Reflection Paper

7 years ago, my grandpa was alive and well, but 3 weeks went by and my mother explained to me that he had cancer. We went over to my grandpa's house to see him there he was sitting in the chair with a surgical mask this is when I realized he was sick. My mother was sobbing every night almost as if he had died I walked in there and I asked, 'are you okay?' She responded with yes, go to bed its getting late. Another few weeks went by and in this time, went to visit a few times my cousins, aunts, uncles, were all there. This was the last time I spoke to my grandfather, later that night my mom was crying extra hard and I was wondering what was wrong at the time I couldn’t think of what was wrong with my mom. This is when my dad told me that he had passed away I remember him saying that we need to love my mom and show that we care about her. My mom soon left to my grandmother's house, she went over there to comfort my grandma for her loss.

Mr. Abedi then introduced me to Miriam, one of the woman volunteering at Open Mosque Day. Miriam was working behind one of the tables educating people on Islam. She gave me a Qur’an , a short biography on Muhammad and lots of other information to take home. She was very interesting to talk as she was raised Catholic and converted to Islam. She spoke about how Islam is a lot like Catholicism and that Mary is mentioned repeatedly in the Qur’an more than any other woman. I asked her if she believes Mary is the mother of God and she replied no. Miriam told me she was mentioned seventy times and that she is recognized as devoting herself to God. She explained to me that Allah wants us to pray and that God is great! God is absolute, perfect and unique. I asked her if she believes in God and she replied she believes in Allah and that Allah means God in Arabic. Up until she explained this I thought of God and Allah as two separate people. Miriam was not comfortable taking a picture with me so she found Mr. Abedi and we took a picture together. I thanked them both for their time. Syed commented that he thought it was great that I was open to learning about other religions.

When I made the decision to stop going to college because I was pregnant I made a promise to myself; I promised that the moment my daughter was in school I would go back to school myself. Five years later I followed thru on that promise but not without any reservations. I had been out of school for so long, and I have a decent job why did I need to go back? How would the scheduling work? How was I going to maintain my work schedule and go to school? My determination and the want to keep the promise to myself is what allowed me to overcome my doubts and fears. Fast forward to picking classes I was nervous. I enjoy English and writing so that was fine and expected, but it was picking out the right teacher. I am beyond glad that I picked you as my professor. Not only was class fun and engaging, but your willingness to work with your students and encourage them is just what I needed. Out of everything I learned during the duration of this course the three significant things I learned were pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, how to keep a paper formal, and how to use different tools to produce the best paper I can.

In the beginning, this class frustrated me. I am the kind of left-leaning atheist feminist that, honestly, does not like to hear other people’s opinions if they differ greatly from my own. I knew that, since this was more of a discussion based class, my hands would be tied because of my lack of knowledge about anything religious. As discussed on the first day, religion is something that people are uncomfortable talking about, and the further I got in the term the more comfortable I became hearing other people’s opinions (I will touch on this even more later) and allowing myself to learn from their perspective. Through this class, I learned to listen to my peers even more and to allow myself to see the world from a believer’s standpoint. I also thoroughly enjoyed studying the nitty-gritty of Judaism, which was a subject that I doubt I would have ever been exposed to otherwise.

A time in my life where I realized what i wanted to do in the future,my freshman year I was in my FFA chapter and we had officer interviews, I was the 2015-2016 Valley View FFA Treasurer . At our first meeting as a new officer our ag advisor told us that she was taking a year off due to be able to not spend enough time with her children, she went on to tell us that there will be a new ag teacher coming in to replace her for the year. I had so many thoughts going around in my head like , what if he doesnt care and just acts like a substitute and doesn't actually teach us anything. Do any work with us to get better in our CDE’s which is a Career Development Education , they are competitions that we go to and compete against other chapters for an example Livestock Judging is a CDE or help us with our SAE’s an SAE is a at home project that we do over the four years in Ag for an example mine was show lambs and show calves, we keep records of the money we spent the hours we put in and if we went to any shows or vet appointments.Our ag teacher told us that he’d be coming in for our officer meetings in the summer then take over for our officer retreat. All of the new officers were pretty nervous about getting a new teacher.The officers were talking about how we don’t know what we are doing in our officer positions yet our goals were to make the chapter a better and bigger program.

Our excursion to Japan was full of inspiring and fulfilling experiences for me. The foremost part of our journey, to Tokushima and the Awagami Factory, was what I was initially so excited for. Between my studies of printmaking, papermaking, and Japanese art history- Awagami was the initial anticipated zenith of my trip to Japan.

Our family immigrated to the United States when I was 5 years old. Not only did my parents have to adapt to a new culture and learn the language, but they also had to secure their finances. Despite having to overcome such hardships, my parents always maintained a positive attitude and a determined mindset. My father is now an esteemed software developer for a health insurance company. I learned from my parents that success was a matter of perseverance, hard work and dedication. Without inheriting these values, I would not be where I am today. I have been honored with the prestigious Jefferson award for my scholarship, leadership, and service to our community. My parents have ultimately been my inspiration throughout my educational and professional development.

“If you wait for inspiration to write you're not a writer you're a waiter.” - Dan Poynter. I have felt like writing was not my greatest strength. I feel like I didn't have anything important to say. Looking back to my journal or diary call it whatever I would always write about how my life, the drama middle school me was in, my love life and the fights that would happen between me and my family. I wanted to reflect back on to my work and find out what my strength and my weakness. There have been times where I have been asked to read somebody else's writing. I would think it was so great that I felt discouraged that my work of writing wouldn’t be as great as theirs. My form of writing I feel is more characterized negatively because I don't share my success and triumph often as I would like to.I talk about my failures more. I feel like I do this because I don't want to share about my failures with another human. I know that I would like to write them down so then I can reflect back onto my failures and know how I could better myself and have a better chance of succeeding. I would disagree that my past life as a writer has given me a voice in the world mainly because of the topics I would write about. They weren’t important to others, they were only important to me. Writing in the past was more what was happening day to day and my relationship life, if anything exciting or upsetting happened, my honest opinions of people. Also the secret that I didn't want my mom to find out.

Writing is an art in which letters come together on a piece of paper and make words, words then make sentences, and eventually, these sentences make a work of art. There are many different factors that go into this work of art. One of these factors being the organization of sentences and paragraphs in a logical way to make your work comprehensible. The next being proper grammar and sentence structure the way words come together is probably the most important piece of writing as it prevents any misconceptions. Finally, the third aspect of writing that I would like to talk about is the contents of the piece or in other words the voice of the writer. The effect of a strong voice is making the reader feel like they are a part of your work, this helps to convey the message in the way it was intended. Throughout my life, I have composed many pieces of writing in which some made me proud to put my name on and some that I was not so proud. Throughout College Composition I, the writing process became more practical for me as in the past I dreaded writing as it would take an absurd amount of time to write every paper. This came with the style of the class, checkpoints along the writing process kept me on track. This led me to two finding significant findings in my writing. Firstly, my organization, sentence structure, and grammar improved tremendously when writing before class this year this was a colossal problem in my writing. Furthermore, the creativity I am now able to

I decided to interview my mom, Maria, who is 51 and lives in Chelan, Washington. I selected my mom because she has lived in two different countries and was able to reflect on similarities and differences that she noticed. My mom grew up in Mexico, as a child she lived in a city, when she got into her teens her family moved to a small town in the southern part of Mexico and as an adult she moved to the US. I began the interview by asking my mom what sustainability was to her. She responded by saying sustainability is the ability to provide her family with the basics needed for their well-being while not being wasteful. According to Kuhlman and Farrington, “sustainability is concerned with the well-being of future generations and in particular with irreplaceable natural resources” (Kuhlman and Farrington, 2). It was interesting to compare both definitions as they both focused on the well-being of the future, and although my mom did not mention natural resources she did emphasize not being wasteful.

“You will need surgery as soon as possible,” the physician told me. The disbelief settled in as the reality of my condition became concrete. Many patients go through grieving stages upon receiving bad news, and it is up to the physician to deliver it. Telling me that I have a burst appendix that has festered for a week is not what I would have liked to hear, but I knew that I was in good hands. Convincing the patient that they are in the best care should be the goal of all physicians. In order to do this, I will to show genuine sympathy, have the critical thinking skills needed to deliver appropriate judgments, and have a clear passion and dedication for the profession.

Arriving at college I felt like I had a decent idea of what to expect, because I spent a year at boarding school. The main difference between boarding school, and college to me from the outside, was going to be the freedom of no curfews, no mandatory hours in which you study, no uniforms, and no sexuality segregation within dormitories. For the most part my pre college assumption was right. However, one of the things that I didn’t realize was the amount of different people I was going to meet, and how they would have an impact on me.

Most students can agree that as writers, they have improved since the beginning of the term. For most their work ethic was lacking at the beginning because they believed they could breeze through the class, hardly trying and they would realize this would not work and I was one of those students. Ever since the first essay my work ethic has drastically increased. I would spend more time writing and revising my essays as the term went on. Because of the increase in work ethic, the quality of my papers also increased, as did my stress level. The increase in my work ethic, writing quality, and stress level all contributed to the increase in the grades I received on my essays.

Relationships have been a strength in my personal and professional life and my most recent re-assignment as a technology integrator and instructional coach has tested my relationship development and maintenance of trust particularly with more challenging individuals. Extra grace is required at times. This was profound rehearsal for dealing with potentially difficult parents and I continue to seek first to understand. One of the best examples I witnessed over this internship came from the new principal at Valley View. During the fall conference day he pulled his desk into the center hallway where parents would enter the building and manned the welcome table the entire day. Many of my primary teacher colleagues mentioned how many parents noted and appreciated the welcome. I have that in my back pocket as a definitive implementation when I become principal.

I chose assessment #10: Authenticity Scale (Biswas-Diener, 2010, p. 122) for my assessment. Between this current quarter and the last, I pushed myself beyond limits on another section of the Appalachian Trail. On the morning of day number 3 out of 6, I snapped a selfie of myself as I crested a ridge line on a bald (treeless ridge line with unlimited views). The photo was unique and looked manipulated with a filter due to the glare from the sunrise burning through thin patches of fog spilling over the ridge as if the mountain was an airfoil. That photo is now my Facebook profile picture and titled, “Nothing artificial.” I have always pushed myself to be true and authentic in all I do. That does not mean being perfect, it means being honest with myself.