Hello, everyone! My name is Alexandra Buhl. I am currently an International Affairs major (although I am leaning towards switching to International Business), and expect to graduate in 2022. In the past, I have always looked forward to my English classes. For me, such classes have always been a forum where I could express myself both creatively and persuasively at the same time. I have always loved dissecting diverse forms of rhetoric and analyzing them in these classes as well. In addition, English courses that I have taken in the past have rarely dwelled on learning grammatical structures and rules. Instead, they focussed on helping me answer questions that did not have clear or singular answers. This class is my first English class at Georgia Tech and I think that it will adhere to a similar style as my previous ones.

I enjoy written and electronic communications because I can carefully and efficiently plan out what I say but struggle with the oral and visual modes. This semester, I hope to improve my nonverbal communication in addition to the modes I struggle with so that I can convey any message in multiple ways.

Unlike most people my age, I do not have extensive experience with this courses theme of TV. Growing up, my parents did not allow me to watch much television, so I never developed attachments to shows. I recently bought a Netflix subscription, however, and am trying to balance watching a plethora of shows all at the same time. I’ve been wanting to add Orange is the New Black to that list for a while due to its creative plot line and focus on women, so I have chosen to review it for the Blog Assignment. I was also motivated to choose this show because of its reputation for having many diverse women who all experience their own relatable and real-world problems that I may be able to learn from. This show is about Piper Chapman, a public relations executive whose past with a drug dealer finally catches up with her and puts her in jail. The interactions she has with her previous life and other women in the jail shapes a story that I’m excited to discover.  

Orange is the New Black shows diverse women experiencing a diversity of problems.