{"id":24253,"date":"2016-12-12T15:19:10","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T20:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?p=21933"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:59:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:59:28","slug":"emilys-blogdontgetmewrong-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/2016\/emilys-blogdontgetmewrong-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Emily's Blog – Don't Get Me Wrong…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Emily's Blog – Don't Get Me Wrong…\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n
\"Emily
Emily Coppella<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I had always considered myself a shy person, but not in a self-deprecating way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEmily is so shy, I wish she would contribute more in class,\u201d was a remark regularly conveyed to my parents when they spoke with my high school teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I accepted the label of being a “shy person” nonchalantly, but recently, I decided that it was time for a change. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I received my acceptance to Carleton’s Department of English<\/a>, <\/span>I told myself that I was going to make an effort to be a little less timid. I aspired to stand out and get involved as an undergraduate English student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong; I was in various clubs and organizations in high school, but it wasn\u2019t until I had decided on my major that I realized how passionately I wanted to be an outspoken contributor to the world of English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As clich\u00e9 as it sounds, I just wasn\u2019t sure what to expect out of university as I arrived on campus for Frosh. During that week, I found myself surrounded by people galloping all around with their skin painted purple. As I listened to the loud, inconsistent repetition of air horns going off in the distance, I couldn\u2019t imagine that, by the end of that week, I\u2019d be \u201ca university student.\u201d  Although it was fun and easy to feel overwhelmed in these moments, I was relieved that things quickly managed to work themselves out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first week of classes, I realized that Carleton was the place for me, and as a writer, I was immediately inspired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only was I introduced to the various Departmental clubs such as the English Literature Society<\/a> and InWords<\/a>, but I was surrounded by a whole team of people who would rather read the book than watch the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without even realizing it, my first week of classes flew by, and the idea that I was struggling with – the conception of myself as an actual “university student” began to seem plausible.  I wasn\u2019t just attending lectures and dragging myself to the cafeteria; I was visiting the English Department and surfing the internet for writing submissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the experience that I had been craving while I was a shy high school student, so I quickly achieved a lot of personal ‘firsts.’ For example, I secured a writing role as a contributor to Spoon University<\/a>, an online platform that combined my two favourite things – eating and writing. I was fortunate enough to attend a Writer\u2019s Festival<\/a> event with my English professor who never let a class pass without enlightening me in some way. I went to my very first protest. I slipped away from the confines of my dorm room to study in the English Department lounge, which offers a view you won\u2019t get anywhere else on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Carleton<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere between exchanging daily stories in the Fresh Food Court with my roommate, and waking up engulfed in my weekly readings, I\u2019ve come to a realization. As my professor would remind me, it may be something of a \u201cJoycean Epiphany,\u201d (who knew that James Joyce would jump out of my readings and into my reality so unexpectedly?) The realization is this: I am not the shy girl I had once believed I was. Or more specifically, I am, but I am not only her. I am an assortment of many things; a round character, not a flat one. I am the dynamic, not the static protagonist of my own story. I guess this is my way of mirroring Thoreau who \u201cwanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has only been three months since I arrived in Ottawa and I’ve realized that I brought more highlighter markers than I\u2019ll ever need. It has only been three months since I experienced firsthand what it feels like to really, really<\/em> miss my mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it has only been three months, and I can\u2019t wait for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had always considered myself a shy person, but not in a self-deprecating way. \u201cEmily is so shy, I wish she would contribute more in class,\u201d was a remark regularly conveyed to my parents when they spoke with my high school teachers. I accepted the label of being a “shy person” nonchalantly, but recently, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[328,26,67,849,191],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emilys-blog","category-english","category-sociology-and-anthropology","category-student-voices","category-womens-and-gender-studies"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24253"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53670,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24253\/revisions\/53670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}