Jenna's Blog

      This year, I've taken on a lot more responsibility in my family regarding events. From Easter, to Christmas, I've had to manage communication, decorating, and hosting. This is very stressful, especially in a family where not everyone gets along. With some aunts and uncles passionately defending their opinions, alongside others that will quietly stew if their unspoken expectations are not met. This has led me to think about the consequences of being the head of a family.     Something I'm already struggling with as my pseudo matriarch position becomes more and more demanding, is that being the head of a family means hours and hours of phone calls and texts. Everyone in the family looks to the head as the person with all the answers, even if that person doesn't actually have any answers for them. Another consequence of being the head of the family is the stress of trying to please as many people as possible. No one wants to ruin another person's ho...

     I'd like to begin this blog post by acknowledging that I am very biased about this topic and only have my experiences to base my opinion on. That being said, I do believe there are some trends between the reading that I remember in grade school, and the reading that my nieces and nephew are experiencing today.      Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Junie B Jones, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Goosebumps, Captain Underpants, Charolette's Web,  and Choose Your Own Adventure books are only a few of the countless books I remember running through my grade school library to check out before someone else ripped them off the shelf first. Reading was an integral part of my grade school. Every class had programs for summer reading, reading for scheduled times in class, and of course, reading for hours and hours at home in hopes of gaining enough minutes on your card to earn your free personal pizza coupon at our local pizza hut. Not to mention reading for comprehension ...

 My endeavor into quilting hasn't been easy. In fact, it's been one of the most difficult and frustrating things I've attempted in a while. I've always been good at making things, knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking, drawing, etc. This led me to believe I could take on the challenge of quilting and although I have been able to make a quilt, it was a much more time consuming process then I ever expected.  The beginning stages were the easiest. Finding fabrics I liked and cutting them out was a breeze. My first struggle emerged when I had to pick a layout. After hours and hours of cutting 11 inch squares, the time had come to start assembling them and my mind was blank. The pieces sat cut out and ready to assemble for over two weeks before I finally decided how I wanted to lay them out. Then came my next challenge, lining them all up. Quilts have things known as peaks, which are the corners between the two fabrics, and its very important to line up your peaks so that the q...

Midterms week is stressful. What are some ways we as a student body can manage stress? Something I've found personally helpful is taking a small amount of time during my day to sit outside. Even if it's only 5 minutes, this time to focus on nature has helped me recenter myself before going back to whatever it is that I need to do. Another personal thing I do to manage stress is talk to someone about the things that are stressing me out. For me, that's my best friend back home. It may help to talk to someone outside of North Central as well because they can offer a new perspective. Finally, taking time to take care of yourself is the most important thing when it comes to managing stress.  Midterms are stressful, but personal health is always more important than grades. This fact gets lost sometimes in the chaotic jumble of school. It's also important to remember that mental health is a part of health and shouldn't be put to the side once midterms arrive. The image be...

This week, as we discuss our documentaries and how they appeal to different rhetorical devices, I've decided to focus on music. Music has been an integral part of society possibly since the beginning of humanity. Most people can attest to that moment where the song they're listening to strikes a deep chord within them. From a psychological standpoint, music stimulates the amygdala, which in turn causes us to feel emotion. This made me wonder if music is innately an appeal to pathos by some degree.  A point that supports the idea that music is innately an appeal to pathos is the use of music in media to support the story that is being told. It's rare to find a film without a soundtrack of some sort, and often music strengthens an audiences' experience watching a film. The vast number of genres and support for music artists also supports this idea that music appeals to pathos because it shows that people care deeply about the music they listen to. These feelings are so in...