This week began with relaxation, as having Monday and Tuesday off as wellness days allowed me and my friends to refocus our attention away from school and on ourselves. It did feel empty not having to wake up for classes or submit any work, but I do not regret having those two days of sleeping in and lazing around. Combined with the two wellness days to begin the week, Thursday was also a day with no classes. Inclement weather and the risk of losing power compelled UNC to order a snow day. While only having a 2-day work week sounds great, in reality it set me very behind, as both classes for English 105i were canceled and we ended up not meeting for a week and a half. This pushed back assignments, and took away time that I could have used to connect over Zoom with my working group and the larger class as a whole.
As we near the end of Unit 1, having the missing classes was a mixed blessing. On one hand, I was afforded more time to review my feedback from Feeder 1.1 and 1.2, but at the same time missed a valuable opportunity to speak with my peers in my working group about the rough draft of my UP1. I found myself relieved to see homework for one of the first times ever, as doing a workshop on the UP1s was assigned. Having the opportunity to read someone else’s project, and receive feedback on my own was a huge benefit to my writing process.
Further, having the assigned grammar lesson and video helped me to revise my UP1 to flow better and be more concise. I was able to make sure my new and revised project fit the standards that UNC has as an academic intuition, and the standards to which I hold myself. In fact, this grammar lesson continued as I read a classmate’s UP1 as part of the workshop. I made use of the time spent to note fluidity and conciseness that I was then able to turn around and incorporate stylistically into my paper even though the topics are very different.
Finally, as English 105i met for the first time in two weeks yesterday, I was able to connect with my classmates again. Even though we did not enter breakout rooms and get to speak more “face-to-face”, I was still able to see many of my peers over the zoom screen and through the daily check in. As I followed along while we discussed paragraph breaks and continued covering writing style conventions, I was even helped in writing this blog by ordering my thoughts and separating when needed.
Overall this past week has been a tumultuous time, with conflicting emotions of relaxing during the time of no classes, to stress about having to catch up and work at a faster rate in order to make up for the lost time. Having the chance to be with friends and play with Aspen, my friend’s husky puppy, certainly helped to take the edge off of the stress and prepare me for the coming work ahead. As I look forward, I can already see the next wellness days, and I am prepared for the comfort they hold.
-Lukas Sobocinski
Featured Image Source:
UNC-Chapel Hill. 2018. Snow Day at UNC. Twitter, https://twitter.com/unc/status/953762050743898115