my writing work from The washtenaw voice
putting the ‘me’ in time
Parenting.com says moms should have at least 15—20 minutes of “me time” a day to decompress, citing Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, who has a doctorate in psychology and is author of “The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood.” Even five minutes is helpful for me some days. Just to sit down and be able to breathe, drink a cup of coffee or just plain relax and do nothing for a minute. How do we find time for ourselves?
If you take a second and breathe, things aren’t as stressful—at least for me. Something else I do to help with stress is making a list of what I need to do for the day such as cleaning, homework, etc., then figuring out when I’ll be able to do those things during my daughter’s daily schedule. It is usually during naps or play time. It has been helpful for me to put her on a schedule as well because then I will know when I will be free to do the things I need to do throughout the day.
Finally, being a new mom is never an easy task. We are all just doing what we can. Everyone needs time for themselves and nobody ever knows what to do right off the bat. Being a mom is a learning process for everyone and we are all trying our best. Keep it up; we got this!
Ending a chapter and starting anew
I have been going to Washtenaw Community College since I was 16-years-old and I have been with The Voice since I was 17-years-old. I am now graduating with honors on May 19 at commencement.
My experience at WCC has been filled with ups and downs. My first year here, I was dual enrolled due to the fact that I was home-schooled and only 16-years-old. I started out with only one class because I hadn’t gone to an actual school since second grade. My next semester was when I took my first graphic design class and I fell in love with it.
I continued with the program and kept finding more and more I loved about it. One of which is the amazing teachers in the program, Kristy deCastro being one of them. She has taught me so much about design and software. Ingrid Ankerson taught me a lot about typography and really helped me through my final design class.
I was lucky enough to be a co-president of the graphic design club with one of my classmates, this allowed us to hold a linocut workshop on campus to learn about how to do that and improve our linocut skills.
Last year I was in the Digital Media Arts Gala where I got to showcase all my work from my time at WCC, this experience is one of the best things I will take away from WCC.
After my first year I started at The Washtenaw Voice. The Voice has taught me so much, I have learned about how to work with a team in a sometimes stressful environment (our production days). I’ve learned a lot about design software, more than I ever would have in a classroom alone.
The Voice has given me a lot of fantastic opportunities: a trip to Washington D.C. for a newspaper conference, learning how to improve newspaper design. We also went to Dallas, Texas for a newspaper conference and learned so much from the amazing Charles Apple! He is a designer who taught us a lot about charts and graphs. He is the deputy design director at Houston Chronicle. Finally it has given me the opportunity of having a space I can go in between classes to do work, make some coffee, and sometimes just to take a breath.
The Voice has been a wonderful space for me to learn and grow into the person I am today. I’ve gotten the chance to write about some of my own life experiences and share events I have found within the community.
The team has been there for me through getting married, having my daughter, getting my first full-time job and now graduating.
I have made a lot of long-lasting friendships and connections while at The Voice, the team has given me people I can call for anything: photos, illustrations, writing. I also have our amazing adviser Judy who I can always depend on for a professional reference.
This last semester has been filled with lots of ups and downs like our editor getting a job and a lot of our writers leaving the team for various reasons. In addition to these unexpected obstacles, not all of our team positions were filled at the beginning of the semester. But even with all that, we never missed a paper deadline. This demonstrates how the team always pulls through and finds a way to make it work. It might get stressful but at the end of the day we have a beautiful paper that we can be proud of.
false resolutions
New year, new you … well not really. I worked at a recreation center for two years, and every Jan. 2 our center saw an increase in new memberships. Attendance was booming in the beginning and then quickly fell off in a matter of days. Well, sometimes it took a week. I personally do not make New Year’s resolutions anymore, because they just never seem to work out. Especially when you’re a procrastinator like myself, who is also a busy mom with a job and school to do.
40 percent of people make these resolutions but only
8 percent actually succeed.
We are setting ourselves up to fail with New Year’s resolutions. They make us think that these things are possible but in reality they are more than likely not going to work out. I don’t like making them for that reason. I don’t want to set myself up for failure. You shouldn’t either. Maybe instead we should just do things we want and not just because it is New Year’s. When we just do it for New Year’s and not for something more important, it doesn’t happen. If we start setting goals for ourselves on a random day, in a random month, just because we want to, I think it would be more likely to succeed.
I personally have begun working out more to help my mental and physical health. However I am not doing this because it is New Year’s. I am doing it now because I have time to do it now. I have been wanting to start working out for a few months and I haven’t had the time because of finals and family. Now that the semester is over and I have a little bit of time to organize my schedule, I feel as though I can start my plan to work out more now. I also feel very motivated with my plan because I am doing this for myself, to better myself. I don’t need a new year for a new me.
My goal for myself is to learn how to defend myself and get stronger. A very common New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, and normally a very ridiculous amount of weight. I feel as though losing weight isn’t important. The way I see it is, if you are comfortable you don’t need to change. If you feel like you need to change, like I do with getting stronger, then go for it.