place.

When I remember, I am whole.

When I remember – I go back, and only then, can I move forward.

It’s all already there, I just have to remember

--

So many questions I am having, and the answers are in front of me – in the past.

The past is in front of me, I can see it.

Since beginning this process, I have learned to understand that going back does not hinder the process of moving forward.

 When we began this process, I was ready.

There is an electricity in the room- a vibrant hum carrying through the giggles and big smiles of the whole room. After each group reads their revisionary thoughts to the rest, there is raucous applause. Everything from big changes to small ones is exciting. All, though, geared towards saving Antigone’s life, sometimes at the cost of Ismene’s if necessary. She is the criminal, but hers is the loss honor most protests. My group is the only one to act out the altered scenes; our changes are an enormous amalgamation of four people’s revisions, and still no one dies.

When I learned from Bionic that I had been placed in this class, I was admittedly very unsure of what I had just chosen for myself. I had put two other ESEM courses as my first and second choices, and I was only vaguely interested in the course description for the one I ended up in. I was surprised that I was placed in my third (my last) choice for ESEM, and with only this limited knowledge of my academic schedule for my freshman year, I was feeling very anxious for September to swing around. None of my fears were assuaged by the first day of class, either. That didn’t come until a few weeks into the semester.

The Day We Lost Control 

I chose “Changing Our Story” not for its description because I could not figure out any “defined” topic it concerned but for the recommendations from upper classpeople who had taken classes with Anne Dalke before. I felt it was more important to have an engaging, interesting and constructively critical professor than a topic that was the most interesting to me. Well, those sage words of advice were accurate; being taught by Anne Dalke for my first semester was definitely worth it but also being taught by all of you was equally as wonderful. Thank you Anne and thank you all.