A Reflection on My Learnng

I'm back in the quiet section of the library, where I wrote my first learning experience post, and I'm trying to think of what I've learned and how it's changed me over this semester. How have I improved? How have I grown?

Have my study habits gotten better? Well, I'm still logged into my Netflix account and I made it through four seasons of How I Met Your Mother so far despite all the finals I have. I currently have The Little Mermaid playing in the background as I write this, so I'm going to say study habit improvement is a no.
Has my depth of knowledge grown? I have certainly learned a lot of pertinent information towards my major. I've also had a lot of things retaught or elaborated on over the year, and I suppose that counts as growing in knowledge.
Do I have more direction in my life? In a sense, yes. I was able to work as a research assistant in Dr. Petursdottir's lab this semester, and it definitely opened my eyes to the role of a psychologist. I have gotten to experience research, experiment creation, and study presentation all from a first-person perspective. I have also secured a sort of internship at a camp this summer that will be using the play therapy I want to practice to help the types of children I want to work with.

Yet, I still feel like I've learned so much more than these tangible and practical things, especially in this class. It's the little tid-bits of knowledge that don't seem too important which make the biggest impact for me, and I'd like to list a few:

1. Do not use the four-letter-word that doesn't exist. I didn't really understand this rule in the beginning, but as the semester has gone on I completely agree with this ban on the word "very". Even though I slipped up a few times, not being allowed to use this word has taught me to be more descriptive not only in class but in everything I do. We live in a world full of so many rich and pungent experiences it seems to be an injustice to not use every tool we have to describe it. It, among other factors to be discussed, have also helped me reconnect with my creative side, and is something I have been missing. 
2. Use the Comic Toolbox to create a character/write a limerick/ describe the narrator of the poem/etc. This, accompanied with my new found dislike of v***, has brought out the creative side of me that I thought I had lost when it came to anything involving writing. Theatre, improvisation, book analysis, and similar things used to be how I chose to spend my time in high school. Nothing made me happier than being able to compose a scene for my acting class or write a paper discussing the themes of a famous novel, but now that I've entered college all I do is write research papers and read psychological journals on analytical experiments. Completing these creative assignments both in and out of class has forced me to brush the dust off this part of me and bring it back to the surface, and I couldn't be happier! This class has been invaluable to me because it served as a break from the mundane, systematic work I have grown used to.
3. Everything is relative. I am a fairly Type A person. I strive on routine and organization, and if things don't have an A + B = C solution, I have a hard time coming to terms with it. That being said, coming into class and being told that "everything is relative" from the first meeting made me a little nervous as to how the class was going to go. In actuality, this ended up being a benefit. I came into this semester right as I was having an internal dilemma over life being subjective, especially in my own field of study. Looking at one specific topic, in this case humor, as relative and having to study it as such has helped me gain acceptance that it is about one's background, culture, points of view, and so many other factors that shape their opinion. It's okay to not always have all the answers, that's what makes life so fun.