Reflection Paper

As the year is coming to an end, I have the chance to look back on the entire year and reflect. From middle school, to high school, a lot has changed. High school has made me realize my strengths and weaknesses in different subjects. These strengths and weaknesses have made me learn things about myself that I didn’t know. My 9th grade experience has taught me a lot of things that I will never forget.

Post freshman year I was working hard in the off season, knowing what I could accomplish if I put my best effort forward. I just got home from the West Point cross country

I hurried through the hallways rushing to get to first period like any other normal day in high school, until everything turned upside down. The beginning months of my freshmen year were what I thought would be the best start to the next four years. By the time spring rolled around, I was getting ready to start lacrosse season with my best friends. We all started playing in middle school and loved the sport, as well as our coach, who had also been the high school coach. Unfortunately, our favorite coach had been terminated and it changed everything. I felt that I had a great advantage in knowing the coach and understanding the way she taught. That day my life shifted and impacted my high school career. I attended all of the practices, including

The Medieval Era was a time dominated by belief. People lived with such great superstition and fear of God. Many people were focused not on their lives her on earth, but rather their life after death. During the Renaissance people became more humanistic and focused more on their lives in the moment rather than their afterlife. We can see these changes of Ideas by studying the works of Saint Anselm of Canterbury, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, and Caesarius of Heisterbach from the Medieval Era and compare it to the works of Marsilio Ficino, Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Desiderius Erasmus of the Renaissance period we can see a very particular change in worldviews.

It happened two years ago as I lay sprawled out on the floor of the library lounge at the Universite de Grenoble in Grenoble,

“We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.” –Winston Churchill. I do remember my late grandfather narrating alluring anecdotes from his time in the Indian Air Force and a few of my late great grandfather’s heroics while he served in the British Army (1917-1946). I slowly started to develop a taste for war-time stories, military history as a whole which always intrigued me, possibly because of my family lineage. I am always curious to learn more about our past, about the mistakes made by our forefathers that however frivolous they may seem or sound but were enough to instigate a war.

Throughout this semester, I was able to actively participate in the service learning project. By doing so, I learned so much regarding how to apply the marketing concepts we’ve studied. The project I was a part of this semester was for the Ronald McDonald Charity House. Our CBO, Sven, assigned us two different assignments to be completed along with our marketing plan. First, we were assigned to create a promotional video for the “Meals from the Heart” program. Additionally, we were assigned to complete an assessment of their sponsor program, which corresponds with the “Meals from the Heart” program.

As I planned this learning experience I consulted with both the teacher and director of the program about their science curriculum for the month. I knew I needed to plan an activity inclusive of science themed dialogic reading. Since, the class was beginning to learn about the senses, we collaborated about splitting the class into two groups. One group would be with a teacher doing a sense of taste activity, while I would have the other group doing a sense of smell activity. My activity was inclusive of fresh herbs from my garden and a book about smell. I prepared the dialogic reading as well as brought along a felt board with yes and no pieces. After I read the story I passed around the various herbs for the children to smell and explore. Once they decided if they liked the smell or not they would place a yes or no piece on the board. The languages of learning I referred to was investigating what smell they liked the best and exploring through using their hands to touch the fresh herbs. As a result, they learned new knowledge about how their nose works. For instance, I had with me lemon balm, which obviously smells like lemons. The children assimilated the smell to that of lemonade, since that is what they are most familiar with. Additionally, my lesson supported standard: 10.1 PK.B Identify and locate body parts by understanding what sense is responsible for what action. As well as 2.4 PK.MP Use mathematical processes when measuring; representing, organizing, and

If there is one thing in life I have learned, it is that I value the idea of staying true to myself through anything. Although life has a tendency of throwing you some curve balls you can’t let them define you. I often ask myself questions about how I am going to spend the day. I hear my many-sided mind reply “however you want” or “I don’t know but make it count.” The reason I label my thoughts as many sided is because I find myself being pulled back towards things I have been seeking to get away from for some time, as well as letting negative times in my life pull me in another direction. I view my mind as a movie scene in which you see the good and the bad sitting on your shoulder and your sitting trying to figure out which direction to follow, of course the right direction is ideal but that is easier said than done.

Within my time in Child Protective Services, I had experienced a consistent amount of lying, which to me was a new experience. I was forced to adapt by listening to, two almost completely different stories, then pick out the similarities, and fill in the blanks. There were several times when a couple would lie for one another but have stories so far off that it was obvious neither were being truthful. We also had a family rehearse a story so that all of their stories did match one another’s but the injuries and marks were not consistent with the story at all. I do not tend to lie often because I found early on that honesty really is the best policy and I have always been my friend and families safe haven so no one has ever felt the need to lie to me as much as I experienced with CPS. I had to break my trusting habits and listen to everything as something that I will be investigating later to ensure it was the truth. In the training I was encouraged to read people or at least give it my best attempt. Investigator Samuel Nunez was extremely talented in this aspect and consistently quizzed me to ensure I was gaining the skill. There would be numerous actions one could do, or even different tones in their speech, or even switching their speaking patterns that he would be able to notice and predict why the change occurred. I found that when one is too trusting when investigating they would often look incompetent at the end of the case. Often times this is before a judge when one

I learned some pretty strange things in my middle school sex education class. However, I’d consider myself lucky! My class was the only one to have a speaker come in to talk to us. He taught about one thing, and one thing only:

When I was around seven, I learned a valuable lesson of listening to your parents. Even to this day my parents would bring up that time to warm us not to do anything dumb. Whenever I am near the water, it reminds me of the stupid game that my brother and I used to do.

Being the oldest of two, there is always higher expectations of me. I have to clean more without being told to do so, I have keep up with all responsibilities when it comes to my school work with no exceptions, and most of all Its rare that I get any chances because I am supposed to “lead by example”. It was as if all the weight was on my shoulders, I always felt stressed out and that my sister never got punished. she would annoy me for the fun of it, do things that would irk my nerves so I could fight back, misplace or break things and blame it on me; and of course, she got away with it.

When I was born to about the age of 8, I kept to myself and enjoyed playing alone. I didn’t want anyone else’s input on what I had to say, because I was happy with the choices I was making when I was playing with my toys. My mom told me I would sit in my room and play with my stuffed animals and My Little Pet Shop toys for hours on end just talking away, but when it came down to group settings I would just be quiet. I have been trying to figure out why that is. I do not remember being to told be quiet or to listen. I just did it. I enjoyed listening to others, because I was learning from their words. I already knew what I thought and didn’t see the importance of sharing that.

Junior year could not have started out any better. We had an undefeated football season that lead to our first state championship in over 50 years. This was the first year I made a name for myself on the team and there was no better way to end that season. School was going great, mostly A’s and B’s, but I knew I had to start focusing and studying for my standardized test. This was going to be the most critical part for my college applications. I knew I had to take this very seriously if I wanted to succeed and push my educational career in a positive direction. Just one test could decide if I would be going to an elite university or a mediocre one. The thought of that killed me because one should not be tested on how many