Final Reflective Letter

Dear Marlen,

Needless to say that it has been a hell of a ride in your class. The flow for me was kind of the same as it was for the first time I took you for 102. I hated it, then liked it, then hated it a lot, then loved it when I finally cranked out a piece of writing that I think is actually worth reading and actually worth spending the time to work on.

Starting this class I knew you were trying to get people to drop it with your “I’m gonna put you through research writing hell” speech and that kind of pumped me up because the last time I heard that speech I was terrified and I loved the class anyway. Hands down though, the hardest part of this class was actually choosing my research topic. I’m not even sure if I really picked the right one or the “best” one. I’m actually looking at my “Fucking Cool List” right now and some of them are retarded like “Jager” and “Kurt Cobain”. Looking back I can tell that those would have been shitty research topics. On the other hand there are some that could have been really promising like “How music theory has changed” and “How the guitar has changed music forever”. Ok, I lied, I think I did pick the best one off of that list.

The only reason I guess that my topic seemed like such a pain was because there were barely any sources for it and the ones that I did find were really reaching for the information to pull out. I remember texting you one day and all I could say was something along the lines of:  “I don’t know what to do! I can’t find any sources and I’m lost and freaking out hardcore.” You actually called me like just a little later and talked me down and helped me narrow my topic way down to where it would be a little easier for me find sources and for that I thank you tons because I would probably have killed myself if I had stuck with my original research question.

I would also just like to comment on how well the course is set up. The fact that there was never any pointless work to fill time was awesome. Pretty much everything we did ended up in our papers or helped tremendously later on in writing another part of the paper. A lot of other classes could care less about that and this course did that without boring me too which is impressive in and of itself. Also, there was only one complaint I had with your class in 101 and that was the massive amount of stuff we had to print out and you definitely took care of that for this class which was a huge relief.

Thank you for putting me in the group that you did too. Those girls were awesome to work with and offered help with anything, were all really chill about everything, and the whole group clicked really well I think. We all offered our input on each other’s research constantly and that was a huge help throughout the entire semester. Also, presenting in those small groups makes it so much easier because we’ve gotten to know each other and gotten comfortable with one another which is a huge help to someone, like me, who hates public speaking because they just lock up and get real shy.

Overall I can safely say that this has been one of my favorite classes of all time and I am really glad that I took it even if I was dreading it when I scheduled it. In one of the first few weeks you thanked me for taking the class and I would like to thank you for having the open spot when I did schedule because I love the work that I have done in this class!

Sincerely peace,

Phillip Monier

Formatted version: Final Reflective Letter