My Experience with Audiobooks
As time advances and my grades climb their way even higher on my priority list, the time I am able to designate for recreational reading has been significantly reduced. In the last two years of college, I have not been able to finish a single physical novel when school is in session. Time is limited,…
“ChatGPT, What Do I Think About This?”– My Experience with AI in Academic Settings
Times have changed, and while there are no flying cars or universal healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI) is definitely popular. However, in my experience, said popularity does not seem to give way to much productivity. The internet alone and the devices dependent on it were already disrupting the thought processes of those most reliant on them…
A Summer in Oxford
Over the summer of 2025, I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in Oxford, England. Studying abroad had been a plan of mine since high school. It was originally my intention to do a semester abroad in the spring of 2025, but plans changed, and I decided a summer program would be a better…
Shifting Loyalties – Tutoring Anatomy and Physiology as an English Major
When I registered for my first semester of college classes, I was given only three choices to fulfill my science requirements: chemistry, microbiology, or anatomy and physiology (A&P). I immediately discarded the first choice since I did not plan to spend the first half of my freshman year bordering on insanity because of the three-hour…
Jodi Cook – The Power of Words and Community
In her 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award acceptance speech at Southeastern Community College (SCC), SCC English professor Jodi Cook said, “I am locally born and raised, and this is my home, but I have been incredibly blessed with parents who passed down the wanderlust gene. As an adult I’ve pushed forward and wandered farther and the…
All Things Atlas: A Profile of The Atlas Collective
If there is one place that Western Illinois University-Quad Cities (WIU-QC) students love to hang out off campus, it’s The Atlas Collective. Atlas is a bookstore and café that sits on a corner in the heart of downtown Moline, just a five-minute drive from the WIU-QC Campus. It is one of the only bookstores on…
Social Media Reading Spaces – My Experience with BookTok
In relatively recent years, there has been a noticeable expansion in the online reading community. Social media, particularly TikTok, has facilitated this. In the vast sea of meticulously personalized audiovisual content on the clock app, the rise of the BookTok phenomenon continues. This cyber community with apparent unlimited reach has been the conversation topic for…
Three-Second Toxicity
Recently, I was challenged to consider the balance between authentic artistic expression and the too-often toxic platform of social media. I confess that I am still navigating the balance between engagement and toxicity. While discussing, I will limit this discussion to Instagram, for that is my preferred social media platform at present: I was once…
I Am A Long-Distance Learner…
I am a long-distance learner at Western Illinois University (WIU). I step into my slippers, open my laptop, and see my reflection on the black screen. My blanket is fixed across my lap. I click, “Join from Zoom.” I can see my classmates sitting in a classroom on campus in Macomb. I see their lips…
The First Library Book I Ever Stole
There is a kinship that approaches the sublime when two people discover a shared love for a particular work of art. That bond can be deeper than ordinary attraction. For me, the book which sparked this bond was Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. In the spring of 2004—over twenty years ago now—I was finishing high school.…
Rich Ness Retires
Dr. Rich Ness is retiring this June. He has been teaching film at Western for twenty-five years. Generations of students have been introduced to the world of cinema in Dr. Ness’s many sections of Introduction to Film, where they got their first look at classics like Hitchcock’s Rope, Welles’ Citizen Kane, and Ashby’s Harold and…
Leaving Poems Out in the Wild
I became a writer because I wanted the freedom to be an animal. I wanted to lose the burden of my humanity when I wrote, to become pure sinew and blood and instinct. At all other tasks, I was a beginner. I started out not knowing how to do them and ended knowing how to…
WIU’s Hollowed Grounds: Tunnels Under Campus
There are indeed tunnels underneath Western Illinois University. A handful of them run across campus, working as conduits for steam pipes to provide energy for heating and cooling on campus. The tunnels run hot due to the steam, easily reaching a couple hundred degrees. The majority were put in during the 2000s and 2010s. Without…
A Letter to Walt Whitman
Dear Walt Whitman I offer you a sad truth: The modern United States is not what you envisioned back in 1855. Of course, as you once said, America is still a nation of nations, but it is now a nation of nations divided. Individuals now argue day and night about what is best for our…
Taylor Swift and the World of English
Taylor Swift’s music has swept the world, becoming more popular than ever in the last few years. As an English major and Taylor Swift fan, my interests seem to overlap more often than people might think. Many seem to dismiss Swift’s artistry simply as break-up songs and her fans as emotional teenage girls and I…
The Limitless Wonder of Notebooks
In my younger years, I found a place to hide. I started escaping into notebooks, filling them as fast as my hand could move across the pages. I began to see each notebook as an empty house that I filled from top to bottom as quickly as possible. When I finished one, I immediately moved…
Beauty in Building
Over the 2023-2024 academic year, Simpkins (The Departmental Building of English) has been a faithful neighbor to the upcoming Center for Performing Arts. The building’s construction, which began in late 2022, has been a constant over the year, with passing students able to gauge the site’s progress by the constant shifting of large machines. From…
