Reflection Paper

Later that day, the celebration continued with a party at Eagles Banquet Hall. As the festivities started, I was so happy about the night to come. My court of honor was introduced as they led me into the celebration. We started out the night by performing a traditional Quinceanera march. It was a choreographed routine that we practiced for five months leading up to that day. My father came out with tears in his eyes and softly removed my ballerina slippers from my feet and replaced them with a pair of woman’s heels. With tears in his eyes, he grasped and hugged me so tight it was as if he didn’t want to let me go. My father and I started to dance the traditional father daughter dance. As the song was coming to the end, my father whispered in my ear, “ You’re a beautiful young woman, but you will always be my baby girl.” At that moment, tears filled my eyes and I realized how much love my father had for me. I will always remember that moment for the rest of my life.

Throughout the course of this semester, I have continuously grown as a writer. Prior to taking this course, I had little experience or knowledge when it came to writing. I used to struggle with forming my thoughts into writing, let alone a paper. I was never confident with what I wrote. My writing had no greater purpose other than the assignment. My writing process included: writing my paper, proofreading it, and turning it in. Once the paper left my hands, it also left my mind. Throughout this course we worked with others, visited the writing lab, wrote critiques, and we were able to revise our papers. I believe that all of this is has caused me to grow greatly as a writer.

being lazy I ask my sisters for help but they decline I wasn’t really sad because it was my mess but, when

This is how I always was. I would get the paper, I would put it in a folder carefully, so it wouldn’t get wrinkled. This time though, it was a little folded at the corner. It’s ok I told myself, it won’t mess anything up I hope. I was so excited, even one of my new friends that I met this year was interested. She sat next to me at my table looked at what I was smiling about. “It’s the Daddy Daughter Dance!” I exclaimed. I knew that she was interested in it! “My dad and I go to it all the time. You should go too.” I told her. “It’s at…”

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger” Friedrich Nietzsche. One of the quotes that comes to mind if I were asked to represent my junior year in high school. By far this school year has to be one of the toughest I have yet experience. I faced myself with personal issues leading to a lack of motivation for anything really. My personal issues really affected my school work and restricted me from the joys of living for a short period of time. I found myself lacking in energy and enthusiasm for school. School became a burden. I had to juggle my school life with the pain of losing my Godfather. I struggled gaining the strength to get back to who I am truly. The talkative energetic girl who finds her ways to overcome the challenges she faces with a positive overlook. The loss of such an important figure in my life was difficult. Experiencing a hard break of such kind really affected me, but with the support of my loved ones I overcame the hardships and stand stronger today.

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority,” Colossians 2:6-9 (ESV). The words of the Apostle Paul echo in warning to the people of Colossae, ones stressing the importance of being firmly rooted in the Christian faith. The observations that took place in the classroom and on the playground lead me to believe in the importance of a strong Christian foundation starting at a young age.

Have you ever thought of the idea of learning? I never really understood why kids my age have to go to school. I mean, here at home you have all the free time to do anything. At school is completely different. The teachers at the schools I’ve attended didn’t teach me anything that I needed to know before high school. At my old elementary school I didn’t quite get what my teacher was teaching. They said I’m above all of the learning at my old school, but when I transferred to Green Elementary I wasn’t at the correct level. I was behind. My old school was teaching, but in their way of teaching I didn’t quite understood what they were asking, and don’t get me started with questions.

Do you remember what your priorities were when you were eight years old? When I was that age (1965), I was in third grade. One of my jobs was to make breakfast on weekday mornings for some of my younger brothers and sisters. At that age, my primary goal was to figure out ways to get out of work around the house, so I could go outside and play with my cousins who lived in the neighborhood.

We first knew our Daughter’s was having issues in December of 2005, she was in her Freshman year in high school. We noticed that she had not been acting like her normal self. We confronted her about the problems and did not understand how bad they were. We did ask if she needed to talk someone, she didn’t want to, and we hoped she would get back to normal. We told her we loved her and didn’t want any harm to come to her and she could talk to us. I did tell her the next time I knew something was going on that she would be seeing someone to talk about her issues. The next month I received a call from the high school that she had broken through their firewall and had posted on a banded website. On this website she had posted about death and that she was cutting herself. We had noticed some injuries, but she always had an excuse for them, like falling on the ice. Before I picked her up from school after receiving the phone call I immediately called our doctor’s office told them what was going on and got her an appointment that day.

This semester, in HPE3200, I worked with students at the KSU Play program, Kennesaw Elementary (KE), and Big Shanty Elementary (BSE). Within the Play program, my student, Troy, was a student with special needs. Troy lives with autism; therefore, he requires a more complex set of teaching skills, behavior management, and instructional strategies. However, while working with Troy and other students in the Play program in contrast to those at KE and BSE, I found the challenges offered me growth as an educator.

The locker room is silent, but why? We are less than two hours from Massabesic High School’s first playoff appearance and everyone is sitting in silence; everybody is playing with their lacrosse heads, anxiously stringing them for the third time today. Why are we not excited? Why are we not blaring music? Why are we not jumping up and down, acting like idiots like we always do? I am pacing around the locker room and walking in and out, with the occasional stop at the bathroom to make sure I am not going to throw up. We have spent way too long rebuilding this team to throw the season away now. There are two aspects to being on a sports team that are not captured on the field but have a huge impact on winning: how everyone is acting in the locker room, and how we warm up when we take the field.

I visualized the entire process in my head: the light coming from the sun, getting trapped as heat because of greenhouse gases instead of leaving the earth and thus heating it. I started to raise my hand to answer the question and got about halfway before it happened. My hands started trembling. My throat dried up and my voice decided to take a vacation off to who-knows-where. I wanted to keep going, but the anxiety wouldn’t let me. Defeated, I put my hand down and let someone else answer the question. I had major speech anxiety.

No one is exempt from turmoil during their lives, and I can honestly say that I am thankful for the adversities and encounters which have crossed my path because they have strengthened my character and brought forth certain virtues I might otherwise never have known. There are various personal issues with which I have struggled and I have no doubt as to where their foundations lie.

I felt very uplifted after receiving this email, until later that day when we received the papers back and I think I got a C. I cried my whole walk back to my dorm room, wearing my sunglasses down Van Meter at 5:00 pm so I could try and hide my tears. I wanted so badly to be better than a C because in my head, it wasn’t just the papers that were C work, it was me that was a C. Aside from this experience, I really loved Being Human and its introspective aspect was very beneficial for me at the time. I felt very lost and unsure about who I was and certain things that had happened to me during that period. I expressed all of this during one of our first assignments, where I drew an actual human heart and assigned each chamber a moral that I was sure I had. I thought out every aspect of that drawing, from the reasons why I shaded certain areas darker to why certain words/icons were placed in certain chambers. During my presentation, I wanted to be honest about my state of unknowing, and the challenges I was going through. I opened up about my mother's death a little bit and really tried to express how that tragedy instilled specific values in me.

Going to church and watching people become baptized, and giving their lives to God, reminds me of why I am saved, and in church. My brother is my hero because he is the reason why I am in church today. If it weren’t for my brother a few years ago getting into a youth group, then I wouldn’t be who I am today, or where I am today. I am thankful that my brother pushed me to go to church because it made me a better person than who I was. I remember watching my brother getting baptized, every time I watch someone get saved or baptized.