Reflection Essay

The first smart goals I chose are to learn to become a leader and to have better time management skills. I chose these because I work on a small unit with no assigned charge nurse. Any day you go in to work it could be your day to be charge nurse so everyone on the unit needs to be able to step up and be a leader. Time management is a skill that every nurse needs to learn. In my opinion, if you have good time management skills it can decrease your stress level and make your workday more organized and enjoyable.

I  was part of the crew of a 688 class attack boats (USS Bremerton). When I was first assigned to the Bremerton, my life consisted of learning everything I could about the boat and all of its systems so I could earn my "dolphins" and be a real member of the crew. You were viewed as a non useful body when you first report for duty. you litterly can take the past 1 year of training and throw it out the window. little of what was tought in Sub School really prepared you for what was about to become your reality.

I believe that existence is dependent on connections. Life only exists in ecosystems where energies are undoubtedly interrelated but I think as humans we often overlook the significant beauty of our ecosystem. I’ve learned that the three most important types of connections we make are relationships with other beings, the understanding of ourselves, and deep ties to our natural surroundings. Without these connections, life cannot be. In my experience, I’ve seen how art and creativity develop a language through which connections can be made.

Why do we need to label people as special needs? Today in our society we can be very condescending towards people. We might think it is okay or some might not even realize that they are doing it. The problem with not realizing it, is that our society has shaped people into thinking it is okay to label one another. Society has labeled people with exceptionalities with the words as special needs, the problem child, God’s angel, special, but that is not right. It is time to make a change, we are all the same but we have something unique about all of us.

Being accepted into May’s Business School this past May, I started to think forward to all the exciting job opportunities and different career paths that I could explore. Through the guest speakers and seminar sessions, I have grown to understand the steps needed to succeed in our evolving job market. By enabling myself to take this course I have learned many professional lessons which include; the value networking can have on your job placement, interview preparation, and how ethical behavior in the workplace can affect your performance.

Every person on this earth has a past that shapes them and makes them into a unique individual. I am a 19-year-old student who has a life that may seem to have little flaws from the view of an outsider, but in all honesty been a journey of difficult ups and downs. I have found that many of the readings we are required to do in university will not personally touch us or make us reflect deeply on our own lives. This certainly was not the cas e when I read the personal essay titled Ghosts and Voices: Writing from Obsession by Sarah Cisneros’, because I found that I connected on a deeply personal level to three principal aspects of this piece of writing. First of all, I was also ostracised as a younger child, but in a school setting not at home. In those difficult years when I felt like I had no one, I escaped into the worlds created in books and through trying to write my own stories. Secondly, like Cisneros’, I found myself deeply connecting with some of the books I was reading and in them found the girl that I wanted to become. Lastly, this entire piece was how Cisneros’ discovered her voice as a writer. She found that the best way was to write what you know best, basically using your own experiences to draw your readers/audience in, which is also something I am well versed in not only as a writer but also a performing musician. I truly connected with this piece by Cisneros and was able to find many key parallels between our personal lives that really struck a chord with me.

“Legacy, what is a legacy?” The quote stated before was taken directly from the Broadway hit “Hamilton.” This question runs rampant in Alexander Hamilton’s mind as he is face to metal and gunpowder with Aaron Burr’s bullet propelling from the chamber of a gun like an agitated bull in a rodeo. When confronted by this question I knew I couldn’t evade this question from the inner machinations of my own inquisitive mind. It is as if my very soul yearned for the answer to this very broad question. In short and all you have time for I am sure, I had to know. I decided I would have to self-reflect and answer this to escape the imprisonment that is the fact of never knowing an end to this puzzle of my own definition of what’s to come after, well, me.

As I sit here and write this literacy narrative, I reflect on a time in eighth grade when I read a book regrading civil injustice. Back then I wouldn’t have thought to use such fancy words. Instead, something along the lines of “a black boy my age got killed for whistling at a woman! And the murderers didn’t even get in trouble.” So much confusion was attached with my not so politically correct summary of the book. In fact, we read this book in the upmost politically correct way as possible. Derogatory terms such as negro, nigger, and colored was to be renamed and replaced by the word African American. Simple. Nothing too hard to do in eighth grade just switch a word or two around. But how ironic we didn’t go over any set “rules” for the white character’s. No negative connotation related to the word “white” at all. In fact, when we had class discussions for this book it was normal to say “Hiram the white boy went to visit his grandfather in Mississippi.” But if I was to talk about Emmett Till, African American would always be attached to his name. I can admit just like any other person in that class it was weird but we never put too much thought behind it. Just abided by the rules and read.

When I go into any class, with a weak memory and an developing intuition, I do not orient my success on remembering a lot of pointless information, but learning the art of independent thought. I never imagined, however, I could acquire some of these useful skills through the course Writing 1. Mrs Tocco, you have helped me to develop many of my lacking English skills, such as grammar, punctuation, and how to clearly portray ideas. There is a clear difference in my grammar capabilities. In my first paper, English Nightmare, I had many errors in my paper, from writing to grammar, one of them being, “This is also coming from a Boy Scout who was trained to follow orders and always be honest (for me it's every other situation.)”(Witt 4). This was one of my first quotes and a classical errors in writing. As you well know, I put the period inside the parenthesis, which is incorrect. When I started this course, I was oblivious to things like this and other rules in effective writing like do not use apostrophes, how to block quote, and refrain from using first person in many situations. My editing was my biggest improvement over the semester, but this is broken down into multiple topics.

6. Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

Though there was an impressive amount of points and ideas which I will touch on in a few sentences which I appreciated from JD Vance's lecture, what made me willing to listen, swallow and immerse myself in what he was saying was the fact that he pointed out that while there are going to be differences in culture, in opinion, in almost anything there can be differences in… what’s important, what’s an essential part of trying to fix America and restore people’s hope in the American dream is to come at problems and dilemmas from the other side, with a new perspective.

As a 14 year old reader and writer, I never saw a true significance in the subjects. I would often become flustered and overwhelmed when forced to do a writing assignment. I just couldn’t understand why I was being forced to perform a task that, in my opinion, made no impact on the world around me. However, my Sophomore year, my perception began to change. I had begun taking an Advanced Placement World History class. This class made a big impact on me as a reader and a writer for many reasons. Although, I can’t recall every lesson I was taught during the course of this class, but what I can recall is a much more impactful lesson. The lesson that continues to shape how I view literacy and the modern world.

In my English classes, a popular assignment is analyzing the literature in an essay after reading a novel. You may think that because I had this assignment multiple times already, that I would be good at it by now. I should definitely be able to write it without any hesitation or problem. However, that is not the case, unfortunately. When analyzing literature, I still have a long way to go. I still have a lot of techniques and ways to pick up that would help make my writing more efficient. My brain is definitely still developing new strategies that could come in handy when writing. Although sometimes I believe that I am alright at analyzing literature, I do often times have writer’s block and can not seem to come up with an analyzation. Thankfully, due to my most recent English teacher, I had a lot of help and improved myself greatly. I feel confident in the quotes that I pick, confident in the commentary I am writing, and confident in the way I phrase it. I have developed my own techniques as to analyzing literature in order to write an essay along the way.

For the past three and a half years I have participated in the school band. In that time I’ve taken part in concert band, marching band, and jazz band. Setting up my schedule in sixth grade kicked off the adventure.

Early in my second year at Laurentian University’s McEwen School of Architecture, I was dealing with a very severe illness. Along with navigating the everyday stress of my second-year program I was also dealing with severe anxiety and depression. I was unable to attend any classes due to anxiety attacks and a constant fear of them hitting me at anytime. This was my third year spent away from home and due to my constant fear of an attack I didn’t feel safe anywhere I went. Thanks to the help of my professors and friends I was able to start to get back on track towards bettering myself. The previous Director of my program, Terrance Gavin, allowed me to withdraw from the program to finally seek medical aid. He gave me the opportunity to better my health before returning to school. Thanks to his support I started to seek counselling along with working on making my own health better. I made a routine for myself, I started to eat healthier and go for daily walks. Since the year ended I believe I have made a dramatic improvement towards my health. I am able to wake up early in the morning and successfully accomplish my daily tasks without feeling anxious and depressed. I also try to visit home on a bi-weekly basis as living so far from my home has also effected my health. I have attached a doctor’s note to this document for verification.