Reflection Paper

Overall, I feel as if our presentation went very well. If there was anything I could change it would be having more class dialogue and it not seem so one sided. I also would have liked to ask more questions considering the class already had prior knowledge, of this content. The questions that I would have like to have asked most are the higher order thinking questions; such as, how and why. An example would be, “Why would you select the more colorful curriculum map over the one already filled out?” The anticipated response would hopefully be: “The colorful curriculum map is broken down into each month in the school year; whereas, the filled in map only has two months.” When creating a curriculum map is should be done for the entire school year and not just a month or so at a time. While assessing all of the feedback that was obtained, it was noted that everyone gave extremely positive with minimal critiques. I enjoyed how the class respected our wishes of giving only constructive feedback. The few suggestions for improvement were for me for to speak up, for Brianna to stand up and maybe move around the room, slow down a little (which was corrected as we presented and noted by some), one person said give more guidance on what to write in the organizer, and one said she wished we would have informed them sooner that not all the puzzle pieces would be complete. When it came to the organizer we did not really focus to much on that because we know everyone learns in a different

When my parents split up, I prayed to God to help my mom win custody over my siblings and me. Every night they would go unanswered, so I prayed that my dad would stop being a monster. That didn’t work either. My parents split up because they would fight a lot and because my dad was a mean person. He would abuse us with anything he could get his hands on because he would get angry at the littlest things. An example, is when me and my sister shared a room but we didn’t get along so one night we got into a huge argument and my dad ‘spanked’ us with a wooden board. I prayed that everything would get better for my family. No, I didn’t want them to get back together, I just wanted all the fighting to stop. Still every time I prayed it seemed to go unheard, unanswered. So, I gave up on religion, I quit praying and ended up resenting God. Even though I quit believing in Him, I never let my mom loose her faith. I would talk her into going to church any time that she could. I went along with her because I was trying to get some connection back to God. Nothing seemed to work for me, so I just stopped trying. I believed that if there was a God then he is cruel and doesn’t care.

In life, everyone gets to experience moments that they will cherish forever, as well as the ones that hurt to look back at. I’ve had the disappointing pleasure of having these moments back to back years. They both have to deal with the sport that challenges me from all aspects in life. Wrestling has ran in the Ybarra family for generations. I felt great coming out of sophomore year, as the Class B, 126 pound state champion. Before I knew it, I was already walking the halls as a Junior after the summer of 2016 flew past. I wish I could say Junior year went as tremendous as the year before, but that just wasn’t the case.

When I enrolled in English 330, Writing in Education, I was apprehensive. Over the years, proofreading has been one of my strengths which may be a great attribute, but the challenging part has already been accomplished, writing the paper. So, although I absolutely love to research and write about my findings, I have always found it to be a struggle writing essays. The words seem to come easy in my head, but when the time came to write or type those words into sentences was the most difficult. Even though I have endured difficulties and challenges this semester, I have given 100% into each assignment. The discussions, blogs, letters, emails and assorted categories of papers completed, they have all proven to me that, no matter how good you felt you did, there is definitely room for improvement. There is always room for improvement, whether the task is a school assignment or work done on daily basis for over twenty-five years. My writing skills, my thought process and analytical skills have all improved in the last eight weeks.

As I began to reflect back upon my life and the incidents that have turned me into the writer I am today, I smiled as I began to remember some of my earliest childhood memories. Shortly after, my entire class was erupting with laughter as we shared stories about each other from our youth. The reminiscing of what has turned us into the writers we are today opened up the opportunity for all of us to share our memories and laugh about our elementary days. Through the reflecting I shared a very notorious memory from kindergarten involving our teacher. As I spoke about the memory I realized that it was the memory that has influenced me the most as a writer.

When I was younger, I used to talk in Pushto; with my mother, father, sister and, basically my whole entire family. Because my family was my life, they were all I’ve ever known. I was five years old when I started going to school, and obviously, as a naive young child, I assumed that everyone talked - or was- exactly like me. Thus, I would talk to classmates in my language, and they’d stare or generally be confused. Correspondingly, Many of them, in their childhood innocence, would respond back in English and continue to play with me. It wasn’t until a few days where I realized that they weren’t the different ones, I was, and I slowly started to change. In reality, my transformation wasn’t drastic at first, since I only just learned the basics. Red was the first word I learned. Something so simple yet is so bold. Red can draw attention towards yourself, like a woman trying to impress her flame. Red is hungry, and so was I. By the time I learned basic English words, and can string together a sentence, all my kindergarten friends and teachers could finally understand me.

My mother does genology for my family so I know that I am mostly a mix of African, Native American and not enough European to really think about. I look like a normal African-American girl and most people I come in contact with assume the same thing. To define myself without race I would say I am invested in the betterment of other peoples lives and performing in front of an audience. As a black woman I am affected mostly in my major, theatre, because being black is a factor in whether or not I am cast in certain roles. Personally it has been a rollercoaster going to predominately white-schools and still finding a way to love and appreiciate my blackness. I’m reminded of my race daily when I have to mix my foundations to find a shade that isn’t offered or when my theatre professors suggest I do a monologue from “A Raisin in the Sun’ and as of recently when I look at the news I am affected by the fact that the injustice in the world based on race could happen to me or a loved one in a heartbeat.

I’m a very academically driven student and have several, quite lofty, goals for my time here at Texas A&M. I want to maintain a 4.0 GPA, or at least a minimum of a 3.5 in order to maintain my Cornerstone Honors status. My dream, and biggest goal, is to intern for a congressperson in Washington DC, and I also want to study abroad, hopefully in England.

We are all strong. Some people never realize this, but everybody has an inner warrior. While it’s true that not everyone has great physical power, but mentally and emotionally everybody has some kind of strength. For me, I am not physically as robust or as athletic as some, but mentally I am strong. There are times when I bring myself down, but I know that my strong mind will soon return to its normal balance and pick me back up. There are times when I am down and I feel I may never be the same, but no matter what my mental strength lends a hand, and returns me to my ordinary routine. The perfect example of my strong mind is my relationship with swimming. My beloved sport, swimming, is meant for someone with a strong mental mind. Therefore, feel like I was born to swim.

There I was, standing in the grounds of my school, bound by judgemental onlooking eyes, which studied me for a sign of vulnerability; begging for me to collapse into my self-fabricated darkness. Like a cowardly criminal, I slumped, trembling uncontrollably in the middle of the secluded balcony, where I implored myself to “stop” as I yet again had a crippling anxiety attack which incarcerated my whole body, though this time because my counsellor had called my parents regarding my suicidal ideation. It was punishing enough to wake up in the mornings, though faced with the constant internalization of emotions tore strips off my self-esteem. Tears filled my eyes like an overflowing river and cascaded down my face, though freezing in the silence. Proceeding to tell myself repetitively to “stop it”, as I refused to accept that mental illness was the corruptive reality of my life, I cowered as the flashbacks uncontrollably replayed in my mind. I recollected the words that any mother would dread to divulge to their child; that “sometimes I think that it would be better that you were gone, because then, you wouldn’t have to feel this pain”, contradicting this by expressing to me that “I know it’s selfish, but you can’t leave me”.

I was 12 years old when I started to play volleyball. I can remember going to the gym for the first time bounces echoing off the walls for the balls being played. Before this, I was a competitive cheerleader for 4 years and had made it to the highest level possible. Hearing the crowd roaring wit =h every hit trick was what I lived for. My friend from my neighborhood finally connived me to try out volleyball and go to a camp. When I got there I remember always doing cheer moves on the volleyball court. In one drill we had to throw the ball across the room “bang bang” went the ball as I hit the back wall every time. The coaches were so impressed and immediately started talking off my parent's ear after the camp.

As Rocky Balboa once said, " it's not about how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, keep moving forward. It's how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done." This man believed that nothing is going to hit you as hard as life. Which means life will hit you pretty hard and it's all about taking it and keep moving forward. This quote has guided my life, there has been times where something has happened in which it brought me down but after a short while I have always recovered, got back on my feet, and moved on in my life.

Growing up in Rock Hill, South Carolina, attending Westminster Catawba Christian School as an adolescent, living in a suburban area with my older sister Reaghan and parents, a portrait of the best life any child could ask has been painted. My sister and I were spoiled rotten and got pretty much anything we ever asked for. My life consisted of going to school, participating in fun family nights, viewing movies, and attending church on Sunday. I’ll never forget the delicious soul food Sunday dinners that followed.

After reviewing this assignment, I learned that my approached was going to be a little different from what I was accustomed to doing with other assignments. In previous assignments I referred to a project that my company had completed and had control of from beginning to the end. In that scenario we were in control of and responsible for how far off we were from the schedule/task, cost, and projected finish time. Basically in this assignment the manager was there from the beginning as well; somewhere along the way the project manager’s focus has shifted and we have been given the responsibility to re-evaluate the situation and determine which direction should be taken to get back on track with cost and time. In this scenario the project manager has lost sight of his scope and time schedule.

I’m a light skin woman living in south Mississippi. I do not personally identify with a race of people. However, my family identifies themselves as Caucasian, I debunk race identification as an arbitrary made-up system employed to categorize people. I believe we are one race, the human race. I more identify with nationality as an American.