What do you feel like you learned this unit that you didn’t know before? In this unit, I feel like I enjoyed learning more in detail about the rhetorical devices because as I was reading on the examples of what they exactly were and how I was able to understand the device was good. 

What did you already know , but now understand better or learned more about? In this case, I was already familiar with the word “Rhetorical” and so when I was reading the rhetorical devices book it showed more similar topics like Hyperbole, Procatalepsis, etc and I was able to have a better understanding on that. 

 What (if anything) do you feel like I wanted you to learn, but you still aren’t sure about? What are your lingering questions? I don’t have many lingering questions but I did love how you persuaded and informed that writing is not only about following a rubric and that you have the freedom to literally write anything without limits. 

 What are the strengths of the writing you did for this unit? What are you most proud of? I feel one of my strengths with my writing in this unit was finding the way I talk and writing that onto paper about a story that is personal but can be written the way I interpret it. I also think one of my strengths was keeping everything in the structure that it should be especially with my “The I no longer believe in” essay.

If you were to revise the writing you did for this unit, what would you want to do differently? I would want to maybe fix any sentences that seem a little long and shorten them a bit so that it can seem as if I wasn’t purposely expanding or anything like that. 

How would you describe or rate your participation/engagement in this unit? I think my participation/engagement in this unit was all right. I know that I can do better when it comes to participating or engaging in the class.

What did you do in this unit that helped make you successful?

Finding my inner creativity because the “I no longer believe” essay taught me a lot when it comes to writing about anything personal. It taught me that you can write whatever you want without having the worry about what other people think of your work(unless there was a proper form someone wanted it to be of course).

What (if anything) do you want to do differently in the next unit?

I would love to do more creative free writing like the first essay we had to do because I really enjoyed being able to just write my story however way I was able to do so. I really loved it because I had never done any assignment/activity like that throughout my education years and so for that I’m definitely grateful.

What additional things (resources, support, information, etc.) do you wish you had had for this unit? I think for the topics we covered in this unit; the resources, support, and information were sufficient. For example, for resources and information the rhetorical devices; the book for this class consists of examples, context, etc on different types of devices which is satisfactory. 

Is there anything you would like me to change (in the structure of our course, in how I’m presenting information, etc.) going forward? What were your favorite readings/activities, and which readings/activities didn’t feel effective for you?  I have no problem with the structure of the course so far. My favorite readings so far in the course were the readings of the 3 essays we had to read which I think was other students’ “I no longer believe” essay because the outcome of that led to the activity that was by far my favorite. 

What (if anything) from this unit would you like to discuss/think about/explore further? (either this semester or just in your life)?

I guess in life and this semester combined I would like to discuss/think about how creativity can impact your daily life in whatever way you desire. For example, I’m already familiar with how being creative works; but I would like to think about how I can improve on being creative in many different scenarios in someone’s daily life so they can create a different experience every 0nce in a while. 

In fact, in most things, effort does not necessarily mean that you will get the results you want, but the effort you put in will definitely give you a chance to get closer to the goal you are looking for. Compared to talent, the role of effort is too minimal. You must have met a genius who played every day in school, but could get the first place in the exam, and must have seen more people who studied every day but always hovered on the passing line.

In reality, there are many people who have experienced or seen many things in their lives that cannot be changed by human beings, and gradually have come to understand the role of “fate” outside their own subjective consciousness, and after realizing that fate does have its ups and downs, finally admit that human subjective initiative does not play a decisive role in a person’s life, and that fate The influence of the fortune, still occupies the absolute role. Suppose I push the box, the box will move forward as a rule.

Take a simple example, a card table with 4 people playing cards, without considering cheating, someone will definitely get a good card, and someone will never get a good card, this is the luck. Very often, luck and your efforts are not related, just like the lottery. Some people spend a lot of time studying the lottery charts, you can’t say he didn’t work hard, but he just couldn’t win the jackpot, while some people just came up with a bet and won.

The same day of the examination, the results of similar people may be in the examination when the play of good and bad, the results of life to a completely different path. The person who did poorly on the exam may be one point away from getting a scholarship over the good one.

People working in the same year, the performance is similar, maybe because the leader and one of them occasionally in the dinner more than a few words, his career will go one step faster.

At the same time, people start a business, and even sell exactly the same thing, the store is very close to each other, but one of them is doing well, but the other is getting worse and worse business, can not do, can only close down.

Even two people who were diagnosed with cancer at the same time, one had an operation and recovered well after the operation, and lived for more than ten years without recurrence, while the other passed away the next year.

These are real stories that I have seen, experiences in normal social life, people’s views on fate, they don’t want to live under the arrangement of fate, but everything is arranged by fate.

Someone once told me this: “You actually see the many, many helpings of fate to you, the enrichment of fate to you as what you deserve, you are too arrogant. So you think back carefully, to think back to the many experiences you have encountered in this life, many important moments, you suddenly realized that you are a very small person, leaving the help of others, the blessing of others, the blessing of fate, you are nothing, if not for the shelter of fate, you would have died.”

And fate is this group of young, young, ignorant of society, the young people do not want to believe in. They will think that a person’s life is by hard work, struggle, perseverance to play down, why should all these be credited to fate? Destiny, if not in your own heart, and where to look. I can only believe in myself, never believe that people have been destined by fate at birth. They prefer to believe that if they work hard enough, they can get a promotion and a raise and live a perfect life. But when you encounter adversity, it is easy to stumble and fall into a complete denial of self.

But it is important to understand your own destiny and use the right way to allow yourself to gain the initiative of your destiny, rather than falling from the extreme of disbelief into another superstitious extreme, believing that everything in life is dominated by fate.

Life is like a train, which stop it will go through, what the end point is, who will accompany you through the journey, and where you will get off, are all predetermined. When you were a teenager, the girls you met talked to you about love, but at that time you did not know how to love, you learned how to love someone in your twenties, but never met a girl who talked to you about love. Is it that the times have changed? No, there are people who believe in love in any era, but you have already met them, you can not catch, this is life.

Fate is inevitable. But it can only outline a general trajectory, the actual operation will be affected by many factors. Everything is chance, your chance to make a chance to meet a chance person, and life can not go back and come again, so people will think that because of chance and the things that have been predetermined.

Of course, to do anything, we have to work hard, because what luck will bring you is unknown, and when it will come is anyone’s guess, but we have to be ready to work hard, and when good luck comes, we can achieve greater success. I also believe that people can get out of adversity through their own efforts. As long as you walk toward the sun, you can leave all the gloom behind and be a light chaser.

When I was little I always used to wonder how babies were made. Specifically how I was made. Since I was like six or seven years old I didn’t have access to technology like I do now. Plus I used to live in the Dominican Republic and over there it was harder to get some things. So I went ahead and ask my mom and the conversation went like this:

Me:  ¿Mami como papi y tú me hicieron?

Mom: ¿Por qué la pregunta mi niña?

Me: Solo curiosidad porque quiero saber.

Mom: Pues mira, antes de tu nacer yo tenía un deseo grande de comerme un Hot Dog, y pues tu padre me hizo uno pero antes de entrarle la salchicha al Hot Dog te dibujo a ti y luego me lo comí, y así fue como quedé embarazada de ti y después naciste. 

Me: Ohhh, Interesante!

I went ahead and believed what she told me because like I said I didn’t have access to technology so I couldn’t search it up. 

A year or two pass by and the teacher in school starts teaching about reproduction in my science class. The teacher was explaining how exactly babies were made (the scientific explanation, not my mom’s explanation) and she was saying what needed to happen in order for a baby to be born. 

Before she started teaching she asked the whole class about how we thought babies were made and a bunch of my classmates raised their hands to tell their little stories about how babies were made. I remember one said “Un pajarito me recogió y me llevó donde mami y papi”, and of course I said what my mom told me because I believed it. 

The teacher went ahead and told us how our parents lied to us but it was understandable because we were kids and we wouldn’t understand the right way babies were made or, our mindsets were just not ready to hear the true story about how babies were made. 

We all got curious and asked her.

She started explaining and teaching us about reproduction, egg cells and sperm cells. All things that had to do with reproduction. All students also had a science book that was a requirement for the class and the explanation was also in the book more detailed. The scientific explanation which I believe we all might know is “We need to start with an egg; we need to start with a sperm; and those come from two different bodies. And then we need a third body part which is called a uterus. That’s where we grow, where this tiny, tiny thing grows into a baby, which is the thing you are when you are born,” Silverberg explains.” (Cory Silverberg, 2021)

I was really interested in that topic since it was nothing like my mom told me in the past. I spent all day thinking about that and I couldn’t get it off my mind. I felt kind of upset because my mom lied to me and I believed it. I mean as a child not knowing anything about that, who wouldn’t?

That same day I went home and the first thing I told my mom was that they taught me about reproduction that day. My mom went ahead and asked me what did they taught me and the conversation went like this:

Mom:  ¿Y que te enseñaron ?

Me: Me enseñaron como hacen los bebés, Y adivina que!

Mom:  ¿Que paso?

Me: No fue nada como me dijiste!

Mom: hahaha, Mi amor, eso te lo dije porque aun estabas muy chiquita para hablar sobre ese tema. Pero si me alegra mucho que ya sepas como.

Me: Si pero como quiera, me sentí un poco mal porque creí en la explicación que me habías dicho, e incluso hasta lo dije en la clase en frente de todos mis compañeros. 

Mom: -she laughs-  ¿Y que te dijeron?

Me: Pues nada, mis compañeros también tienen historias diferentes sobre el tema y no eran verdad obviamente. 

Mom: Ah que bien!

Until this day I remember that like it was yesterday. It really meant something to me because I believed my mom’s story for about 2 years and then got the real explanation about how babies were made. I still sit in my bed and think about how innocent my mind was to believe what my mom told me. I mean what kid wouldn’t believe their mom at that age?

Even though I was kind of upset with that, I am glad she did tell me that, because it made me imagine things like “how did my dad know how to draw me?” “did I come out exactly like he drew me?” “with what he drew me in a sausage?”. Those are the types of things that I’m glad for, she made me explore my imagination and even though she answered my question with a lie, let’s say, that little lie made me have more questions until I got the real explanation. 

As you can tell if you read until this far is that I used to believe that babies were made how mom told me, which clearly they’re not and now I don’t. I feel like the day I have kids I hope they don’t come up with a question like I did at a young age because then I guess Imma have to use my mom’s little lie on that until they grow older.  At the end of the day it was useful that mom told me that because even though I was a curious little girl wanting to know everything but not having the resources to search and investigate everything I wanted to know I had to trust my mom thinking every question I asked her she was answering me with the truth. But in one way I was kind of mad because what if in school they never taught me that? I would still believe babies were made like that and it’s like do you know the type of thoughts that come to my mind when I think about what if i would still believe in what my mom told me? 

I mean imagine if I would’ve grown old and wanted to have a kid what was i going to do? Tell my future husband to draw a baby in a sausage and then I will eat it hoping I’ll get pregnant which was obviously not going to happen. 

By writing this essay I talked to my mom about it because I did not know what to write about. I sat down in bed and I talked to her and asked her what I could write about what I believed and now I don’t anymore. She was the one who reminded me about that babies story she told me when I was little, so I gotta say it was kind of fun writing this because as I was writing I was telling her what I was writing. It’s such a funny and sad little story because it is funny because I believed in that actually but it makes me kind of sad because I miss being that innocent child, always asking questions about everything, always believing everything I was told either by my mom, dad, sister or grandparents, even teachers. Even though I see the truth now and don’t believe in most of the things I used to believe in while I was a child, it’s emotional seeing this, I was better off believing fake stories than seeing the whole truth about things. Especially now, the world has become a not so good place, and childs don’t deserve to get their fantasies/imagination ruined just because of the world we live in. Even though my story only had to do with how babies were made, there are a bunch of other stories in what I used to believe in while I was a kid that now I don’t, and that’s the sad part. Writing this essay took me on a journey I could say. It gave me all types of flashbacks about when I used to live in The Dominican Republic, when I didn’t know what technology was, etc. I hope you enjoyed reading this essay as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

References  Cory Silverberg, 2021, ‘How are babies made?’ Vermont Public https://www.vermontpublic.org/podcast/but-why-a-podcast-for-curious-kids/2021-12-03/how-are-babies-made

No person wants responsibility

    We all want to be free of everything so that we would not have to worry about anything at all… right?

       I believed when I was younger at around the age of 13-14 that I would never have to have to worry about my own things and priorities at the time.

Granted I was a little kid at the time, so I wasn’t aware of what I was saying or doing. However, my belief and mindset resembled that (at the time of course).

 A kid would believe that their parents would always be there for them and provide for them no matter what.

While that may be true, once you start to inherit the ability of being productive for what you do, it ends up becoming an experience that not many people nowadays consider as a grateful advantage that will benefit their future.

Allow me to explain:

Once I turned 16, I began to learn what being responsible can to do to me in a way that can be more beneficial. My parents and older brother always look out for me.  I appreciate every moment they help me in order to get to where I need to be in terms of being successful and being the best version of myself. I started going to the gym, studying non-stop for my drivers-license written exam (which I passed with a perfect 100% score), taking school even more seriously than I usually do; just so that I can be in a better position than I normally could be.

           I was terribly frustrated. Any time I would take a break to spend time with myself or play a videogame just to ease my mind of things, my parents or brother would just give me a lecture on that I have to keep going with the studying and be productive along with saying that I should not just be at home playing videogames etc. The lecture led to my brother confronting me about college and future  career goals. He told me “Look man you need to get a head start towards finding a career and what you want to major in college, once you hit 18 years-old, it’s time to transition into exact adulthood…”.

            Once I heard him say that my mindset was focused on nothing but finding the pathway to finding a major in college that will eventually lead to my career path. Luckily a year later I took a computer science class in high school and my increasing interest in that field stuck with me. 

Jumping a few months to the fall of 2021.

   My dad referred me to his manager to work with him at a steakhouse in Manhattan. I saw a fine-dining fancy restaurant when I entered on my first day.  I was worried that this job would affect my regular daily schedule of going to school early and having to go to the gym right afterwards, along with completing the workload of homework I’d receive. However, I was luckily able to maintain my personal responsibilities… until the summer of 2022.

SUMMER OF 2022

Once summer began, I had enrolled myself in a summer program for Math at my college called “CIPASS” which was a way for incoming freshman to get ahead of the math level based on their math placement test results. The program took place for 6 weeks. The whole process throughout that duration of time was nothing but work, work, work and work. 

       I would always have to wake up super early and just when my body reaches out to my mind to tell me to not go and to just stay in bed. 

But the thing of life is that you gotta do what you gotta do.

Anyways the program was from 9am to 12pm and man it was terrible to stay seated for 3 hours straight most of the time. After the program, I would  head to the gym for about 2 to 3 hours then I’d head home and start doing the workload of homework the teacher assigned. Depending on the assignments, I’d have to stay up late at night to make sure I understood every topic. You’re probably thinking “No worries Justin, once the weekend comes, you can take a break from all that”

  Long story short… that was not the case

 I still worked during Fridays and Saturdays which was not bad until the days where I’d have a test for the program that I would have to study for, once again that would not be possible because of the amount of study time I’d lose just from working those days which would be stressful. It became my responsibility to make sure I still studied and did everything I had to do…NO MATTER WHAT. 

From that moment on, I decided one day to have some time with myself and my thoughts, so I work on my mindset. I thought of the good aspects of having all this responsibility and the benefits of everything I had experienced to this point on. My mind took into realization that everything I have witnessed was only to prepare for the success I would experience in the future. I always try to see the positive side of things whenever it comes to handling difficult scenarios for the reason of being able to see it as a learning experience despite how difficult it is. What I believed at first about what gaining responsibility was all about, I didn’t think it couldn’t get any more beneficial to me then it is today. 

WHERE I AM NOW

   I am now 18, and wow… I am nothing but grateful for everything that I have achieved and accomplished so far In my life.  From being able to have many responsibilities like going to the gym, school, having a job to make some extra cash, and being able to handle any obstacles that get in my way that goes along with being to handle the outcome=es no matter what. Just like I mentioned in the beginning of this paper, being productive is what made me inherit responsibilities, and that can obviously work with just about anything for anyone.

Believe it or not, from my young age and my simple experiences in life, I almost became a depressed person with negative energy, lost in setting goals!….

When you are a simple person living an organized and clear life with a large loving family. In a country where peace and security prevail, in a small town, in a neighborhood where everyone knows the other person, in a building in which we live with the family, where we rejoice together and grieve together and at every step, we support each other, isn’t this a comfortable life that does not need changes or the presence of external influences!?

At the beginning of my story, which is the biggest event that happened to me in my life and changed, it was my father’s screams. We thought something had happened…but when we saw his wide smile as if he had won the lottery, we started wondering what was going on! He said, “We will go, children. “تحقق حلمي, تحقق حلمي,” I said to him, How much money did we earn? His smile increased. But From the inside, I feel that something is going to happen that will change who I am now.

My father said, “You children, we will go to the United States as we always dreamed. I was superficially happy, but deep down, I feel terrible fear and great tension. 

I always dreamed of getting on the plane, but I never dreamed of getting out of my country and the rituals of my life and away from my world. I never dreamed of that, this is My quiet life, what will happen now?

My father told me, We will not go long, we will return and this thing reassured my heart and convinced my mind with these words. I told my friends I will only go for five months and come back. I will not stay there, but here I am two and a half years in this country and I have not returned, as if they are still waiting for the five months to end! I was stuck here and got involved in this country, so I always believed that a person could not live outside their country, as if I was a flower and the country was my earthy, they could not cut me so that I would not wither.

I am speaking for myself personally, surely there are many who do not support my words, but this is me “ ايه”! This is my nature, this is my faith that clings to it, no one can change me, I thought that this was only a trip, “a return trip”, but I discovered that there is no return, with one message that reached my father, changed my faith and beliefs, I started preparing my things for travel, and when I finished the bag I sat in front of it and started talking to it Yes, I’m talking with my bag that I put my life in.

I started talking to the bag and saying please don’t let me down, don’t make me sad, I’m a person who can’t leave everything behind for a few days, please take me back here to this spot where I’m sitting now, it was a very touching moment for me, some may think I add a lot of drama but this It is not an easy thing to do in one week, and I do not wish anyone to feel the way I felt.

I rode the plane as I wished, we happened to come here in the winter and the white snow was welcoming us in its own way, we were not used to the extreme cold and snow a lot, how much I liked it, Which made me optimistic about a new beginning and positive energy like fresh snow.

And I inform you that our entry to the United States accompanied the entry of the Covid-19 epidemic, which made me and my family feel afraid of the future, and the world closed its doors and we were no longer able to return to my country, we did not find work and we did not find a home that easily, and travel was impossible during this period Here, we had to take a bold decision, which is to face what we are in and live with this situation.

so my family enrolled me in a school so that I would not lose an academic year, and here I had to live with this global situation “الكارثي”.

I started studying remotely and this was something new for all of us, and my language was weak and I was afraid, how will I deal with this catastrophic situation of schools and no world abroad (خائيفين), how will I solve my affairs alone! The time began to pass quickly and I did not feel it and I was not subjected to any pressure, everyone was by my side and everyone was encouraging me, from friends, family, and teachers, I never felt that I was different, even my family did not break up. We used to visit each other as we used to do in the country, but I will not deny it was not that easy I faced some thresholds.

When the disease subsided and everyone started to feel a little safe and go out and open the doors of the embassies and I started to go to school and go out to beautiful areas I only saw on the phone, I quickly got used to living outside my country, I never expected that I would do that I thought I would cry every day to go back to my country, I thought that I would never accept to be away from my friends, but here I am now visiting my country and not living in it, my presence outside my country was a very useful thing, as there were many fields for me, the best schools and universities, the best education, and even better financial life, I always miss my remaining family in My country and my friends, but the distance between us did not keep me away from them. I will always look to visit them.

I used to believe that I would never be able to live outside my country but that all changed as if I had never believed in that! But my grandmother did not do like me. She came to the United States because of her children to stay together and take care of her, but moments before she died, she said bury me in my country and not here, her request brought me back to my old feelings, and we certainly fulfilled her ideal request.

We face a lot, which makes our beliefs change and our view of life and how to deal with it, forcing us to see other things that we never expected.  It may be for us or against us.

Therefore, I am completely convinced that faith is just a word. If you have always believed in something and stood up, it means that there is nothing constant in life. In this experience, I had faith in many things, but not anymore, and quite the opposite. 

Yes again “Believe is just a word”.

“الايمان مجرد كلمة”