Author: Lyndsey Prince

Personal growth can take several different forms in both different people and different situations. This semester, I was forced to make several changes in both my attitude, as well as my habits in order to be successful. I will admit however, that my changes were a bit late, and therefore did not take full effect until well, now.

Prior to coming to Geneseo, I’d been told by teachers and students alike that I should take AP and Honors courses to prepare for college classes; and so, like all of my friends, I did. I whizzed through the monthly papers in my classes and skated past any sort of real growth, tossing papers aside when I received my 90, even after I’d written it the night before. It was easy. It weakened my work ethic because, I knew that even with minimal effort I would still get better results than a lot of my peers. We were a relatively talented class, our class average upon graduation was an 89.9%, and a lot of us were able to skate by on pure skill. Not a single person ever told me in high school that this would not fly in college. But honestly, even if they had, it takes a long time to break a habit like that. Even in elementary school teachers would use words like, “gifted” or “talented” and so I just thought I was smarter than everyone. Then as we got older, they still kept us “gifted” kids separated from the others, which only led to strengthening our sense of superiority. Now, I’m beginning to realize just how stupid that really is, we were never any better than those kids that didn’t take our fancy classes, most of us just had parents that worked in the school, or in my case, an overbearing mother with a poli-sci degree that she never did anything with and she’d be damned if her child didn’t rise up. Prior to this course, I’d been conditioned to follow specific outlines and think that all that mattered was my grade. However, even early on in the semester, it was clear that the most important thing about this class was not the grade, but the process of thinkING and the way in which we were able to open mindedly and respectfully converse with one another and translate that into our own writing. Continue reading “Adapting (English 203 Final Assessment)”

In the Bacchae, there is a feeling that I can only describe as overwhelmed. The maenads are overwhelmed. With ecstasy, with pleasure, with violence even.

As classes start to really heat up, I mean really, I’ve got like a billion tests and a paper due every other day. This same sense of being overwhelmed creeps up into my brain. However, unlike the pack of women, My being overwhelmed has little to do with sex and wine and a charismatic god. But similarly, it may turn out to be just as self-destructive. Continue reading “Out of Body Experiences”

Today, while procrastinating, my roommate sent me a link to a very interesting TED Talk about gaslighting. I’ll link the video below if for any reason this blog post intrigues you. But while watching it and also simultaneously racking my brain for an idea for a blog post, I thought again of  Not Sidney’s concept of fesmerization.

Gaslighting is defined by Ariel Leve in the video as, “an emotionally abusive tactic that makes the victim question their own sanity and perception of reality”. In the video she speaks about her chaotic childhood growing up with her mother that was a very successful poet. She explains several instances in which her mother would use various forms of gaslighting to convince Ariel that her outrageous parties and gaggles of insults were not real and that they didn’t actually harm her. After explaining these stories she shares four tactics that she had developed to cope with her mother’s abuse.

Continue reading “Gaslighting as a Both/And”

Throughout my younger years of English, I have always outshined my peers drastically. However, during my first semester of college English, I struggled immensely. The class was harder, my peers were smarter and for the very first time, I felt utterly useless in a class that I’d always excelled at. This discouraged me and made it very difficult for me to enjoy the class because I’d spent the last 13 years of my schooling being told I had a gift for English and then, after coming here, I started to think that may have been a horrible mistake.

It was disheartening that a class I’d always loved and looked forward to became the class that I dreaded because I just felt stupid.  Over time though, I realized what had been the real mistake. I’d spent years in “honors” and “AP” English classes that really did nothing to prepare me for college. Not because the teachers weren’t great or the course material wasn’t challenging, but because I had always been praised and applauded for my work even when I barely tried, this led to weakening my work ethic. Continue reading “English and The Fixed Mindset”