Reflection Paper

She imagined kicking so fast that her feet were a blur. She saw her arms slipping into the water. Halfway down the pool, she didn’t take a breath again. She remembered her coach telling her that breathing is overrated. Katie agreed with that. A minute from now, her chest hurting would not matter. Katie watched the floor fly past her. The wall was only a few simple strokes away. Her fingertips slipped into the water. Then her elbow entered the water. As Katie touched the wall, she knew she had won just by the spirit of the crowd. Katie looked up at the board, and she saw her name at the

I end up in deeper water in no time. Right after I decide to try to stand up, a coach pushes me into a enormous wave. I paddle as fast as I could, and then start to stand up. When I am two inches off the yellow surfboard, the surfboard slips from under me because I didn’t have balance. I hit the foaming water, doing a backflip that felt as if my spine is being cracked like a clay pot being hit by a hammer. I quickly pop out of the water and decide it is time to

For my service learning project I worked in Mrs. Evelyn Costa's first grade class at Meadowlane Elementary. Meadowlane is located at 4280 W 8th Avenue in Hialeah, Florida and was constructed in 1957. There are one thousand one hundred and seventy seven students enrolled at Meadowlane Elementary school. Meadowlane has fifty three classrooms and fourteen portables and there are one hundred and seventy nine students per grade level. The school was built on nine acres of land. The student population of meadowlane Elementary is comprised of 97% Hispanic, 2% White, and 1% Asian.

In life, everyone gets to experience moments that they will cherish forever, as well as the ones that hurt to look back at. I’ve had the disappointing pleasure of having these moments back to back years. They both have to deal with the sport that challenges me from all aspects in life. Wrestling has ran in the Ybarra family for generations. I felt great coming out of sophomore year, as the Class B, 126 pound state champion. Before I knew it, I was already walking the halls as a Junior after the summer of 2016 flew past. I wish I could say Junior year went as tremendous as the year before, but that just wasn’t the case.

After years of suffering abuse at the hands of my mother, I decided to take back my life and freedom. On July 4th 2014, I boarded a train from Chicago to California to leave the comfort of all I’ve ever known and ventured into uncharted territory. For three days, I sat on that train, just my books and my thoughts for company. By leaving, there was a stronger chance of a promising future for myself. What I didn’t know at that time was that I was headed towards heart-shattering changes that made me who I am today: a resilient, independent woman.

When my parents split up, I prayed to God to help my mom win custody over my siblings and me. Every night they would go unanswered, so I prayed that my dad would stop being a monster. That didn’t work either. My parents split up because they would fight a lot and because my dad was a mean person. He would abuse us with anything he could get his hands on because he would get angry at the littlest things. An example, is when me and my sister shared a room but we didn’t get along so one night we got into a huge argument and my dad ‘spanked’ us with a wooden board. I prayed that everything would get better for my family. No, I didn’t want them to get back together, I just wanted all the fighting to stop. Still every time I prayed it seemed to go unheard, unanswered. So, I gave up on religion, I quit praying and ended up resenting God. Even though I quit believing in Him, I never let my mom loose her faith. I would talk her into going to church any time that she could. I went along with her because I was trying to get some connection back to God. Nothing seemed to work for me, so I just stopped trying. I believed that if there was a God then he is cruel and doesn’t care.

I have learned many aphorisms, or lessons, throughout my life so far. My family, friends, teachers, and pretty much everyone has taught me something in one way or another. These lessons usually come through in a change in my life. One change important to me was getting a job. This job has given me a positive learning experience (for the most part) and an education of working with others. Well, here’s what I know about going to work.

As a type-A individual, I really do not like it when things do not go as they have been planned. Unfortunately, this has caused some additional stresses and anxieties in my life which I do not have much control over. As a double-major, it is so crucial to stay organized and have a schedule to stay organized and complete everything that is required of me. But, college can be stressful, but I think that I am handling it much better than I could have imagined. Throughout my educational experiences here during my second year at UConn, I have been able to handle stresses much better than I have previously in high school and especially throughout my freshman year. As I am writing this, I realized that by surrounding myself with individuals who I know are positive influences on me and planning time for myself, I am able to reduce stresses in my life.

First I would like to mention that I enjoyed reading this Chapter as it hit home for me because the teachers from Loyola Marymount University believe in building family and community strengths and I fit that mold. Even though demonstrating passion and empathy is mostly frowned upon by many in our institutions due to concentrating on teaching to the test. If you provide your students with a safe learning environment, my experiences have shown that they are more apt to flourish. As a result, I provide this type of atmosphere in my classroom. For example, one of the teachers interviewed, Leticia Ornelas, had “Lotion Day” Nieto (2013). I have shared my lotion with students as well. Some of them fall under the English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. And like she mentions, it provides them with a safe, caring, and passionate learning environment because you build that rapport. Building teacher to student relationships is essential to student outcomes.

Sitting at my corner desk wrapping up yet another conference call with a prominent energy company at the number one Inbound Marketing agency in America, I swipe the tears from my eyes before anyone else can see. I don’t want this life anymore. I shuttered as I finally verbalized what had been building up the past few years but I was always too afraid or embarrassed to say - ‘The career I worked so hard for was the biggest regret of my life.’ My immediate thought is I cannot wait to get home and wash away this day with a book. My one reprieve in a day filled with angry clients, looming deadlines and office politics is to read. “The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails” (White, T. H. The Once And Future King. William Collins, Sons, 1958). Suddenly, a puzzle piece finally shifted into place - I’d read this book more than a few times, but this time the words resonated with me differently. The printed words hadn’t changed since I’d last read them, but I had. I wanted to be happy, continue to learn and teach others how to learn as well and on that axis, my world shifted.

I was 12 years old when I started to play volleyball. I can remember going to the gym for the first time bounces echoing off the walls for the balls being played. Before this, I was a competitive cheerleader for 4 years and had made it to the highest level possible. Hearing the crowd roaring wit =h every hit trick was what I lived for. My friend from my neighborhood finally connived me to try out volleyball and go to a camp. When I got there I remember always doing cheer moves on the volleyball court. In one drill we had to throw the ball across the room “bang bang” went the ball as I hit the back wall every time. The coaches were so impressed and immediately started talking off my parent's ear after the camp.

As Rocky Balboa once said, " it's not about how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, keep moving forward. It's how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done." This man believed that nothing is going to hit you as hard as life. Which means life will hit you pretty hard and it's all about taking it and keep moving forward. This quote has guided my life, there has been times where something has happened in which it brought me down but after a short while I have always recovered, got back on my feet, and moved on in my life.

When I first began this English course, I did not know what to expect, all I really knew was I would be writing essays and papers which I don't particularly enjoy. I was not as confident in my writing abilities but after the first class period had ended, I decided that my goal for the semester would be producing writing that was clear and more effective. The Eclipse of 2017 pushed the first class back, but I still had an assignment to write about the Eclipse. I don’t think I have ever been so nervous when turning something in because I wanted to make a good first impression on my professor. I immediately relaxed when she said we did not have to read our essays out loud but instead explained what freewriting is.

There once was a time where I had no expectations on what was to come. Whenever I attempted to picture my future, I couldn’t. I did not know my career goals or any of my hobbies. Fortunately, the summer of 2014 changed everything for me. It was the summer I first volunteered to help with vacation bible school at my church. From that moment on, I had a fresh mindset and new goals. I permanently found an activity I enjoyed doing. Following that summer, I volunteered with VBS the three summers after. I enjoyed engaging with the children so much that I ventured into teaching second and third graders on Wednesday nights. Throughout this journey, I have been greatly inspired. Volunteering with children through my church has transformed me into a better and different person, through strength, career goals, and my faith.

When I picked up the book Make the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland, I could not help but form a negative opinion about it. I thought, “Great. Here is another book trying to tell me how to generically make my life better.” I looked up at Ms. Purser with a sneer and pessimistic thoughts running through my head. As soon as I began reading the first chapter, though, my opinion turned on its head. This was proving to be a book written from a real person’s perspective. Instead of cliché instructions on how to improve my life, I was reading the story of a man who came up in the ghetto, but changed his mentality and began leading a