Back with updates and random things to say

So sorry I have not posted. Usually when I am in the mood to write on here I remember all the homework I have and then go get on Facebook. Since exams are around the corner and I have so much studying to do and two papers due in two days, this is the opportune time to return to the blogosphere or whatever they call it. 

There's lots of topics I want to speak on but for now I'll just give a general update on life. 

This second semester at the University of Michigan has been the best four months of my life. I didn't think I could love life in Ann Arbor more after my first semester but I was wrong. I have found the right balance of work and fun and I have made some amazing friends. I thank God for the opportunity to attend this school and come into contact with all the people I have met and learned from. I am the happiest I have ever been and am so grateful to those who have ever encouraged me in any way because there were times during the fall term when I thought I could never keep up with these UM smarty pants. Not many people from Flint have the chance to come here and I am trying my best to represent my city because even if I haven't called or texted enough, I love all my friends and family there. Although I have become extremely attached to Ann Arbor but I am so proud to be from the 810. I don't think there is an acquaintance of mine here who does not know my hometown ;)

Spring is upon us and this means I am going to have more time to express my thoughts and opinions, so those of you who read and care, here are some upcoming topics 

Anonymity on a big state school campus

UM advantages and disadvantages

Career aspirations and future plans 

Music 

Gender issues, male privilege, women's body image and self-perception

If there's any other topics you would like me to write about please don't hesitate to email me at jeller@umich.edu or comment below 

Thanks so much for reading, 

Jessica 

Life in A2

Hello general first month of college post. This is a list of things that pop into my head as I reflect on my first four weeks as a Wolverine living in the dorms of Ann Arbor. 

1. I never appreciated having my own bathroom until coming here. 
2. I didn't know how many rich people there are until I came here. 
3. There is a never-ending supply of delicious food in Ann Arbor. 
4. How you design your schedule is SO important
5. Having your roommate become your friend is an awesome rarity. 
6. There are 3 questions you ask and answer during Welcome Week: Name, origin,and major. You meet a million different people your first week here. 
7. The schools enormous size is a good thing 99.9% of the time. 
8. I really like blending in sometimes. I didn't know that until now. 
9. Focusing on only a few clubs is the best way to go. 
10. I never knew how many stereotypes and prejudices I carried. It's a process to clean yourselves of them.
11. Not that many kids here are on scholarships. That blows my mind. (see last post)
12. I am really lucky to live 40 minutes away. 
13. Dining hall food here is the bomb compared to CA lunches. 
14. Planners and weekly whiteboards are my best friend. 
15. Things the University says are "mandatory" are usually not.
16. You see the coolest, weirdest, most hilarious things everyday. 
17. Michigan is known as an arrogant school but we are very kind to each other. 
18. The preachers who visit the Diag are not so accepting. 
19. Democrats rule the land.
20. It takes about two minutes of knowing someone for a deep and intimate conversation to happen here. 

"That girl who..."

This is a post I made on facebook months ago:

For those of you who do not know, a Flushing High school student committed suicide. Hearing about [student's name] led me to two thoughts after my initial sadness for him and his family. Today at school when someone asked “did you know anything about him?” Almost everyone said “he played varsity football.” We all wanted to know more but we didn’t.

1.When you think of a suicidal person, you do not think football player. We are conditioned to picture an “emo” kid probably dressed in black. This sad incident shows that EVERYONE is susceptible to feeling alone and being hurt. Everyone has problems, insecurities, and “bad days.” That is why it is so vital that everybody shows respect toward everybody.

2.“He played varsity football” At my school that is about all we knew of him. Obviously there was much more to him than that. I am not saying that CA (my school) is shallow and I am not pretending to know him, but he probably had hopes, dreams, and fears. He probably loved a lot of people and a lot of people loved him, yet all we know about him at a neighboring school is that he was a football player. If you died tomorrow, what would be the one thing people identify you as? What are you known for? Are you happy with that? Does it represent who you are? It is unfair but true that if one of us were to die tomorrow, our whole identity would get shoved into one sentence. I learned from this to act out what I believe. My heart goes out to his family and anyone who knew him. God bless and hopefully we can learn something from this tragedy.

 

I shared this again on my blog because I am against suicide, I believe in tolerance, and I want my one sentence to be "That girl who was always spreading compassion." Thank you for reading.

To be great is to be misunderstood

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion" - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
     Today I was working at my tutoring job and I had to read a passage from Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance." The bolded quote above is where the excerpt started.  I was reading it out loud to my student and every once in a while I asked her if she knew what that word and this word meant. This was partly to strengthen her vocabulary and partly to gauge if she was as affected by his writing as I was. His intelligence blew me away. This is what I thought after reading the opening sentences: Envying others is bad, knew that. Calling it ignorance stresses that only people who have never been told "It is bad to envy others" should do it. I have been taught that and I still am overcome with jealousy at times. That is ignorance. As for the second point, I knew imitation was not the best thing to do. However I would have never thought to compare imitation and suicide. Essentially though, that is a just comparison. Imitation is willingly killing your identity to replace for another. It is disrespecting the identity that God gave you, trying to paint over His picasso. The third sentence is a rock solid word-to-the-wise to love yourself as you are, one of the easiest ideas to grasp and the hardest to put into practice. Needless to say, I was engaged for the rest of the reading.
      Emerson said that "Whoso be a man must be a non-conformist." He stated that God uses brave men to do great things, not scared and hesitant people. "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." He said not to be scared of being thought of as odd, as a freak, and to be outcasted. "To be great is to be misunderstood." His reasons were because some of the brightest, wisest people were thought as, well, weirdos. He named Copernicus, Galileo, Jesus and Newton. I was so inspired by that.  Being counter-cultural is sometimes the best thing you can do. It assures you of who you are. It is acknowledging that you do not need man's approval to understand yourself. We are so afraid to be disliked, but maybe that is the cost of magnificence.