This class was pretty overwhelming and I loved it. I really dislike talking in class and especially presenting. Yet I find myself looking back at my first appetizer presentation and remembering how much fun I had. It was on a topic I enjoyed, but I’ve done other presentations on fun topics which I hated. It was in a class I liked with people I liked but this is true about a lot of classes, and I still dread presentations. I think my joy came from not being afraid of my ignorance. I presented and asked questions not to get people to think the way I did, but because I was genuinely curious to know what people thought. In no ways was this presentation perfect and I would change a lot if I could, but it was fun and informative for me even if for no one else.
This was really how I felt about the class as a whole. I was still nervous when I talked and rather disliked it, but I still did it. It wasn’t when I was confident but when I was confused about what the author or a classmate was saying. I felt like I could talk when I didn’t know everything because I didn’t feel judged for my lack of knowledge. The authors were weird and it was ok to be confused. Even after break I tried to stay curious when participating in the reading diaries and enjoyed reading what people had to say.
If someone only knows one class that I am in, it is this one. I talk about it and what I have learned a lot, especially when watching or talking about media with friends. When I mention it, I always referred to it by its full name since I find it so ridiculous, and now almost everyone I talk to often can recite it. It comes up so often because the ideas are so applicable. Yesterday I watched a few episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender then The Rocky Horror Picture Show followed by Spongebob (it was a weird night indeed). Even though these shows are very different, the ideas from this class applied to all in some ways. I feel that way about practically all media I consume now, and am glad to be able to look at new things and things I’ve loved for years with this new knowledge.
