Reflection Paper

Over the years, writing has been my safe place. It has been a security blanket of sorts; an outlet that I can use knowing I will not receive criticism in the same was I do when I speak. Although my writing experience has not consisted of much, I have been able to grow steadily and learn how to engage with an audience. I can identify my strengths, take advantage of them, and work on the areas I find to be the weakest. It has fueled my passion for world change, even though I am still unaware of how it will tie in with my future career path. Writing has given me a voice that I do not have the courage to speak from my mouth.

In Senior year, my only goal consisted of finding platforms that would provide optimal opportunities to convince colleges they need me at their schools. To reach my goal, I took the ACT fives times, constantly checked my GPA average, and volunteered frequently. None of this, however, compares to the biggest step I accomplished while working towards my goal: Completing Composition 1. When I signed up for my first college class, I imagined a scene similar to that of a movie with a huge room containing over one hundred college students brainlessly jotting down notes from a professor's PowerPoint. I did not expect the class to look similar to an average high school classroom. However looks can be deceiving, and upon my journey into a transition between a high school experience to a college one, I found the level of difficulty to increase tenfold. Everything needed more effort, more time, and more evaluation. What I thought I knew about writing was flipped upside down and rearranged. Composition I taught me more than I thought I would learn in the class. The course taught me how to use the writing process to improve my writing and utilize various grammatical sentence structures, as well as produce impressive summaries over any college reading thrown my way.

This world sucks, I am a seventeen year old student studying at Bloor Collegiate. Every time when I would have a conversation with someone about a topic that does not have an answer, I would get stressed and cannot express my opinions well. This is my true feelings because I always found it challenging to include myself in discussions with multiple perspectives. I like math and science, especially physics because there is only one answer. I do not have to express myself to anyone, I can just use an equation and logic to find the right answer. Those subjects are more universal than languages like Spanish or English. Even though the way to solve the problems is tough and complicated, you will always get the same answer in the end. I do not like to argue with other people about society and the ridiculous things that build up our world. For instance, people around me say that learning history is important to avoid mistakes that have been made. So far in my life, I do not remember what I have learned from history. This indicates that learning history was useless towards my knowledge and had zero impact on my life.

It was yet another dull day in my high school English IV class. I arrived on-time and placed my worn out, overused, school issued computer on my desk and began looking up the day’s assignments. Soon enough the teacher would begin to speak, but before he even began I was already sitting there with the feeling of annoyance. “A fifteen-page senior research project” the announcement read. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” I remember thinking to myself. Another complete waste of my precious time I could have used to work on my car, or finish the next level of the video game I had been so often enjoying. The teacher announced the usual, “No plagiarism, 12-point font, double spaced, MLA format” nothing we hadn’t ever heard before, but somehow always managed to require 30 minutes of my life to explain. “This ought to be easy,” I had thought to myself, ignoring the rest of the instructions given. Little did I know; this paper was going to change the very way I thought about life.

ugust 9, 2014, Michael Brown’s body laid in the Missouri sun for four hours after being killed by a Ferguson police officer. As his body lay there, I sat in my kitchen packing for freshman move-in with tears of anger streaming down my face. I knew the unarmed Black teen could have been my older brother or a high school friend. What I did not know, was that Brown’s death would be my intellectual and personal catalyst. Just days after Brown’s death, I participated in my first protest. As I walked chanting “Black Lives Matter” through the streets of Atlanta in a crowd of passionate, disillusioned, mourning, energetic comrades, I found my niche.

When taking this course at first I was very hesitant on continuing with it because it went against everything I knew growing up in my home. I’m very glad I continued the course because it has offered me so much in opening my eyes on how life is for people who are women, different race, their sexual orientation, gender, and disabled. I never really realized how much I was limited too growing up as a girl, I was expected to be dolce, pretty and quiet. While boys were expected to do about whatever they wanted, they could get dirty, be loud, and cause a ruckus. I experienced this as a kid; my brother wouldn’t get in trouble for doing certain things. If I tried to do what my brother did, I would get in trouble and be told, “A young lady shouldn’t be doing that”. It irritated me so much because I didn’t know why my brother could get away with certain actions and I wasn’t.

Why am I feeling so warily towards this trip? Why now, and never before? Similar questions kept pondering through my mind when boarding the plane that would take us to our home country, Peru. It had been close to five years with the absence of my birthplace, my early childhood. I never realized how my childhood environment differed from my present life, but somehow, this year I felt more aware of where I stood. My parents would tell me to value the luck we had, but I never gave it much thought. Back then, I would consider it but not in depth, until I was smacked with it in the face. Though I didn’t know at the time, I contemplated the idea of being exposed to a new perspective. However, the feeling wasn’t enormously overwhelming, so I would force it to reside in the back of my mind where it was hidden but kept haunting.

What I’ve come to enjoy most about the sky, after years and years of gazing up at it, is that there are no limitations or boundaries. Beyond this planet, there is a magnificent space of experiences; unopened and unrevealed. I know there are endless possibilities when I look up at the sky and when I sit down to write. Writing gives me the same opportunity too creatively think just as the sky does. When I write my essays, I try to stretch my mind too creatively think as far as it can go just like I would when I would look at the sky. However, sometimes my mind can’t stretch that far and I fall into the trap of giving up. I get frustrated because it is difficult for me to analyze instead of summarizing or make my thesis as thoughtful and organized as I would like. Luckily, over this semester in English 1102, I have learned some useful tips to overcome these barriers. The greatest obstacle that inhibits me from improving as a writer is my tendency to give up, which is due to the struggle to organize a thoughtful thesis and analyze properly.

During this course, I have developed a new and useful skillset. One skill I can away from this course is that developed better argument skills. We have been assigned several assignments revolving around what is an “argument” and learning when and how to argue. My arguing skills have since increased and become more polished. I can use my new-found skills at work, in conversations, and at work. These tools will help me advance my conversations and language. I believe that this skill will benefit me primarily in work settings.

Students all attend school, for the same reason, and that is to learn. While most of the time we are being taught the same material, our school experiences vary from student to student and from school to school. Some countries schoolings are known far and wide for their academic performance and then there are some that don't even have basic schooling necessities. Some experiences are so wonderful, you never forget them. Others are so bad it's impossible to forget about them. I have had my own fair share of experiences be it domestic where I was shunned or foreign experiences which gave me a whole new perspective on education. It is these very experiences that have made me who I am today, a strong, critical-thinking and compassionate person.

This past year has been a learning experience that has led me to where I am today, attending Citrus. I graduated from Glendora High School in May of two-thousand sixteen with the intention of moving away to school and attending the University of Arizona; however, within the week post-graduation I decided it would be in my best interest to take some time away from the books. I love education and every ounce of learning. My school work, grades, and attendance have always been a top priority, but I began to feel as if I was a car running out of gas, I knew that if I went into my freshman year at a university with the mindset I had and the drive I was lacking, I probably would not be very successful nor would I get very far. For me to figure out myself and where I desire to be a break was needed from not only school, but also this town. Unfortunately, my gap year wasn’t filled with any crazy stories of finding myself while lost backpacking or traveling, but it was filled with personal growth amidst new coworkers, a newer environment, and a boyfriend as well as some family. I moved to Arizona anyhow and that is where I did most of my recent growth. Now you’re probably wondering how I landed myself back in Glendora, a question I now have the confidence to answer. Arizona was great, I love it, and it holds such a large part of my heart however I could not muster up an ounce of motivation to go back to school. I felt too comfortable with what I had and feared going back with

During my first year in college, I did not realize the major challenges I would face being a first-generation college student that was undeclared as a major. I knew I had to continue my education as many of my teachers and advisers in high school had mentioned. But I never knew the struggle of not having a family member to ask for advice or guidance to navigate my college education or choosing a major. I became interested in helping other students in their path post-high school by volunteering, mentoring and working with high school students in their process of applying or learning about their postsecondary education options. After working with different ethnic groups I came to realize that those that identified as

The way we view the world makes a huge impact on how we live and chose to do things. One of the most fundamental things which guide how we live and think is what e believe to be the ultimate reality. Within my cohort since we all go to a christian University and have grown up relatively with the same belief system we all agreed that God is the ultimate reality. That when everything else disappears God is who created all matter and without God there is no matter. I believe we live in a world that is two dimensional; physical and spiritual. Meaning that there is a world that we can see as well as one that is visible with the naked eye. However one of my cohorts said that she believed that God is matter, saying that all that is around us contains God since he is who created all. We contrasted in this belief because I believe that God created all matter and then allows it to move as he designed it, interacting only when disruption is needed to move things according to Gods will.

It is extremely difficult to estimate the amount of knowledge in existence today. While knowledge is flowing in incredible pace, extraction and application of the relevant information from the bulk of knowledge is vital for many aspect of our lives. As an IMBA student in Florida International University, I have never thought that there was such a strict distinction between the information and the knowledge in today’s technology driven world. However, after taken this course, it is quite clear to me that gathering the beneficial information is not an easy task as it seems before. There are crucial elements to obtain valuable information for the businesses. Every business is unique so the strategies for them too.

Many governesses before Maria considered the von Trapp children to be incorrigible. They hated the children for the mischief that they do and the children hated the governesses in return. Hate begets hate.