Au revoir

Like all good things, this blog has come to its end. As the end of my first semester in college approaches, I will have to say goodbye to this blog too. I won’t lie, at first I never thought that I would like writing in this blog. However, this blog started to occupy a big time of my life, so I decided to give it a chance. I started to check my blog daily, look at my classmate’s blogs and eventually I fell in love with the idea of being a writer. I know I’m not the best and I still have a long way to go, but this experience made me improve my writing skills. I found myself looking at other fashion or food blogs and comparing them to mine. Looking at other blogs made me more attentive at the things that I could improve in my blog. Also, by reading other blogs I started to catch the “blog language”, which at times wasn’t even formal. In fact, something that I had to struggle with was getting out of my comfort zone. I was accustomed to writing formal and serious essays. On the other hand, in a blog you can write however you want, you can be funny or sarcastic. This freedom in writing was what made my blog experience extremely exciting, but difficult at the same time. It was hard for me to lose the serious and formal tone I was so used to. Nevertheless, I knew that people would enjoy my blog more if I was more flexible with my writing, so I tried. However, I think I could have still improved a lot more. On the bright side, my typing skills are now ON FIRE.

Additionally, it was fun for me to see how my classmates and I had the same topics to discuss in our blogs, but we still had totally different perspectives in our reflections. Therefore, another thing that I learned with the blog was how much diversity exists in the world. Additionally, I loved that we could add interactive media, such as images, videos or gifs.

 With this, I was more creative and made my blog more interesting.  Many people prefer visuals to comprehend situations, so through my blog I tried to catch the attention of both, the book worms and the persons who don’t like to read at all. Furthermore, I loved how I could customize each entry with a different type of font or letter size. This way, I could make each entry special and different.

All in all, I gained a lot from the blog, from letting lose to accepting another person’s opinion. Definitely a great interdisciplinary activity.

Happy Holidays!

Au revoir (goodbye)  

Reflection- Autobiography Project

Thanks to my professor Cynthia Pittmann, I started to develop my own Autobiography Project.  The purpose of the Autobiography Project was to learn more about myself and my ancestors. I can say that the Autobiography Project worked for me. Through deep research from past memories, I found explanations to my present behaviors. Also, I remembered situations from my childhood that can help me now and in the future. With that being said, the activity that helped me the most in achieving the purpose of the Autobiography Project was the Timeline.

With the Timeline, I discovered emotional problems that I didn’t even knew I had. For example, how much my parents’ divorce had affected me. In my Timeline, I decided to visit (through my memory) every house that I had lived in. It was amazing to me how much important things I had forgotten. Luckily, with deep concentration I started to remember events as far as when I was four years old. Also, remembering my past relationships with my friends, family and neighbors, made me feel like a whole different person. It was like seeing myself, but not recognizing me. That, made me realize how much I had change, both positively and negatively. The Timeline also made me extremely grateful for all the good and bad things that had happened to me. Thanks to the Timeline, I now know why I act as I do in certain situations.

Nevertheless, other activities helped me as well. Through the Venn Diagram, I noticed how much I fought with my mom. Consequently, I’ve been trying to fix our relationship, so every day we grow stronger and not apart.

Additionally, with the Cluster Work, I realized that my name had many qualities that could either, distinguish me positively from other people, or make people remember my name for negative political reasons.

To conclude, I would love to keep the Autobiography Project, and read it again in ten or twenty years to see how much my life and the lives of the people around me have changed. Maybe many people that I have mention in this project will be out of my life or even dead. Therefore, I hope that I can grow from this project, have better relationships with others, and create stories that my successors will remember as well.

Ps: This project made me think of the song "If Today Was Your Last Day" by Nickelback, they share some similarities. For example, both make you cherish every memory you have, and motivate you to make the best of your time in Earth. Enjoy the song!

Reflection: Orbiting Izzy

While finishing the reading “Orbiting Izzy”, one can become really disappointed at the protagonist. Why is that? Well, the story is based on the autobiography of Nancy Whiteley, which basically explains a certain period in her adulthood, where she was influenced in a positive and negative way by two different men. Izzy (her boss) taught her responsibilities, while Aldo (her husband) taught her how to be a criminal by committing multiple credit card frauds. At the end of the story, she goes to jail (for the second time) for committing credit card fraud. In the story, the reader can see how hard it was and for how long she tried, to avoid the negative influence that Aldo had already created within her.

Whiteley’s story, is one that definitely many people can relate to. Maybe with different aspects of their lives, but it’s relatable. For example, a person wants to start a diet and spends ten days eating healthy, but since everyone else around the person is eating junk food, the person on the eleventh day gives up and eats junk food.

Or, when an alcoholic has been sober for a year and breaks his sobriety. All of these derailments can be avoided, in my humble opinion, with three key things. The first one being, having a good support group that encourages you to follow your goal. Secondly, avoiding the persons who don’t support that goal. Thirdly, have a very strong willpower. In other words, if you know what you are capable of, and you have your goals and priorities straight, there is no person that will ever derail you from the correct path.
For my class, I had to do a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast two aspects of Nancy's short story, Orbiting Izzy. The two aspects I chose were Nancy's life when she was with Aldo, and her life when Izzy was her boss. With this Venn Diagram, you will have a better understanding of how both men influenced her life, in a positive or negative way. 

In my opinion, in Nancy Whiteley’s case, even though she had her sister as a good supporter, she had no willpower. Her urge for a luxurious life was bigger than her urge to be free, or maybe she simply didn’t think of the consequences. Also, in her defense, maybe her love for Aldo blinded her from making the correct choices. I also think that she didn’t acknowledge the good person she was, and the successful person that she could have become, while working with Izzy or any other boss. With this story, I learned that willpower is a thing that many people lack, and that to lack willpower can sometimes get you in bigger problems than you should’ve had.

Life Compass Reflection: Know Yourself

My professor, Cynthia Pittmann, yet again amazed us with new writing techniques. I often compare this Literature class with a Yoga class, but with a little plot twist. Instead of exercising the body, we are exercising our minds. The Life Compass Activity is an example of such exercises. This activity consisted in grading four different aspects of our lives from one to three, one being the lowest and three being the highest. While doing it, some interesting things became clearer to me. I started to notice tendencies in my days, and how the different sections of my compass such as, body, mind, emotions and spirit, had influence on each other.

In my case, I noticed that when the quantity of my college work grew, my scores dropped. Especially, in the areas of mind and emotion. Usually, my spirit stayed with a score of three because I used my spirituality to strengthen my mood. Therefore, I always tried to have a strong spiritual life, in order to, balance my overall health. In other topics of the compass, for example, body, my scores were low (one or a two) only when I hadn’t slept as I am used to or when I exercised. I didn’t see a connection between my bad mood and my sore body. However, I did noticed a relation between the scores for my mind and my emotions. Usually, when I got extremely emotional, my mind lost focus. For example, I couldn’t study properly or concentrate for almost anything.
Let me show you a graph of my overall scores! 

Towards the end of the Life Compass Activity, I started to draw each compass differently. Some days, my drawings had no relation to what I was feeling, but other times I tried to connect the drawing with my scores and feelings.

In conclusion, I noticed through this project that when I’m not feeling good, the people that I like the most, are usually a good option to brighten my mood. Also, I’m glad that my body doesn’t get affected when my emotions are spiraling out of control and my mind is in planet Jupiter. On the other hand, I definitely have to improve how I channel my emotions because I can’t keep letting my feeling get in the way of me having a good and focused day. Furthermore, I’m also glad that I can always rely of my positive perspective of life (spirituality) to strengthen my other sections of the compass. In my opinion, the Life Compass helped me organize and analyze my feelings while developing my writing skills. 

(I did some research to look for other ways to get to know myself better. Surprisingly, there was one link that talked about a similar technique as the First Thoughts Activity that my classmates and I have already reflected in our blogs. Apart from writing your thoughts for a period of time, my favorite new thing to do was the idea number five. Take a look at the link and comment your favorite technique. Hope it helps you!)