Good morning! I’ve had such a busy few days, but I finally have some time to sit out in the sun and reflect. It’s been so nice to finally have some sunshine.
Last week, I really just went to class, worked out, did homework, cleaned, and went to bed. I’ve been enjoying my classes, and I think they’re all balancing each other really well. If I get tired of one thing, I can just move to the next pretty easily. They’re all quite different. Here’s a short summary of all of them.
Reading Education: This class is my online one, and it’s pretty easy. Each week, we just have one assignment that comes from our different reading materials and then one discussion post where we talk to our peers about the material. Last week, I started both of our textbooks. One of them is about the importance of recognizing adolescents’ individual assets, cultures, strengths, etc. and giving them individualized spaces to excel. The book is written by 5 different elementary educators from all over the US. The other book is about non-traditional reading education that strays from “textbooks” or reading workbooks and instead uses chapter books or other books. It emphasizes the importance of allowing students to actually enjoy reading instead of asking them to gear learning towards multiple choice answers. I remember my first grade teacher using my library account to check out chapter books from the library for me and then giving them to me in class. I read these while other students read the textbooks, and I learned to really love reading. I think that this model is helpful for young readers, especially because education is moving away from reading paper books at all.
Calc: We just worked on inverse trig, which I remember not at all enjoying in high school, and now, we’re doing right triangle trig. I’m keeping up, though, and I feel supported in the class. I’ve done well on the homework, and it doesn’t take me too long. The class also goes by fast, and I like my group that I sit with.
Microbiology: I also enjoy this class. The professor moves through the slides pretty quickly, so I have to do a lot outside of class to keep up. We’re learning basic principles right now such as processes of microbial growth, classes of microbes, binary fission, pioneers of micro, etc. Our first exam is on 2/14, and we have two built-in study days before then. I also plan on making a study group with other people in the class and reaching out to our graduate teaching assistant for help studying. I think Maddie will also help me study a lot.
Politics of Latin America: This class is one of my favorites. The professor is very knowledgable, and I knew next to nothing before the class started. We’ve spent the last few classes working through the history of the continent starting in the 1800s but mostly focusing on the different decades of the 1900s. We’ve looked at their imperialist relationships, corporatism, and the shifts in their economies and militaries. We have a map quiz on Friday, but I studied pretty well and can label all of the countries and capitals. I just have to look at the geographical features like the mountain ranges and trade ports. I really like that the professor just talks and writes notes on the whiteboard. It’s harder for me to learn with digital slides.
Global Health: This class is the one with my mentor, which I have enjoyed a lot. We did an article study on the different trends and measures of success in global health throughout history. It’s definitely true that the US has a poor healthcare system despite their spending, which is for many different reasons. First, we pay doctors a lot and have a heavily expensive pharmaceutical industry, which I worry will continue to get worse in the next few years. On top of that, we don’t have a lot of coverage for working classes, so healthcare is a larger commodity/privilege than it is in other countries. Many families stay in debt their entire lives over medical bills. Medicare and Medicaid are helpful, but we need more widespread coverage for those types of programs. The common conception is that increasing funding for preventive healthcare (such as regular checkups, screenings, vaccine clinics, etc.) will spike costs even more, but Public Health experts have found the opposite to be true. Countries who funnel more money into programs that better the health of the entire population, which includes making care more financially accessible, find that they spend less money on healthcare because it is cheaper to prevent disease than it is to cure or manage it. That was the focus of the comparative Healthcare class that I took with my mentor last semester. We looked at countries like Canada, Sweden, the UK, Germany, India, and many others with forms of National Health Insurance plans or socialized medicine. They typically all had better health outcomes than we do.
Poetry: My poetry class has been really fun and also not challenging. We go through workshops and poems each day and find underlying themes and then write poetry responses to generative prompts. We can also send him one poem a week for feedback, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t gotten to write much in my free time.
I’ve also been working out a lot and doing kickboxing. I really like the instructor a lot, and I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with the different moves. It’s also gotten easier, and I don’t have to stop to get water so much.
My trip to Nashville was super fun, even though the hotel was pretty expensive. We ate some good food, found a cool sweater at a thrift store, and enjoyed walking around the city. It was a nice getaway.
We went to this nice restaurant and split a bunch of different dishes. We got an appetizer that had ricotta cheese, some type of vegetable mixture, and flatbread. We then split a pesto gnocchi pasta dish, a chicken bowl, and a salmon bowl. We finished with a brownie that had miso in it, which gave it a really cool, slightly crunchy outside. It was all super good.
This week, I’m just working on keeping up with classes and going to the gym. We kickboxed last night. Today, I’m spending time hanging out outside, going to my public health class, and then joining my poetry class from my hammock on the lawn. I also got my kindle in, so I’m going to set that up later.
Sorry for not making many posts! I will be bringing up some Buddy’s later on and will sit and chat with you. I love you!
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