I cannot believe that is already midterm (or past it by now)! This week has flown by and I'm getting nervous because the end of the semester is going to be here so quickly and there's so much to be done before then! Oh, well....

This week was nice because it was another week to kind of catch up and focus on the actual MRP and the genres. We had to write another genre and peer review everyone else's 3rd and 4th genres. I already reviewed my group's 3rd genres (accidentally too early), so the plan was to get the 4th done on Sunday night. I think I'm going to do that now, though.

I honestly haven't even done my 4th genre as we speak, but I am working on it! It's hard because the processes you have to use to create genres are, by their very nature, creative. You must be original and put yourself in the position of the client or in the voice of whomever that genre is from. My research is more directed to answering the foundation questions I had generated, so there isn't a lot of research I'm using to write the genres. Citing things may be a problem. But I'm now researching more that is relevant to my genres instead of my foundation questions. That got me thinking, though, "Are the foundation questions supposed to be directly related to our genres and their purposes?" I think so. But I thought I had already accounted for that.....oh, well. :)

So, since I haven't done a lot for the few assignments we had this week, there isn't a whole lot I have realized that I wasn't aware of before. But I guess that I learned that I may need to re-evaluate either my genres or my foundation questions and will almost definitely have to do more research. I did, however, realize that there are things that I will undoubtedly "miss" when it comes to creative writing, as Cindy and Geneva pointed out to me. Others' input is definitely important and almost necessary to help make a project the best it can be (this reminds me of when I was growing up and habitually told my mother that I couldn't find my shirt/skirt/etc for church and a few seconds later, she returned with the very item in her hand and I was left feeling like I was blind!).

This week, the assignments were just to get going on our genres. I really dreaded doing them, and put them off as long as humanly possible while still meeting the deadline. Way too much work this semester! Also,we needed to get going on our email lists and do peer reviews of each other’s work (although I have yet to do that….that will be Sunday night as I’m going out of town AGAIN!). I set out to get my stuff done early so that this weekend I could be gone and not have to do any homework while in Lexington. I only aimed to get done what was due for this class before I left because I was too busy getting assignments done for other classes. Okay, enough of that….

This week, since there weren’t too many assignments, there weren’t a whole lot of new processes I used. I would say, though, that it took a lot of concentration do write the journal entries and my poem. I had to get in the mind of the person and imagine a life that was totally different from mine. It was hard, because I didn’t want to make it sound like I thought deaf people had pitiful lives or that they were unintelligent, yet I wanted to make a point that it is difficult to adapt to an environment where, in the beginning, you’re already “behind.” Also, the process of searching online for more resources has become a little easier. I think I am getting better at knowing what to look for, where to find it, and how to cite it.

This week, I know that I learned how to be a better manager of my time. We had fewer assignments this week, but because I knew I was going to be gone this weekend, I made an effort to get as ahead as I could before getting behind. Procrastinating is like a black hole that chases you. Once you get “in” it, you can’t get out. I also think that, this week. Also, I didn’t think that I would be able to swing the first genre of the poem. I thought that it would be really corny and that it would sound fake, but in the end, I think it turned out pretty well. The journal entries were kind of an offshoot of that…..once I got in the mood or voice of the poem, it was easy to keep rolling and elaborate more about the things that were mentioned in the poem.

oops