Personal Reflection Paper

A bit surreal today as I sit down and write my first paper in almost 20 years. I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to be very concise in my communication, to the point and easy to skim the important facts to ensure what I need to get across will be read. The fact that I am having some emotional response to the stress related to routinely writing papers that ‘feel long’ is just a great example of some of what I learned from my MBTI/Firo B results.

In this paper I plan to briefly review what happened during the counseling demonstration. Next, I will discuss two basic counseling skills that I believe I used well, and one that I struggled with. Finally, I will discuss the next steps I will take in order to improve my counseling skills.

| |the intellectual conversation of topics that were discussed. I also enjoyed the learning |

The clocks at LIH appeared to be online and communicating to the WDM. I began my check to start data collection that is when I realized the clocks are not operating normally. I tried to reboot, initialize, and test both clocks though it appeared the clocks were in the process of successfully completing the task, it failed. Within the last two hours, I managed to get both clocks to complete a data collection successfully. I contacted Kari, LIH Coordination Center and request to have a TSO swipe their badge on both clocks located at the Checkpoint and Break Room, respectively.

When I first learned about this assignment, I was a bit skeptical. Having to go to the same place every week and journal about my experience did not really appeal to me and seemed tedious. I was never really big into journaling, but after the first visit, I was hooked. After the first visit, I was amazed at how much of a relief it was to have nothing to worry about except the beauty that was right in front of me. Feeling the this sense of calmness wash over me was unbelievable.

Finding the right words to describe my adolescent life is nothing short of impossible. When looking at myself, I did not know who I truly was and lacked direction in life. In essence, my teenage years were tough. When I was growing up, as most girls do, I struggled with self-esteem, particularly in regards to my physical image. Turning to food was always comforting, which in turn led me to become an overweight teenager with no self-esteem or drive. During my sophomore year of high school there was a turning point; I reflected on myself physically and emotionally and realized I needed to change my outlook in order to go towards what I wanted. I knew with my family history, that the odds were stacked against me. A few of my family members

I am Ethiopian. I was born and raised in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. I belong to the Ethiopian community, not only in Ethiopia but also here in America. Finding Ethiopian friends who share the same interests as me, understand our culture, fluent in our languages, and plan on returning back to Ethiopia someday, has always been a struggle for me. Most of the Ethiopians who I meet are Americanized. When I was studying at Northern Illinois university, I was blessed to have a small circle of Ethiopians who grew up there. Spending time with them made me feel secure like I actually belonged. Lucky for me, I am also a part of the African community. There are 54 countries in Africa; however, there is an unbreakable bond amongst Africans around the world. We share the same identity and have the utmost love and respect for our continent and the people living there.

I am Hoang Le Tri Cuong. I am a scholar who is studying at Saint Joseph's Institution (SJI).

“Teamwork makes the DREAM work” is the motto that Raquel Tellez, Service Chief II for the Community Counseling and Supportive Services a Prevention and Early Invention program within Behavioral Health Services (BHS), lives out every day with her team at the clinic and with her approach to client care.

I am now approaching the conclusion of my college career and starting to adjust to work life. This is a period of self-reflection and an attempt to put everything I learned into perspective. During this period of my life, I have been constantly thinking and contemplating my future. I feel very anxious yet nervous during this time while I am adjusting to this new stage of my life. When I was in High school my life was very structured, because I could be very dependent on peoples help and I obviously still lived with my family. When I went to college, I had to break away from that feeling of dependency and start the adjusting to adulthood. In college there was more responsibility and I started to become more independent. This was a crucial step in my life but choosing a career is going to be an even bigger step. It is a bigger step because; I have to start structuring my career goals and family goal for the future. At this moment all I can think about is my career, and how I can I keep improving myself for work life.

On Friday September 22nd, I attend one of the sessions titled “Your degree is not a Pigeon Hole” conducted by Scott Mclean. To be honest, I was quite skeptical of the Faith and Arts Conference. I told myself that I would just go to have a paragraph or two to write about, but I would not be learning anything. I was greatly surprised by the presentation of Mr.Mclean. As I realized that through the simplicity of his presentation, what God was trying to tell me in my time of questioning in private was answered through a stranger I did not know.

The person that I talked to for this paper was my grandfather, Richard Davidson. I wanted to talk to him because I didn’t know much about his past, and knew that he has strong opinions about how the world has changed. I also wanted to talk to him because I was interested in seeing how much I could relate what I have experienced to what a family member of mine has experienced. I talked to him for about an hour in person over break. The main thing that we talked about was how he grew up going through World War II, and how much the world changed specifically during that time. During this part of our conversation, he described how they were always listening to the radio and reading magazines and newspapers to keep up with the war’s progress. He also told me that he “had blackouts every night and black shades in case the Germans bombed Boston, and that we captured/sank 2 German U-boat submarines off Cape Cod. I saw flights of American bombers going over my back yard everyday”. This was an interesting quote to me as it let me see a bit into the life of someone living through World War II and I could almost feel the fear that they must have lived with going through such a scary event. We talked about how aircrafts going to Europe were flown by female pilots so that the men could fight in the war. One thing that he emphasized was his belief that without WWII society would’ve developed more slowly as it brought about many technical and societal innovations such as radar,

Throughout the entirety of this project I was able to take a step back and look at myself as a future professional in the fitness industry, and I was also able to help a person achieve something that he had been wanting to do for a long time. This project provided me with an outlet to be able to work one on one with a client in something other than just the workouts. For the entirety of my time in my fitness career I have been working on creating workouts that would challenge athletes physically, improve their athletic performance, and also reduce the risk of injury. Yet this project allowed me to look at a side of fitness that I had neglected up to this point. Overall it provided a chance for me to switch up my mindset on things and it really opened up my eyes to a whole different way of thinking when it comes to fitness, and it also provided very meaningful information that I can use and implement in my career moving forward.

Have you ever wondered what others may think of you or how you act with certain people? Within this paper , I’m going to explain how I see myself and how those around me see me as a person. This should be interesting in the sense that who I’ve asked to complete this with me are on two different spectrums of my life. I’ve asked someone who has known me since birth and someone who has known me for a short amount of time compared to the other. I’m going to expand on how my interpersonal communication skills are influenced by my personality traits.

For my project I chose to reach out to two individuals who practice a different religion than my own and learn more about them. I chose this project because I wanted to be able to understand some of the things I have learned in the textbook first hand. I thought that asking questions to people who practice a particular religion would help me to understand a bit better. To fulfill the requirements of the assignment, I spoke with Jeff who formerly practiced Judaism but is now an atheist and also Elzizie who is a Sunni Muslim. I also spoke with someone who is a Pagan, but chose to focus on Judaism and Islam. I learned a lot from this project and appreciate the opportunity to speak with both Jeff and Elzizie.