Realistic – Priscilla Hernandez

Cosplaying as a middle-aged white man

During the fall semester of 2021, I took a history course called War and Religion. In this class we learned about the history of war and religion between early white European settlers and the Indigenous peoples in North America and how both served to oppress the Indigenous population. At the end of the semester, we had a project called “Forest Diplomacy”. In this project, the class was divided into two groups: the white settlers and the Indigenous tribe of the land. Each person in the class was assigned a character to portray in each group and we were to hold a council meeting in order to settle a land ownership dispute.

My role was to portray Charles Tomson, a “middleman” who sympathized with the Indigenous people, however, because he required funding from a white settler to publish a pamphlet, he did not denounce the white settler group. Portraying this role was difficult for me because it involved having to put my own personal beliefs aside and pretend that I wasn’t absolutely disgusted with the treatment of the Indigenous peoples in the land dispute. All the texts that I had to read to prepare for the role clearly showed that the white settlers were making decisions that only benefitted them.

In order to become the Charles Tomson who needed to write an “unbiased” pamphlet I needed to quiet the part of my brain that was against the bias. The skill of balancing my own judgment and the judgment of a man who benefited from the expulsion of a marginalized group while sympathizing with them taught me that there are instances in my academic career where being “unbiased” is actually going to be more helpful than I think. While I hope that I never have to pretend to be neutral in a case of blatant oppression, this skill could help me with future academic assignments.

Priscilla vs. Procrastination: Who will win?

Procrastination is an enemy to many. Unfortunately, I am one of the “many” that could not escape it. No matter how much time I have, I always wait until the last minute to start working on assignments. When there are no impending deadlines, I tell myself that I deserve a break which ends in assignments not getting done. The reason why I struggle with procrastination is because I let deadlines stress me out to the point where I get overwhelmed. This struggle appears in academic and personal aspects of my life.

With academics, when I am assigned something that isn’t due in the coming week, I tend to forget about it until I either remember or am reminded. In my fall 2023 semester, I am taking an Astronomy course in which we have problem sets due every Friday at 5 pm. Even though it’s stated on the syllabus, and we are reminded, I have an issue with not starting the assignment more than 24 hours before it’s due. I look at the problem set questions ahead of time and create the document to put all the questions in, yet I can’t find a way to start. My procrastination is also fueled by my perfectionist mindset in that I cannot move onto another assignment until I am satisfied with the first one.

In my personal life, procrastination is present mostly in my journey of healing. My healing process involves having important conversations with people who have contributed to my trauma. Instead of having these conversations, I put them off and let myself dwell on my trauma . At first, this occurred with family members, but it now affects how I interact with my closest friends. If I can’t find the courage to talk to those I consider to be my safety net, then how am I going to find the courage to talk to anyone else? Procrastination has forced me to neglect important academic and internal tasks that I need to complete.

Studying and it’s never ending struggles

Since my freshman year of college, I have struggled with studying. I didn’t learn how to study in high school because I didn’t have to. I was one of the “smart kids”, who got good grades, not because she studied all the time, but because she always did her work well. It didn’t help that the administration at my high school separated each grade level into 3 classes based largely on academic performance. There was never an emphasis on consistent studying. You had to make sure you got it right the first time around.

At the university level, you are expected to know how to study. There are no classes that teach you how to study, which is something that I think would be very beneficial, especially for FGLI students like me. I took a test in my Latin class and studying for it was really hard for me to do even though I knew what was going to be covered on the test. I didn’t know how to prepare, so I relied on my ability to retain information which inevitably caused me to forget the grammar structure that was on the test. Knowing how to effectively study would have helped me fill in that gap so that I wouldn’t have to panic or feel insecure about the test afterwards.

I don’t even know or understand what studying actually means. Is it sitting down and reading over your notes over and over again? Is it memorizing certain subject areas? Is it a combination of the two? I don’t know and maybe I will never actually know how to study. It seems to be easier for everyone around me because they just sit down and get right to it. Since freshman year, it feels like I have been bombarded with having to do this skill that I simply cannot and now it feels like it’s too late to even ask. I hope that someday studying will get easier for me, but I know that today is most certainly not the day.