Even More Fearless, Yet Ironically Speechless

I do not know how to start this blog post, but here are my thoughts at the peak hour of 2 A.M. Classes have come to an end once more, and we are one step closer to holding the future in our hands. For every person, the future is different, even by a fragment, a second, or an accomplishment. What we must acknowledge is that these differences will continue to shape us into the best people we can be, if not better. Either way, I have learned a lot about everyone in our personal essay class this semester, whether based on a short essay, a personal statement, or a digital story. Most importantly, I have learned about myself, and my goal in taking this class was to be able to something meaningful for me. And I did.

I am proud to say that I am as fearless as I have hoped to be in the past, and I am becoming even more fearless through writing about myself. This class gave me the chance to truly reflect on everything and anything that I had bottled up inside me for years and years, but many of my thoughts, feelings, and emotions are out in the world right now, floating somewhere patiently in the atmosphere and waiting for me to return someday. I may or may not return, but I am making sure to focus on my present and cherish the very moments, the people, and the places that help me maneuver from day to day.

My perspective about myself changed when I wrote my “This I Believe” essay about “the small things.” I felt strongly connected to my writing because I knew those five-hundred words I chose were the right ones. Next came the first long essay, and again, I felt that I did myself justice through my writing. Based on this turning point, I rode along the high wave and made sure to keep up this momentum for the rest of the semester; however, I encountered a tide that knocked me off the surfboard—the personal statement. For weeks and weeks, I was trying to mend the pieces of myself into a quilt of my academic background, research experience, and career goals, and I was just unable to feel inspired or ready to write. I felt as though parts of me that I could not include in my personal statement caused me to become dislodged, and I was afraid that I would relapse into the hermit-hole I had just escaped.

Fortunately, I was able to ascend above the personal statement that became my menace, my alter-ego, my anxiety, my obstacle, and my friend. After expanding my short essay on the philosophy of education to its longer counterpart, I realized how similar this essay was to my personal statement. I drew inspiration from the essay, and I finally ended up with something that I feel content with at this point in my stages of crafting the statement to perfection.

Besides the personal statement giving me such a hassle, I wanted to add a few words about my digital story project. I initially had issues with choosing the focus of my story, but one Sunday afternoon, I jumped on my computer, opened a new Word document, and started typing about National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH). Within thirty minutes, I had an entirely new script and an extensive vision of how I wanted to make my short movie. Pictures and videos galore, my odd humor and play on words, and unexpected kinks and quirks along the way made “For the Love of Diamonds” possible. In addition to showing my movie to our class, I showed it during NRHH’s last general body meeting of the year, and I must say that my perfect audience responded with such positivity beyond words. Now, we are going to use my digital story on our NRHH website to promote our organization and recruit future Diamonds, and I plan to use my newfound movie-making skills for future NRHH-related movie projects. An impending idea I have right now is to make an NRHH rush video since we are trying to appeal to first-semester freshman to join our family for the Spring 2017 semester.

Why did I title my last blog post “Even More Fearless, Yet Ironically Speechless?” After all the times I fell down and picked up this semester, taking more risks with my writing has shown me that I can do anything to which I set my mind. The mentality plays an integral role in how we approach certain situations, and I believe that I have gained more hopeful insights about myself regarding the present and, of course, the future. I am no longer afraid to reveal myself to the world, and I want others to know who I truly am, but I am still as speechless as I was in the beginning of the semester; however, this time, my speechlessness stems from a different source—I cannot thank every person who has helped me along the way for the past fifteen weeks.

I do not have all the words right now to express how touched I am by everyone’s ability to be vulnerable about themselves but also how everyone has reached me during my evolution. Know that I will remember these good times in our personal essay class, and good luck to everyone for future endeavors. Here is to years and years of discovering yourself, even past our time in this class.

The Choreography of Color Guard

I was unable to attend our Paul Taylor dance workshop two weeks ago, so I decided to share some of my experiences with spinning, tossing, and flicking flags. Color guard has evolved as an extension of my body, and without being present at our dance workshop, I can relate to the concept that dance is a form of physical expression that conveys our ideas, thoughts, and emotions. In my opinion, I am certainly more accustomed to writing as my expressive medium, but reflecting on color guard has made me realize that I have been expressing myself in many other ways, too.

A lot goes into the choreography of color guard. You start out with your signature move, and then base all of your other moves before and after around that signature move. A side note is that my signature move happens to be the yo-yo toss. The move consists of stripping the flag up the pole instead of down the pole and then pushing the pole behind your back, then back in front, and spinning it around like a yo-yo for momentum until you release. I am sure that this move is easier to visualize, so I have attached some action shots for reference.

Anyways, so your signature move HAS to be in your routine, right? Everything else just follows suit—er, well, not quite. Thinking of how moves flow together is the hardest part. Not even trying to manipulate the flag, but how to manipulate the flag with your mind. What exactly do you want? What exactly do you need? What do you want others to want? Need? See? Feel? All these questions, but you only have a minute and a half to answer all of them at the same time.

During marching season with the Spirit of Stony Brook Marching Band, color guard members learn how to march with precision across the field while coordinating arm motion simultaneously. Such a task may be difficult only if you allow for the task to be defined as difficult. In all seriousness, marching while tossing may, in fact, be disastrous. Especially if you end up catching the toss wrong so that the six-foot, metal pole snaps your glasses in half.

We have the spring to thank for our annual Color Guard and Drumline Showcase that happens at the Staller Steps on the third Friday of April. This year, the twenty-three of us color guard members put on a variety of performances, with rifles, sabers, flags, and dance. I know nothing about the art of rifles or sabers, so I usually stick to flags. Literally stick to flags. Sometimes, the silk will stick to you if you are wearing a certain fabric. Gladly I chose my show outfits wisely in order to avoid any flag or wardrobe malfunctions, but these technical details tend to be the least of our worries because we can just throw on a black shirt and call it a day.

So this whole color guard thing—where were we? I do color guard with a labor of love, sometimes escaping rehearsal with a small bruise that turns into a neighborhood of bruises. Practicing over and over again, tediously repeating the moves to be in count with the music and with each other, sometimes going through the choreography at 7 A.M. when all your other fellow band members are sleeping, or at 11 P.M. because you cannot find a time to meet with your group to go over every last detail the day before the show.

Regardless of these circumstances, I feel the color guard in my veins because I make the flag do what I cannot do with everything inside me. If my emotions are loud, I will do a toss, maybe a yo-yo, maybe a pop, maybe a horizontal. If I am feeling dancy-fancy, I will flourish myself with many spins, covering every square inch of my body with the flag so that all you see is the movement of the silk, and not me.

The choreography of color guard is more than just what you see on the outside; the energy is transferred from within.

Stuck in the Middle of Uncertainty and Anxiety

I have always thought of myself as a skilled writer, but I will point out that I have come even farther along my writing journey than I ever thought I would have, mostly because I wanted to become more personal for my own sake. I have developed a unique connection with myself over the course of the past few months, and I will continue this upward progress even after our class meetings end.

But here I am, writing in distress again. Why, after all my positive reflections, do I feel trapped in uncertainty, in a state of anxiety? I was afraid I would relapse into a writing coma I would not be able to get myself out of, and I may as well be right now. I am stuck in a rut about my personal statement, I am dissatisfied with my digital storytelling idea (see my post from Week 9), and I feel scatter-brained about my eventual goals with these writing pieces.

Part of the “stuck” stems from the overwhelming imbalance of my hardest semester, taking three upper-division biology-based courses and two writing courses. I know, I know, I did this to myself, but I am always physically exhausted and mentally drained; by the time I get to writing, all I feel is frustration because nothing comes to my mind as easily with everything else cluttering my mind. I typically rely on writing to relieve this clutter, but lately I have been “bickering” with my writing, feeling conflicted about my next move as if I were playing chess, even though I have no idea how to play.

This post is mostly a rant at this point, but I am ready to switch gears to talk about my pieces up-to-date. For the e-portfolio, I have decided what essays I want to showcase and how I want to further personalize the portfolio so that my readers and viewers can understand who I am through my work. Analyzing what work needs change, I found Short Essay 1 (on the topic of lying) to be the essay with which I am least satisfied. I am glad I have a second chance to write something more meaningful. My favorite pieces this semester were the This I Believe essay and Assignment 1, which was an expansion of the impact of a severe car accident with which I was involved. I extended the topic to my irrational fear of transportation and the irony of my desire to travel given this fear; now, the fear has begun to dissipate, slowly but surely, and I feel connected to the experiences I outline in this essay because I am able to express my personality with honesty and wit.

Though I may be struggling with my personal statement more than anything else right now, I had a lovely epiphany the other day while I was writing Assignment 2 in which I expanded my philosophy on and experiences with education. What my personal statement lacks right now is insight into who I am as an individual. I do answer the prompt exactly as is asked of me, but I feel disconnected from the experiences I discuss. I never got the chance to iterate the hows or the whys, but my epiphany pointed me to center my statement on my craving for knowledge. Note that I entitled my Assignment 2 essay “The Never-ending Cravings,” which will allow me to feed some inspiration into my personal statement.

 Right now, I am as determined as ever to change my approach to my personal statement, and some of my tension has been alleviated after writing out a tentative plan. On the other hand, my last order of concern is my digital story project. I have encountered a conflict—I am not sure that my idea of filming is practical for the time I have. I may first experiment with some of the tidbits of film that I caught on camera and see how everything flows; otherwise, I may scrap the script and just write another one, something different, perhaps about my experiences with National Residence Hall Honorary or with color guard as part of Marching Band. I can write about anything, but I still want to give my current script another go. I will make my final decision within the next few days, but right now, I want to bring my practicality into play while being creative with all the writing I have done this semester. I just need to take one step at a time, and writing this post with everything that has been on my mind is that first step. Step two: let’s do this.

Harder Than I Thought

After making some more progress with my personal statement today, I realized that the entire process of writing a personal statement with which I am happy is harder than I thought. I have already created several versions of my personal statement, and none of those versions make me happy because I do not find enough connection to myself.

This obstacle is frustrating because I am trying not to hold back, and I am not intending to hold back anything about myself, but I am concerned about falling back into old habits of being indirect and obscure when I write in order to mask the truth. I do not feel as though I am hiding away any elements of truth, but rather that I am unable to convey the epitome of myself because I am focused on answering the prompt, which, too, is broad. I have been working with a prompt that asks me to describe my academic background, research experience, and career goals. I have addressed all of these ideas in my statement, but I find nothing memorable about anything that I say except for my discussion about the impact of writing on myself.

As a tutor at the Stony Brook Writing Center, I will use my own methodology of asking questions to address these concerns and struggles that I am having with my own writing experience. Right now, I have the “whats” established in my personal statement, and I am aware that I have not mentioned any of the “whys” or “hows.” The words inside my head are screaming to be let out onto the screen in front of me. I believe that what is continually holding me back is the word limit. I feel comfortable staying within 750 words, but I cannot fully “etch” and “sketch” the entire picture of my experiences at Stony Brook University that have shaped me into who I am today.

Perhaps I will refocus the theme of my personal statement to a more knowledge-centered piece. If I begin my writing with how knowledge fuels me forward, I may be able to discuss more than just the extent of the prompt. I just want to be my quirky, cheesy humored self, as I have done in my past writing pieces and blog posts for this class.

Note: self-reflection at 5 minutes until midnight has inspired me and given me back my confidence for making even more progress on my personal statement.

My Plan for the Digital Storytelling Project

After looking through all the essays and blog posts I had written over the course of the semester, I narrowed down some of my digital storytelling ideas to a few of the essays. The story that seemed most intriguing for me to write about was about my safe-place—the shore. In the original essay, I am referring specifically to the shore near my house in Brooklyn, but now that I am here in Stony Brook, I may broaden my perspective to a nearby shore and just make the story about how shores generally gives me sentiment.

Given that I have decided to use writing content from our short essay #4, I plan to film my project as a meta-movie, or making a short multimedia movie snippet about me “watching” a “movie.” The movie that I am watching within my eight-minute film will be a replay of some of the memories I had of the shore. Film is certainly not my forte, but I am willing to take on a challenge to not only impress my peers, but also especially myself. I want to see how much deeper I can dig into my mind for the information I need to make this project as successful as possible, through my eyes.

My short film is intended to have serious moments with some comic relief scattered throughout to alleviate some of the melancholic undertones. I tend to write and speak with wit, so I will most likely incorporate some of the elements of my personality while I narrate. I am looking forward to playing around with screen splitting techniques, video editing effects, multimedia expression (e.g. photographs), and proper soundtracks. My first filming session will take place this upcoming Sunday, so I will see how far I get with what I have up-to-date. My take-away message from this project: have fun.

Still Not Enough or Too Much?

The first draft of my personal statement—concise, clear, exactly what the committee wants. Is it what I want? Not at all. Five-hundred words? More like five-hundred unheards. After reading my classmates’ peer review comments, I revisited my personal statement, telling myself “I am going to do everything my way.” Ask me about my personal statement. Basically complete. Word count: 699. I feel better now that I have gotten the words out of my system.

What I learned by revising my personal statement is that I want this particular essay to be longer so that if I needed to leave out some of my expansions or cut down on my discussions about certain parts of my essay, I can play around with the order of my ideas. I also learned that this personal statement should be dynamic, as I will be applying to more than one doctoral program and their prompts will most likely vary, even slightly. Every program to which I will apply most likely wants applicants to be whole-hearted about their commitments to the program rather than just a simple copy-and-paste option to get the job done quickly. The most important aspect of writing a personal statement is saying what you mean, and meaning what you say. Be honest with yourself and be honest with others.

I have an interest in applying to doctoral programs for immunology. I have been looking into Harvard University, Tufts University, Boston University, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, John Hopkins University, and maybe even Rockefeller University. I am mostly concerned about everything else besides my personal statement—the letters of recommendation, the GRE, the resume—time is lurking up behind me faster than I can keep up with my own semester deadlines. Why am I not as concerned with my personal statement, you may wonder? My answer to you is that the new revision of my statement feels full of me with nothing left behind. I want my committees to know how much I love everything that I do, including my journey of self-discovery. At first, I may have been concerned with the 500-word limit, but I am disregarding the limit for now. I feel happier with the changes that I have made because I feel as though I am more holistically represented.

I have not signed for any doctoral program applications yet, so I cannot see any personal statement prompts; however, the prompt I used for my personal statement was one I found on Rockefeller University’s graduate school website. I found that this prompt may accurately represent what other programs will want to see answered in the form of a personal statement, so I appreciate that I was able to practice, reflect, and analyze during the writing process. I look forward to reading the comments that I receive from my other peers in the upcoming week because I want to be able to visibly monitor the difference between draft one and draft two. Even after, I will keep drafting until I am fully confident with everything that I have included in a sturdy statement. Even if that confidence in my writing means to go a little over the 500 word limit, if a limit even exists.

500 Words

At this point in the Personal Essay class, I have realized the evolution of myself. Generally, I am open about my feelings, thoughts, and emotions; however, at the beginning of the semester, I was reluctant to reveal my personal struggles because I knew that instead of a raindrop or two, I would form puddles everywhere. I never thought I would be frustrated with writing, my medium of catharsis, but after several therapy sessions and poetry writing sprees, I was ready to pour myself back into my work. I must admit that I have never felt better than I feel now.

I feel better, but I still worry. I worry about school, about family, about my future. Where do I even begin? What should I write about in my personal statement? Does the statement depend on the prompt? How many details? How many paragraphs? How personal? All these questions, and we only get 500 words to say what we need to say. However many drafts later, I am twiddling my thumbs, thinking What to write, what to write. The cycle of starting and stopping is relentless, make it stop, I scream from within. I just want to write this personal statement.

On Thursday this past week, our guest Astrid Wimmer inspired us to start thinking about how we write personal statements that tell others what they do not already know about us. Some of the prompts we wrote some responses for were regarding what friends like about you, what superiors like about you, and what “ticks” you. I was able to hone in on a few of the ideas I had written on paper, but I still felt restricted. I want to talk about everything that inspires me, but I know that my desire to tell people about my life experiences is limited to those 500 words.

Maybe I should just write about writing. I do not know where I would be without writing. Declaring a minor in Writing and Rhetoric during my freshman year at Stony Brook University was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. Every semester, I grow as a writer. The other day I was reading the essay I wrote when I was applying to college. I chose to write about the pencil and how the pencil impacts my life. I find that the pencil is still completely relevant to my life now—Sudoku, drawing, and, of course, writing. I remember that I had gotten praise from Clarkson University’s admissions committee on that essay, but if I knew back then, I would not have submitted my essay the way that I did.

Looking through my files, I cannot find that essay, even though I remember the general ideas that went into its making. All I know is that I have improved as a writer and as an individual. I can write about anything and everything all at once. Writing about writing seems like a viable topic I can write about in 500 words.

What we do not know can hurt us, too

How much curiosity does it take to kill a cat? The better question is, how much curiosity does it take to kill a human? No matter who we are, we are always looking for answers to everything and anything. Why should we look for any answers at all? Should we not just leave the unknown untouched? As humans, we often face the unknown in unexpected situations and even expected circumstances, but how do we explain the latter? If we look at bits of David Foster Wallace’s “Shipping Out,” Annie Dillard’s “A Field of Silence”, and Ellen Willis’ “Now, Voyager,” we will see that the unknown is an overarching theme in all crosswalks of life, and the unknown may be just as dangerous as the known.

Wallace writes, in his “Shipping Out,” about his one-week trip on a cruise ship during which he feels “pampered to death.” In the end, he seems to write about relief from these excesses, as “reentry into the stresses and demands of quotidian landlocked real-world life wasn’t nearly as bad as a week of absolutely nothing had led [him] to fear.” He also writes that the cruise, which he ironically renames as the Nadir, would look like a “floating palace to any poor soul out here on the ocean at night.” What all of Wallace’s reflections mean is that at some point in his life, the luxury cruise ship was an unknown to him, which was “hurting” him with curiosity to know what the experience was; however, once he uncovered, he realized that doing “absolutely nothing” was even worse. Part of the fun of the unknown is simple just not knowing, but if other “poor souls” find out, they will quickly realize that their expectations were nowhere near the reality of the situation.

In her “A Field of Silence,” Annie Dillard says that she has “no idea” what the angels in the field symbolize about her perception, language, or her own sanity. In this context, the field can symbolize a sense of hope that Dillard may have about finding a resolve. She also writes, “My impressions now of those fields is of thousands of spirits—spirits trapped, perhaps by my refusal to call them more,” signifying that she herself is uncertain of the meaning of the angels. Though she views these “spirits” as a form of hope, her not knowing of their nature may “hurt” her more than help her because not only will she be unable to define the nature of these “spirits,” but she may also never find the resolve she seeks since the spirits are “trapped” in her unknowns.

When we read Willis’ “Now Voyager,” we understand that her response to the Challenger explosion was “horror, depression, and a sense of some missing connection [she] couldn’t define.” She begins her essay with a childhood anecdote about how fascinated she has always been with the features of space, these features being mostly unknown. We can ask, How can someone be fascinated with the unknown if that someone does not know much at all about this “unknown?” She writes that “the effort to ‘conquer’ space may be a piece of cold war public relations…human inventiveness and curiosity and mysticism and aesthetic passion.” This excerpt from her essay allows us to see that she admires space because the “unknown” of space can be anything that one may define it to be; however, these unknowns of space “hurt” Willis because NASA and other space-related organizations discourage people from space conquest. The fact that people have turned away from space exploration “hurts” Willis because she desires to go up to space. For her, “the rest is silence,” and silence about space exploration hurts her more because she cannot know any more about her utmost love of existence beyond planet Earth.

The three essays that touch upon the unknown agree that silence is the true unknown.

Works Cited:

(1) Dillard, Annie. “A Field of Silence.”

(2) Wallace, David F. “Shipping Out.”

(3) Willis, Ellen. “Now, Voyager.”

“Crippled” by Expectations

In Lucy Grealy’s world, death by crippled does not mean anything. What killed her most were the expectations others set for her without asking for her opinion. The underlying expectations from society and her loved ones crippled her even more than she was able to handle during a time she needed as much support as possible. My main goal in writing this blog post is to show that even though expectations are good for goal-setting and decision-making, expectations can also sometimes harm others more than help them.

We often set high expectations for ourselves because we want a guarantee on being able to reach our goals; however, when we fail to reach those goals, we can easily turn into our own worst enemies because we will self-deprecate and convince ourselves that we are not good enough for anything or anyone. I may be wrong in making this general assumption, and please correct me if I am wrong, but I know these conditions apply to my situation. I also see these same “red flags” in Grealy’s narrative, “Mirrorings.” She is distressed by the pressure that her parents place on her because they themselves cannot cope with her cancer at a mere nine years old. She writes that during this time, her surgeons and other adults how she was “a ‘brave girl’ for not crying, ‘a good girl’ for not complaining” and that she soon began to define herself by “equating strength with silence.” Grealy, a young girl, not only had to internalize her fear of death, but she also had to fear “losing this sense of [herself]”—being brave for herself because she did not want to be “despicable in the eyes of [her] parents and the doctors.”

Even after the years of reflection, Grealy presents in her writing an apologetic tone for her state of being rather than that of her being forgiving to herself. These expectations that had been set for her, as young as she had been, have shaped her into the person she is, and because of the way in which she writes about her experiences, we can still hear the echoes of herself constantly being afraid to be herself and letting others down. She writes, “I lived in others, and because the world I did in was dangerous now…” Through this excerpt of Grealy’s autobiography, we get the impression that she was more afraid of disappointing her family, particularly her mother, than she was of the chemotherapy, the injections, and the tissue reconstructions. As aforementioned, she internalizes her fears, especially the fear of no longer being “special” after she overcame her battle with cancer. She expresses to her readers a feeling of being burdensome to others, that “no one would ever love [her], that [she] would fade unnoticed into the background.” Grealy’s thoughts reveal to us that she is haunted by these expectations, expectations that seem to fail her while she recovers from cancer.

At this point, the adult Grealy feels trapped in her body, a body she often calls “ugly” because of the associated pain and manipulation. This pain and manipulation not only translates to the chemotherapy, the injections, and the tissue reconstructions, but also translates to the expectations that forced her to conform herself to the standards of others. A nine-year-old girl had never been given a chance to understand herself fully, and with her progression into adulthood, she feels “isolated,” “alone,” and does not know herself, which is why she feels more comfortable living through others. Towards the end of her narrative, she tells us about her encounter with a man. She seems to have some hesitation and guilt about herself when she says, “Suddenly I wondered what I looked like to him. What was he actually seeing when he saw me?” Was he seeing the expectations of herself, or was he seeing her as she truly was?

After her conversation with the man deepens, she shares with us, “my entire life I had seen my ugliness reflected back to me,” but based on her positive descriptions, for once, she does not feel that way while talking to her companion of the night. This ugliness she speaks about is more deep-rooted than just society’s expectations of beauty. This ugliness is about all the times that her parents strayed her away from releasing her emotions, the emotions that had been bottled up for years because she was not allowed grieve for herself. At the end of the narrative, she writes that she recognizes herself in the glass reflection of the café window, which provides us readers with some resolve about her sense of self. We think that Grealy was able to persevere through the never-ending anguish, but beyond her narrative, we discover that she dies of a drug overdose. This internalized damage was beyond repair, and expectations have been proven to be the most common cause of death of the self.

I Believe in the White Wonderland

Having a writing limit of 500 words is daunting for me, but writing the This I Believe essay was better than I had originally expected. In fact, I had written my essay before reading any This I Believe essays. In any case, I wrote about my belief in the subtleties of life. I find the most meaning in small gestures that are often unnoticed. 500 words later, I was further inspired by Miles Goodwin’s “The Connection Between Strangers,” Lisa Dunlap’s “It’s Better to Give…and Receive,” and Michelle Lee’s “The Act of Giving Thanks.” What I take away from these three writers, more importantly just everyday people, is that I am not alone, which gives me hope that more than one person holds esteem to this same belief I share. I also do not want to lose sight of my experiences while talking about the experiences of others, so I will say this now: I tried to connect myself to the small moments that stood out to me most by trying to pair the meaningful emotions I felt to the words I had written. I finally gave myself space to think, and I was able to fully take advantage of reflection. I have successfully overcome the first obstacle in my personal writing experience.

Miles Goodwin believes in the connection between strangers when they reach out to one another. He writes about his experience of a bus ride he took upon returning back home from duty in Vietnam. While he was sitting on the bus, a young girl gave him a magazine and said “welcome home.” He admits that all he was able to respond was a lingering “thank you,” because he was moved by this small gesture of compassion that he describes as “the first I had experienced in a long time.” Goodwin expected nothing but “hostility” upon his return, but in a time that he needed comfort, the young girl lifted his spirits and made him feel appreciated for his time and service in a war that ended in dismay. I remember last semester, a small gesture of compassion that made me feel the way that Goodwin felt about the magazine was when my good friend bought me a bouquet of roses after my painful break-up. As she handed me the bouquet, she said “Thank you for being the beautiful person you are. You are an amazing friend.” I was instantly a puddle of tears, just as Goodwin “turned to the window and wept.” I always think about the roses, even though they no longer fill the vase they sat in during a time I needed solace.

Lisa Dunlap believes that it’s better to give and receive. She writes that she often overlooks the act of receiving because she is more accustomed to giving back to others; however, the needs of the self are also important. Dunlap does hold expectations for others, but when people find her in need, they reach out to her and she accepts. She writes,

 “I have received the blessings of those whose acts of kindness and generosity have found me when I needed them most. I believe that we are all in this wonderful, messy world together, and it’s not about my strength and independence or how much I have. It’s about allowing the giver to be blessed when the gift is graciously received. For me, it’s about a long-lost little girl who is no longer alone. Now I know that giving and receiving are two halves of a whole, each incomplete without the other.”

In my own perspective, I find that the subtleties of life propel me to do better for those around me because I want to see them happy, which, in turn, makes me happy. In a way, I am giving back happiness to myself. I will admit that I am sometimes reluctant to accept small gestures of appreciation because I am also less accustomed to receiving, as is Dunlap. February 14-20, 2016 was Random Acts of Kindness Week, and as the Community Service Coordinator of National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH), I motivated my fellow NRHH members and other members of the community to be unafraid to be kind. I wrote a poem for one of my friends about how much I appreciate our new-found friendship and deep conversations, I bought Starbucks for a friend because I wanted to motivate him to finish his physics laboratory report.

The ultimate test: Can I acknowledge that I have received? This week was particularly difficult for me because my schedule was jam-packed with commitments, so receiving words of affirmation during the days of my distress helped me ease some of my tensions. My high school friends also reached out to me this week, and I felt reconnected with the flavors of home. Last night, I was emotionally distraught and needed someone to talk to about the internal conflict I have been having with myself, and friends spent a few hours just listening to the words I needed also needed to hear when they hit the air. When I feel overwhelmed, I pause for a moment to remember these random gleams of hope and happiness. My philosophy is that the more I think about these happy memories, the more I will be happy.

Michelle Lee believes in the act of giving thanks. She appreciates the art of writing thank-you letters to thank people for their deeds of kindness. She writes, “Nearly every Monday morning I sit down with my favorite pen and write a few thank-yous. I write them for parties I attend, dinners I’m fed, or just to thank a friend for listening. It is one of the highlights of my week.” All the small moments I talk about in my This I Believe essay are my thank-you notes to the past. All the New Year’s Eves that my sister and I danced to repeated radio music and spun around fast in circles while holding hands. All the days I spent helping my mom place the plates carefully on the soft, red Christmas tablecloth with the fork always on the left and the knife always on the right. All the winter evenings I sat inside, looking out the window at the snowfall, and all the summer nights sitting on the steps outside my house watching the sherbet summer sky transform into a map of constellations. All these times, I caught myself thinking about how much I loved the small parts of my life. After a while, I stopped caring about the toys and bicycles and games that everyone else had and just wanted to remember the good days before they became lost memories.

I am glad to have elaborated the connections of my This I Believe essay to parts of the essays that Goodwin, Dunlap, and Lee had posted. I find that I have been making progress with self-reflection, which has made me more willing to get in touch with my most vulnerable thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Though I have already insinuated that I have been dealing with internal pain, Wonju Seo’s White Wonderland piece in the Skylight Gallery at the Wang Center made me think of the entire road-map of myself. Parts of the map are complete, some parts are gray areas, and some parts are empty. I am in the making, but these are all the small parts, the “small things” to which I give endearment. The entire piece is me, but I consider the complete me to be the “white wonderland,” the pure, complete version of me; however, I am far from being pure and complete, though I am constructing myself over time. Light shines over the masterpiece, shedding rays of hope and optimism for the future road-map, brightening certain areas that need to be highlighted or improved, while others are darkened so that other parts of me can be focused on more specifically. Understanding myself more personally through writing has been a challenge before the This I Believe exercise and before being exposed to White Wonderland, but I conclude my blog post with the following: I believe in this, all that I have written, but most importantly, I believe in me. I will someday be the White Wonderland.