The Day the Light Bulb Clicked On: Reflection Letter

Welcome to my reflection letter. I hope that this letter will give you a glimpse into who I am and my journey through English 101. My name is Tiffany Wolf, I have been married going on 14 years and have two dogs and three cats, no human children as of yet. I have dabbled with College in the past, but until recently have taken it more seriously. You may be asking yourself, after all these years why are you interested in education. That would be a good question. I have asked myself the same thing. I will tell you, I want to be smarter. This is due in part to me wanting to become more valuable to myself in terms of brainpower, and confidence, but I also want a degree, which I hope will help me secure a better future for my family. I hope that in the end I will have accomplished my goal of earning a Business Degree in Information Technology.

Well enough about my personal aspirations, let me tell you a bit about the real me. I am a very sensitive person, and tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. People tell me that I am gracious and extremely giving. I personally would like to think, I would help anyone at anytime no matter his or her situation, that I am a good friend. I try to put myself in the other people's shoes, always have, and have been passionate about it. I try to look at different perspectives from all angles. I know deep inside my heart I can be a total airhead and may not be the best listener. At times, I feel like my thoughts are going so fast that my mouth cannot keep up the pace, and therefore I might stutter or mix up my words. This makes me look foolish and uneducated, hence wanting to become educated, which I hope will help me slow down, and think for methodically. Trying to further my education with an extremely demanding job can be very stressful. I will typically put in a minimum of a 60-hour workweek. I support customers that are around the globe and in time of need, I am usually available 24-7.

Taking on English 101 I thought would be a breeze, foolish me. This class was difficult. It was difficult because it challenged by beliefs and what I have experienced in my own life to date. It was very difficult to try and not assert my opinion. There were so many different moving parts to this class from community, identity, diversity, traditions and values and so on. It really challenged my perceptions of the outside world and the people I deal with on a daily basis. The three units for this course were identity, community, and tradition. Each of these units brought its own impact to my thought process.

Identity - This was a tricky unit. There is so much that encompasses identity. Sex, race, religion, social groups are some parts of identity. Recognizing the different parts is not easy. After this first unit, I really started looking at people from a different point of view. I tried to unravel individual people that I met and would think to myself, I wonder how his or her community or culture shaped their identity, and how they evolved into whom they are as a person. Our textbook "remix" played a great role in getting a deeper understanding of identity.

Community - This really made me think in terms of people and their impact on me and my impact on them. How we as people contribute either negatively or positively on our communities. There was one essay in particular that we read from our "remix" textbook called "Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia" written by Brooks that had the most influence on my community thoughts. One particular quote hit a personal chord for me "The suburbs themselves are conservative utopias, where people go because they imagine orderly and perfect lives can be led there." (Books 189) Who would not want to find and live in fantasyland, living the American dream of home ownership and be a part of a wonderful community?

Tradition - This was a great unit as well. There are so many traditions, from holiday celebrations with friends and family, to our national traditions such as Fourth of July. This unit explored the different areas of tradition. I found a renewed enthusiasm for our American tradition called the Pledge of Allegiance. You will be able to read this paper within my e-portfolio. This unit really opened up my eyes about how we as people create our own traditions and how far we are willing to go to protect these traditions.

One of the biggest take a ways for me in this English 101 class, is it did make me look deeper and more critical of text, what people would say, and for that, I am grateful. One of my instructors Wells-Edwards graded my identity paper and made the following comment about one of the paragraphs I had "need to explore the concept of identity instead of just mentioning the word." I thought wow, what does she mean. I really had to stop and reflect on that statement. After a couple of days of brooding, the light bulb clicked on in my head. From that day forward, I tried very hard to use my words carefully. To make sure I understood what I was writing, and not just to write to use up space.

At this point, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my reflection letter and I hope it has not bored you to tears. However, now it is time to introduce you to my e-portfolio selections. Selecting pieces for my e-portfolio was a daunting task. There was a lot of work accomplished and this made it difficult to select. I want to give you, the reader some of the things that made me smile and feel good about my work and a piece that needed revision to show you that I have grown into a better writer.