Sunny Days Make Problems Disappear?

Hello!

First of all, I cannot seem to figure out how to get my image in here, as it says it is too big – I have tried reducing the size of it (similar to how we did so in class) and cannot seem to figure it out! That’s why I have a link attached to this post – let me know if it takes you to the image as it is supposed to!

Anyway, something which I have been talking about with my friends a lot is the way in which we all feel so much better at this time of year (particularly Daylight Saving Time, which was March 10 this year. Of course, there have been several studies on seasonal depression and other related mental illness which can be triggered and attributed to short and cold days. However, it always seems like such a surprise when the time of year rolls around and we all start to feel so much better, even if we don’t feel as though we were in a necessarily bad place in the winter time.

I think a lot of the reasoning behind this is that the sad, slow, cold, dark, monotonous winter (can you guess my least favorite season of the year?) slowly gets people to settle into a different lifestyle: one which exists mostly indoors, with nighttime routines taking place much sooner, and much less time spent with nature in general. I think this all happens so routinely and gradually that a lot of the time, we don’t even notice that it’s happening. I believe that this is telling not only of seasonal shifts in mood but with a lot of mental health ebbs and flows. It is hard to notice the sort of place I am in until I realize how much better I feel once I begin spending some more time outdoors and enjoying longer days.

Another thing which I have always associated with happier times and good weather is the migration of birds back into our area. Going outside and hearing birds chirping and feeling the sun on our faces is such a wonderful feeling every year, and usually leads me to realizing that my baseline mood for the winter is not the same as it is in the summer.

On popular social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram, there are trending “sounds,” or audios which people use on their videos of birds chirping. The videos under these sounds typically deal with nostalgic aspects of childhood, getting the viewer to reminisce about playing outdoors as a child. There seems to be a general link between birds and happiness, often accompanied with nostalgic undertones.

I find this very interesting, as I find myself reminiscing each year as the days get longer. In fact, one of the most surefire ways I know that summer is approaching is when I go outside for the first time, breathe in a breath of fresh air, and think to myself that I feel eight years old again.

Overall, I feel as though a lot of people can probably relate to this, though we don’t usually talk about it as much (potentially because we don’t realize how much these things affect us). The picture I have attached below is of three birds which I saw perched in a tree when I was on a walk the other day. They reminded me of the summers of my youth and how good it feels to be outside.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you can see my picture with the link!

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=394174af4b&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-a:r4984978039260014532&th=18f1d19167485519&view=fimg&fur=ip&sz=s0-l75-ft&attbid=ANGjdJ-Y6GCd-GBJh0oCGLgwzPeP8SfHRxH2CDRkjgQhPs7F210wm_C69_OYfpX8kyQz6s4MX0K84HjPWctZOmVbHhJMhS-BkOGlMQTe5Rfj0SDMG0bmObeeDeFMEhs&disp=emb&realattid=18f1d19033456301e8a1

Unexpected Surprises in this Class…

Hello!

I guess I’ll start off by saying sorry for the delay in this post.

When I first saw this class being offered, I assumed from the title alone that this class would be about the ways in which human minds have begun to change due to the introduction of new forms of reading and different ways of taking in information. Probably due to my Education major, I expected to have conversations about the ways in which reading in different formats can change our comprehension, which of course connects back to education and the implementation of text in a classroom (especially ELA!). Upon realizing that my assumption was not entirely correct, and that we would be focusing on different aspects of not only regular but digital literacy and how we can use it to better understand and interpret texts, I was in equal parts fascinated, excited, and terrified.

I have never been very literate when it comes to technology, despite being part of the first generation to really grow up with it. I was in late middle school when I received an iPod Touch for Christmas, which was really my first exposure to this new era of technology. I suppose some of this is due to the fact that my parents seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake, as it appears after a quick engine search that the first iPod Touch was released when I was only seven years old. I definitely recall my parents having flip phones until the late 2000s, and I grew up playing games on a clunky old computer. All of this to say I always felt a couple years behind when it comes to digital literacy/understanding computers.

This is exactly why I found the subject material of this class to be so exciting and daunting at the same time. I couldn’t wait to develop some skills and knowledge of computers: how they work, why they work, why and how they were invented, etc.

When people ask me what classes I am taking this semester, I even find myself referring to this course as a “basic computers class” rather than an “English class,” while I of course, find both to be true.

I am especially excited to be familiarizing myself with terms such as “metareading” and “digital scholarly editing,” and seeing how these can be applied when looking at a text such as Walden. I am excited to be moving forward in this study, and I now understand why Walden is the perfect subject of study for this class, with several editions and constant edits being made by the original author.

This study, and I suppose then, this class as a whole, has changed the way I see text: it feels more fluid now, less concrete. I can understand that a “book” can be an amalgamation of ideas which span the stories of countless people. Text feels much more alive now, something which feels counterintuitive when considering the metacritical and hyperanalytical ways in which we are viewing it for the purposes of this class.

I am so looking forward to continuing these studies in the class and moving forward, and I cannot wait to see what else we can uncover together.

Thank you!