Reflection Paper

Maria is a religious mother of six who throughout the book she is very close minded and unwilling to change her plans or way of life no matter the influence. Maria is a member of the Luna, a family of religious farmers and as such she wants Antonio to become the next educated priest to guide the Luna in the future. She finds comfort in the steady life of farming and finds her husband 's ideals to be idiotic and unrealistic. When arguing about their land, Gabriel sees it as a symbol of freedom but Maria says in retort “It is worthless! Look

The Sound of Music is a musical set in pre-World War II Austria, detailing the lives of Maria Rainer and the von Trapp family and revealing that even in times of hardships, the bond of familial love can never be broken. Maria, a nun from the Nonnberg Abbey, is sent to be a governess to the children of Captain von Trapp because of her inability to follow the rules of the abbey. During her time with the children, she becomes close with each one of them and marries Captain von trapp. After the Anschluss, the von Trapp family is threatened by Herr Zeller of the Nazi Party after showing signs of rebellion by refusing to fly the flag of the Third Reich. They are able to escape Austria by fleeing over the Alps after they are given assistance

In reading the course text, I found countless concepts useful and informative to me as I continue to grow as an individual in the areas of racial-relations and accepting and celebrating differences in everyone. However, three concepts stood out to me from the text when looking back on the semester: the formula for better racial relations as outlined by former Attorney General Eric Holder, the advantages of growing up in a multicultural family or environment, and the toll that racism takes on racists. These three concepts have enriched my awareness of and knowledge in the psychology of stigma and prejudice, and I will focus on them in this paper because of the lasting effect that each concept has had on my perceptions and behaviors regarding racism and racial-relations.

I know that because I am a poor white female Christian, I see and interact with the world differently than others of a different status. My views differ not only because of what I am, but also where I grew up, which is a small town near the coast of North Carolina. I don't affiliate with a political party, because they all do things they should not. I worry a lot about the condition of the world and all of the countries in it. I worry for the United States of America, because people do not understand that global warming is real and that education is super important for our future. The world is a scary place with there being terrorists, psychos, broken people, innocent people in prisons and the people that are slowly breaking. While globally violence and worst forms of poverty are declining, there still continues to be some.

As Maria grew older, her beauty increased and her pride in her beauty grew too. When she was a young woman, she would not even look at the young men from her village. They weren't good enough for her. "When I marry," Maria would say, "I will marry the most handsome man in the world."

In our everyday lives, we tend to categorize people because of their race, culture, their socioeconomic status, and judge people by their looks, age, ability, and gender. When I was working at a daycare past summer of grade 9, I met one Chinese girl who was around 4-5 years old. One time I witness her classmates making fun of her because she has a asian accent when she talks in English, her eyes are small, her mom works at a restaurant with low pay. Even during break, I would always see her sitting in a corner all alone, while others were having fun. Therefore, I took the courage to talk to her. Throughout the conversation, I realized that she was mad at herself because she has a different race from others, language barrier between her and her classmates and she was ashamed of her mother working at a restaurant because other parents work at a higher pay occupation.

This has been one of the most useful, interesting, and difficult tasks that I have taken on so far, but has proven to be transformative in all aspects of my daily life. At the beginning of the semester, I was asked to create a long-term goal to achieve. A goal that was not too easily accomplished, but also within my capabilities. I chose to lose twelve pounds in the remaining twelve weeks of this semester. I do not believe that I would have been very successful in accomplishing my goal had I not taken this class and learned mental training strategies. Not only was I able to successfully complete my goal, but I surpassed it. I also noticed that my performance this semester improved from last semester. These skills have proved beneficial to me during one of the most trying semesters I have had so far in school. The three main strategies I used were: Setting a specific goal, utilizing a buddy, and having the ability to increase and decrease my arousal to achieve the optimal psycho-physiological state.

As I move through the society of today, it becomes increasingly evident that I face a plethora of stereotypes daily, whether those who burden me with them realize it or not. A majority of these come simply from my race; as an Asian Indian, I am automatically considered by nearly all to be intelligent. Yet a greater number stereotypes come from my disposition; due to of the amount of AP classes that I am taking, many believe that I am organized and must devote all of my time to school, but few of these actually ring true.

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.

Christianity. Jesus. The Bible. These are words that have never been foreign to me. I have never known a world without God being a part of it. My parents have always been Christian, and they have raised me and me siblings the same way. Even though my life hasn’t been the perfect, straight Christian journey, I have always known, at least a little, that Jesus saved us when he died on the cross and rose again. Because of this one-sidedness I was raised with, I also try to be aware other people’s point of view so that I get a sense that my belief is not the only one out there.

Our culture aches for the truth of who we are and what we are created for. I know this ache.

We all know that there is never that one person that is perfect in life, but we always believe that some people are just born perfect. For example, a person that will never get mad and have patience for everything, or a person that is attractive, or a person who has the most improved educational skills. In contrast, on my daily routines, I take out my anger on every little obstacle that gets in my way. I do not bother to take a step on exercising and procrastinate on schoolwork. This has been a routine in my life that I know I have to stop and do something to change it, but I just leave it aside and ignore it as if it everything was okay. Now that I have been reading The Habit and have been assigned to do a 30-day challenge, I have decided to form goals for myself. I had enough with these problems, and I am willing to create a better lifestyle by being a calmer person, living a healthier lifestyle, and being a better student.

Love is often linked to your heart and with your heart it generates a lot of emotions. I know for me when I first met my husband; I was giddy, clumsy, and shy and could hear my heart pounding in my chest. Nevertheless, as time passed, my heart began to have a normal beat. Often times there are those who heart beats to different drum. In addition to the difference of the heart beat there are many ways love is reciprocated. First sign of love you have an irregular heart beat and even mentioning name of the person who you love will cause your heart to beat irregular. There is no feeling like being love and having someone to share that love with. Love causes you do many thing but there is one love that searches the heart and bring clarity to you. God loves does causes you

For most people, they learn how to improve their reading and writing skills in Elementary School easily. I am one of the few that had to put more effort to improve our reading and writing. Some also may say that one event was the only event that affected their writing styles to make them to what they are now. I believe it takes more than one event to define how we behave, write, or interact. It takes multiple events to help shape how we write, such as, having extra help from the school, having a teacher sit down and talk with you, or having parents put more effort towards you practicing.

I can remember when I was back in 4th grade, I used to attempt to write books or stories. When I was younger, I loved to read with my mom and then would try to write something similar to the book I had previously read. My Mom would help me read books like The Magic Tree House and would simplify and slow everything down for me so I could better understand what was going on and why. Nina Sankovitch, a reader who blogs about what she reads captures my feelings when she talks about how “I discovered new wells of resilience and joy, empathy and beauty” (Sankovitch). When I was younger, I didn’t know how to always capture these emotions, but my goal was always to make a story and try to recreate those feelings. It was a real accomplishment for