Blog Reflection

This blog was very fun to do, I do not regret anything about this experience because through this blog project I discovered to be a more responsible and dedicated person since I had to write reflections very often so that I could post this. In this blog I got to say my thoughts about some very controversial topics like racism and gender inequality. This blog was a great way to express my thoughts about a lot of stuff. It was a great project. Dedication and passion for this blog is key. More projects like this should be done because it definitely helps the student express themselves during this college journey.

Compass Reflection

This compass was a way for us to reflect on ourselves daily. It was a fun thing to do and it made me realize a lot of things about myself. Throughout this process I discovered I am a very emotional person and that I have a short patience, it is clearly something I need to work on. Physical was usually one of the lowest because I didn’t sleep well on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I would stay up until late doing work, only to wake up at 6 AM to go to college. My mental state was also low because of how stressed I was, college and other situations were taking the peace away, thus my mental state would not remain calm and it made me feel bad. My awareness is at 25% because I feel like I didn’t really connect much with people besides my group because there was only time to study because of all the circumstances we were in after the hurricane. Emotional was the highest because I got to see my girlfriend, which would make me extremely happy and since emotional can refer to either very sad, happy, angry, etc. I would usually feel either very happy or sad and stressed. This compass experience was very nice and I would like to repeat some day because it helped me realize that we should work more on ourselves so that we can maintain a better mental and emotional state.

Black Men and Public Space Reflection

This story was about a twenty-two-year-old man who had just arrived at the University of Chicago and was a victim of racism. Women would run away from him, probably because they though he was a burglar, killer or rapist. He also experienced seeing a lot of his friends go to prison and a few of them get killed because of racism. People thought the poor man was a burglar went he went to a magazine’s office. It is a sad world we live in. Racism is a very common thing in the United States. White people would think they were superior and truth be told, this way of thinking is ridiculous. In my opinion, race is a social construct because at the end of the day we are all humans and white people treat them different because they look different from them. This is an extremely immature act and it is surprising that adults and people of high authority are racists for no reason. It is probably something cultural, taught from parents to their kids or from friends to other friends. It’s something that keeps expanding during time and has caused a lot of sadness and stress for the black and Latino communities. A type of racial war could occur again if we don’t put a stop to this. We must stop thinking the way that we used to think and change our perspective about this social construct before it is too late.

Group Project Reflection

             This group project was my first in college. At first I thought it was going to be something very simple and that no friendships were going to be made. With time I got to know my group members well and we became good friends. It’s funny because I thought I was only going to college so that I could study. These members of mine were my first college friends and they are really great people. We went through a lot of struggles together when we first started because we would be lost in the class or woudn’t understand a certain assignment. The important part was that we were there for each other and helped each other during this first arduous semester. It was quite fun and we all learned together, I wish we could have been together next semester too and I hope we can all keep in contact.

The Opposite Sex Reflection

In this reflection I will be speaking about Steven Doloff’s text “The Opposite Sex”. Steven Doloff told his students to write about what it would be like to be the opposite sex for a day. I found it quite interesting, but not surprising that men didn’t write much because they tend to be more sexist because of the way society is built. Most of the women that wrote those essays think that men are constantly looking for dates, which is not fully true. I do accept though, from my observations that most men like going out on dates but some of them, for example my best friend isn’t one to date much as women think they do. For some reason, most of the female students thought men were messy in the sentence: “They threw their clothes on the floor and left dishes in the sink”. I think there is a misconception about that because men aren’t as messy as they put them out to be in movies, sometimes we aren’t organized but no one is really perfect. Women also thought that men have physical and social privileges. I don’t fully agree with this because women can also be very strong and fight well, but they do have their menstrual cycle which I’ve heard hurts a lot. That could be considered a physical privilege for men. However I do think that we are in a very sexist society so men do have more social privileges than women because in some cases men think they are superior to women, which is very sad because women are just as capable as men to do anything. Women also seemed curious about what men’s true feelings concerning women are like. From my observations I can say some men really don’t care about who they’re dating or how the girl feels and some guys can be fully in love with someone. The same thing applies with girls, some care and some don’t. Something else I found interesting was that men thought that women always go on dates if they invited them to a really expensive restaurant.”Gold Digger” is the term men used to describe these can of women that crave men who have a lot of money. This is also another misconception because not all women go on dates with guys just because they have a lot of money. The story was really interesting and it made me realize that we have a lot of misconceptions about the other gender and how the other gender feels about us, this is something we should definitely change about society.

Works cited: The Opposite Sex, Doloff, Steven

Hookups starve the soul Reflection

Hookups are a very riveting topic. It is spoken about a lot between high school and college students, they talk about how the hookup experience was and how they feel after it. Personally, I haven’t ever wanted to do this because I am more of a hopeless romantic type of person. I find relationships to be more interesting because you get to know a person more and it’s overall way more challenging and it helps you develop patience and confidence for that other person. Relationships do have their cons though. Some of them are: those negative feelings you get after a fight, overthinking about something they did or said, being cheated on or a breakup. This is why I get why people have hookups, it’s a way to satisfy your needs without getting involved with the person. Having sex is something that satisfies us physically speaking, but from my point of view, hookups do cause an emotional detachment. I think this emotional detachment doesn’t happen to everyone though. This emotional detachment usually happens to people who have just broken up with their partner and no longer wish to feel bad. They look for a way to not feel bad anymore and that way is a hookup. You have sex or make out with someone and you satisfy your physical needs without having to ever feel bad about it but sometimes this method can create conflict between the two. Examples of this are that the girl could end up pregnant or one of the two could end up falling in love during the sexual intercourse. I think people who do have hookups should talk about it before they do it, so they can fully understand that it is a hookup and nothing else, because if not, the hookup could cause the person to start developing feelings for the other person.

Works Cited: Hookups starve the soul, Vanderkam, Laura

Reflection of Salvation by Langston Hughes

“Salvation” is a story about a twelve-year-old boy who was brought to a special meeting for children at the church. During this meeting the children would be placed in the mourner’s bench, then the congregation would pray upon them so that they may see or feel Jesus and go to him. Langston never felt the Holy Ghost and he pretended that he could so he could leave. When he arrived to his house, the boy went to his bed and started crying because he never felt the presence. Having a belief in a supreme being can be frustrating for believers sometimes because other believers tell them that they can feel, and some say even talk to the supreme being. Personally, I believe that there is a god, I’m not sure if it’s the Christian God, but I do think that there is a possibility that a god exists. I can relate to this story on a personal level because one time I was at church and people started to pray on other people. My family and I were one of those who were prayed upon and my whole family felt something and they started crying, saying that it was the most beautiful experience they ever went through. I only felt a lot of relaxation, but up to this day I do not know if it was all in my head. Clearly I didn’t see what they saw and that had a huge impact on me. Religion is a powerful thing and it affect’s everyone differently in both positive and negative ways.
Works Cited: Pittmann, Cynthia. Reflection from "Salvation" by Hughes, Langston

Crossroad Experience

A crossroad experience is a moment in your life when you must make a decision that will have a big impact in your life. It is a very common thing that can have good or bad consequences in our life. My crossroad experience was just a few months ago when Hurricane Maria happened. Puerto Rico was left in one of the worst conditions ever. My parents bought me a plane ticket to Florida so that I could stay with my uncle because my insulin supplies were low. The first days were kind of weird because I was staying with my uncle which I barely talk to, but we started opening up to each other and it was very nice. Then my parents came to Florida and we all had a lot of fun. About two weeks later my parents were going back to Puerto Rico and told me that I had to make a big decision and that was either to stay in Florida or go back to Puerto Rico. I was left completely startled. It was the first time I had such a big decision in my life. I felt very pressured because my whole life could have changed due to this. They said they would go back to Puerto Rico now and that I had to make a choice. My uncle started talking to me about all the options I had over there in Florida. He introduced me to Hillsborough Community College, The University of South Florida and many more. I went to the University of South Florida and fell in love with the campus. It was a big campus. Everything seemed to be perfect, but I still had my loved ones in my mind. I didn’t know what to do. A lot of thoughts started going through my mind. I thought about my friends, family and girlfriend. It was very complex for me because being in Florida was an amazing experience, but I didn’t want to be away from all my loved ones. After a few days of thinking about it, I chose to return to Puerto Rico because I just couldn’t stand to be away from them. When I came back to Puerto Rico nothing had changed, except that there was an easier access to food and gasoline. I felt horrible the first few weeks. There was a lot heat at night, which interrupted my sleeping. We had no internet access and it was hard to cook food. A few weeks later the power came back, and everything went back to normal. The power service comes and goes but it’s better than nothing. All of these experiences have helped me develop my patience. I do not regret staying here in Puerto Rico because I get to see my loved ones and there’s nothing better than that. Sometimes making decisions from the heart can have very positive outcomes and this was one of them.

Journal Reflection

sful with this because I am used to thinking before writing, so that I may correct my errors. A big obstacle was not knowing what to write about, simply because s

            In this reflection, I will be informing you about my experience with writing the journal. The purpose of this journal was to help us become more fluent in thinking and writing in English. I was not very successful in learning one of the rules, which was not to stop writing no matter what. Personally, I was not very successful with this because I am used to thinking before writing, so that I may correct my errors. A big obstacle was not knowing what to write about, simply because sometimes my mind was just blank. My entries did not make sense due to this sometimes. From this obstacle I learned to react faster in the aspect of thinking. I really enjoyed being able to let out all that I was thinking about during the day because it was a way to help me get rid of stress and organize my thoughts. I noticed that my writing has changed in the sense that I am able to write about more content faster than I could before and am also better at expressing my thoughts. This has helped me in other classes, it’s a necessary skill to get better content and better grades. This has really helped me a lot in Social Science because in this class you need to know how to express what the professor taught you, writing the journal was a great experience for me since it also helped me in this class and others. I have changed since I started this project because now I feel a lot more confident in the quality of what I am writing about, therefore it has improved my quality of life since I no longer feel insecure when I write about a topic. I never thought that just writing in a journal for ten minutes in a day could have such a big impact on you. It also made me realize that I wrote a lot in that journal, forty entries to be exact, they all had at least a page and a half of information. If you multiply all of that, it is at least sixty pages of me reflecting on my day. In other words, it showed me that if you really dedicate your time to something and are responsible, you can accomplish anything. Reading the pages on my journal I realized that I am not a happy person, I am quite pessimistic, and I should try changing that about myself so that I may have a better quality of life. This project made me want to write about my thoughts more often, I think it should be done as a type of exercise to let go of what’s in your mind. It also gave me an idea to start a blog, besides the one I’m doing for class because I heard I can make money from it, it’s a great way to earn money because I get to express my ideas about different subjects. This method for making us more fluent in English was creative and effective.

think it should be done as a type of exercise to let go of what’s in your mind. It also gave me an idea to start a blog, besides the one I’m doing for class because I heard I can make money from it, it’s a great way to earn money because I get to express my ideas about different subjects. This method for making us more fluent in English was creative and effective.

Reflection of Girl by Jamaica Kimcaid

             “Girl” is a text that expresses that sometimes girls feel oppressed and are forced to meet certain expectations. Women should be able to do everything a man can do. It is completely unfair that a woman cannot do some things a man can. I’ve seen this type of thing within some family members of mine that don’t allow their daughters to do certain things but allow their son to do them. I have also seen men who think they are superior to women and try brainwashing them into not doing things they would like to do just because the man says so. I believe it is abusive to make women feel oppressed. It’s something that should be worked on because we should try to make this society more advanced and mature. This is a feminist text and I fully support it because I would not like that my daughter lives in a world where a man would have to tell her what to do, feel and believe. Men should be more thoughtful about women and start accepting as they are.
Works Cited: Pittmann, Cynthia. Reflection of  “Girl” by Jamaica Kimcaid