Farwell Blog

Well this is the last blog of the quarter and although I’m relieved that I won’t have to rush before the 5pm deadline blogs are due I’m kind of sad that the class is ending. Coming into the class a few weeks late I missed out on a few topics but the time I was in enrolled in the class was phenomenal. I learned so much from this course about different issues ranging from plastic surgery, to the different types of addiction, to eating disorders. The material we covered correlated very well with each topic we discussed and I really enjoyed the films we watched (I’m more of a visual learner). The Kilborne video was my favorite because of the issues she went over and just because it is an interesting topic in general to discuss. Other things I liked about the course were the open discussions we had in class. This gave me insight into what others were thinking and how they related to a specific issue. Also the Carmen discussion board was great, it gave us a place to be less formal and vent on different topics that we discovered. It was interesting to see some of the things my classmates had found and their reactions.
Although the digital scrap book was A LOT of work it encouraged me to think on my own and to research different topic from a different perspective that we briefly went over in class. The research for the digital scrapbook also taught me so much about things that I absolutely had no idea about (i.e. the fact that the ink in tattoo’s can be poisonous). An issue that I wish we could have talked about more is shopping addiction, however there isn’t much publicized about it because I tried to do some outside research myself for a blog idea. I liked how you tried to prepare the class for the digital scrapbook throughout the whole course, giving us examples in class and scheduling a workshop day to brainstorm for our blogs.
During our last class today you read a piece from a book that I wanted to make a comment about. It talked about if you have an addiction to do it with a partner and at first it sounded really shocking to hear someone advise this but as you continued on I understood the point she was trying to reach and that was that a person that has an addiction is less likely to act out in front of people or when people are present and I find this very true. While you were reading I began to think about the compulsive behaviors I exhibit in my daily life and my weakness is shopping. Whenever I go shopping I never want to go with people I feel comfortable when I’m by myself. That might be due to the fact that I overspend and overbuy and don’t want to be criticized or made aware that I’m doing this. Well just like you said today you cant unlearn something you already know so for me to come to the realization of this today, in order to keep my compulsive buying under control maybe I should shop with people because I know I won’t have the same shopping behaviors as I would if I was by myself -----just a little self reflection.
Our last topic discussed was that of treatment and recovery of people suffering with an addiction. A comment was made in class that there wasn’t many example of successful treatments and I must abject because I feel that many were present throughout the course starting with Koren. There was Afeni who was addicted to drugs and who is clean now, Jill who came in and gave personal testimony, and others who I’ve mentioned in my digital scrapbook that has successfully complete treatment.
Overall I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot of great things I plan to incorporate in my life.

THANKS